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Erna Meyer (née Nacke) * 1898

Flotowstraße 15 (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
ERNA MEYER
GEB. NACKE
JG. 1898
EINGEWIESEN 1935
VERSORGUNGSHEIM HAMBURG
‚VERLEGT‘ ‚HEILANSTALT‘
MESERITZ-OBRAWALDE
ERMORDET 9.3.1944

Erna Paula Liesbeth Meyer, née Nacke, born 12.2.1898 in Hamburg, patient at the Friedrichsberg State Hospital from 7.11.1927 to 23.12.1927 and from 22.8.1931 to 17.6.1935, admitted to Farmsen care home on 17.6.1935, transferred to the Meseritz-Obrawalde sanatorium and nursing home, murdered there on 9.3.1944

Flotowstraße 15 (Barmbek-Süd)

Erna Paula Liesbeth Meyer (forename Erna), née Nacke, was born in Hamburg on 12 February 1898. She was the daughter of the basket maker Gustav Herrmann Nacke, born on 26 April 1870 in Helfenberger Grund near Dresden, and his wife Pauline, née Kaiser, born on 24 January 1875 in Zduny, south of Danzig. The parents had married in Hamburg on 5 September 1893.

Erna Nacke's older brother, Waldemar Gustav Hermann, born on 28 August 1893, was born in Hamburg, while her younger sister Hertha Margarete Martha was born in Dresden on 18 July 1907. There, Erna Nacke attended school up to first grade (first grade was the highest grade at that time). She then worked as a florist.

The Nacke family probably returned to Hamburg in 1914. In 1915 they were listed in the Hamburg address book at Weidestraße 67 in Barmbek, shortly afterwards at Flotowstraße 15, today Barmbek-Süd.

Erna Nacke's future husband Hermann Meyer, born on 26 December 1890, also lived at Weidestraße 67.

Seventeen-year-old Erna Nacke and 24-year-old Hermann Meyer married on 24 July 1915 in Hamburg. At this time, Erna Meyer was also working as a florist. Her address on the marriage certificate was Bergstraße 26, where she probably lived and worked in the flower shop of the Seyderheim Brothers, who had their business there. Like Erna Nacke's father, her husband was also a basket maker. At the time of marriage, Hermann Meyer lived in Kirchwärder. (Kirchwärder was divided at that time. One part belonged to Hamburg, the other, where Hermann Meyer lived, was called Preußisch-Kirchwärder and was under the Winsen local office. This is why this part was called "Kirchwärder, Kreis Winsen an der Luhe" in the documents. It became part of Hamburg in 1938 as a result of the Greater Hamburg Act/Groß-Hamburg Gesetz).

The young couple rented a flat in Hamburg at Schumannstraße 45a, then in the Uhlenhorst district, now Barmbek-Süd. During her husband's military service Erna Meyer lived there alone with her daughter Irmgard, who was born on 3 September 1917,

Hermann Meyer, who was a soldier on the Western Front during the First World War, did not return from captivity until 1920 and suffered severely from war trauma.

Erna Meyer's father also did military service in the First World War. He died on 4 May 1917 and was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery. A gravestone commemorates him there.

The widow Pauline, Erna Meyer's mother, married the basket maker Emil Max Schuster in 1919, born on 14 November 1872 in Herzberg (at that time district of Schweinitz, now Sachsen-Anhalt). She also lived at Flotowstraße 15 for many years with her second husband.

After Hermann Meyer's return from captivity his children Elfriede and Gerhard were born in Schumannstraße on 15 December 1920, respectively on 22 September 1922. Presumably the flat was now too small for the family of five. In 1923 or 1924, the family moved to Hamburg-Moorfleth, Elbdeich 123, where Marianna Meyer was born on 27 June 1927.

In Moorfleth, Erna Meyer suffered two heavy blows of fate. Her eldest daughter Irmgard drowned in 1924 and her son Gerhard in 1926, both in the Dove Elbe.

The family later said that Erna's mental instability began with the drowning of her children. Hermann Meyer had searched for the bodies of both children for days in the Dove Elbe and then found them. It was rumoured in the family that Erna Meyer, already pregnant with Marianna, had wanted to commit suicide in the Dove Elbe after Gerhard's death.

At times, Erna Meyer was no longer able to look after the house and the children. Her husband reported that she had expressed delusions, plagued him with strong unfounded jealousy and was suspicious of the neighbours, who allegedly influenced her through thought transference. Therefore he consulted the family doctor Lohse. The doctor saw Erna Meyer’s increasing nervous and mental disorders as a danger to herself and her relatives and admitted her to an institution. Erna Meyer was put to the Hamburg Harbour Hospital for observation from 1 to 7 November 1927. From there, she was transferred to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital on 7 November 1927 with a diagnosis of "paranoid psychopathy".

Marianna, the youngest daughter, was four months old at the time, Elfriede 6 years old.

The transfer to Friedrichsberg was against Erna Meyer's will. She did not know why she was committed to there, felt she had been misjudged and showed no insight into her illness. When she was admitted there, she was said to have had a "tense facial expression", to have been somewhat "ludicrous" (silly, empty cheerfulness with a touch of the simple-minded) and weak in affect (affects = emotions), but orientated in every direction. She was said to have smiled about the death of the two children without any adequate affect. Her medical records state: "She denied all the morbid symptoms reported by her husband, expressed herself in an evasive and distracted manner. Her affect was equal zero and never corresponded to the situation, her facial expressions were stiff and empty, her posture bound. The patient remained like this throughout the observation. She occupied herself somewhat, but showed no healthy interests and had no natural rapport with her surroundings. [...] She was released to her mother on 23 December 1927, unhealed and against medical advice."

In 1929/1930, her husband Hermann initiated a divorce. It was rumoured in the family that he wanted to remarry to provide for the children and the household. The Friedrichsberg State Hospital handed the Hamburg District Court a comprehensive report whether Erna Meyer, as a result of her mental illness, was able to "fulfill her duties as a wife and whether she was fit to stand trial, as well as the nature of the illness". It stated: "It is certain that the defendant is mentally ill. [...] Any prospect of restoration of mental communion [with the husband] is out of the question. The present illness is already at an advanced stage, especially with regard to the basic symptom of affective disorders, so that one must already [...] speak of a moderate degree of stupefaction. […] The prognosis of such a disease, once it has advanced to such a stage, is poor. A regression of the symptoms listed as essential is not to be expected. The most favorable thing that can happen to the patient is a stop of the disease at its current stage."

The marriage between Erna and Hermann Meyer was divorced on 8 February 1931. Hermann Meyer remarried on 24 September 1932. His second wife, Greetje Henriette Therese Freese, brought their daughter Else Freese, born in 1922, into the marriage.

According to family stories, Hermann Meyer and one of his sisters looked after the two daughters during Erna Meyer's stay in hospital. After Hermann Meyer's second marriage, the girls lived with the new family.

On 22 August 1931, Erna Meyer was once again admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital. After the divorce, she had lived with her mother and stepfather at Flotowstraße 15. Wilhelm Weygandt, the medical director of the Friedrichsberg State Hospital, reported to the Hamburg welfare authorities in October 1931: "The prognosis for the patient admitted here for the second time is poor. It may be possible to release her to her mother once more, but she will probably soon return and remain permanently institutionalized".

In the course of the evacuation of the Friedrichsberg state hospital from 1934 onwards, patients from there probably were also transferred to the Oberaltenallee care home, but certainly to the Farmsen care home. Erna Meyer was probably admitted to the Farmsen branch on 17 June 1935 as part of this restructuring.

From February 1941, residents were transported away from the Farmsen care home under the pretext that they were to be protected from the dangers of the air war. We know of at least two transports that took place in March and August 1941 with the destination "Meseritz-Obrawalde Sanatorium and Nursing Home", at that time province of Brandenburg (now Międzyrzecz, Poland). Erna Meyer was also taken there with one of these transports.

The Meseritz-Obrawalde institution had been a place of decentralized "euthanasia" since 1942. Immediately after the patients had arrived, the medical staff decided on the basis of their physical condition whether someone was to be killed immediately or whether they first had to work, for example in the nursery or in the sewing workshop. Those who were no longer able to work were given medication that led to their death.

Erna Meyer survived three years in the Meseritz-Obrawalde institution, where she died on 9 March 1944.

Translation: Elisabeth Wendland
Stand: December 2024
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: StaH 332-5 9086 Geburtsregister Nr. 1429/1893 (Waldemar Gustav Hermann Nacke), 6366 Geburtsregister Nr. 491/1898 (Erna Paula Liesbeth Nacke), 2814 Heiratsregister Nr. 995/1893 (Gustav Herrmann Nacke/Pauline Kaiser), 6523 Heiratsregister Nr. 313/1915 (Erna Paula Liesbeth Nacke/Hermann Meyer), 6556 Heiratsregister Nr. 620/1919 (Emil Max Schuster/Paulina verw. Nacke geb. Kaiser), 6962 Sterberegister Nr. 1140/1917 (Gustav Herrmann Nacke); Standesamt Dresden III, Geburtsregister Nr. 1286/1907 (Hertha Margarete Martha Nacke); Institut für Geschichte und Ethik der Medizin Hamburg, Archiv, (Patientenakte Erna Meyer der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg. Peter von Rönn u.a., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 377 ff. Auskünfte von Stefanie Enns.