Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Bertha Sander
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Bertha Sander * 1903

Marienthaler Straße 84 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
BERTHA SANDER
JG. 1903
EINGEWIESEN 1926
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
‚VERLEGT‘ 16.8.1943
‚HEILANSTALT‘
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
ERMORDET 28.11.1944

Bertha Marie Elisabeth Sander, born 17.8.1903 in Hamburg, admitted to the Alsterdorfer Asylum (today: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 26.8.1926, deported to Vienna to the ‘Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien’ on 16.8.1943, died there on 28.11.1944

Marienthaler Straße 84 (Hamm)

Bertha Marie Elisabeth Sander (called Bertha) was born in Hamburg on 17 August 1903. Her parents were Anna Bertha Christine Sander, née Rathjen, born on 22 March 1863 in Grönhude, today a district of Kellinghusen in Schleswig-Holstein, and August Georg Sander, born on 28 September 1861 in the then still independent Prussian town of Altona. Their father was a wine cooper (someone responsible for wine making).

Bertha had three older siblings: Anne Dora Elise, born on 17 February 1884 in Hamburg, Hans Carl Wilhelm, born on 4 February 1886 in Hamburg, and Christiane, whose date of birth we do not know.

Most of the information about Bertha Sander comes from the ‘patient file’ of the Alsterdorf Asylum (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf). Bertha Sander's birth is said to have been difficult. No doctor was present, but two midwives were.
In her early childhood, Bertha Sander is said to have suffered from whooping cough, screaming fits and frequent seizures, which allegedly led to paralysis of the tongue. On 26 December 1903, Bertha Sander was baptised in the main church of St. Katharinen in Hamburg.

She is said to have learnt to walk and talk at the age of three. When she was due to start school, her mental impairment was recognised and she was not required to attend.

Bertha Sander lived with her parents at Marienthaler Straße 84 in Hamburg-Hamm until they died. Her father died of arteriosclerosis on 11 May 1924 and her mother of cancer on 4 July 1926. After her mother's death, her sister Anne and her husband Bernhard Büttner took Bertha Sander in temporarily at Wolfshagen 11a.

Gustav Marr, a doctor in private practice, examined Bertha Sander on 6 August 1926 and wrote that Bertha Sander could not speak, could dress herself, but appeared untidy. She could hardly be asked to peel potatoes at home. Most of the time she behaved apathetically and played with dolls. At times she is very irritable, then she rages and screams. The doctor diagnosed ‘idiocy’ and recommended Bertha Sander's admission to the Alsterdorf Asylum (now the Alsterdorf Protestant Foundation), which took place on 26 August 1926.

In Alsterdorf, ‘presumed hereditary feeblemindedness’ was diagnosed.
(The terms ‘idiocy’ and ‘feeblemindedness’ are used repeatedly in Bertha Sander's ‘medical records’. These are outdated and pejorative terms for a severe form of intellectual disability or a moderate mental disability).

The Alsterdorf staff noted that Bertha Sander ‘sits dully, plays with dolls’.
She was also repeatedly told that she was ‘friendly, pleasant and agreeable’, could dress herself alone, but could not wash and comb her hair on her own. She always looked ‘untidy’. She is kept busy with small household tasks, which she carries out ‘faithfully and conscientiously’. She was quickly offended and insulted when reprimanded.

On 16 June 1927, brother-in-law Bernhard Büttner asked the Alsterdorf Asylum whether it would be advisable to incapacitate Bertha Sander in view of her financial affairs. Bertha Sander had received a mortgage for 1000 Reichsmark from her mother as her sole heir. He declared his willingness to take over the guardianship. Shortly afterwards, the sister Anne Büttner applied for incapacitation. A few days later, Senior Physician Fischer from the Alsterdorf Asylum carried out an assessment. In his report of 11 September 1927, he wrote for the court that Bertha Sander was suffering from ‘feeble-mindedness’ and was ‘completely unsuitable for free working life’. She requires ‘permanent institutional care’.

In a second expert opinion in October, the unnamed author referred to a ‘nervous disorder of the mother’ and diagnosed Bertha Sander as ‘severely feeble-minded’, which would not allow her to ‘manage her own affairs’. Her hearing by the Hamburg district court was held on the recommendation of the experts, as in comparable cases in the Alsterdorf Asylum.

The court incapacitated Bertha Sander on 24 October 1927 and placed her under provisional guardianship. The reason given was that she had made a ‘feeble-minded impression’ during the interrogation, could not read or write and was left-handed. It was said that she was severely feeble-minded and therefore needed to be placed under guardianship.

A few years later, Bertha Sander's niece Gerda Büttner and her fiancé needed a certificate stating whether the illness was hereditary.They wanted to apply for a ‘marriage loan’ in connection with their marriage. During the Nazi era, ‚marriage loans‘ (‘Ehestandsdarlehen’) were intended to promote the marriage of young people and encourage them to have children. Women had to give up their jobs as employees when they got married. In addition, all couples wishing to marry needed a ‘certificate of fitness to marry’ before the marriage, which certified that there was no impediment as defined by the Hereditary Health Act of 18 October 1935 (Erbgesundheitsgesetz vom 18. Oktober 1935).
In return, Gerda Büttner had to answer the question as to whether anyone in her family suffered from a hereditary disease. On 23 November 1937, Gerda Büttner asked the Alsterdorfer Asylum for a certificate stating that her aunt Bertha Sander's ‘illness’ was not hereditary. She hoped that this would enable the marriage loan to be approved quickly and without any problems. There is no statement from the Alsterdorfer Anstalten.

Bertha Sander was kept busy with small jobs in the Alsterdorf Asylum, helping in the dining room, cleaning knives, drying crockery and clearing away cups.
She was ‘untidy’ and required constant supervision.At the same time, she was considered ‘hard-working and willing’ and had always looked for work.On 30 August 1935, it was noted that Bertha Sander had injured two fellow patients with a potato peeling knife while agitated. As a result, she had to stay in the so-called guard room (Wachsaal) from 1 September and was given ‘punishment food’. She was under constant surveillance and was given less to eat than usual. After five days, she was transferred back to her ward. (Restless patients were isolated in ‘guard rooms’ and treated with permanent baths, sleep and fever cures. They were introduced in the Alsterdorf Asylum at the end of the 1920s. Over the course of the 1930s, their function changed: patients were now mainly sedated here, sometimes with medication, sometimes with restraints or other measures. Those affected often perceived this as punishment).

Bertha Sander was 150 cm tall and weighed 59.5 kg when she was admitted. Nevertheless, she was certified as having ‘plenty of fat pads’. Her weight fluctuated between 50 kg and 65 kg. From 1938, Bertha Sander lost weight continuously. After weighing 65 kg in January 1938, she weighed 45 kg in March 1941 and 43.5 kg in the summer of 1943.

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg at the end of July/beginning of August 1943 (‘Operation Gomorrah’), the Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered bomb damage. The head of the asylum, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, took the opportunity to get rid of some of the residents who were considered ‘weak in labour, in need of care or particularly difficult’ by transporting them to other sanatoriums and nursing homes with the approval of the health authorities. On 16 August 1943, one of these transports ‘transferred’ 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf and 72 girls and women from the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home to the ‘Wagner von Jauregg sanatorium and nursing home of the city of Vienna’ (also known as the ‘Am Steinhof’ institution). Bertha Sander was among them.

In the Viennese institution, Bertha Sander was considered ‘stupid, lame, apathetic’ and ‘disorientated’. She was no longer given any work. At the beginning of October 1944, she still weighed 32 kg.

On 18 October 1944, it was noted about the now forty-year-old woman that she was ‘clean, in need of care’ and bedridden. The ‘medical file’ contains no indication of any deterioration in her physical condition. Nevertheless, Bertha Sander died on 28 November 1944, allegedly of pneumonia (departmental verdict) or pulmonary tuberculosis (sectional verdict).

The ‘Wagner von Jauregg sanatorium and nursing home of the city of Vienna’ was an intermediate institution of the Hartheim killing centre near Linz during ‘Aktion-T4’ (the name given to the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ programme, named after the location of the Berlin ‘euthanasia’ headquarters at Tiergartenstraße 4). After the official end of the euthanasia murders in the killing centres in August 1941, the killings continued en masse in the previous intermediate institutions, including the Vienna institution itself: through overdoses of medication and non-treatment of illnesses, but above all through food deprivation.
Pneumonia was often claimed as the cause of death.

By the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had died, 196 of whom came from Alsterdorf. From 1943 onwards, the brains of around half of all dissected corpses were removed for histological examination in the Vienna institution and some were kept in the brain anatomy collection. Until 2002, the Vienna Institute kept 700 brains that had been removed during dissections. Whether this also happened in the case of Bertha Sander is not documented.

Translation: Ingo Wille
Stand: March 2025
© Karin Gutjahr

Quellen: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2065 Geburtsregister Nr. 702/1884 (Anne Dora Elise Sander), 2113 Geburtsregister Nr. 487/1886 (Hans Carl Wilhelm Sander), 13939 Geburtsregister Nr. 1579/1903 (Bertha Marie Elisabeth Sander), 885 Sterberegister Nr. 352/1924 (August Georg Sander). Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf Archiv Sonderakte V 248 (Bertha Sander). Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 283 ff., 331 ff. Ehestandsdarlehen: Uwe Lohhalm, Völkische Wohlfahrtsdiktatur, Hamburg 2010, S. 261 ff. Ehetauglichkeitszeugnis: Elke Frietsch/Christina Herkommer (Hrsg.), Nationalsozialismus und Geschlecht, Zur Politisierung und Ästhetisierung im "Dritten Reich" und nach 1945, Bielefeld 2009, S. 303 ff. Privatbeamte: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/112445/1/207423.pdf (Zugriff am 1.3.2025)