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Käthe Vollmers
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Käthe Vollmers * 1900

Schanzenstraße 28 (Altona, Sternschanze)

HIER WOHNTE
KÄTHE VOLLMERS
JG. 1900
EINGEWIESEN 1935
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 16.8.1943
AM STEINHOF WIEN
ERMORDET 8.3.1945

Käthe Vollmers, born on 3 Sept. 1900, admitted on 16 May 1935 to the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten), transferred on 16 Aug. 1943 to the Vienna Municipal Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt, death on 8 Mar. 1945

Schanzenstrasse 28

Käthe Vollmers has a friendly and self-confident smile on her photo on the "ID for the unemployed” that entitled her to reduced fares for transportation on the system of Hamburger Hochbahn AG. She had earned her own income as a servant and worker, depositing 100 RM (reichsmark) in her savings account, and intending, even after she had already fallen ill and become unfit for work, to be gainfully employed again. The work she was instructed to do at the [Alsterdorf] Asylum did not satisfy her and resulted in conflicts with nursing staff. At this point, she was a 34-year-old, self-confident woman, though at the mercy of her illness.

On 3 Sept. 1900, Anna Käthe Adolfine Vollmers was born as an illegitimate child of the worker Metta Margaretha Adelheid Vollmers, born on 22 Dec. 1869 in Stade, in the apartment of the tradesman Lübbe – probably her mother’s employer – in Stade. She was baptized on the last day of September in 1900 and then placed in foster care. The period of foster care lasted until 19 Nov. 1905 when the mother married the worker Johann Christian Varberg, born on 7 Nov. 1873 in Tondern/Denmark, whose last name Käthe received. The marriage produced two children. Käthe’s last name changed once more when she was already residing in Hamburg and she was compelled to bear Vollmers as her last name again by decree of the Senate Commission for the Administration of Justice (Senatskommission für die Justizverwaltung) dated 9 Apr. 1925.

For a short period, Käthe attended the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) in Stade, and after the relocation to Hamburg, the special needs school on Eppendorfer Landstrasse. The nine-year-old girl was designated as "morally inferior” because she was completely non-conformist. By the age of 12, however, she had "developed satisfactorily” according to the assessment of her homeroom teacher. She fulfilled her eight-year period of compulsory school attendance and left school from grade 6 [in the reverse way of counting common at the time, i.e., grade 8]. On 28 Mar. 1915, she was confirmed at St. Johannis Church in Hamburg-Eppendorf and henceforth considered fit for gainful employment. Similar to her mother, a life as a servant or worker was open to her, though in Hamburg and not in a small city like Stade. However, for the following two years, she stayed at home with her mother.

She began her gainful employment in a basket-making operation where she worked together with her mother. As early as the next year, Käthe Vollmers had to undergo treatment at Eppendorf General Hospital. As it turned out later, this would be the first in a series of hospital stays. A phlegmon, a purulent inflammation, had developed on her right hand, and it threatened to spread.

Afterward, Käthe Vollmers no longer experienced a proper home since her mother died of a stroke at the age of only 49. Käthe was committed to what was then the workhouse and poorhouse in Farmsen and from there to the Elim Girls’ Home; the Elim parishes were denominations with Free Church orientation. In Farmsen, she received money for her work whereas in Elim she did not. She changed to a farm, though not staying there for long either and after her return, the Hamburg Youth Welfare Office accommodated her in the Alstertwiete Municipal Girls’ Home. There she got into states of agitation several times, accusing fellow female occupants of theft and becoming aggressive. When she could not be calmed in one of these states, she was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg) on 26 Jan. 1921.

After a difficult settling-in period, during which she expressed the wish to return to Farmsen several times, she became calmer and conscientiously carried out work assigned to her. By this time, she had come of age. After 15 months in the Friedrichsberg institution, Käthe Vollmers was discharged and she took a job as a servant in the countryside. The year 1925 saw her suffering from back and abdominal pain for the first time, a condition worsened through work.

During her first stay at the General Hospital in St. Georg because of an acute intestinal condition in the summer of 1927, Käthe Vollmers was thoroughly examined as to the causes of her multiple ailments. The findings included curable curvatures of the spine and muscular rheumatism, for which there was no cure. In 1929, she began having seizures. When their incidence increased, Käthe Vollmers underwent observation for epilepsy. From the perspective of the authorities, it was necessary to clarify whether she had to be declared legally incapacitated, but the attending physician did not see any reason to do so. Without a clear diagnosis, she was discharged as "slightly improved” in Jan. 1930.

Käthe Vollmers lost another job due to an accident. At work, a woman had hit her on the head with an axe by mistake, as a result of which she was admitted to the hospital in the St. Georg quarter again. Though she had not sustained a concussion, it took three weeks until she could be discharged. Afterward, she was quartered in the Marthahaus, a foundation for training and job placement of domestic servants in what was then Baustrasse (today Hinrichsenstrasse).

Käthe Vollmers was not only unemployed but starting in Aug. 1932, she also did not receive any unemployment benefits either for one year. Nevertheless, every week she showed up at the employment office with her unemployment stamp card for job placement and lived in the shelter at Bundesstrasse 23 during this time. When she received unemployment benefits again, she rented a room with the widow Lucie Tholeikes at Schanzenstrasse 28 for 4 RM (reichsmark) a week. On 18 Dec. 1933, she fell, which ended her relative freedom. During a visit to the Tietz Department Store at on Jungfernstieg (today Alsterhaus) she had suddenly collapsed, though managing to reach her place by herself. For her own protection, she was again admitted to the St Georg General Hospital the next day, where the renowned professor of neurology, Heinrich Pette, examined her. At first, she resisted the examination but then she provided details about herself and her family. From this information, Heinrich Pette concluded that she was suffering from hereditary epilepsy and that she showed "typically epileptic changes to her character.” On 5 Jan. 1934, she was discharged as "improved.”

Only eleven days later, she was admitted as "urgent” to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital, 12 years after having been there for the first time. In the admission interview, she expressed fantasies of poison that her landlady had strewn into her bed or food. On 29 Jan. 1934, she suffered from an epileptic seizure, followed by additional ones. The fixed ideas about poisoning persisted as well and she was irritable most of the time. In this condition, she was discharged to the Alstertwiete girls’ home. On 16 May 1935, she came from there to what was then the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten), where she would spend the following ten years.

Käthe Vollmers settled in, became calmer, and lost her temper only occasionally. In those cases, she was isolated temporarily. She paid attention to her personal hygiene and helped do housework. Due to her reduced need for care, the lower rate for the medium class of nursing care (Pflegestufe II) was fixed, the cost of which was covered by welfare services.

Over the course of the years, the severe epileptic seizures stopped but the dizziness increased. Using her modest strength, Käthe worked as well as she could.

After Allied air raids had damaged the Alsterdorf Asylum in early Aug. 1943, the director, Pastor Friedrich Lensch, had hundreds of patients transferred to institutions "safe from bombing” ("luftsicher”). On 16 Aug. 1943, 228 girls and women travelled to the Vienna Municipal Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt, a "sanatorium and nursing home,” the former Steinhof. Their number included Käthe Vollmers.

Käthe Vollmers was "no severe case.” In the admission interview, she knew who and where she was, knew that the seizures were preceded by dizziness and could be stopped by administrating bromide, and that to date she had never sustained serious injuries during seizures. She explained the fact that she continued to have more seizures lately by saying that the head nurse had stolen her watch. That she had seizures at all was because she had been "repeatedly banged on the head in Hamburg.” According to her, in the institution in Vienna, she was beaten night after night.

In the following days and years, she often expressed dissatisfaction. Once, she lost her temper to such an extent that she was subdued with a straitjacket. For treatment of her paranoid ideas and epileptic mental disorder, she was subjected to a ten-day malaria therapy whose result is not documented. In Jan. 1944, a Rorschach test was conducted with her, with the result unknown. During the first three months of her stay in Vienna, Käthe Vollmers suffered only one epileptic seizure. When her conditions permitted it, she worked in the sewing room.

On 2 Mar. 1944, the institutional administration filled out Reporting Form 1 for the T4 Main Office in Berlin. The entries indicated that Käthe Vollmers had no visitors and that her work performance was modest – two criteria for the decision between life and death. It is unknown whether the form was ever sent off. On 7 March, a talk with her took place, and in it, she repeated her earlier claims that she was often beaten and had been poisoned by her landlady, just as she repeated her demand to have her property returned to her.

The next quarterly report stated that she spent time in the dayroom and was kept busy with mending work and continued to be extremely irritable. The medical file does not reveal why Käthe Vollmers was transferred to the mental hospital on 20 October. There, she was again described as well oriented, even in political matters, accessible, and calm, and the documentation indicates that she gave sensible answers, though that she was extremely irritable. On the negative side, it was noted that she did not want to work without any compensation and that she lost weight every day – a clue to the hunger rations.

In Mar. 1945, Käthe Vollmers was so weakened that she was bedridden and disoriented. In addition, she suffered from diarrhea. The institution sent out a deterioration notice – it is unclear to whom, for there were no known relatives. Six days later, on 8 Mar. 1945, Käthe Vollmers died, allegedly of pneumonia and enteritis. Upon her arrival in Vienna, she had weighed 47.5 kilograms (almost 105 lbs), at the time of her death less than 35 kilograms (approx. 77 lbs). Käthe Vollmers reached the age of 44.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2018
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: Archiv der Evangelischen Stiftung Alsterdorf, V 219; Stadtarchiv Stade, Geburts-, Heirats-, Auskunft über Melderegistereinträge, 24.3.2014; Wunder u.a., Auf dieser schiefen Ebene, S. 189-201.