Hartheim Euthanasia Centre

The Hartheim Euthanasia Centre (NS-Tötungsanstalt Hartheim) was a Nazi killing centre that was part of their euthanasia programme, since also referred to as Action T4. It was housed in Hartheim Castle in the municipality of Alkoven near Linz in Austria.

Hartheim Statistics
In June 1945, during investigations by US Forces into the former gassing facility at Hartheim, American investigating officer Charles Dameron broke open a steel safe in which the so-called Hartheim Statistics were found. This was a 39-page brochure produced for the internal purposes of the Nazi Euthanasia Programme (Aktion T4) containing monthly statistics of the gassing of mentally and physically handicapped patients (described in the document as "disinfection") carried out in the six euthanasia institutes on the territory of the Reich. In 1968 and 1970 an ex-employee of the establishment revealed, as a witness, that he had to compile the material at the end of 1942. The Hartheim Statistics included a page on which it was calculated that in "disinfecting 70,273 people with a life expectation of 10 years" food to the value of 141,775,573.80 Reichsmarks had been saved.

Numbers killed in the first extermination phase in Hartheim
According to these statistics a total of 18,269 people were killed in the gas chamber at the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre over a period of 16 months between May 1940 and 1 September 1941, as follows:

These statistics only cover the first extermination phase of the Nazi's euthanasia programme, sometimes called Action T4, which was brought to an end by Hitler's order dated 24 August 1941 following protests by the Roman Catholic Church.

In all it is estimated that a total of 30,000 people were murdered at Hartheim. Amongst the killed were the sick and the handicapped as well a prisoners from concentration camps. The killings were carried out using carbon monoxide poisoning.

14 f 13 "Special Treatment" programme
Just three days after the formal end of Action T4 a lorry arrived in Hartheim with 70 Jewish inmates from Mauthausen concentration camp who were subsequently executed there. The Hartheim killing centre achieved a special notoriety, not just because it was here where the largest number of patients were gassed, but as part of Action 14f13 Hartheim was also the institute in which the most concentration camp prisoners were murdered. Their number are estimated at 12,000.

Those no longer capable of working at Mauthausen, especially in the quarries, as well as politically undesirable prisoners, were brought to Hartheim to be executed. In the papers these transfers were disguised with terms like "recreation holiday". The entries under "sickness" included "German haters", "communist" or "Poland fanatic". From 1944 the prisoners were no longer selected by T4 doctors; it was only a question of securing space in Mauthausen camp quickly. Other transports came from the concentration camp of Gusen and possibly also from Ravensbrück.

Death doctors
The Action T4 organisers, Viktor Brack and Karl Brandt, ordered that the execution of the sick had to be carried out by medical doctors because Hitler's authorisation (dated 1 September 1939) only referred to doctors. The operation of the gas tap was thus the task of the gassing doctors in the death institutes. However, during the course of the euthanasia programme, the gas cocks were occasionally operated by others in the absence of the doctors or for other special reasons. Also, many doctors did not use their real names in the documents, but used other names to disguise themselves.

The following death doctors worked in Hartheim:
 * Head: Rudolf Lonauer: 1 April 1940 to April 1945
 * Deputy head: Georg Renno: May 1940 to February 1945

Niedernhart holding station
The Action T4 euthanasia centres had intermediate holding stations for victims. For example, many lorries carrying victims to their destination at Hartheim went via the Niedernhart Mental Institute in Linz, where Rudolf Lonauer was the senior doctor as he was in Hartheim. There victims were mainly killed by starvation or medical overdose. Time and again the screening and categorisation of prisoners was carried out. A bus was then filled with the chosen victims and driven to Hartheim.

Move of euthanasia head office to Hartheim and Weißenbach am Attersee
In August 1943 a result of the air war the head office for the Nazi Euthanasia Programme was moved from Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin to the Ostmark region, which was then humorously described as the air raid shelt of the Reich. The statistic and documents by Paul Nitsche – correspondence, notices and reports ended up in Hartheim (office department, accounts office) and the Schoberstein Recreation Centre near Weißenbach am Attersee (medical department) – presumably as part of the move of the T4 head office.

Well-known victims

 * Bernhard Heinzmann (1903–1942), German Roman Catholic priest
 * Friedrich Karas (1895–1942), Austrian Roman Catholic priest
 * Jan Kowalski (1871–1942), Polish bishop of the Old Catholic Church of the Mariavites
 * Ida Maly (1894–1941), Austrian artist
 * Gottfried Neunhäuserer (1882–1941), Austrian Benedictine father
 * Werner Sylten (1893–1942), Evangelical theologian

The clergy
A total of 310 Polish, seven German, six Czech, four Luxemburg, three Dutch and two Belgian priests were murdered. Many of them were transported from the Priest's Block in Dachau concentration camp. The chaplain, Hermann Scheipers, was also moved to the Invalid's Block, in order to be taken to Hartheim. Scheiper's sister – who stayed in contact by letter – tracked down a certain Dr. Bernsdorf, employee of the RSHA Berlin-Oranienburg, who was responsible for the clergy imprisoned in the Priest's Block. She confronted him with by stating that, in Münsterland, it was an open secret that imprisoned priests were sent to the gas chamber. Bernsdorf apparently became very nervous during the discussion and telephoned the Commandant's Office at Dachau. Scheipers reported that it was on that same day, the 13 August 1942, that there was a response: he and three other German clergymen were moved from the Invalid's Block (here the SS assembled prisoners for onward transportation) back to the Priest's Block.

Hartheim T4 staff

 * Erwin Lambert: master bricklayer, oversaw construction of the crematorium and gas chambers
 * Rudolf Lonauer: head Nazi euthanasia doctor in Hartheim, Niedernhart Mental Asylum in Linz and Geschwend Castle in Neuhofen an der Krems
 * Vinzenz Nohel, worker, "burner"
 * Franz Reichleitner: criminal policeman, management; – was later commandant of Sobibor extermination camp
 * Georg Renno: psychiatrist, deputy head Nazi euthanasie doctor
 * Anton Schrottmayer, care worker, suicide
 * Franz Stangl: criminal policeman, Gestapo official, deputy office manager; - was later camp commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka
 * Karl Steubel: senior care worker, suicide
 * Josef Vallaster: worker, "burner", later overseer at Sobibor extermination camp
 * Gustav Wagner; – was later deputy commandant at Sobibor extermination camp
 * Christian Wirth: criminal commissar, office manager; – was later commandant in Belzec extermination camp

Those chiefly responsible for recruiting the lower-ranking staff, according to subsequent witness statements, were the two Gau inspectors, Stefan Schachermayr (1912–2008 ) and Franz Peterseil (1907–1991), as well as Adolf Gustav Kaufmann (1902–1974), head of the inspection department of the T4 central office in Berlin.

Audio and video

 * Tom Matzek: Das Mordschloss. Eine Dokumentation über die Gräuel in Schloss Hartheim. TV programme by ORF, 2001, Brennpunkt. 1 videocassette (VHS, ca. 45 minutes). S. n., s. l. 2001.

Footnote to "Audio and video"
