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Emil Friedrich Albrecht * 1889

Blücherstraße 24 (Altona, Altona-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
EMIL FRIEDRICH
ALBRECHT
JG. 1889
EINGEWIESEN 5.6.1916
HEILANSTALT ALTONA
"VERLEGT" 9.7.1941
BERNBURG
ERMORDET 9.7.1941
"AKTION T4"

Emil Albrecht, born 30.11.1889, admitted temporarely to different psychiatric hospitals from 1914, "transferred" to the Bernburg killing center on 7.7.1941, murdered there

Blücherstraße 24, Altona

Emil Friedrich Albrecht was one of six children born to Christina Maria Albrecht, née Stau, and the carpenter Friedrich Hinrich Albrecht at Steinstraße 3 in Altona. He graduated from elementary school in Altona with good grades and then found work for three years as a clerk and clerk for a lawyer. Subsequently, the Altona City Hall employed him as a letter carrier.

Emil Albrecht's father died on July 8, 1905 in Altona, Lohmühlenstraße 79, in the apartment last occupied by his family. Emil, as the youngest son, was just 16 years old at the time.

Due to mental ailments, Emil Albrecht was treated in the psychiatric ward of the Altona Hospital from 1914 to 1917. In the meantime, he was cared for in the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt" Kiel (Hornheim) in 1916. (The "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt" Hornheim, founded in 1844, was aimed at "mental and nervous patients from educated classes"; its patients came from Germany and abroad). Following treatment in Hornheim, Emil Albrecht was admitted to the "Nursing and Sanatorium" in Neustadt in June 1918. This was followed by admission to the "insane asylum" Norderstraße (today Virchowstraße) in Altona.

In the meantime, the mother received a very small pension. Emil Albrecht's sister worked as a maid for a family and supported mother and siblings with her salary. In addition, they received welfare support.

With regard to Emil, the family received precise instructions as to which institutional clothing they had to apply to the "welfare" for: boots, leather shoes, slippers and clogs, one pair at a time. Furthermore, an "inmate of the institution" in Norderstraße needed 3 shirts, 4 pairs of stockings, 4 handkerchiefs, suspenders, 1 black foreshirt, 1 neckerchief, 2 underpants, work apron, gloves, 2 hats or caps, comb, 2 underjackets, 1 winter overcoat and 2 suits, one of them for good days.

On December 12, 1918, his family applied for an invalid pension for him. A guardian had to be "appointed" (appointed) for this purpose. In the meantime, the doctors had diagnosed his illness as a "simple mental disorder." His mother, who was 69 years old at the time, was proposed as guardian. But she was simply overwhelmed with the task of taking responsibility for him. Instead, his sister Bertha Alwine Marie Albrecht took up this office. The disability pension was granted and Emil Albrecht now received 157.20 Reichsmark as of September 1920. The family now lived together again at Blücherstraße 24 in Altona. On August 16, 1926, the mother Christina Maria died at the age of 77.

On July 10, 1926, Emil Albrecht was again admitted to a "sanatorium and nursing home," this time in Kiel. Now the diagnosis was "feeble-mindedness and schizophrenia" and the stay lasted almost nine years until he was temporarily transferred to the psychiatric ward at Altona Hospital on May 10, 1935.

In the meantime, the National Socialists had taken power. They denied people with disabilities the value of life, transferred them to so-called intermediate institutions and then killed them in special killing facilities. Emil Friedrich was again committed to the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt" Neustadt. The date is not clear from the files.

What is certain is that Emil Friedrich Albrecht was "transferred" from Neustadt to Königslutter on June 13, 1941, and from there to the Bernburg killing facility.

He was registered in Bernburg on July 7, 1941, where he was murdered on the same day. Between 1940 and 1943, the Bernburg killing center was located in a separate part of the "Landesheil- und Pflegeanstalt" Bernburg an der Saale in Saxony (Saxony-Anhalt). Prisoners who were no longer fit for work or who were undesirable were murdered here by gas.

Emil Friedrich Albrecht had received the registration number R179/28530 in Bernburg. After being murdered in the gas chamber, his body was cremated. The ashes were sent to the Altona cemetery on 22 August 1941. His family buried him in an urn grave at the Altona Main Cemetery on August 25, 1941.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Bärbel Klein

Quellen: StaH 424-111_8170; 424-9 II_201; 424-15_1321; 332-5_142/1871; 332-5_138/1964; 332-5_2288/1875; 332-5_172/1877; 332-5_2116/1878; 332-5_1131/1880; 332-5_2215/1882; 332-5_3921/1889; 332-5_1314/1905; 332-5_2071/1914; 332-5_1061/1926; 741-4_K4374; BBA R 179/28530; Hauptfriedhof Altona Grab UI.III.01.70, Bestätigung aus der Gedenkstätte Bernburg 6.4.2016.