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Gottfried Simon * 1885

Langenhorner Chaussee 560 (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

ermordet am 23.9.1940 in der Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg an der Havel

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Gottfried Simon, born on 12 Dec. 1885 in Mannheim, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Langenhorner Chaussee 560 Asklepios-Klinik (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

Gottfried Simon was one of three sons of the Mannheim-based merchant David Simon, born in Mainz on 27 June 1851, and his wife Wilhelmine Leondine Louise, née Salomon, born in Mainz on 7 Oct. 1860. In later documents, "Gottfried Fritz" was sometimes noted as the first name. According to the birth certificate, however, he only had the first name "Gottfried".

The parents had married on 2 Feb. 1882 in their native town. They were of the Jewish faith. David Simon had settled in Mannheim in 1878 to run an agency business there. After the marriage, Leondine Simon moved in with her husband in Mannheim.

On 5 Dec. 1882, the Simon couple had their first child, Leo. He was followed by Gottfried on 12 Dec. 1885 and Franz on 19 May 1890. All sons were born in Mannheim.
David Simon seems to have been quite successful professionally. He worked as an "agent” (representative), merchant, and banker. In addition, according to the residents’ registration card, he had also assumed the office of consul, though for which country he served is not recorded. He died in 1923. His widow left Germany on 21 Mar. 1936 and took up residence in Vienna.

Gottfried Simon lived in Mannheim until 1915. He indicated that he was a businessman. After that, his whereabouts can only be traced incompletely. Between 1923 and 1925, he was reportedly imprisoned in Frankenthal (Palatinate). The reason is not known. In Sept. 1925, he left for Vienna. In 1934, he resided in Berlin-Lichterfelde.

Before 14 Nov. 1939, Gottfried Simon was a patient of the Neustadt State Sanatorium (Landesheilanstalt Neustadt) and on that day was transferred to the Neustrelitz-Strelitz State Hospital, sanatorium and nursing home department. The documents still available do not provide any information about the reason for his admission to the institution.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

The Neustrelitz-Strelitz State Hospital, sanatorium and nursing home department, reported in a letter dated 12 Sept. 1940 to the chief public prosecutor in Altona "that the asocial lunatic, the Jew Gottfried, Fritz, Israel Simon, born on 12 Dec. 1885 in Mannheim, who had been transferred from Neustadt to Altona on 14 Nov. 1939, will be taken to Langenhorn by a local transport company on 17th of this month.”

This is what happened. On 17 Sept. 1940, a supervisor by the name of Buck transferred Gottfried Simon to the Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home.” On the same day, the Neustrelitz-Strelitz State Hospital, sanatorium and nursing home department, reported execution to the chief public prosecutor in Altona.

After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time, on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

It is not known whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of Gottfried Simon’s death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the persons concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). On the birth register entry of Gottfried Simon it was noted: "Died on 9 Jan. 1941 in Chelm no. I 8/37/41 B. 15/41,” but the murdered in Brandenburg were never in Chelm or Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

We have no information about the fates of Gottfried Simon’s brothers Leo and Franz.

We do not know Gottfried Simon's personal home address in Hamburg. A Stolperstein on the site of what is now the Asklepios Clinic North - Ochsenzoll (formerly Langenhorn Medical and Nursing Home) commemorates him.

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

Stand: March 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 5; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; Stadtarchiv Mannheim, Geburtsregister Nr. 1991/1885 Gottfried Simon, Ledigenmeldekarte AB 1143 0966 0 Gottfried Simon; Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin, 5.12-3/27, Nr. 756 Fürsorgeamt Güstrow.
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