Germany: Erlangen's Former Sanitorium

Back in 2009, I wrote an article about Erlangen, the German town where I was stationed with the US Army back in the 1960s. Due to my connection to the city, I wrote an English-language history of Erlangen (Erlangen-An American’s History of a German Town-2005). The article I wrote in 2009 concerned the city’s quandry over what to do with their sanitorium (Heil und Pflegeanstalt-healing and nursing institute), an old structure with a long history. During a part of the Nazi era, mentally ill patients were either euthanized there or sent to larger euthanasia centers to be killed. In many cases, patients were simply allowed to starve to death.

Presently, much of the original building has been torn down. I believe part of it, the front facade has been maintained as part of the Erlangen University Clinic. The site is at least partially protected under Germany’s monument protection law.

In the meantime, the state of Bavaria has appointed local points of contact for relatives or descendants of the victims who wish to learn more about the circumstances of their family members’ death so long ago. I have translated an interview of the representative handling  Erlangen and vicinity (Middle Franconia), Ms. Katrin Kasparek by the Erlanger Nachrichten (Nord Bayern).

 https://www.nordbayern.de/region/erlangen/auch-fur-den-bezirk-mittelfranken-ist-ein-kunftiger-gedenkort-in-erlangen-von-bedeutung-1.11196544

Memorial for victims of National Socialist sickness murders

A memorial has meaning also for the Middle Franconia district

by Eva Kettler  July 8. 2021, 18:30 

Caption beneath photo: 

The Erlangen Sanitorium around 1890- During this time, the facility grew to 750 patients. Today, it is about the people who were in the sanitorium in the Nazi era. 

Erlangen- The Bavarian districts regularly receive inquires from relatives of former patients, who were murdered in the sanitoriums during National Socialism. The Middle Franconia district has entrusted the historian Katrin Kasparek with supporting relatives of victims of National Socialist euthanasia in the clarification of their family histories. 

Ms. Kasparek, how did you get this task with the district?

 -Two years ago, the so-called Hartheim Declaration, a memorial initiative for the victims of National Socialist “euthanasia”, was formulated. The Bavarian District Assembly has joined with this declaration. With it, the districts, as representatives of the successor institutions of the former sanitoriums,  committed to appointing points of contact for the relatives. I had already been responsible for two years researching the history of the district nursing care of the Middle Franconian district under National Socialism. 

Now the district would like to have someone in me to whom people can turn with their questions about the National Socialist “euthanasia” in the district or in the district clinics. The interest tends to be growing.

Caption: Historian and social pedologist Katrin Kasparek

Which questions are asked?

Many relatives, for example, actually know that there was a family member in the institution, but they don’t exactly know what actually happened. Others have an assumption because the date of death was in a (certain) time where the probability lies that it was not a natural death. The inquiries always landed till now in the district clinic administration. There, however, they could only give limited help because there are many different individual research paths that must be pursued. I am trying to help here.

What are your other tasks?

The research situation is such that in the coming years, there is still much to do. At the moment, I am researching the question of what role the predecessors of the Middle Franconian District had in the National Socialist crimes and especially the history of the Ansbach Sanitorium. 

Caption: (Erlangen) Sanitorium west wing almost completely torn down.

There is also an on-site research project on the history of the Erlangen sanitorium. The district would like, however, that beyond pure research, that there be mediation work carried out. So I am also designing events and plans for a traveling exhibition for schools, municipalities, and interested institutions for the coming year

The direct relatives are getting older and fewer, but nevertheless, the interest is increasing?

Yes, it is. I was really not conscious of that, though I have already had a lot to do with National Socialist themes and the culture of remembrance. With the relatives in the last few years, there is a kind of optimism, as following generations simply have other possibilities to open themselves emotionally to this topic. In the families, often there was nothing spoken about the people who died at that time in sanitoriums. Often it is the grandchildren or great-grandchildren, those who ask previously not allowed questions and have no fear about breaking family taboos. You can see that the emotional attitude about the topic is changing. The reservations of earlier generations are simply greater. That has something to do with the experienced stigmatization pertaining to the topic of psychiatry.

Is it also a question of people not wanting to out themselves as a relative of someone who had a mental illness?

We often read that is the reason why people don’t talk about it. But I believe it is also a very natural fear of contact with the topic. Who simply walks into a psychiatric clinic? Psychiatric clinics are obviously not the places where people stay. Many people perceive them as something strange, that also causes them fear.

As a district employee, in your view, what must be given special attention in creating a place of learning and remembrance in Erlangen?

You have to ask yourself questions: Who or what do you really want to remember? Do you want to remember victims of medicine, who came from Erlangen? Do you want to illuminate the sanitorium? Or different groups of victims who came from completely different areas?

Can you explain further?

The Erlangen Sanitorium was not just a clinic for Erlangen residents, rather it had a collection area extended to Erlangen, Nuremberg, Furth, and other districts. That was, however, more of a theoretical construct.

Caption below photo: The tearing down of the sanitorium moves ahead

In practice, there were many relocations, which in the time of the Second World War, many people from Upper Franconia as well as from charitable institutions, like the Neuendettelsau Institute were sheltered in Erlangen.  The most important thing here was to fill up the sanitorium, in order to save costs.  Residents of Erlangen were also relocated to Ansbach, to fill up free spaces there. Who are we talking about when we talk about “Erlangen victims”? I think in Erlangen, in the conception of the memorial site, one of the next steps is to define, about what and about whom we want (this) to concern. And  I would be happy if the actual references which are being considered would get priority. Time after time, I see how current the topic is and how frightening close that historical events are to medical-ethical questions of the present.

What are you referring to?

For example, the current assisted death debate. The question, can we assist death from outside-and the ethical problems, which that brings. Helping someone to die medically, who cannot do it himself-that brings us to the fundamental issues of eugenics. Another example is pre-natal diagnostics- all topics that have great relevance for the present and the future.

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