Anna Zieseberg
* 1864

Anna Zieseberg, née Harm, born on March 22, 1864, in Grevesmühlen (Mecklenburg), admitted on August 8, 1935, to the former Alsterdorfer Anstalten (now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), on August 16, 1943, transported to Vienna to the “Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien” (also known as the “Am Steinhof” institution), where she died on January 28, 1945

Soester Straße 18 opposite No. 46 (formerly Borgeschstraße 16)

Anna Maria Zieseberg (known as Anna), née Harm, was born on March 22, 1864, in Grevesmühlen in what was then Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the daughter of chimney sweep Franz Heinrich Christian Harm and his wife Catharina Marie Dorothea, née Vilsolgow (?).

We know nothing about her childhood and youth.
On August 13, 1886, she married the Protestant barber Louis Friedrich Jacob Zieseberg, born on September 28, 1856, in Bargteheide, at the registry office in Ahrensburg. At the time of her marriage, she was working as a seamstress. In the early years, the couple lived in Ahrensburg. Based on the dates and places of birth of the children known to us, it can be deduced that Anna and Louis Zieseberg moved to Hamburg between 1892 and 1896.

When Anna Zieseberg was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital in 1935, she stated that six children had been born from the marriage, one of whom had died at an early age. We were able to determine the dates of birth and death of four children: Alma Dora Elise was born in Ahrensburg on September 26, 1892. Henry August Emil was born on July 9, 1896, Johannes Theodor Otto on December 18, 1898, and Herbert Heinrich on October 9, 1902, in Hamburg-St. Georg.

Little is known about the children's lives. Johannes Theodor later went to sea and obtained US citizenship around 1924. Alma Dora Elise married factory security guard Franz Kaps in 1930. She died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1949 at the General Hospital in Hamburg-Langenhorn.

Anna and Louis Zieseberg were married in a church ceremony in Hamburg on December 3, 1899, three years after their civil marriage. They were apparently religious.

The children's birth records show that Louis Friedrich Jacob Zieseberg was no longer working as a barber in Hamburg, but had since become a laborer. No further details are known.

Louis and Anna Zieseberg divorced on June 17, 1909. Shortly thereafter, on April 20, 1910, Louis Friedrich Jacob Zieseberg died at St. Georg General Hospital.

We do not know what happened to Anna Zieseberg in the following years. In the early 1930s, she lived in various sublets, including on Nagelsweg and Brandsende. From her patient file, which is still preserved at the former Alsterdorfer Asylum, we know that she lived in a room at Borgeschstraße 16 in 1934. In April 1934, she wrote a “letter full of delusions,” as it was described, to the police. A police sergeant, who spoke with her after receiving a tip from her landlady, reported that her room appeared clean and tidy. Anna Zieseberg's appearance also did not reveal anything unusual. During the conversation, however, she spoke in a confused and incoherent manner. Both he and the landlady believed that she was suffering from delusions. She was advised not to write any more letters to the authorities in future.

At the beginning of 1935, Anna Zieseberg wrote to the police again. She claimed that a false sergeant had abused and killed stolen children in the engine room of the Friedrichsberg State Hospital. She said she could no longer bear the children's cries and demanded that the perpetrator be arrested. She wrote a similar letter in March. When her landlady reported again in June 1935 that Anna Zieseberg was living under the delusion that 28 boys had been killed in Friedrichsberg, a police doctor concluded that she was “obviously mentally ill.”

On July 27, 1935, the 71-year-old woman was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital from her room at Borgeschstraße 16 with a diagnosis of “psychosis, paranoia.” The admission was based on Section 22 of the Hamburg Relation Act of 1923. According to this, the police authorities and their officers and employees were authorized to “take persons into custody if the protection of these persons or the maintenance of public safety and peace or the prevention of danger to other persons made this measure necessary.”

A systematic interview to clarify her medical history was allegedly not possible due to her severe hearing loss. For this reason, no therapeutic measures were apparently taken.

Anna Zieseberg was transferred to the Alsterdorf Asylum on August 8, 1935. The reason given was “senile dementia.” In Alsterdorf, she was perceived as friendly and helpful. She got along well with her fellow patients. She was able to take care of her personal hygiene independently, but could not be called upon to do any work, which she avoided with ever new excuses, such as the loss of her glasses. She is said to have spoken “nonsense.” Due to her attempts to escape, she required special supervision.

In the following years, the management of the Alsterdorf Asylum reported regularly in the same manner to the police president, most recently on July 14, 1943. According to these reports, Anna Zieseberg suffered from “senile dementia, frightening delusions, and states of agitation.” For her own protection, she needed to remain in the institution in accordance with § 22.

The Alsterdorf Asylum also suffered bomb damage during the heavy air raids on Hamburg in late July/early August 1943 (“Operation Gomorrah”). The director of the institution, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, with the approval of the health authorities, took advantage of the opportunity to get rid of some of the residents who were considered “unproductive, high-maintenance, or particularly difficult” by transporting them to other sanatoriums and nursing homes. On August 16, 1943, one of these transports took 228 women and girls from Alsterdorf and 72 girls and women from the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home to the “Wagner von Jauregg Sanatorium and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” (also known as the “Am Steinhof” institution) in Vienna. Among them was Anna Zieseberg.

In October 1944, the Hamburg police president received a report from Vienna stating that Anna Zieseberg was “completely disoriented and lost” and, most recently, also “unclean and in great need of care.” Towards the end of the year, her patient file in Vienna noted that Anna Zieseberg was losing weight, and on January 14, 1945, that she was weak and increasingly frail.

Anna Zieseberg died on January 28, 1945, allegedly from marasmus and enterocolitis. (Marasmus is a severe form of malnutrition, and enterocolitis refers to inflammation of the small and large intestines.)

When she was admitted to the institutions in Vienna, Anna Zieseberg weighed 50 kg. In December 1944, her weight was recorded as 33 kg.

During the first phase of Nazi “Euthanasia” from October 1939 to August 1941, the institution in Vienna served as a transit facility for the Hartheim killing center near Linz. After the official end of the murders in the killing centers, mass killings continued in the former transit centers, including the Vienna institutions, for example through drug overdoses, non-treatment of illnesses, and above all through starvation. By the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had died, 196 of them from Alsterdorf.

Before her admission to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital, Anna Zieseberg lived at Borgeschstraße 16, which has been called Soester Straße since 1938. Due to local conditions, the stumbling stone commemorating her was not placed in front of house number 16, but in front of house number 18, opposite number 46.