Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Johanna Behrens, März 1936
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Johanna Behrens * 1908

Elsastraße 30 (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
JOHANNA BEHRENS
JG. 1908
EINGEWIESEN 1933
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT`16.8.1943
´HEILANSTALT`
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
TOT 11.6.1945

Johanna Theodora Behrens, born on 31.12.1908 in Altona, admitted on 11.7.1933 to what were then the Alsterdorf Institutions (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), transferred on 16.8.1943 to Vienna to the "Wagner von Jauregg Mental Hospital of the City of Vienna”, where she died on 11.6.1945

Elsastraße 30

Johanna Theodora Behrens (known as Johanna) was born on 31 December 1908 in Altona. She was the daughter of the locksmith Theodor Jacob Leonard Behrens and his wife Johanna Caroline, née Schick, who worked as a seamstress. The couple had married in Hamburg in 1902. They had four children: Jonny (born 1905), Julius (born 1907), Johanna (born 1908) and Martha (born 1911). A fifth child had died at the age of seven. The father had been sentenced to prison on several occasions. The mother was at times admitted to the Hamburg Harbour Hospital and the ‘Friedrichsberg Mental Asylum’ ("Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg") due to ‘mental deficiency’. The children grew up partly under the supervision of the youth welfare authorities.

The Behrens family lived at 30 Elsastraße in the Barmbek district. Johanna attended the Schleidenstraße primary school, just a few minutes’ walk away, until the second year (the first year was the highest level at that time). She was subsequently cared for at the Martha-Haus (a facility for children with disabilities) in the Borgfelde district. In 1923, she spent some time in Westerland on Sylt for recuperation.

On 14 May 1929, she was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital. She was diagnosed with ‘dementia praecox’ (an outdated term for psychoses within the schizophrenia spectrum). She reported hearing voices, suffering from delusions of persecution and feeling threatened. After a lengthy stay, she was discharged in July 1930, but was readmitted at her own request in February 1933. On 11 July 1933, she was transferred to what was then known as the Alsterdorf Institutions (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), where she remained permanently.

In Alsterdorf, Johanna Behrens was considered to be seriously mentally ill, yet physically healthy. A medical report from 1933 described her as "afflicted by delusions”. In her daily life, she was at times calm and capable of engaging in activities, but at other times restless, refusing food and withdrawing. Initially, she had occupied herself with sewing.

In 1937, following a decision by the Hereditary Health Court, she was forcibly sterilised at Eppendorf University Hospital and subsequently transferred back to Alsterdorf. In the years that followed, her condition deteriorated further. Her medical records document "increasing neglect, aggressive outbursts, prolonged phases of apathy, and a growing need for care”.

Contact with her family was not severed: however, visits from her father and short-term leave to stay with her mother or grandmother often led to renewed crises.

On 16 August 1943, following heavy air raids on the Alsterdorf institutions, Johanna Behrens was transferred to Vienna to the "Wagner von Jauregg Mental Hospital and Care Home of the City of Vienna” (also known as the "Am Steinhof” institution). Her mother accompanied her and stayed for a few more days. As an attempt to escape could not be ruled out, Johanna Behrens was immediately placed in separate accommodation there.

In November 1944, the Viennese institutions completed "Registration Form I”. During the first phase of the euthanasia programme from 1939 to 1941, they used this form to report key details of the institution’s residents to the Euthanasia Central Office at Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin. The information on these registration forms formed the basis for deciding whether people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses should be killed in one of the six gas chambers. Johanna Behrens was recorded as having a diagnosis of "epilepsy”, and it was noted that she received no visitors. The medical records provide no indication of the purpose of this registration form, which was drawn up long after the centralised management of the killings of the sick had ceased, nor whether it was sent to Berlin or whether it had any influence on her subsequent fate.

In Vienna, Johanna Behrens remained largely apathetic, weakened and without occupation. On her arrival there, she had weighed 51 kg; by April 1945, her weight was recorded as just 34 kg.

On 11 June 1945, she died at the age of 36, reportedly as a result of an infection (bloody stools). Johanna Theodora Behrens is one of the victims of the Nazi "Euthanasia” crimes. Of the 228 women and girls on her transport of 16 August 1943, 196 had died by the end of 1945 as a result of drug overdoses and the failure to treat illnesses, but above all due to starvation.

Translation: Ingo Wille

Stand: March 2026
© Tobias Hardt (Bugenhagenschule) im Rahmen eines Schulprojekts

Quellen: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 113591 Geburtsregister Nr. 15/1909 (Johanna Theodora Behrens), 2982 Heiratsregister Nr. 190/1907 (Johanna Caroline Schick/ Theodor Jakob Leonhard Behrens). Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Sonderakte V 382 (Johanna Behrens). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 331-371. 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. 425-467. Peter Schwarz, Die Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Wien-Steinhof im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg, in: Markus Rachbauer, Florian Schwanninger (Hg.), Krieg und Psychiatrie, Lebensbedingungen und Sterblichkeit in österreichischen Heil- und Pflegeanstalten im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg, Innsbruck/Wien 2022.