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Ernestine Mächtig
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Ernestine Mächtig * 1925

Semperstraße 43 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

HIER WOHNTE
ERNESTINE MÄCHTIG
JG. 1925
EINGEWIESEN 1934
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 16.8.1943
AM STEINHOF WIEN
ERMORDET 13.4.1944

Ernestine Maria Friederike Mächtig, born 15.10.1925 in Hamburg, admitted to the former Alsterdorfer Anstalten (now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) in 1934 and 1938, transferred on 16.8.1943 to the Wagner von Jauregg sanatorium and nursing home of the city of Vienna, where she died on 13.4.1944

Semperstraße 43 (Winterhude)

Ernestine Maria Friederike Mächtig, who was always called Erna, was the only child born of the marriage of the laborer Heinrich Hermann Mächtig, born on Dec. 25, 1899 in Hamburg, and his first wife Martha Käthe, née Köster, born on Nov. 5, 1898 in Hamburg. The couple lived at Schumannstraße 29 in the Uhlenhorst district. We do not know whether Erna ever lived there either, because she was frequently given to changing foster families during the first two years of her life. The marriage, contracted in Hamburg on November 15, 1924, was divorced after a good two years, on January 13, 1927.

On July 16, 1927, Erna's father entered into a new marriage with Dora Bertha Maria, née Lindemann, born on March 12, 1897 in Hamburg. Now the child lived in the apartment of her father and stepmother at Schumannstraße 25, Haus 2. Dora Mächtig lovingly accepted her stepdaughter, or so it is said. On February 5, 1928, the little family had a new addition: daughter Gerda was born. Another child from this relationship, Hildegard, born on August 31, 1929, died of bronchitis as early as December 24, 1929.

Until 1931, the family lived at Schumannstraße 25, Haus 2, in the Uhlenhorst district, in close proximity to Heinrich Mächtig's parents, who lived at Schumannstraße 29. The family then moved to Semperstraße 43a in Winterhude.

Erna Mächtig did not learn to speak until she was five years old, mainly taught by her stepsister, who was two years younger, as her stepmother reported to the Youth Welfare Office. At the end of 1933, the welfare officer judged Erna Mächtig to be physically developed in accordance with her age, in an excellent state of nutrition and care, and quite inconspicuous in appearance, but as a "severely debilitated" child. To avoid institutionalization, Erna was initially placed in a day care home, where, according to reports, she required "a lot of supervision because she does unpredictable stupid things."

In July 1934, Heinrich Mächtig asked the Youth Welfare Office to place Erna in what was then the Alsterdorf Institutions (today the Alsterdorf Protestant Foundation). At home it had become increasingly unbearable with her, his wife was "rubbing herself up with the child", and Erna's sister Gerda was not getting her due. Erna's father expressed the hope that the child would be disciplined in the institution and that the parents could also learn through the institution to "touch" the child properly, so that she could then return home.

On September 22, 1934, Erna was admitted to the Alsterdorf Institutions due to a "very severe mental developmental delay" diagnosed by two doctors. However, four months later, on January 19, 1935, Dora Mächtig brought her stepdaughter back home from the Alsterdorf institutions because Erna was placed there "among old women."

After Erna's return to her parents' apartment in February 1935, the welfare officer noted that the stepmother was busy with the care of her household and the two children, especially the eight-year-old Erna. Erna had made little progress mentally. She was extraordinarily erratic in conversation, trying to answer questions at first, but always digressing and suddenly throwing other broken sentences into the conversation. She is helpful and fulfills small orders with great zeal. Since her return from Alsterdorf, she has been tearing her fingernails, so that several fingers are inflamed. Erna apparently felt no pain. A welfare report from the fall of 1936 shows that Erna still needed help with dressing. The parents responded to the child with much love and patience.

In April 1938, however, the stepmother - according to the welfare worker - felt overwhelmed by Erna, whose condition, according to her, was "quite bad." She was unclean, tore off her fingernails and toenails, tormented her stepsister, poked and kicked her. Erna also hits and pushes other children while playing in the street. She feels that she has been "naughty" and then runs away, but again thinks about what she can now do. According to the report, Erna exerts a detrimental influence on her sister Gerda. Erna's behavior also led to strains in the marital relationship. Heinrich Mächtig had reproached his wife, Erna's stepmother, for bringing the child home from the Alsterdorf institutions.

On the basis of a psychiatric examination in May 1938, Erna Mächtig was judged to be an "imbezille, vicious girl in character" who urgently needed to be admitted to an asylum because she could hardly remain without supervision and her unpredictable behavior posed a danger to those around her. On July 18, 1936, Erna Mächtig was again admitted to the Alsterdorf institutions.

Her file there described her as completely dependent, unable to eat alone, wetting herself, throwing objects out of the window, taking other children's toys away, and having a penchant for letting sinks overflow with water.

On April 21, 1939, the Alsterdorf institutions submitted a "sterilization report" to the medical officer, as a result of which Erna Mächtig was transferred to the Finkenau Women's Clinic for sterilization on November 16. After the operation, which was completed on November 17, she returned to Alsterdorf on November 30, 1939.

Erna Mächtig was described in the following years as a very difficult girl to take care of. She was disobedient, tore her clothes and apron, liked to put them in the toilet, and soiled herself daily.

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrah"), the Alsterdorf institutions also suffered bomb damage. The management of the institution took the opportunity, after consultation with the health authorities, to transfer some of the residents who were considered to be "weak in labor, in need of care or particularly difficult" to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. On August 16, 1943, a transport with 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf and 72 girls and women from the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home left for the "Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna" in Vienna" (also known as the institution "Am Steinhof"). Among them was Erna Mächtig.

During the "Aktion-T4" (camouflage name for the Nazi "euthanasia" program, so called after the headquarters of the Berlin euthanasia center at Tiergartenstraße 4), the asylum in Vienna had been an intermediate facility for the Hartheim killing center near Linz. After the official end of the gas murders in the killing centers in August 1941, mass murders were carried out in a different way in the Vienna institution itself.

At first, the family did not learn of Erna's transfer. It was not until Dora Mächtig inquired on September 19, 1943, that the institution informed her on October 11, 1943: "Your daughter was transferred to h.o. [here] on August 17, 43. [She survived the journey well and has already settled into the new conditions. Her general condition is unchanged. Yours sincerely. The director, Hofrat Dr. Mauczka."

For the period from the end of 1943 until Erna Mächtig's demise eight months later, the Vienna patient file contains only a few brief entries about a transfer to Pavilion 21, a transfer to Pavilion 19 due to furunculosis, and on February 17, 1944, the note that her "protective jacket" had been removed. (With a "protective jacket," colloquially "straitjacket," extensive restriction of movement could be enforced).

Erna Mächtig died on April 13, 1944, the cause of death being given as "pleurisy and pneumonia."

Shortly before, Dora Mächtig had received a message from Vienna that Erna was doing quite well. Next came the news of her death. She therefore turned to the institution for more details. In a letter dated April 22, 1944, she learned: "Your daughter had suffered from furunculosis during the last weeks and fell ill with pneumonia on April 11, 1944, and died two days later on April 13, 1944, at 7:15 p.m. of cardiac insufficiency. Her death occurred quickly and unexpectedly. However, everything happened so quickly that she did not suffer a severe death struggle. Regarding the mentioned letter nothing is known to h.o.. The report noted here was sent on Oct. 5, 1943, at a time when Pat. was only mentally ill. Gez. Podhajsky". It was concealed that Erna Mächtig had lost weight from her initial 42 kg to 34 kg.

The "Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien" was an institution of decentralized "euthanasia". Patients were systematically murdered there, primarily by depriving them of food, but also by overdosing them with medication and by not treating them for illnesses. From 1941 to 1945, a total of more than 3,500 patients fell victim to starvation in this institution. Of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg, 257 had died by the end of 1945, 196 of them from Alsterdorf.

Erna Mächtig's biological mother, Martha Käthe divorced Mächtig, had also remarried after the divorce and was now called Schlaak. It is not known whether she kept in touch with her daughter Erna after the divorce. The Schlaak couple was killed in "Operation Gomorrah" on July 28, 1943, and their son Willi Hans Karl died in 1947.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2451 Geburtsregister Nr. 1141/1898 Martha Käthe Köster, 13182 Geburtsregister Nr. 2312/1899 Heinrich Hermann Mächtig, 6627 Heiratsregister Nr. 532/1927 Heinrich Hermann Mächtig/Martha Käthe Köster, 6657 Heiratsregister Nr. 335/1927 Heinrich Hermann Mächtig/Dora Bertha Maria Lindenau, 7097 Sterberegister Nr. 1212/1929 Hildegard Mächtig,1225 Sterberegister Nr. 8613/1943 Willi Fritz Ludwig August Schlaak, 8614/1943 Martha Käthe Schlaak; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Sonderakte V 158; Waltraud Häupl, Der organisierte Massenmord an Kindern und Jugendlichen in der Ostmark 1940-1945, Wien 2008, S. 69f.; Hamburger Gedenkbuch Euthanasie – Die Toten 1939-1945, Hamburg 2017, S. 57, 361; 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 ff.; Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 331 ff.