No debate in recent years has kept Erlangen in such suspense as the one surrounding the former sanatorium and nursing home, the “HuPfla”. In the city’s academic milieu, that means something. Debates there are held at a high level, nothing is given to each other, but the lines of discourse can rarely be drawn clearly: In the debate about the “HuPfla”, for example, the duelists each claim to stand up for a culture of remembrance – that is, for the remembering of hundreds Patients who fell victim to Nazi “euthanasia” in the middle of the city. The question was and is not whether one remembers. But how and where.
At least one can now agree on this: It was right that an initiative fought to save a significant part of the former north wing of the “HuPfla”, which has been a listed building since 1990 – i.e. not to sacrifice part of this historic building to modern research buildings . But the dispute, which became increasingly irreconcilable, did not end there. In the meantime, he focused on the question of whether, after the western patient wing of the monument was demolished in 2020, at least its eastern wing should be saved for the culture of remembrance.
All attempts, the requests of doctors, monument conservationists and the Auschwitz Committee for the Federal Republic of Germany were in vain. In spring 2023, the east wing, also a former patient wing, was demolished. All that remains of the building in which people were starved to death is the central wing with small extensions to both side wings. 48 from what was once 166 meters.
This is what the historic sanatorium looked like at the beginning of 2023.
(Photo: Olaf Przybilla)
This Wednesday a book will be presented in which you can read about the struggles to remember. The volume with the title “NS-‘Euthanasia’ in Erlangen. Crime Scenes – Hunger Food – Victims”, published by Ph. CW Schmidt, cannot be distinguished from a university publication in terms of its style. On 392 pages, ten authors discuss various aspects; you can find out about the basics of Nazi “euthanasia” as well as the history of victims and the topography of organized starvation in the university town.
At first glance, one could easily consider the volume to be a result of the project currently underway at the Friedrich Alexander University (FAU) to deal with medical crimes – especially since one of the editors, Andreas Frewer, teaches ethics in medicine there. In fact, the book obviously sees itself as part of the civic, to a certain extent “unofficial” culture of remembrance, that part of urban society that would have wanted a different way of dealing with the “HuPfla”, wanted to stop demolition excavators and fought passionately for it – even if they did unsuccessful in one important respect.
Anyone looking for evidence of the bandages being discussed in Erlangen can find it here. In a summarizing article, neither Frewer nor his co-editor, the former director of the Erlanger City Museum Thomas Engelhardt, attempt to paper over the gaps that have arisen. The official bodies “who were interested in enforcing the demolition concept” parried new findings about the exact location of the hunger stations with the claim that “these are not new results at all – without having made any attempt to find the source basis for them to find out statements”. Instead, both the city and the university tried “to influence opinion at great expense” by questioning, discrediting and attempting to undermine the research.
The so-called “official” remembrance project commissioned by the city, university and district had “not yet produced any substantial results” at that time – and had “surprisingly left out the question of the exact location of the hunger stations as secondary”. “This form of ‘contract research’ is questionable,” complain the former head of the city museum and the current FAU professor.
Officials also tried to counter the growing public pressure with the thesis that changing the construction plans at that point would result in the loss of funding in the double-digit million range. So they took action: demolition. As a result, all that remains for the planned memorial are the former rooms of the university psychiatry and the apartments of the nurses and doctors. However, the wings of the building were trimmed and the “actually most important parts, the hospital wards” were no longer there – “and not even visible at ground level as accessible foundations of injustice”.
The bottom line is that Frewer and Engelhardt attest to the opposing side’s “missing the medical-historical topic and professional failure”, and there is even talk of a “willingness to adapt”. Your conclusion: “Exactly before Historical facts should actually be revealed before the irreversible demolition!”
It will be interesting to hear the counter-speech, especially from Erlangen University. So far, one can hardly accuse them of being excessively thin-skinned, especially for criticism from within their own ranks. The volume – which is expected to be partly critical of FAU – will be presented this Wednesday (6 p.m.) in the Senate Hall of the University College House, Universitätsstraße 15.