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Andreas Ahlemann * 1941

Marckmannstraße 135 (ehemalige Kinderklinik) (Hamburg-Mitte, Rothenburgsort)

ANDREAS AHLEMANN
GEB. 22.1.1941
ERMORDET 17.12.1941

further stumbling stones in Marckmannstraße 135 (ehemalige Kinderklinik):
Rita Ahrens, Ursula Bade, Hermann Beekhuis, Ute Conrad, Helga Deede, Jürgen Dobbert, Anneliese Drost, Siegfried Findelkind, Rolf Förster, Volker Grimm, Antje Hinrichs, Lisa Huesmann, Gundula Johns, Peter Löding, Angela Lucassen, Elfriede Maaker, Renate Müller, Werner Nohr, Harald Noll, Agnes Petersen, Renate Pöhls, Gebhard Pribbernow, Hannelore Scholz, Doris Schreiber, Ilse Angelika Schultz, Dagmar Schulz, Magdalene Schütte, Gretel Schwieger, Brunhild Stobbe, Hans Tammling, Peter Timm, Heinz Weidenhausen, Renate Wilken, Horst Willhöft

Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital

In the former Rothenburgsort Children's Hospital, the National Socialists implemented their "euthanasia program" from the early 1940s.
Hildegard Thevs was able to research 33 names of murdered children.

A plaque on the building has commemorated the more than 50 murdered babies and children since 1999:

In this building
between 1941 and 1945
more than 50 handicapped children were killed.
An expert committee classified them
as "unworthy life" and assigned them
to be killed in specialized children's wards.
The Hamburg health administration
was involved in this.
Hamburg medical officers supervised
the admission and killing of the children.
Doctors of the children's hospital
carried them out.
None of those involved
was prosecuted for this.


Further information (in German) on the Internet at:

35 Stolpersteine für Rothenburgsort – Hamburger Abendblatt 10.10.2009

Stolpersteine für ermordete Kinder – ND 10.10.2009

Stolpersteine gegen das Vergessen – Pressestelle des Senats 09.10.2009

Die toten Kinder von Rothenburgsort – Nordelbien.de 09.10.2009

35 Stolpersteine verlegt – Hamburg 1 mit Video 09.10.2009

Wikipedia - Institut für Hygiene und Umwelt

Gedenken an mehr als 50 ermordete Kinder - Die Welt 10.11.1999

Euthanasie-Opfer der Nazis - Beitrag NDR Fernsehen 29.05.2010

Hitler und das "lebensunwerte Leben" - Andreas Schlebach NDR 24.08.2009
©

ANDREAS AHLEMANN * 1941
Marckmannstraße 135 (former Children‘s Clinic) (Hamburg-Mitte, Rothenburgsort)

ANDREAS AHLEMANN

ROTHENBURGSORT CHILDREN’S CLINIC
The National Socialists began implementing their Euthanasia Program in the 1940s in the former Rothenburgsort Children’s Clinic.
Hildegard Thevs was able to find background information on 33 names.

A plaque on the building, mounted in 1999, memorializes the more than 50 infants and children murdered there.

In this building, more than 50 handicapped children were murdered between 1941 and 1945. An advisory committee judged them "unworthy of living” and committed them to children’s clinics to be killed. The Hamburg Department of Public Health participated in this procedure. Hamburg medical officers oversaw the commitment and killing of the children. Doctors at the Children’s Hospital conducted the procedure. None of the participants were brought to trial.



Andreas Ahlemann, born 22 Jan. 1941 in Munich, murdered on 17 Dec. 1941

The infant Andreas Ahlemann came to Rothenburgsort from far away. Clinic director Bayer later vaguely explained that a college friend from the Berlin Students’ Academic Rowing Club, who later became a doctor, was a friend of Andreas’ father, and that it was possible that Andreas was sent to the Children’s Clinic on his recommendation.

It is also possible that colleagues at the Charité had recommended to Andreas’ parents that they send him to Hamburg. In any case, his admittance was irregular, and the admittance papers contain discrepancies. Andreas arrived at the clinic accompanied by his nurse. Several of the nurses at the clinic remembered that he came from "higher circles.” He was born on 22 Jan. 1941 (according to the register of deaths on 20 Jan. 1941), the eldest child of Heinz Helmuth and Marie Ahlemann.

His father, a doctor of chemistry and son of Georg Ahlemann, a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP, was 42 years old when Andreas was born. His mother Marie Luise, née Rieger, formerly Lukaschek, was 40. It was the second marriage for both parents. From her late husband, the mother had inherited the well-tended manor of Karbow, with its private chase, in Western Pomerania, halfway between Greifswald and Wolgast. The couple lived there. Andreas was not born there, however, but rather in the Munich-Nymphenburg Women’s Clinic. It was a forceps delivery, and he weighed 4000g (8lbs. 13 oz.).

His nurse, who brought him to Rothenburgsort when he was 10 months old, had noticed "from the beginning” that Andreas was very quiet, reacted to nothing, but fed well. His anterior fontanel had already closed at the age of three months (normally it closes at approximately one year). When the boy was seven months old, the mother also noticed that he was "not quite normal.” The parents consulted the Director of the Greifswald University Children’s Clinic, Hans Bischoff. Without reporting to the "Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses,” he had the child admitted to the Charité Children’s Clinic in Berlin. There, as well, none of the physicians notified the "Reich Committee.” Andreas was transferred from the Charité to the Rothenburgsort Children’s Clinic in Hamburg on 4 Nov. 1941, with the primary diagnosis "microcephalus, internal hydrocephalus,” and "pertussis” (whooping cough) as a secondary diagnosis.

The physician Helene Sonnemann admitted him to her ward. She described him as a relatively long but underweight infant, who did not appear to be seriously ill, but was unable to sit up and who bored his head into the pillow. His facial skeleton was large in relation to his braincase, and he had a low forehead. She confirmed the initial diagnosis and registered Andreas, age ten months, with the Reich Committee on 20 Nov. 1941, with the diagnosis "microcephalus, hydrocephalus internus, idiocy.”

In the first few days in Rotheburgsort, Andreas was taken into the air raid shelter for hours at a time, likely to ease the spasms of his whooping cough. There is no indication of administration of a cough suppressant. When he developed bronchitis, however, the fever was treated with fever-sinking poultices. Andreas then suffered fewer coughing spasms, but they remained severe. After one month in the clinic, the doctors ordered an encephalogram to determine any abnormal brain activity. To ease the complications related to this procedure, Andreas was given an injection of 1cc Luminal. He withstood the encephalography without the expected circulation problems. The medical records are unclear as to the goal of this examination. The "Reich Committee” may have ordered further observation. Notwithstanding, the "Authorization for Treatment” (euthanasia) was received in mid-December 1941. The medical chart ends with the following entries, and is signed by Helene Sonnemann:
"15 Dec. Deterioration since yesterday afternoon, hypothermia, sleep, very slow breathing with pauses, pulse barely detectable, no longer drinks
16 Dec. no … life signs perceptible
17 Dec. Exitus letalis due to respiratory paralysis”

Helene Sonnemann administered the lethal injection of Luminal. It is unclear whether she was assisted by a nurse. Sonnemann later stated that she regularly called a nurse to prevent the cannula from breaking when the child thrashed. Sonnemann specified Andreas’ acute cause of death as "circulatory death due to pneumonia.”

Andreas, whom the nurses called "the Reichstag Representative,” spent only six weeks at the Rothenburgsort Children’s Clinic. There is no indication that the parents consented to the "treatment.”

Andreas’ death was entered into the register of deaths at the Rothenburgsort registry office three weeks later. Ilse Vogeler, an older infant nurse, had reported the death orally, but without giving the regular information about religion and cause of death. Despite this irregularity, the body was released. It is unknown what happened to it. Andreas was eleven months old.

Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: StaH 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – NSG, 0017-001, 0017-002; 332-5 Standesämter, 1158+2/42; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Abl. 2000/01, 63 UA 3; Internet http://www. gacke.de/Familie/Karbow1800bis1945.html, Zugriff am 6.7.2009.