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Bruno Steenbuck
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Bruno Steenbuck * 1912

Volksdorfer Straße 17a-c (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
BRUNO Steenbuck
JG. 1912
EINGEWIESEN 1921
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 10.8.1943
HEILANSTALT MAINKOFEN
ERMORDET 10.3.45

Bruno Steenbuck, born 8 May 1912 in Wandsbek, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 22.8.1921, transferred to the Mainkofen sanatorium and nursing home in Deggendorf (Lower Bavaria) on 10.8.1943, died there on 10.3.1945

Volksdorfer Straße 17 a-c (formerly no.119) (Barmbek-Süd)

Bruno Steenbuck was born together with his twin brother Karl Hans on 8 May 1912 in the then still independent Prussian town of Wandsbek. The parents, Heinrich Karl Friedrich (Fritz) Steenbuck, a carpenter born on 19 April 1885 in Papendorf, Stormarn district, and Christine Mathilde Siemsen, born on 27 September 1885 in Lübeck, had married on 10 April 1909 in Wandsbek.

Before the twins the siblings Erna Martha were born on 13 June 1909 and Karl Friedrich on 6 June 1910. After these four children Hans August Steenbuck was born on 29 February 1925 as the youngest child.

Bruno Steenbuck was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum on 22 August 1921 at the age of nine. The family lived at Volksdorfer Straße 119 (now No. 17 a-c) in Barmbek (now Barmbek-Süd) at the time.

During the admission examination, the doctors found that Bruno Steenbuck was emaciated or atrophied on the right side of his body and had restricted movement in his right arm and right hand. These physical limitations may have been the reason why Bruno Steenbuck was a patient at the former "Alte Eichen Cripple Home" ("Krüppelheim Alten Eichen") in Stellingen before he was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum. This institution was run by the Inner Mission (Innere Mission). In addition to surgical and orthopaedic treatment, it offered an institutional school and a training workshop. It is not clear from the documents that are still available how long Bruno Steenbuck's stay there lasted and what therapeutic measures were taken.

A Dr Dentz gave the following reasons for Bruno Steenbuck's admission to Alsterdorf: "Admission to Alsterdorf is declared necessary because of hydrocephalus and feeblemindedness. Bruno S. is a twin child. The condition is congenital. S. suffers from hydrocephalus with partial paralysis of the right hand and right foot. He cannot stand on his own, cannot get undressed and dressed alone etc. S. is clean. S. is partially sighted and feeble-minded. He is orientated in time and place and can hold a conversation. His educational ability is probably very limited. Wandsbek, 11.7.1921 signed Dr Dentz."
(The term "feeblemindedness", which is no longer used today, refers to a reduction in intelligence or congenital intelligence deficiency).

The doctors and carers at the Alsterdorf Asylum confirmed this assessment and repeated it in the following years. They said that Bruno Steenbuck's speech was easy to understand, but that he was not fit for school or work. In 1929 they noted, "[Bruno Steenbuck] is orientated locally and imprecisely in terms of time, makes a calm, serene impression, mostly stares ahead of him, answers questions asked, is completely helpless, has to be dressed, can eat alone. Is clean."

In 1933, he was not placed under guardianship "because he would probably never be released from the asylum".

His family kept in close contact with Bruno Steenbuck. He was on holiday with his parents several times a year.

After several stays in the infirmary due to carbuncles (boils), among other things, Bruno Steenbuck was no longer able to walk in 1938 as a result of a tumour on his right ankle. In mid-1941 it was noted that Bruno Steenbuck was paralysed on one side and suffered from impaired vision, so that he needed constant help with personal hygiene and dressing and undressing. He often caused great educational difficulties because he easily got into arguments with the other patients due to his quarrelsomeness and temper. Bruno Steenbuck was eventually put to work in the weaving room stringing beads. He was said to be incapable of any other work.

After the Alsterdorf Asylum suffered damage during the heavy Allied air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrah"), the director of the Alsterdorf Asylum, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, took advantage of the situation. He asked the Hamburg health authorities for authorisation to evacuate around 750 residents of the institution who had been made homeless by the bombing raids. As a result, between 7 and 16 August 1943, three transports with a total of 469 girls, boys, women and men left Alsterdorf in different directions, including a transport with 113 men, adolescents and boys on 10 August 1943 bound for the "Mainkofen Sanatorium and Nursing Home" in Deggendorf (Lower Bavaria). Bruno Steenbuck was among them.

The Mainkofen sanatorium and nursing home, a psychiatric hospital before the Nazi era, was systematically developed into an "Euthanasia” centre. During the first phase of the "Euthanasia" murders, people were deported from there to the Hartheim Castle killing centre near Linz until August 1941 and murdered with gas. 606 of them are known by name (as of 2016). Afterwards, even at the time when Bruno Steenbuck was there, the patients in Mainkofen were murdered themselves, through food deprivation under the ‘Bavarian Hunger Decree’ (starvation diet, meat- and fat-free diet, known in Mainkofen as ‘3-b diet’), nursing neglect or overdoses of medication. A total of 760 Mainkofen inmates died of malnutrition (as of 2016). The main alleged causes of death were intestinal catarrh, tuberculosis, pneumonia and pulmonary tuberculosis. We do not know how Bruno Steenbuck fared in Mainkofen.

Of the 113 boys and men from Alsterdorf who arrived in Mainkofen on 12 August 1943, 74 died there by the end of 1945. As in other death camps, "pulmonary tuberculosis" repeatedly appeared as the cause of death. The cause of death was listed as "pulmonary tuberculosis" for 40 of the 74 deceased and "intestinal catarrh" fifteen times. Only 39 people from Alsterdorf survived 1945, including 15 adults and 24 children and adolescents up to the age of 21. They were transferred back to Alsterdorf on 19 December 1947.

Bruno Steenbuck lived in the institution in Lower Bavaria for one and a half years until his death on 10 March 1945. The cause of death was given as intestinal catarrh.

Stand: September 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 113917 Geburtsregister Nr. 176/1910 (Karl Friedrich Steenbuck, 115907 Geburtsregister Nr. 148/1912 (Karl Hans Steenbuck), 115907 Geburtsregister Nr. 149/1912 (Bruno Friedrich Steenbuck), Standesamt Wandsbek Geburtsregister Nr. 72/1924 (Hans August Steenbuck), 4125 Heiratsregister Nr. 24/1909 (Hinrich Karl Friedrich Steenbuck/Christine Mathilde Siemsen), 4454 Sterberegister Nr. 4/1913 (Karl Hans Steenbuck); Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv, Sonderakte V 453 (Bruno Steenbuck); Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 315 ff.; Harald Jenner, Michael Wunder, Hamburger Gedenkbuch Euthanasie – Die Toten 1939-1945, Hamburg 2017, S. 522.