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© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf
Karl-Heinz Hitz * 1925
Graudenzer Weg 19 (Hamburg-Nord, Dulsberg)
HIER WOHNTE
KARL-HEINZ HITZ
JG. 1925
EINGEWIESEN 10.8.1943
’HEILANSTALT’
MAINKOFEN
ERMORDET 23.1.1945
Karl-Heinz Hitz, born 30 July 1925 in Hamburg, perished 23 Jan. 1945 at the sanatorium Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen
Graudenzer Weg 19
Karl-Heinz Hitz was the only child of the electrician Karl Hitz and his wife Auguste. He was mentally and physically disable since his especially difficult birth. When he was nearly ten, Karl-Heinz was admitted to the sanatorium then called Alsterdorfer Anstalten (today: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf – Protestant Foundation of Alsterdorf).
His parents were very worried about Karl-Heinz. They endeavored to get vacation for him again and again and visited him frequently in Alsterdorf. On 19 Jan. 1942 Karl-Heinz’s father wrote a letter to the director of the Alsterdorfer Anstalten, Pastor Lensch:
"Dear Pastor!
We have learned that a number of patients from the Alsterdorfer Anstalten will be sent away. Now we are in constant fear for our boy that he might meet the same fate. Since he is our onlyest (sic) child, and we are very attached to him, it would be extremely painful for us to have to endure such a separation. Since we regularly visit him and also let him come home, it would be unimaginable for this no longer to happen.
If it should again come to pass that patients are sent away, and our Karl-Heinz should unfortunately be among them, we kindly ask you, dear Pastor, to ensure that our son remains here, for otherwise we would be desperately unhappy along with our boy."
The reply can more readily be understood as confirmation of the parents’ fears than as a reassurance. By return mail Pastor Lensch wrote on 22 Jan. 1942:
"In response to your correspondence of 19 Jan. 1942, we inform you that to our knowledge no further transfers from our sanatorium are planned, and we would inform you promptly if we were to hear of such intentions. Be assured, we will do what is within our power to avert the separation of our patients from their parents. Yet, one must show understanding, in light of the extraordinary need for space, for measures undertaken by the authorities who are forced to create space in Hamburg’s overcrowded sanatoria. "
His father’s fears were well founded. At the beginning of 1942, it got around that male and female patients from the then Alsterdorfer Anstalten sanatorium might have to be moved to other sanatoria outside of Hamburg. As early as July and Aug. 1941, a total of 90 residents from Alsterdorf were picked up with busses from the GeKraT and initially brought to the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn sanatorium.
The "Charitable Ambulance " (Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH GeKraT) was responsible for transferring the victims to killing centers or interim insitutions.
As is now known, nearly all of the "Alsterdorfer" [patients] were deported in Nov. 1941 from Langenhorn to the "Gau-Heilanstalt Tiegenhof" near Gniezno in occupied Poland and killed there.
Karl-Heinz’s father’s intervention could not prevent the eighteen-year-old from being carted off from Hamburg a year and a half later without his parents’ knowledge. The sanatorium undertook no measures to avert the separation of the boy from his parents. The senior physician Kreyenberg stated in his assessment: "He exhibits a high degree of feeblemindedness with no language ability. Due to his physical handicap, he requires complete care. At night he always wets the bed, he must also be fed due to the presence of a considerable athetosis [special movement paralysis], especially in the hands. "
With that the clinical judgement was passed. Karl-Heinz Hitz, who had just turned eighteen-years-old, was transferred to Mainkofen on 10 Aug. 1943. The sanatorium "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen" in Lower Bavaria was involved at least in the execution of the final phase of the "euthanasia" operations. On 23 Jan. 1945 Karl-Heinz Hitz died there at the age of 20, allegedly from pneumonia.
Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: October 2016
© Ingo Wille
Quellen: Evang. Stiftung Alsterdorf, Patientenakten der Alsterdorfer Anstalten, V405 (Karl Heinz Hitz); Michael Wunder/Ingrid Genkel/Harald Jenner, "Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr". Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1987, S. 205f.; Michael Wunder "Ausgesuchte, abgelaufene, sekundäre Demenzen …", in: "Verachtet, Verfolgt, Vernichtet", Projektgruppe für die vergessenen Opfer des NS-Regimes in Hamburg (Hrsg.), Hamburg 1986, S. 88.
