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Carl Meyer als junger Mann
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Carl Meyer * 1903

Hegestraße 46 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
CARL MEYER
JG. 1903
EINGEWIESEN 1907
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT` 7.8.1943
HEILANSTALT EICHBERG
´HEILANSTALT`HADAMAR
ERMORDET 8.10.1944

Carl Paul Emil Meyer, born on 26 July 1903 in Hamburg, admitted to the ‘Alsterdorf Asylum‘ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten‘, now ‘Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf‘) on 11 May 1907, transferred via several institutions to the Landesheilanstalt Hadamar near Limburg a.d. Lahn, died there on 8 October 1944

Hegestraße 46 (Hoheluft-Ost)

Carl Paul Emil Meyer (callname Carl) was born on 26 July 1903 in his parents' flat at Hegestraße 46, then in the Eppendorf district, now Hoheluft-Ost in Hamburg. His parents, the postman and later postal assistant Julius Friedrich August Meyer and his wife Henriette Dorothea, née Jansen, had married on 25 March 1897 in the then still independent Prussian city of Altona.

There were four other siblings in the family: Theodor Ludwig Carl Meyer, born on 29 November 1898, Anna Auguste Wilhelmine Meyer, born on 25 October 1899, Julius Heinrich Ferdinand Meyer, born on 24 October 1901. The fourth sibling, about whom we do not know more details, was probably born after Carl Meyer.

In May 1907, Carl Meyer was committed to the ‘Alsterdorf Asylum‘ (‘Alsterdorfer Anstalten‘, now ‘Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf‘) by the Hamburg General Poorhouse (Allgemeine Armenanstalt Hamburg) because of ‘idiocy’ (at the time a term for a severe form of intellectual disability). The reasons given by the poorhouse stated that ‘according to the mother, the child has been crying in a martially unmotivated manner since birth’. Treatment in a polyclinic had been unsuccessful. At times, the child is said to have hit his head with his hands. When he was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum, the four-year-old boy was unable to speak. According to his medical records, he expressed neither affection nor aversion and did not respond to his mother.

Carl Meyer often had to be treated in the infirmary during his time in Alsterdorf. He repeatedly suffered from eczema and keratitis (inflammation of the cornea of the eye). In the reports on his stays in the infirmary and hospital, scratch marks, inflammation of the oral mucosa, influenza, scabies and angina were mentioned. In March 1908, an inflammation of the periosteum was diagnosed, which appeared to be cured in August, but recurred in December 1908 and persisted until June 1909. In February 1909, another abscess developed, this time on the left elbow, which was to be treated with an amputation of the elbow joint. However, this was obviously not enough, as Carl's left arm was ultimately amputated. The keratitis continued to recur in the following years and led to permanent visual impairment.

From June 1911, eight-year-old Carl Meyer attended the residential school at the Alsterdorf Asylum. From Easter 1912, his medical file contains detailed, empathetic reports from the teacher, who always wrote his first name with a K, contrary to the correct spelling: ‘Karl is developed according to his age. [...] His speech [is] quite slurred and incomprehensible. His left arm is amputated. Karl shows a strong urge to move and play. He is easily excited. A small remark from his classmates can upset him so much that he scratches and hits himself. He has a lot of compassion. He mentions almost nothing about his parents and siblings. Karl likes to give something to his mates. He has a sense of justice and duty. The success of his work gives him a loud burst of joy. Karl shows great, involuntary attention during visualisation and drawing lessons. Sometimes he can be forced to pay attention by a word, sometimes not at all. This requires frequent encouragement as K. finds it very difficult to concentrate his thoughts. It is very difficult for him to grasp word concepts and he forgets them easily. He can retain factual ideas quite well. Despite his poor speech, he likes to retell short stories. The retelling shows little imagination. K. can express himself very poorly in visualisation lessons.

His psyche is so poor that he cannot find words for some of his thoughts and then answers with the question. He knows and names colours and shapes. His drawings and modelled objects testify to his great powers of observation. He produces all manual skills slowly and relatively well. Karl has reached the class target. Sincerely Hertha Vollbom, class teacher’.

In September 1912 the teacher wrote: ‘Karl is very short-sighted. His vocabulary has expanded considerably.’ [...] He is reluctant to answer questions. He prefers to tell everything he knows about the subject under discussion. K. looks at the object very carefully, then models it. He is particularly good at modelling animals. He draws with great perseverance and accuracy. K. can read small sentences in cursive in his pronounciation. He writes the letter forms well, but much too thickly. He cannot do maths. He lacks numerical concepts. He sings well, but incomprehensibly.’

When he was eleven years old, the teacher wrote: ‘Karl is a friendly boy in need of love. He seems quite anxious and intimidated, which is particularly evident when one approaches him, or K. is said to appear; then he holds his arm protectively in front of his face from a distance, as if to ward off a blow. He is excited and nervous, but if you remain friendly to him, his anxiety disappears and he shows his gratitude through timid tenderness. Sometimes K. starts crying in the middle of lessons, when I ask him, he points to his amputated left arm and says he has to cry, he only has one arm. Karl likes to talk about his father a lot. A half-finished piece of work gets him as excited as when he receives a picture book or something similar as a present. K. often jumps into the air like a little rubber ball: he is doubly accessible after such joy.’

Carl Meyer's parents tried to maintain contact with their son. Between 1910 and 1925, there are repeated entries in the medical records about leaves of absence to visit his parents.

In October 1924, he was characterised as clean, agreeable and good-natured. His favourite job was cleaning brass parts.

In 1932, Carl Meyer escaped from the institution after reprimands had caused him to become severely agitated. He was brought back.

Later, his main occupation is said to have been cleaning the institution grounds of waste paper. It was repeatedly said that Carl Meyer also collected copper and coins, which he cleaned to a shine. Cars driving onto the institution grounds would have attracted his full attention and he would then clean their bonnets.

There are no reports of therapeutic measures in his medical records, so it can be assumed that few or none were taken. This is also supported by the fact that Carl Meyer was transferred to the ‘Stadtheim’ in March 1935. This educational institution for boys was only separated from Alsterdorf Asylum by Bodelschwingstraße. The institution leased it from the city of Hamburg and occupied it from 1934 with male residents who needed little care.

The asylum doctor, SA member Gerhard Kreyenberg, summarised Carl Meyer's condition to the authorities in April 1936 as follows: ‘Patient suffers from congenital middle-grade feeblemindedness. He can neither read nor write, but can make very nice drawings of technical objects. He complies reasonably well with the house rules, but can also become very agitated at times, especially when he is reprimanded. He does not do any regular work and is not really able to do so because of his amputated left arm, but he looks for work everywhere, preferably cleaning taps, door handles and the like. His eyesight is considerably impaired because of his corneal opacity. Further institutionalisation is necessary. Dr Kreyenberg’.

Kreyenberg also expressed this view in the following years, emphasising the negative aspects: ‘At times he can [...] become agitated and then rant and rave for hours in vulgar language. With regard to clothing and personal hygiene, he requires strict supervision as he is very unclean’.

Carl Meyer's time in the Alsterdorf Asylum ended on 7 August 1943. During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 (Operation Gomorrah), the Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered damage on the night of 29/30 July 1943 and then again on 3/4 August 1943. The head of the institution, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, asked the health authorities to approve the transfer of 750 patients, allegedly to make room for the wounded and bomb-damaged. In three transports between 7 and 16 August, a total of 468 girls and women, boys and men were transferred to the ‘State Sanatorium Eichberg’ (‘Landesheilanstalt Eichberg’) near Eltville am Rhein, to the ‘Curative Education Institution Kalmenhof’ (‘Heilerziehungsanstalt Kalmenhof’) in Idstein in Rheingau, to the ‘Sanatorium and Nursing home Mainkofen’ (‘Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Mainkofen’) near Passau and to the ‘Wagner von Jauregg – Curative and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna’ (‘Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien’, also known as the institution ‘Am Steinhof’) in Vienna.

Carl Meyer was one of the 76 children and men who were transferred from the Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home to the ‘Eichberg State Sanatorium’ on 7 August 1943, along with 78 other men. The last entry in his medical file is dated 7 August 1943: ‘Moved to Eichberg due to severe damage to the institution caused by air raids.’

During the first phase of the Nazi ‘Euthanasia’ programme, the Eichberg state sanatorium was one of the intermediate institutions for the Hadamar killing centre until August 1941. After the official end of the ‘Euthanasia’ programme in August 1941, the murders continued in Eichberg itself through systematic malnutrition and overdoses of medication, combined with nursing neglect.

The Central Clearing Office for Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes, Berlin, Tiergartenstraße 4, a branch of the Nazi ‘Euthanasia’ organisation, informed the Alsterdorf Asylum in a letter dated 29 February 1944 that Carl Meyer was now in the ‘Weilmünster State Sanatorium’ (‘Landesheilanstalt Weilmünster’). He had been transferred there on 13 October 1943 and then on 2 October 1944 to the ‘Hadamar State sanatorium’ (‘Landesheilanstalt Hadamar’) in the district of Limburg.

Hadamar was one of the six notorious killing centres where people with mental disabilities or mental illness were murdered using carbon monoxide until the end of August 1941. People were also killed here afterwards, no longer with gas but with overdoses of medication, deliberate malnutrition and neglected medical care. In Hadamar, people were killed who were increasingly branded as ‘ballast’ for the continuation of the war and within the Nazi ideology. After being admitted to Hadamar, the chances of survival were extremely slim. Only in exceptional cases did people survive longer than a few weeks or months. One selection criterion for the time of murder was whether the people were still able to work, which was not the case with Carl Meyer.

Six days after arriving in Hadamar, he died of ‘idiocy, intestinal flu’ on 8 October 1944, according to the entry on his death certificate.

The stumbling stone (Stolperstein) commemorates him in front of his parents' former home in Hegestraße, where he spent the first years of his life.

Stand: January 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg 1903, StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13090 Geburtsregister Nr. 2189/1899 (Anna Auguste Wilhelmine Meyer), 13459 Geburtsregister Nr. 1108/1900 (Fritz Gustav Richard Meyer), 13618 Geburtsregister Nr. 2533/1898 (Theodor Ludwig Carl Meyer), 14008 Geburtsregister Nr. 1999/1903 (Carl Paul Emil Meyer), 5940 Heiratsregister Nr. 215/1897 (Julius Friedrich August Meyer; Henriette Dorothea Jansen); Standesamt Hadamar, Sterberegister Nr. 1509/1944 (Karl Paul Emil Meyer); Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Sonderakte V 125 (Meyer Carl); Briefe und Bilder aus Alsterdorf, Jahrgang 1934, S. 6; Auskunft der Gedenkstätte Hadamar per email vom 29.4.2024 über Carl Meyers Aufenthalt in Weilmünster und Hadamar. Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr – Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart 2016, S. 35, 283 ff., 299 ff., Regina Marien-Lunderup, Die Anstalten Eichberg und Weilmünster, in: Peter von Rönn u.a., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 311 ff.