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Elly Seemann * 1902

Kempelbarg 16 (Altona, Lurup)

HIER WOHNTE
ELLY SEEMANN
JG. 1902
EINGEWIESEN 1924
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT`16.8.1943
´HEILANSTALT`
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
ERMORDET 21.2.1945

Elly Seemann, born on 12.3.1902 in Altona, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 21.5.1924, transferred on 16.8.1943 to Vienna to the "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” (also known as the "Am Steinhof” institution), where she died on 21.2.1945

Kempelbarg 16

Elly Emma Elisabeth Seemann (known as Elly) was born on 12 March 1902 in her mother’s flat at Georgstraße 43 p (now Mumsenstraße) in the then Prussian town of Altona (now Hamburg). She was initially given the surname Grünhagen, as her mother, Friederike Grünhagen, and her father, Hans Georg Heinrich Seemann, were not yet married at the time of her birth. Elly’s older brother, Heinrich Fritz, born on 25 January 1901, was also born out of wedlock.

Friederike Grünhagen was born on 22 September 1879 in Plau, in what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The seamstress left her home town at a very young age. She gave birth to her eldest son, Heinrich Fritz, at the age of 21 at Parallelstraße 47 (now Eifflerstraße) in Altona. Elly’s father, Hans Georg Heinrich Seemann, was born on 21 December 1876 in Altona. He initially worked as a butcher, and later as a labourer at the gasworks in Bahrenfeld.

Following their marriage on 4 September 1902, Heinrich Seemann acknowledged paternity of both children on 24 September, meaning that they were henceforth considered legitimate.

Elly Seemann was the second of nine children, of whom we know the names of only three others: Georg Hans, born on 12 December 1904, Magdalene Elisabeth, born on 14 May 1908, and Karl-Heinz, born in 1915.

The family lived at Helenenstraße 16 in what was then the rural municipality of Lurup, which belonged to Pinneberg and was incorporated into Altona in 1927. In 1929, Helenenstraße was renamed Kempelbarg.

Elly Seemann is said to have learnt to speak at the age of one and a half and to walk at the age of two. From the age of four, she was found to have severe mental impairments. As a child, she suffered from rickets, whooping cough and pneumonia. Elly attended the primary school on Luruper Hauptstraße from 1 April 1909 until the end of the third year in late March 1916, though with very little success. (At that time, the first year was the highest.) The girl probably also contracted polio at a young age. On 14 August 1923, she became a resident of what was then known as the "Krüppelheim Alten Eichen" at Wördemannsweg 19/29 in Stellingen.
The work of the "Krüppelheim Alten Eichen”, run by the Inner Mission, focused not only on surgical and orthopaedic treatments but also on an institutional school and a training workshop.

There, Elly Seemann’s mobility limitations caused by polio were to be corrected surgically. She was discharged as early as 24 September 1923. The efforts at "Alten Eichen” apparently had little success, as there were later repeated reports of weakness in both legs as a result of polio, which was also said to have caused her mental disability.

On 25 January 1924, 21-year-old Elly Seemann was admitted to the then Alsterdorf Alsylum on the following grounds: "The admission of Elly Seemann to the Alsterdorf Asylum is necessary due to the consequences of polio (?) – weakness in the legs, mental disability. Further details: Apart from the weakness in both legs, she is physically healthy. Mentally, she is at the level of a 6-year-old child, forgets everything, etc., Altona, 23 February 1924”.

At the Alsterdorf Asylum, Elly Seemann’s character was described as "good-natured, easily irritable, very sensitive, affectionate, often quite silly, unpleasant”. Manual tasks such as darning stockings were difficult for her due to "clumsy fingers”.

Elly’s parents, who took a keen interest in her development, took their daughter home to visit them several times a year.

The reports on Elly Seemann remained consistent over the years. She required assistance with personal hygiene and was unable to dress or undress herself. No progress was discernible.

On 16 August 1943, the asylum‘s doctor, SA member Gerhard Kreyenberg, noted in Elly Seemann’s file: "Transferred to Vienna due to severe damage to the asylum caused by an air raid.”

The Alsterdorf Asyylum also suffered bomb damage as a result of the heavy air raids on Hamburg in late July/early August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrah”). The asylum‘s director, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, took the opportunity, with the approval of the health authorities, to dispose of some of the residents – those deemed "unfit for work, requiring extensive care, or particularly difficult” – by transferring them to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. On 16 August 1943, one such transport "transferred” 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf, as well as 72 girls and women from the Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home in the north of Hamburg, to Vienna’s "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” (also known as the "Am Steinhof” institution). Among them was Elly Seemann.

On her arrival at the institution in Vienna, she had difficulty walking. Her feet were severely swollen, possibly as a result of her disability, which was documented as right-sided paralysis. The woman, now 41 years old, initially appeared content, calm, harmless and compliant. Yet Elly Seemann suffered from homesickness. Whenever the air-raid siren sounded, she would become extremely frightened, which manifested itself in "loud screaming and wailing”.

Elly Seemann’s parents kept in touch with their daughter. In early 1945, the Vienna institution confirmed receipt of a parcel and several letters. However, they were not informed of their daughter’s death until some time later.
On 22 January 1945, her mother wrote a letter full of concern to the management of the Alsterdorf Asylum:
"Our Elly came to Vienna in July ’43; we would very much like to have her back here with us, as she is suffering terribly from homesickness. Surely it is possible, if the danger down there increases, for all the children from Hamburg to be sent further north into the Altreich, and perhaps then one of the staff might bring our daughter back here with them. We would, of course, bear the costs incurred.” Our youngest son was killed near Leningrad at the age of 18; another son was at Boulogne-sur-Canal and has been a prisoner of the British since September. On 22 December 1944, we received news that our second eldest son has been missing in Saarburg since 20 November.
Our Elly is so far away; we would so much like to have her with us. Please ask the management if there is any possibility that our wish might be granted. Heil Hitler, Mrs Seemann, Groß Flottbek, Kempelbarg 16."

(Boulogne is a port city in northern France where the River Liane flows into the English Channel. Saarburg is a town in what is now the district of Trier-Saarburg in Rhineland-Palatinate.)

No records were kept in Vienna regarding Elly Seemann’s condition. On 16 February, she was transferred to Pavilion 19, which served as an "infection pavilion" and was a place where death was brought about. Patients who either had (pulmonary-) tuberculosis or were suspected of having tuberculosis were transferred to this pavilion. It was there, at the latest, that even healthy patients became infected with tuberculosis.

Just five days later, on 21 February, Elly Seemann died, allegedly of pneumonia.

Barbara Uiberrak, the chief physician and pathologist who had been working at the "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” since 1938, performed the post-mortem examination of the body the following day. Among other things, she wrote in the post-mortem report: "Fixation of the brain and the excised spinal cord in 4% formalin.”

During the first phase of the Nazi "Euthanasia” programme, from October 1939 to August 1941, the "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” served as a transit facility for the Hartheim killing centre near Linz. After the official end of the killings in the killing centres, mass killings continued in the former transit centres, including the Vienna institution itself: through overdose of medication and failure to treat illness, but above all through starvation. By the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had lost their lives, 196 of them from Alsterdorf.

It is safe to assume that Elly Seemann did not die of natural causes.

Stand: March 2026
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Altona diverse Jahrgänge; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13676 Geburtsregister Nr. 307/1901 (Heinrich Fritz Grünhagen), 14365 Geburtsregister Nr. 129/1904 (Georg-Hans Seemann), 113601 Geburtsregister Nr. 55/1908 (Magdalena Elisabeth Seemann), 5957 Heiratsregister Nr. 902/1902 (Hans Georg Heinrich Seemann/ Friederike Grünhagen); Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv Sonderakte V 235 (Elly Seemann). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 331-371. Peter von Rönn, Der Transport nach Wien, in: Peter von Rönn u.a., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 425-467. Peter Schwarz, Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Wien-Steinhof im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg, in: Markus Rachbauer, Florian Schwanninger (Hg.), Krieg und Psychiatrie, Lebensbedingungen und Sterblichkeit in österreichischen Heil- und Pflegeanstalten im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg, Innsbruck/Wien 2022.