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Margarethe von Zerssen
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Margarethe von Zerssen * 1897

Tönsfeldtstraße 7 (Altona, Ottensen)

HIER WOHNTE
MARGARETHE
VON ZERSSEN
JG. 1897
EINGEWIESEN 1925
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 16.8.1943
AM STEINHOF WIEN
ERMORDET 4.5.1945

Margarethe von Zerssen, born on 5.2.1897 in Altona, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 13.2.1925, "transferred" to Vienna to the "Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien", died there on 4.5.1945.

Tönsfeldtstraße 7, Altona

Margarethe von Zerssen was born on 5 Feb. 1897 in the flat of her mother, who had been widowed shortly before, in the then independent Prussian city of Altona, Behnstraße 20. Her parents, Sophie, née Thorning, born on 19 June 1866 in Altona, and the merchant Christian Johann Herrmann Ludwig von Zerssen, born on 10 June 1853 in Altona, were Protestants. They had married in Altona on 21 May 1889. Before Margarethe was born, the couple already had three children: Otto Hermann, born on 16 Feb. 1891, Hermann Heinrich Carl, born on 17 Feb. 1892, and Elisabeth Sophie, born on 18 Oct. 1894.

Margarethe's father died of pleurisy on 15 Dec. 1896. Her mother now had to raise the four children alone. We do not know how she managed this, whether she had assets to fall back on or whether she was supported by relatives.

Since early childhood, Margarethe von Zerssen had been observed to be mentally handicapped. She had only learned to walk and talk in the second year of life. She attended the nine-grade secondary school for girls in Altona until the fifth grade with mediocre success. She probably lived with her siblings in her mother's family, as there is no record of her staying in an institution during this time. When she was later admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), her mother reported that Margarethe had been "very strong" as a child. During the First World War, however, she lost 50 pounds.

Margarethe von Zerssen became a resident of the Alsterdorf Asylum (now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 13 Feb. 1925. The admitting doctor considered it necessary to admit her because of "idiocy", the cause of which was suspected to be "foetal germ damage" ("idiocy" is an outdated term for a severe form of intelligence impairment). Until then she had lived with her mother at Von der Tannstraße 7 in Ottensen (now Tönsfeldtstraße).

When she was admitted to Alsterdorf, 28-year-old Margarethe was described as follows: "School knowledge corresponding to the age of 13. Childish, silly. Easily excited but not loud or violent. Dresses herself. Combs her hair. Likes to write letters. Knits and stuffs under supervision. Housework very inferior. Without stamina. Noisy, clumsy. Likes to make herself noticed. Wishes to associate with 'educated' people." The patient file shows that Margarethe was perceived in the same way in the following years.

At the end of 1929, she wanted to be released from the institution and for this she tried to jump out of a window. In the following years, strong phases of agitation were reported again and again. In April 1931, it was noted for the first time that she had got a holiday from which she returned unhappy and caused all the other patients to become agitated. From further holidays, she always returned agitated, often got into conflicts with fellow patients and at times was completely uncooperative, even violent towards others and herself. Corresponding reports in her patient file are repeated until 1943. Therapeutic measures are not mentioned, apparently Margarethe von Zerssen was exclusively a "case of preservation (Bewahrfall)".

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrha"), the Alsterdorf institutions also suffered bomb damage. After consultation with the health authorities, the management took the opportunity to get rid of some of the residents who were considered to be "weak in work, requiring a lot of care or particularly difficult" by transferring them to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. On 16 Aug. 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" (also known as the "Am Steinhof" institution) in Vienna. Among them was Margarethe von Zerssen.

When she arrived in Vienna she weighed 50 kg, in March 1945 only 36 kg. In response to a concerned letter from Elisabeth Peters, Margarethe von Zerssen's sister, who had married in the meantime, to the asylum management in Vienna on 14 Feb. 1945, she received the following reply on 9 March: "Your sister's condition is satisfactory. She has not suffered from the air raids [on Vienna] either."

A little later, on 21 Apr., it was noted in Margarethe von Zerssen's file: "Mentally and physically severely deteriorated, lying in bed, suffering from diarrhoea, lying decubitus."
And then on 4 May: "Died at 12 o'clock. Marasmus [...], gastroenteritis."

Elisabeth Peters only learned of her sister's death in answer to inquiry in January 1946.

The asylum in Vienna had been an intermediate facility for the Hartheim killing centre near Linz during the "Aktion-T4" (name for the National Socialists' "euthanasia" programme, so called after the headquarters of the Berlin Euthanasia centre at Tiergartenstraße 4). After the official end of the murders in the killing centres in August 1941, murders continued in the previous intermediate institutions, i.e. also in the Vienna institution itself: by overdosing of medication and not-treatment of diseases, but above all by depriving the patients of food. 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg died by the end of 1945, including 196 girls and women from Alsterdorf.

Translaton: Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: December 2022
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Altona 1894 bis 1925, StaHH 332-5 Standesämter, 6268 Geburtsregister Nr. 558/1891 Otto Hermann von Zerssen, 6274 Geburtsregister Nr. 655/1892 Hermann Heinrich Carl von Zerssen, 6278 Geburtsregister Nr. 3176/1894 Elisabeth Sophie von Zerssen, 6298 Geburtsregister Nr. 388/1897 Margarethe von Zerssen, 5027 Sterberegister Nr. 479/1896 Christian Johann Herrmann Ludwig von Zerssen, 5908 Heiratsregister Nr. 450/1889 Christian Johann Herrmann Ludwig von Zerssen/Sophia Thorning; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, V 210 (Patientenakte Margarethe von Zerssen). 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., 331 ff.