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Werner Loewe, 1930
© LASH

Werner Loewe * 1913

Stresemannstraße 71 (Altona, Altona-Nord)

HIER WOHNTE
WERNER LOEWE
JG. 1913
EINGEWIESEN 1935
HEILANSTALT NEUSTADT
"VERLEGT" 9.7.1941
BERNBURG
ERMORDET 9.7.1941
"AKTION T4"

Werner Hugo Wilhelm Loewe, born 2.8.1913 in Altona, admitted to the Neustadt in Holstein sanatorium and nursing home on 5.12.1935, transferred to the Königslutter am Elm state sanatorium and nursing home on 14.6.1941, deported to the Bernburg/Saale killing centre on 9.7.1941, murdered on 9.7.1941

Stresemannstraße 71 (formerly General-Litzmann-Straße 71)

Werner Hugo Wilhelm Loewe (known as Werner) was born on 2 August 1913 in the then still independent Prussian town of Altona (now Hamburg), the son of the unmarried labourer Dora Leopoldine Martha Tödter, born on 26 October 1894 in Altona.

He bore the surname Tödter until his mother married the fireman Emil Albert Hugo Loewe, born on 27 June 1893 in Altona, on 21 August 1920. Werner Hugo Wilhelm Tödter's birth certificate states that Emil Albert Hugo Loewe acknowledged paternity on 25 August 1920, so the boy’s name henceforth was Werner Hugo Wilhelm Loewe.

Initially, he lived with his mother at his maternal grandmother's house, then with his parents. Following his mother’s death on 30 April 1923, his paternal grandparents took Werner and his father in.

At the age of seven, Werner Loewe was enrolled in the 5th Boys' Elementary School on Lagerstraße (now Gaußstraße), which he attended until the third grade. (The first grade was the highest at that time.) He then began an apprenticeship as a glazier, which he did not complete.

The widowed Hugo Loewe, who by then worked as a truck driver, married Erna Friederike Henriette Wilken, a labourer born in Hamburg on 16 June 1907, on 6 October 1928. The couple lived at Langenfelderstraße 44 in Altona. Werner Loewe also lived there.

At the age of sixteen, he was sent to the state reception centre (Landesaufnahmeheim) in Selent, east of Kiel, "because of bad behaviour", as Werner Loewe later put it. Behind this statement lay a judgment from the Altona Youth Court from August 1929. Accordingly, Werner Loewe was found guilty of the sexual abuse of children and causing a public nuisance under Section 176(1)(3) of the German Criminal Code (StGB) (previous version). The Yourth Court refrained from imposing a sentence and instead ordered "provisional foster care". The grounds for the judgment stated: "Werner Loewe is morally depraved. He is addicted to masturbation and also commits indecent acts against children, especially his younger brother. The family home is unable to bring about change in this apparently fundamentally damaged boy."

No further details about this brother are known to us.

The Selent State Youth Home, opened in 1927 as a state reception centre and school for boys and girls, had been admitting children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses, as well as so-called "difficult-to-educate" youths up to the age of twenty, since the end of 1928.

At the instigation of the director of the state reception centre, Werner Loewe was transferred to the state psychiatric hospital for young people in Schleswig-Hesterberg on 23 January 1930. Released "subject to revocation" on 20 November 1930, he was readmitted to Schleswig-Hesterberg on 6 October 1931. He was considered infantile, was often teased by others, and called a "wimp". He cried easily. Overall, he was said to have shown little development during his stay in Hesterberg.

Hugo Loewe, the father, was concerned about his son, as is evident from his repeated requests for his son to be granted leave.

On 21 November 1932, Werner Loewe was released upon reaching the age of nineteen. He then lived with his father and stepmother at General-Litzmann-Straße 71 (now Stresemannstraße) in Altona and found only temporary employment.

Werner Loewe's subsequent life story is known to us primarily through a 1935 criminal court verdict, according to which he was sentenced to four months in prison and ordered to be placed in a psychiatric hospital for causing a public nuisance. Although Werner Loewe was convicted of exhibitionism under Section 183 of the German Criminal Code, he could not be held fully responsible, as the "feeble-minded youth with a lack of sexual inhibition was only able to recognise the unlawfulness of his actions to a significantly reduced extent". His admission to a psychiatric hospital was ordered on the grounds that it was assumed Werner Loewe would, due to his "sexual disinhibition, commit crimes of the same or a similar nature in the future”.

The court also considered Werner Loewe's forced "castration” but, in agreement with the court-appointed expert, deemed it too dangerous given his youth. It was also not considered necessary since institutionalization would adequately ensure the protection of the public.

On 5 December 1935, Werner Loewe was transferred from the Altona court prison to the Neustadt in Holstein State Sanatorium and Nursing Home. There, he described his family background, his previous schooling and employment, as well as his crimes, in a way that was described as understandable, accurate, and insightful. Nevertheless, he was diagnosed with "congenital feeble-mindedness". (The now-obsolete term "feeble-mindedness" referred to an intellectual disability or congenital intellectual deficiency.)

On 6 January 1936, his medical records stated that he caused no trouble whatsoever, willingly followed all instructions, was sociable and tidy, got on well with the other patients, and worked in the mat-weaving workshop.

Allegedly, Werner Loewe repeatedly expressed his wish to be sterilized so that he then could work outside the institution. A corresponding application was submitted to the Hereditary Health Court in Kiel on 16 April 1936. The procedure was carried out at the Neustadt institution.

A comprehensive expert report prepared in Neustadt in 1938 to determine whether Werner Loewe should remain in an institution stated: "[…] it is highly probable that, given his mental state, [he] will continue to be incapable of controlling and regulating his sexual urges in the manner required of him by law and custom. This is evident, amongst other things, from the fact that, despite the initial proceedings and the resulting warning, he soon reoffended and that he also committed indecent acts whilst in the institution. He completely lacks effective inhibition, imagination, and sufficient self-control. Furthermore, due to his mental and physical limitations, Loewe has only very limited capacity for work and employment; it is likely that without regular employment in a large city and in a less favourable environment, he will soon relapse. An effective remedy for the protection of the general public can continue to be achieved only through placement in a secure institution."

On 14 June 1941, Werner Loewe was transported from Neustadt to the Königslutter am Elm State Sanatorium and Nursing Home near Braunschweig as part of a transport of 97 patients (58 men and 39 women). From there, on 9 July 1941, 82 of those who had come from Neustadt/Holstein were transported to the Bernburg "Sanatorium and Nursing Home." Werner Loewe was among them.

On 2 December 1947, orderly Anton Fleger reported concerning this "transfer": "Before these patients were transported, their names and addresses had to be sewn into their clothing, and each individual's name had to be written on their forearm with an ink pen."

Bernburg was one of six "Euthanasia" facilities where people were killed with gas between October 1939 and the end of August 1941. Werner Loewe was also murdered on the day of his arrival, 9 July 1941.

On 6 August 1941, the local police authority of Bernburg-Gröna sent an urn to the Hamburg-Altona main cemetery, allegedly containing the mortal remains of Werner Loewe. The accompanying cremation certificate stated that "the body of Werner Hugo Wilhelm Loewe, born 2 August 1913, in Altona, who died on 22 July 1941 in the Bernburg/Saale Sanatorium and Nursing Home, Grönaer Str. 16, as a result of pneumonia and subsequent circulatory failure, was properly cremated on 23 July 1941, under supervision and after the provision of all necessary documents."

The date of death given by the local police authority which was later than the real one, corresponded to the usual practice of the "Euthanasia" headquarters in Berlin, Tiergartenstraße 4, during the first phase of the killing of the sick. The time gap between the actual and the fictitious death dates allowed the "T4" headquarters to continue collecting care payments from the local funding authorities.

Werner Loewe's urn was interred on 1 September 1941 in the urn field of Altona's main cemetery and later reinterred in the war memorial cemetery there for those who fell in the Second World War (grave location 30.XVI.10.36 3b).

Translation: Steve Robinson

Stand: March 2026
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Altona (diverse Jahrgänge); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 116257 Geburtsregister Nr. 828/1913 Werner Hugo Wilhelm Tödter, 6170 Geburtsregister Nr. 678/1893 (Emil Albert Hugo Loewe), 6287 Geburtsregister Nr. 3274 (Dora Leopoldine Martha Tödter), 5774 Heiratsregister Nr. 116/1887 (Emil Albert Hugo Loewe/Johanna Sophie Heraldine Krohn), 5829 Heiratsregister Nr. 461/1921 (Emil Albert Hugo Loewe/Dora Leopoldine Martha Tödter, 5854 Heiratsregister Nr. 504/1928 (Emil Albert Hugo Loewe/Erna Friederike Henriette Wilken), 332-8 Meldewesen A 34/1 (Melderegister Werner Loewe); Bundesarchiv R 179 Nr. 3547 (Werner Loewe); Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Abt. Wolfenbüttel 114 Neu ZG 1/1984 Nr. 64; Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, Schleswig 64.1, Abt. 377 Nr. 1, Abt. 352.1 Nr. 4718 Landgericht Altona, Abt. 352.1 Nr. 6543 Landgericht Altona; Auskunft der Gedenkstätte Bernburg über Werner Löwe (email vom 16.12.2025). 125 Jahre Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und Heilpädagogik in Schleswig, Der Hesterberg, Schleswig 1997, S. 25. Ingo Wille, Transport in den Tod, S. 30. Susanne Weimann, Die Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Königslutter und der Krankenmord, Braunschweig 2020, S. 42.