Kurt Schult
* 1939

Kurt Schult, born on 9.3.1939 in Altona, admitted on 24.3.1943 to the former „Alsterdorf Asylum“ (“Alsterdorfer Anstalten” now the Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf), on 7.8.1943“transferred” to the “Kalmenhof Mental Hospital” (“Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kalmenhof") in Idstein/Taunus, died there on 18.9.1944.

Amandastraße 22 (formerly house no. 14)

Kurt Schult was born on 9 March 1939 in the Altona district of Hamburg. His mother, Martha Margareta Eden, born on 27 September 1905, was not yet married at the time of his birth, so her son was initially given the surname Eden. Martha Margareta Eden and Kurt's biological father, the vehicle driver Kurt Charles Otto Schult, born on 7 June 1912 in Hamburg, married on 21 November 1940. After Kurt Charles Otto Schult acknowledged paternity, Kurt Eden was given the surname Schult. The Schult couple and probably also their son Kurt lived at Amandastraße 14 in Eimsbüttel.

Since birth, the boy had been observed to have developmental delays. He was said to have behaved apathetically. He was unable to recognize people or objects.

He behaved apathetically. He was unable to recognize people or objects.

At the beginning of 1942, Kurt Schult was in the youth welfare office's nursery at Winterhuder Weg 11 in the Uhlenhorst district. The Hamburg social services sought to have Kurt Schult admitted to what was then known as the „Alsterdorf Asylum“(„Alsterdorfer Anstalten”), because the boy could not speak a word, was hardly able to occupy himself, and took no interest in his surroundings. In March 1943, his parents had their custody rights revoked because they did not take sufficient care of their son.

Kurt was transferred from the infant home to the “Alsterdorf Asylum” on 24 March 1943. Upon his admission to Alsterdorf, he was diagnosed with “congenital mental deficiency.” (The term “mental deficiency”, which is no longer used today, referred to a reduction in intelligence or congenital intellectual disability.)

During the heavy air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943 (Operation Gomorrah), the “Alsterdorf Asylum” at that time also suffered damage on the night of 29/30 July 1943 and then again on 3/4 August 1943. The director of the asylum, SA member Pastor Friedrich Lensch, asked the health authorities for permission to transfer 750 patients, allegedly to make room for the wounded and those affected by the bombing.

On 7 August 1943 Kurt Schult was transported with a group of 128 people to the "Eichberg Sanatorium“ ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Eichberg") in the Rheingau (76) and the "Kalmenhof Sanatorium“ ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kalmenhof") near Idstein (52). Four-year-old Kurt Schult was sent to the "Kalmenhof Sanatorium“.

There he lived for thirteen months. He died on 18 September 1944, allegedly from congenital mental retardation and marasmus (a severe form of malnutrition).

Originally founded in 1888, the Kalmenhof institution was a progressive, educationally oriented facility for people with intellectual disabilities. In 1939, it was incorporated into the “Euthanasia” program of “Aktion T4” (a code name based on the location of the Berlin “Euthanasia” headquarters at Tiergartenstraße 4). The patients were transferred from there to the neighboring Hadamar killing center and murdered. After the official end of “Euthanasia“ killings in August 1941, the cover organization “Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Hereditary and Congenital Severe Illnesses” (“Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden") which belonged to the Berlin „Euthanasia“ center, set up a “children's ward” at Kalmenhof, where children were killed with overdoses of drugs such as Luminal, scopolamine, or morphine.

It can be assumed that Kurt Schult did not die a natural death in this “special children's ward.”

The former residential building at Amandastraße 14 no longer exists. The stumbling stone commemorating Kurt Schult was therefore embedded in the sidewalk at Amandastraße 22, in the immediate vicinity.