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Kurt Gäth, genannt Ladiges, in Anstaltskleidung der "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn", ca. 1940
© StaH

Kurt Gäth "gen. Ladiges" * 1919

Langenhorner Chaussee 560 Asklepios-Klinik (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

KURT GÄTH
GEN. LADIGES
JG. 1919
MEHRMALS VERHAFTET
ZULETZT 1940
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
STERILISIERT IM
LAZARETT HAMBURG
’HEILANSTALT’ LANGENHORN
ERMORDET 13.11.1944

further stumbling stones in Langenhorner Chaussee 560 Asklepios-Klinik:
Gerhard Junke

Kurt Gäth, called Ladiges, born on 3.9.1919 in Altona, died on 13.11.1944 in the "Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home”

Langenhorner Chaussee 560, Asklepios Clinic

Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was born out of wedlock together with his twin brother Herbert on September 19, 1919 in Altona. Their divorced mother Frieda Ladiges, née Gäth, who had also been born out of wedlock in Hamburg in 1886, told the Altona guardianship court that the twins' father was Josef Joczarek, a laborer and former Russian prisoner of war who had been expelled from Germany as a foreigner. At the time of the birth, she lived at Adolfstraße 97 (now Bernstorffstraße) and had been divorced from the laborer Hermann Hinrich Ladiges since February 1918 after ten years of marriage. There was another child from this marriage.

Mr. Matthiessen, the head clerk of the Altona district court, was initially appointed guardian of the twins, followed in 1924 by the green goods merchant Franz Meyer. In 1931, the latter reported to the guardianship court that the twins continued to live with their sickly mother in limited circumstances, as she was only supported by charity. The boys went to school and, despite their living conditions, looked well-dressed and were well brought up. At Easter 1934, both boys were dismissed from the 2nd class of the 3rd auxiliary school in Altona with previously "satisfactory” results.

In July 1934, the guardian reported that the boys had been placed with the Ramm family, also in Adolfstraße, after the mother had committed suicide "by hanging” on August 6, 1933 at the age of 47 due to "illness and food shortages”. The foster parents would look after the boys as well as their own children, but at this time Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was in hospital in Altona with a severe middle ear infection and little prospect of recovery.

Despite the supposedly good care provided by the Ramm foster parents, the twin boys "went off the rails” during puberty, hanging out in the pub scene in St. Pauli and leaving their foster parents' home more and more often, who eventually refused to continue looking after them. The brothers wanted to go to sea and in 1936 and 1937 were temporarily accommodated in the Seamen's Mission home at Altonaer Weidenstraße 40 (now Virchowstraße). And the brothers were involved in legal proceedings under § 175 for "unnatural fornication”.

On March 14, 1936, Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was ordered by the court to undergo temporary, and from May 1936 onwards, definitive welfare education. What had happened? In March 1937, the brothers were involved as witnesses in an indictment against a former senior teacher, Hermann Gerdes (born 1889 in Leer), who carried out sexual acts with the twins between 1932 and 1936, when they were initially only twelve years old, as well as with their mother. They had therefore been abused.

Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, initially worked at the Altona Welfare Office as a compulsory worker in the summer of 1934. In June/July 1935 he was employed as a worker in a locksmith's shop, then from September 1935 as a delivery boy for a drugstore wholesaler. He was dismissed from this job in February 1936 for embezzling money he had collected. From September 1934, he often frequented the wave pool on the Reeperbahn and the billiard hall and vending machine café "Minulla”, a well-known meeting place for homosexual men not far from the Davidwache (police station). Here he also met Berthold Jacobs, a man of the same age who also frequented the place and whom he already knew from his time as a compulsory worker. He tricked him into stealing a vending machine using a duplicate key, but this was discovered. As it remained an attempt, both were merely "warned” by the court and the proceedings were dropped. As a result, however, Jacobs was transferred to the Hesterberg reformatory near Schleswig in February 1936. During the admission interviews there, he reported same-sex activity with Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges. In December 1935, the 16-year-olds had performed a homosexual act against payment with a 50-year-old man in Farmsen. A subsequent case brought before the Altona district court for "unnatural fornication” was also dropped in December 1936 in accordance with the Juvenile Courts Act (Jugendgerichtsgesetz). Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, had also been committed to the Hesterberg reformatory in March 1936, and the director did not want to jeopardize the positive development initially observed there by interrupting it in court. However, Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, had already been persuaded to leave the home twice between shortly after his admission and May 1936. He was to be retrained to work in agriculture. At the same time, he was considered "educationally very neglected” and "mentally weak”.

In May 1937, he was transferred to a home in Wulfsdorf near Ahrensburg, from which he immediately escaped, roamed around Hamburg and worked as a prostitute. Together with his brother Herbert and a third "participant in the crime”, he was imprisoned in the Altona court prison on July 4, 1937 for "unnatural lewdness”. Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was then sentenced to a two-year prison term by the Altona Juvenile Court of Altona in September 1937, which he served on the Elbe island of Hahnöfersand until mid-September 1939. While in prison, he was sterilized in December 1938 "due to congenital insanity” in the central hospital of the remand prison.

His brother Herbert Gäth, known as Ladiges, was sentenced to five months in prison by the Altona Juvenile court on August 6, 1937 for "unnatural fornication”. He was released in mid-December 1937 and then wanted to go to sea, but according to a report from the State Youth Welfare Office in April 1938, he was also back in the St. Pauli milieu and in the "Minulla”. From February 1 to 9, 1938, he was in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. He subsequently committed thefts. Up until 1940, the twins claimed to Franz Meyer, who continued to act as their guardian or did so again, that they wanted to "start a different, better life [...]”.

Nevertheless, Herbert Gäth, known as Ladiges, was sentenced to four years in prison in October 1940 before the Hanseatic Special Court in Hamburg along with four other defendants for theft and receiving stolen goods (including breaking into shop windows and stealing clothes during the war-related blackout) in accordance with the "Volksschädlingsverordnung” ("People's Pest Ordinance”). In the same year, he was transferred from Fuhlsbüttel to Lingen in the direction of the Emsland camps there. However, he was first sent to the Brieg prison near Breslau in Lower Silesia and then, on December 24, 1940, to the Emsland camp at Aschendorfermoor. In May 1941, he was sent back to Brieg prison. He was not granted a "front parole” in July 1944, so he probably lived to see the end of the war there. His further fate is unknown.

After his first prison sentence, Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, initially found work as a threshing worker in Marne until November 1939, but returned to the milieu of St. Pauli in Hamburg, where he met the owner of a wholesale company for agricultural supplies, Adolf Zarm (born 1908), with whom he engaged in "commercial” homosexual acts. This relationship led to legal proceedings, which ended with a ten-month prison sentence on July 26, 1940 before the Hamburg District Court in accordance with Section 175a (4) of the Reich Criminal Code (RStGB). He had previously been in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from February 24 to 29 and then in pre-trial detention. The court was unable to clarify whether he obtained the financial benefits demanded and partially received from Zarm through extortion and dropped the charge due to lack of evidence.

According to a forensic medical report from April 1940 by senior medical officer Dr. Hans Koopmann, Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was deemed to be of "diminished sanity”. Koopmann attested that he had an "unfavorable criminal-biological prognosis” and recommended that he be placed in a "sanatorium and nursing home” after serving his sentence.

Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was transferred from the remand prison in Hamburg to the Neumünster penal and juvenile prison in mid-August 1940 to continue serving his sentence. Parallel proceedings against a Paul (born 1893, died 1943 in Neuengamme concentration camp, Stolperstein in Altona, Pepermölenbek 2, for biography see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), who was also alleged to have had sexual contact with him, were discontinued due to lack of evidence. On December 24, 1940, Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, was then committed to the "Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home” in good nutritional condition in accordance with Section 42 RStGB. He was initially described as "quiet, orderly, inconspicuous” and kept busy with housework. He escaped from the institution twice in August and December 1941. Little is known about the rest of his stay there.

In May 1942, he was sent to the remand prison for ten days following bomb damage in Langenhorn. He was still diagnosed as suffering from "imbecility” or "feeblemindedness” and was "mentally abnormal”. His state of health deteriorated during his stay in Langenhorn, and in December 1942 he fell ill with a lung disease, which was described in his medical records in March 1943 as a "progressive TB process”. From October 1944, "physical deterioration” was noted succinctly.

On November 13, 1944, Kurt Gäth, known as Ladiges, died at the age of 25 in the "Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home” without having been released. The official cause of death was listed as "pulmonary tuberculosis”.

However, it is known from reports on the care of patients there that food supplies and health care were very limited for some inmates and premature deaths were accepted. From an average of 4 % to 8 % deaths in the institution, the rate rose to 17.5 % and 20.5 % respectively in the last two years of the war.

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: November 2024
© Bernhard Rosenkranz (†)/Ulf Bollmann

Quellen: StaH, 213-8 (General-)Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, 974 und 977; StaH, 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 60301, 61105 und 61214; StaH, 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, 14988 und 13989 = 741-4 Fotoarchiv, A 254 sowie Ablieferung 13, jüngere Gefangenenkartei Männer; StaH, 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Ablieferung 1995/1, 28080; StaH, 424-111 Amtsgericht Altona, 9796 und 9797 (Vormundschaftsakten, darin auch nicht ausgewiesene Strafaktenteile des Amtsgerichts Altona mit einer ausführlichen Situationsbeschreibung zum Homosexuellentreffpunkt "Minulla"); Peter von Rönn: Die Entwicklung der Anstalt Langenhorn in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, in: Klaus Böhme/Uwe Lohalm (Hrsg.): Wege in den Tod. Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 27–135, hier S. 115; Bernhard Rosenkranz/Ulf Bollmann/Gottfried Lorenz: Homosexuellen-Verfolgung in Hamburg 1919–1969, Hamburg 2009, S. 54–61, 212; Michael Wunder: Euthanasie in den letzten Kriegsjahren. Die Jahre 1944 und 1945 in der Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn, Husum 1992, S. 48 f.