The systematic killing of mentally ill people in Germany began on January 18, 1940 in Haar. On that day, under the direction of the director of the institution and a staunch National Socialist, Hermann Pfannmüller, 25 patients from what was then the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home were transported to the Grafeneck killing center. They were the first victims of Action T4. Its goal: the destruction of lives that the Nazis considered unworthy of living. Since that day, around 2,000 patients have been deported from Haar, first to Grafeneck and later to Hartheim, and murdered.
At a panel discussion this Sunday, November 13, in the small theater in Haar, BR presenter Gregor Hoppe will address the question of the culture of remembrance with regard to Nazi euthanasia. Of the participants, Irene Zauner-Leitner is responsible for education at the Hartheim Castle learning and memorial site in Upper Austria, Thomas Stöckle heads the Grafeneck memorial and Peter Brieger is medical director of the Isar-Amper-Klinikum in Haar, formerly the Eglfing- Hair.
The medical director of the clinic, Peter Brieger, emphasizes that memory work must be part of nursing training.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
As Peter Brieger recounts, the transports to the killing centers came to an end after public protests broke out in the fall of 1941, but the killings continued. Then the so-called “wild euthanasia” began in the clinics. Patients were killed by starvation or drug overdoses. There were two such famine houses in Haar: house 25 and house 22.
After the war, those responsible simply continued to work at the clinic
For Brieger it is important to keep the memory of the Nazi crimes alive, because they shape our behavior towards disabled or disadvantaged people today. “We certainly have some catching up to do when it comes to the culture of remembrance,” he says. For until well into the 1970s, most of the generation of perpetrators continued to work in the clinics. This means that the same people who were involved in the murder of patients during the Nazi regime then ran the clinics and worked in nursing. The psychiatrist Anton von Braunmühl, for example, who was deputy head of the hospital during the Nazi era and is considered to be deeply involved in the crimes, became head of the clinic from 1946 and remained so until 1957.
In the hunger houses in Haar, patients were killed through starvation.
(Photo: private)
“In this phase, of course, it was hardly possible to process anything,” says Brieger. This is also proven by the annual report of the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home from 1946. It covers the period from 1944 to 1946. Drastic years in which unbelievable crimes were committed. But both the end of the war and the killings were hardly mentioned, says Brieger. Basically, we carried on as if nothing had happened. Instead, a continuity was constructed that never existed in this way – and the perpetrators were protected.
And how do you deal with these crimes today? In addition to memorial sites that are intended to stimulate reflection, it is important to Brieger to reach the clinic staff with this topic and to make Nazi euthanasia the subject of training. “In nursing schools, in studies, in further training: the topic should and must be dealt with everywhere. We can no longer look the other way, we have to keep it up to date.”
The discussion is organized by the Center for Remembrance Culture at the University of Regensburg as part of the publication project “Remembering the Nazi Murder”. The panel discussion will take place as a Sunday matinee at 11 a.m. in the theater café of the Little Theater Haar at Casinostrasse 6. Admission is free.