Hartheim Euthanasia Centre
Encyclopedia
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
. It was housed in Hartheim Castle in the municipality of Alkoven near Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
.
Statistics
In June 1945 during investigations by US Forces into the former gassing facility at Hartheim, AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
investigating officer, Charles Dameron, broke open a steel safe in which the so-called Hartheim Statistics were found. This was a 39-page brochure produced for the internal purposes of the Nazi Euthanasia Programme (Aktion T4) containing monthly statistics of the gassing of mentally and physically handicapped patients (described in the document as "disinfection") carried out in the six euthanasia institutes on the territory of the Reich. An employee of the establishment revealed in 1968 and 1970, as a witness, that he had to compile the material at the end of 1942. The Hartheim Statistics included a page on which it was calculated that in "disinfecting 70,273 people with a life expectation of 10 years" food to the value of 141,775,573.80 Reichsmarks had been saved.
Numbers killed in the first extermination phase in Hartheim
According to these statistics a total of 18,269 peopled were killed in the gas chamberGas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
at the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre over a period of 16 months between May 1940 and 1 September 1941, as follows:
| 1940 | 1941 | Total killed | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | |
| 633 | 982 | 1,449 | 1,740 | 1,123 | 1,400 | 1,396 | 947 | 943 | 1,178 | 974 | 1,123 | 1,106 | 1,364 | 735 | 1,176 | 18,269 |
These statistics only cover the first extermination phase of the Nazi's euthanasia programme, sometimes called Action T4, which was brought to an end by Hitler's
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
order dated 24 August 1941 following protests by the Roman Catholic Church.
In all it is estimated that a total of 30,000 people were murdered at Hartheim. Amongst the killed were the sick and the handicapped as well a prisoners from concentration camps. The killings were carried out using carbon monoxide poisoning
Carbon monoxide poisoning
Carbon monoxide poisoning occurs after enough inhalation of carbon monoxide . Carbon monoxide is a toxic gas, but, being colorless, odorless, tasteless, and initially non-irritating, it is very difficult for people to detect...
.
14 f 13 "Special Treatment" programme
Just three days after the formal end of Action T4 a lorry arrived in Hartheim with 70 Jewish inmates from Mauthausen concentration camp who were subsequently executed there. The Hartheim killing centre achieved a special notoriety, not just because it was here where the largest number of patients were gassed, but as part of Action 14f13Action 14f13
Action 14f13, also called "Sonderbehandlung 14f13", was a campaign of the Third Reich to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Also called "invalid" or "prisoner euthanasia", the campaign culled the sick, elderly and those deemed no longer fit for work from the rest of the prisoners in a...
Hartheim was also the institute in which the most concentration camp prisoners were murdered. Their number are estimated at 12,000.
Those no longer capable of working at Mauthausen, especially in the quarries, as well as politically undesirable prisoners, were brought to Hartheim to be executed. In the papers these transfers were disguised with terms like "recreation holiday". The entries under "sickness" included "German haters", "communist" or "Poland fanatic". From 1944 the prisoners were no longer selected by T4 doctors; it was only a question of securing space in Mauthausen camp quickly. Other transports came from the concentration camp of Gusen and possibly also from Ravensbrück
Ravensbrück concentration camp
Ravensbrück was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück ....
.
Death doctors
The Action T4 organisators, Viktor BrackViktor Brack
Viktor Brack , was a Nazi war criminal, the organiser of the Euthanasia Programme, Action T4, where the Nazi state systematically murdered disabled German people...
and Karl Brandt ordered that the execution of the sick had to be carried out by medical doctors because the authorisation by Hitler dated 1 September 1939 only referred to doctors. The operation of the gas tap was thus the task of the gassing doctors in the death institutes. However during the course of the euthanasia programme, the gas cocks were also operated by others, in the absence of the doctors or for other special reasons. Also many doctors did not use their real names in the documents, but used other names to disguise themselves.
The following death doctors worked in Hartheim:
- Head: Rudolf Lonauer: 1. April 1940 to April 1945
- Deputy head: Georg Renno: May 1940 to February 1945
Niedernhart holding station
The Action T4 euthanasia centres had intermediate holding stations for victims. For example, many lorries carrying victims to their destination at Hartheim went via the Niedernhart Mental Institute in Linz, where Rudolf Lonauer was the senior doctor as he was in Hartheim. There victims were mainly killed by starvation or medical overdose. Time and again the screening and categorisation of prisoners was carried out. A bus was then filled with the chosen victims and driven to Hartheim.Move of euthanasia head office to Hartheim and Weißenbach am Attersee
In August 1943 a result of the air war the head office for the Nazi Euthanasia Programme was moved from Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin to the Ostmark region, which was then humorously described as the air raid shelt of the Reich. The statistic and documents by Paul Nitsche – correspondence, notices and reports ended up in Hartheim (office department, accounts office) and the Schoberstein Recreation Centre near Weißenbach am Attersee (medical department) – presumably as part of the move of the T4 head office.Well-known victims
- Bernhard Heinzmann (1903–1942), German Roman Catholic priest
- Friedrich Karas (1895–1942), Austrian Roman Catholic priest
- Jan KowalskiJan Maria Michał KowalskiJan Maria Michał Kowalski was the first Minister Generalis of the order of the Mariavites. At the time of his selection, he was the most important person in this Christian movement. He was consecrated Bishop in 1909 by the Utrecht Union Old Catholic Archbishop Gerardus Gul...
(1871–1942), Polish bishop of the Old Catholic Church of the Mariavites - Ida Maly (1894–1941), Austrian artist
- Gottfried Neunhäuserer (1882–1941), Austrian Benedictine father
- Werner Sylten (1893–1942), Evangelical theologian
The clergy
A total of 310 Polish, seven German, six Czech, four Luxemburg, three Dutch and two Belgian priests were murdered. Many of them were transported from the Priest's Block in Dachau concentration camp. The chaplain, Hermann Scheipers, was also moved to the Invalid's Block, in order to be taken to Hartheim. Scheiper's sister – who stayed in contact by letter – tracked down a certain Dr. Bernsdorf, employee of the RSHA Berlin-Oranienburg, who was responsible for the clergy imprisoned in the Priest's Block. She confronted him with by stating that, in Münsterland, it was an open secret that imprisoned priests were sent to the gas chamber. Bernsdorf apparently became very nervous during the discussion and telephoned the Commandant's Office at Dachau. Scheipers reported that it was on that same day, the 13 August 1942, that there was a response: he and three other German clergymen were moved from the Invalid's Block (here the SS assembled prisoners for onward transportation) back to the Priest's Block.Hartheim T4 staff
- Erwin LambertErwin LambertErwin Hermann Lambert was a perpetrator of the Holocaust. In profession, he was a master mason, building trades foreman, Nazi Party member and member of the Schutzstaffel with the rank of SS-Unterscharführer...
: master bricklayer, oversaw construction of the crematorium and gas chambers - Rudolf Lonauer: head Nazi euthanasia doctor in Hartheim, Niedernhart Mental Asylum in Linz and Geschwend Castle in Neuhofen an der Krems
- Vinzenz Nohel, worker, "burner"
- Franz ReichleitnerFranz ReichleitnerFranz Karl Reichleitner was an Austrian SS-Hauptsturmführer who served in Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust. Reichleitner served as the second and last commandant of Sobibor extermination camp from 1 September 1942 until the camp's closure on or about 17 October 1943...
: criminal policeman, management; – was later commandant of Sobibor extermination campSobibór extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor... - Georg Renno: psychiatrist, deputy head Nazi euthanasie doctor
- Anton Schrottmayer, care worker, suicide
- Franz StanglFranz StanglFranz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty...
: criminal policeman, Gestapo official, deputy office manager; - was later camp commandant of Sobibor and TreblinkaTreblinka extermination campTreblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women... - Karl Steubel: senior care worker, suicide
- Josef Vallaster: worker, "burner", later overseer at Sobibor extermination campSobibór extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
- Gustav Wagner; – was later deputy commandant at Sobibor extermination campSobibór extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
- Christian WirthChristian WirthChristian Wirth was a German police and SS officer who was one of the leading contributors to the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard....
: criminal commissar, office manager; – was later commandant in Belzec extermination campBelzec extermination campBelzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...
Those chiefly responsible for recruiting the lower-ranking staff, according to subsequent witness statements, were the two Gau inspectors, Stefan Schachermayr (1912–2008) and Franz Peterseil (1907–1991), as well as Adolf Gustav Kaufmann (1902–1974), head of the inspection department of the T4 central office in Berlin.
Sources
- Henry FriedlanderHenry FriedlanderHenry Friedlander is a Jewish historian of the Holocaust noted for his arguments in favor of broadening the scope of casualties of the Holocaust....
, Johanna Friedmann (trans.): Der Weg zum NS-Genozid. Von der Euthanasie zur Endlösung. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8270-0265-6. – Inhaltsverzeichnis online (pdf). - Heinz Eberhard Gabriel (ed.), Wolfgang Neugebauer (ed.): Vorreiter der Vernichtung? Von der Zwangssterilisierung zur Ermordung. Zur Geschichte der NS-Euthanasie in Wien, Vol. 2. Böhlau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99325-X. – contents online (pdf).
- Mireille Horsinga-Renno, Martin Bauer (trans.): Der Arzt von Hartheim: Wie ich die Wahrheit über die Nazi-Vergangenheit meines Onkels herausfand. rororo paperback. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-62307-3. – text online.
- Brigitte Kepplinger: Die Tötungsanstalt Hartheim 1940–1945. 21 pages. o. J., o. O. – full text online (pdf).
- Brigitte Kepplinger (ed.), Gerhart Marckhgott (ed.), Hartmut Reese (ed.): Tötungsanstalt Hartheim. 2nd expanded edition. Oberösterreich in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Vol. 3. Oberösterreichisches Landesarchiv, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-900313-89-0. – description of contents online (pdf).
- Ernst KleeErnst KleeErnst Klee is a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he is best known for his exposure and documentation of the medical crimes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, much of which is concerned with the Action T4 forced euthanasia program.-Life and work:Klee was first trained as...
(ed.): Dokumente zur Euthanasie. (Original ed. from 1985). Fischer-Taschenbücher, Vol. 4327. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-24327-0. - Ernst Klee: Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich. Karrieren vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-10-039310-4. (Chapter 10: Österreich).
- Ernst Klee: Euthanasie im NS-Staat: die Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens. unabridged edition, 12th ed. Fischer-Taschenbücher, Vol. 4326. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 3-596-24326-2.
- Ernst Klee: Euthanasie im Dritten Reich. Die Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens. fully reworked edition. Fischer-Taschenbücher, Vol. 18674, Die Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18674-7. – Inhaltstext online. (formerly under the title: Euthanasie im NS-Staat).
- Walter Kohl: Die Pyramiden von Hartheim. Euthanasie in Oberösterreich 1940 bis 1945. Edition Geschichte der Heimat. Steinmaßl, Grünbach 1997, ISBN 3-900943-51-6. – Inhaltsverzeichnis online (pdf).
- Walter Kohl: "Ich fühle mich nicht schuldig". Georg Renno, Euthanasiearzt. Paul-Zsolnay-Verlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-552-04973-8.
- Kurt Leininger: Verordnetes Sterben – verdrängte Erinnerungen. NS-Euthanasie in Schloss Hartheim. Verlagshaus der Ärzte, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-901488-82-5.
- Tom Matzek: Das Mordschloss. Auf den Spuren von NS-Verbrechen in Schloss Hartheim. 1. Auflage. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-218-00710-0. (Inhaltsbeschreibung).
- Johannes Neuhauser (ed.): Hartheim – wohin unbekannt. Briefe & Dokumente. Publication P No 1 – Bibliothek der Provinz. Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra 1992, ISBN 3-900878-47-1.
- Franz Rieger: Schattenschweigen oder Hartheim. Roman. (Zeitkritischer Roman). Styria, Graz (u.a.) 1985, ISBN 3-222-11641-5. (Ausgabe 2002: ISBN 3-85252-496-2).
Other literature see main article: Nazi Euthanasia Programme or Action T4
Audio and video
- Tom Matzek: Das Mordschloss. Eine Dokumentation über die Gräuel in Schloss Hartheim. TV programme by ORF, 2001, Brennpunkt. 1 videocassette (VHS, ca. 45 minutes). S. n., s. l. 2001. Permalink Österreichischer Bibliothekenverbund, Description of contents.
External links
- Online presence of the Schloss Hartheim memorial site
- Mühldorf History Society – Information on the residents of the Ecksberg Handicapped Centre, who were murdered at Hartheim.