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Horst Langeloh
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Horst Langeloh * 1940

Winterhuder Weg 11 (Hamburg-Nord, Uhlenhorst)

HIER WOHNTE
HORST LANGELOH
JG. 1940
EINGEWIESEN 1942
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 7.8.1943
HEILANSTALT KALMENHOF
ERMORDET 11.11.1943

further stumbling stones in Winterhuder Weg 11:
Johanna Führt, Hans-Peter Harder

Horst Langeloh, born 16.12.1940 in Hamburg, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten", now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 24.7.1942, to the "Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof" ("Heilerziehungsanstalt Kalmenhof") near Idstein, Rheingau on 7.8.1943, died there on 11.11.1943

Winterhuder Weg 11, Uhlenhorst (former Infants' home)

Horst Langeloh was born on 16 Dec. 1940 in the former Finkenau Women's Clinic in Hamburg-Uhlenhorst. He was the second child of the unmarried housemaid Herta Anny Rebecka Langeloh, born on 31 Dec. 1913 in Osdorf, which then belonged to Altona. His biological father was the marine Rudi Lindenbaum, born on 11 May 1916.

After his birth, the child was initially placed in the Wilhelmstift Infant Home in Rahlstedt "due to homelessness". At that time his mother was in the Farmsen Care Home (Versorgungsheim Farmsen). She was said to have had a "bad lifestyle", as noted in the admission book of the Alsterdorf Asylum, and was incapacitated due to "mental weakness".

Shortly afterwards, Horst Langeloh was admitted to the municipal infants' home at Winterhuder Weg in the Uhlenhorst district, then to the Hohenzollernring auxiliary hospital. From June 1942, he was again in the Infant’s home at Winterhuder Weg.

When Horst was 18 months old, it was noted that he was mentally very retarded, did not speak and listen to his name. He was also unable to walk on his own.
On 24 July 1942, Horst Langeloh was admitted to the former Alsterdorf Asylum ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten", now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf). Apart from the admission note, in his patient file it is only noticed that Horst Langeloh was a patient in the infirmary because of an intestinal inflammation in October 1942.
After that, on 6 Aug. 1943, there is a note written by the institution's doctor Dr. Kreyenberg: "Transferred, as the Alsterdorf Asylum was destroyed."

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 (Operation Gomorrha), the Alsterdorf Asylum was also damaged on the night of 29/30 July 1943 and then again on 3-4 August 1943. The director of the asylum, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, asked the health authorities for permission to transfer 750 patients, allegedly to make room for wounded and bomb-damaged persons. Three transports between 7 and 16 Aug., brought a total of 468 girls and women, boys and men to the Eichberg Institution ("Landesheilanstalt Eichberg") near Wiesbaden, to the "Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof” ("Heilerziehungsanstalt Kalmenhof") in Idstein, Rheingau, to the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Mainkofen” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen") near Passau and to the "Wagner von Jauregg-Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” ("Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien") in Vienna (also known as the institution "Am Steinhof").
The transport on 7 Aug. 1943 to Kalmenhof near Idstein included 52 boys between the ages of two and twelve, among them Horst Langeloh.

In the hospital of the "Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof” a "children's specialist department" also had existed since the end of 1941. The term "children's department" was used in the National Socialist German Reich as a euphemism for special psychiatric facilities in hospitals and sanatoriums and nursing homes. They were used for "children Euthanasia", i.e. the research on and killing of children and adolescents who were physically or mentally handicapped.

With one exception, all the children from the Alsterdorf transport died violently in the Kalmenhof, in most cases by an overdose of the barbiturate Luminal or by morphine injections. Horst Langeloh died on 11 Nov. 1943, according to the death register entry of "imbezillity, chronic gastroenteritis, marasmus". (Imbezillity is an obsolete term for mental handicap). It can be assumed that Horst Langeloh’s death was caused by medication overdose or by emaciation and debilitation due to neglect.

Horst Langeloh was continuously placed in homes and institutions during his short life. Therefore a stumbling stone commemorates him at Winterhuder Weg 11, where the municipal infant home was located.

Translation: Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: March 2023
© Ingo Wille

Qellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Patientenakte V62 (Horst Langeloh), Standesamt Idstein, Sterberegistereintrag Nr. 203/1943 (Horst Langeloh). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 35, 283 ff.