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Adolf Hornung
© Archiv Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf

Adolf Hornung * 1932

Telemannstraße 52 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
ADOLF HORNUNG
JG. 1932
EINGEWIESEN 1940
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
"VERLEGT" 10.8.1943
HEILANSTALT MAINKOFEN
ERMORDET 20.11.1943

Adolf Hermann Martin Hornung, born 3.10.1932 in Hamburg, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 25.9.1940, "transferred" to the Sanatorium and Nursing home Mainkofen on 10.8.1943, died there on 20.11.1943.

Telemannstraße 52 (Eimsbüttel)

Adolf Hermann Martin Hornung was the son of the blacksmith Adolf Carl Heinrich Hornung, born on 26 Nov. 1908, and Emma Helene Luise, née Dressel, born on 7 May 1907. Both parents were born in Hamburg.

Adolf Hornung's father had attended primary school and was dismissed from the 1st grade (1st grade was the highest grade at that time). He worked at the Blohm & Voss shipyard and was said to be heavily addicted to alcohol. Adolf's mother was dismissed from the 2nd grade of primary school. Her mental abilities were described as very limited.

According to his mother, a younger brother of Adolf had died of whooping cough and pneumonia at the age of two.

Adolf Hornung was prenatally damaged, according to the Alsterdorf patient file, by a communicable disease of the mother and a stressful lifestyle of the father. He was admitted as an inpatient to the orthopaedic clinic "Alten Eichen" – Curative and educational institution in Stellingen ("Alten Eichen" – Heil- und Bildungsanstalt in Stellingen), Wördemannsweg 19-29, on 1 July 1940. (Stellingen was then part of the independent Prussian town of Altona, which was incorporated into Hamburg on 1 Apr. 1938).

The reason for the admission to "Alten Eichen" was a "spastic gait disorder", which was attributed to an illness inherited from his mother. Adolf's physical limitations and his - simplified - partial paralysis seizures (more precisely: Jacksonian seizures) had been treated intermittently at the Eppendorf University Hospital until 1938. Adolf could not yet walk in 1940, had always been carried by his mother and did not receive schooling. After surgical interventions on the knee joints, he was able to walk independently with support bandages and after standing and walking exercises with the help of a walking trestle. Progress was described as very good. On 25 Sept. 1940, the treatment in "Alten Eichen" was completed.

The "Alten Eichen" clinic recommended that Adolf Hornung should be admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum because of "high-grade imbecility" and cerebral palsy. The boy was "mentally completely retarded" and school enrollment was out of the question. The domestic conditions were completely unsuitable for a return to the parental home. The mother was not capable of providing the boy with the necessary care and attention. There was a danger that the boy would forget how to walk again.

(The term "imbecility", which is no longer used today, referred to a reduction in intelligence or congenital intelligence weakness. Cerebral palsy is a collective term for chronic movement disorders of the extremities. The cause can be brain damage that is either congenital or occurs in early childhood - up to 5 years of age).

On 25 Sept. 1940, Adolf Hornung was first transferred to the Psychiatric and Mental Clinic of the Hanseatic University north of the Eilbektal and then immediately by the Hamburg Social Administration to the then Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, today Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf). When he was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum, he was said to have been very anxious and only able to answer very simple questions. In June 1941, the skills he had acquired in the "Alten Eichen" clinic seemed to have been lost again. It was noted in his medical records that Adolf Hornung was completely dependent on the help of others. His legs were totally paralysed, he could no longer move even with the support of the walking trestle and had to be under constant supervision. Due to sudden jerks in his body, he often fell off the chair or hit his face on the table in such a way that his nose and teeth often bled. His hands were also quite paralysed, but he wanted to eat alone.

It was not until 1943, on 22 Apr., that Adolf Hornung's medical file again contained a report on the boy. His legs were almost always blue-red because they hung immobile while he sat in the wicker chair. He spoke unintelligibly, could eat on his own, but usually vomited afterwards. At times, he suffered from temporary dizzy spells in which his head would bob forward and his body would collapse.

On 11 Aug. 1943, it was finally noted: "Due to severe damage to the institutions, transferred to Mainkofen as a result of air raids. Dr. Kreyenberg".

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in July/August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrha"), the Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered bomb damage. The management of the institution under SA member Pastor Lensch took the opportunity, after consultation with the health authorities, to transfer some of the residents who were considered "weak in labour, in need of care or particularly difficult" to other sanatoriums and nursing homes.

With four transports between 7 and 16 Aug. 1943, a total of 468 girls and women, boys and men were transferred to the "State Sanatorium Eichberg" near Wiesbaden, to the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Kalmenhof" near Idstein in the Rheingau, to the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Mainkofen" near Passau and to Vienna 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").

Adolf Hornung was one of the 112 male adults, adolescents and children who were taken to the "Sanatorium and Nursing Home Mainkofen" near Passau in Lower Bavaria on 10 or 11 Aug. 1943. There, during his stay, only a short note was entered in his patient file: "17.11.43 Pat.[ient] was ill with diarrhoea and [...], has deteriorated severely physically. Often screams at the top of his voice even at night. No other reaction."

Luise Hornung was informed by telegraph on 19 Nov. 1943 that her son Adolf was critically ill. One day later, on 20 Nov. 1943, the death entry followed: "Exitus letalis 20 h, feeble-mindedness with spastic diplegia [...], gastric and intestinal catarrh".
(Diplegia is a double-sided paralysis of the lower or upper part of the body).

Adolf Hornung was buried in Mainkofen on 23 Nov. 1943 in the presence of his mother.

The Sanatorium and Nursing Home Mainkofen, a psychiatric hospital in the pre-National Socialist era, was systematically developed into a death facility. From there, during the first phase of the "euthanasia" murders until August 1941, people were deported to the killing facility Schloss Hartheim near Linz and murdered with gas. 604 of them are known by name. After August 1941, the death of patients was deliberately brought about in Mainkofen itself by depriving them of food under the "Bavarian Starvation Decree" (starvation diet, meat- and fat-free diet, referred to in Mainkofen as "3-b diet"), by nursing neglect or by overdosing medication. In Mainkofen, 762 patients died in the so-called hunger houses. The main causes of death were intestinal catarrh, tuberculosis, pneumonia or pulmonary tuberculosis. It must be assumed that Adolf Hornung did not die of natural causes.

Translation: Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: July 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Akte V 401 (Adolf Hornung); Michael Wunder, Ingrid Genkel, Harald Jenner, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr. Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, 3. Aufl., Stuttgart 2016, S. 283 ff, insbesondere S. 315 ff.