Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Dagmar Schulz * 1940

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

DAGMAR SCHULZ
JG. 1940
ERMORDET 21.7.1943

further stumbling stones in Marckmannstraße 135 (ehemalige Kinderklinik):
Andreas Ahlemann, 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, 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
©

Dagmar Schulz, born 12/14/1940 in Hamburg, murdered on 7/21/1943

Dagmar Schulz was the first child of her only 20-year-old parents, who still lived with their parents in Heinrich-Barth-Strasse in Rotherbaum. Dagmar’s father, a gas station attendant, was in the army. When Dagmar was six months old, a Dr. Hermann had referred her to the Rothenburgsort children’s hospital, having diagnosed myxedema (inefficiency of the thyroid gland). Dagmar had swollen hands and face, typical symptoms of this disorder. The disease pattern, however, includes constipation, which Dagmar did not have, and her blood sugar stress test to confirm myxedema was negative. In his physician’s letter to his colleague Dr. Hermann, Wilhelm Bayer suggested that a genetic, dominant-recessively transmitted enzyme deficiency might be the cause; its symptoms might be remedied, or at least mitigated, by a diet free of lactic acid. To initiate this, Dagmar had to fast for a couple of days. Then, she was given buttermilk and finally, as a substitute citrette milk. Repeatedly, the baby had to tube-fed. Additionally, Bayer gave her thyreodine, a medication made from dried and pulverized sheep thyroid glands, and successfully employed in the treatment of thyroid disorders to this day. This treatment was abandoned and Dagmar discharged to home on June 30th, 1941 after the hospital had been damaged by the detonation of a huge bomb at the neighboring railroad freight yard and then evacuated.

In July 1941, the doctor again checked the effect of the treatment and discovered that the infant’s skin showed further symptoms typical of a myxedema; moreover, Dagmar – now seven months old – was lethargic and showed no mental development.

A year later, on August 17th, 1942, the mother took Dagmar to the children’s department of the Langenhorn mental hospital that had been recommended by an acquaintance. Her husband by then had filed for divorce and agreed to the "treatment” of his child. We were unable to determine if this referred to "treatment” as defined by the Reichsausschuss.

Friedrich Knigge, the department’s chief physician, perceived Dagmar as a good-natured, friendly child who attentively "fixed her eyes” on visitors, but at the age of 18 months could not sit up or form her first words. Dr. Knigge gave her a further thyreodine treatment, which made her livelier and enabled her to stand at the lattice of her little bed. Dagmar still did not react to her name, but sought attention and affection when someone approached her.

After Dagmar’s father had withdrawn his divorce suit, her mother took her back home on October 10th, 1942. We do not know why or how she arrived back at the Rothenburgsort children’s hospital, where she died on July 21st, 1943. Ursula Petersen killed Dagmar and Rita Ahrens on the same day. In 1948, nurse Dorothee Bodenstein testified that four children had suddenly gotten fever and died. She remembered that one little girl’s name was Dagmar.

The register where the deaths of Rita and Dagmar were recorded was destroyed in the "firestorm” a week later. The entry in the hospital’s death register reads "e.g. disorder of the thyroid gland.”


Translation by Peter Hubschmid 2018
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Hildegard Thevs

Quelle: StaH 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht NSG, 0017-001; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Abl. 2000/1, 30371.