ernabookXXL ENGLISH- 3.fass -

XXL
A Nazi-‘‘euthanasia‘‘-victim:
EDWARD WIEAND
ERNA KRONSHAGE
My laughter
is crying
IN PICTURES, DOCUMENTS AND FACTS
english update| 06 | 2018 | 114 pages – DeepL Translator: german-english

2

Erna Kronshage – a Nazi-‘‘euthanasia‘‘-victim
Erna Kronshage –
Colored Photo-Portrait
with original signature -
around 1940
3

4

SIGNPOST
Where lies still lie
like unburied corpses
there is the way of truth
not easy to spot
and some are still reluctant
or find him too dangerous
The Truth Penetrates
and at the same time sends their seekers
back in history
and begins to tidy up
with the defamations
and with the hush-up
of the dead
A lot will hurt
make things awkward
but the truth is
the way of necessity
if the realm of freedom is not restored
should remain just an empty word
and only a laughing stock
for enemies and for the disappointed
Erich Fried –
translated with DeepL
from German into English

Resumes have a long memory. Personal
biographies as well as the common history. The
experiences stored in them can be
superimposed, hushed up, suppressed or
hushed up in the course of time, but not
undone.
Remembering is more than just taking note.
Those who remember or are remembered are
reminded of events and experiences of
personal and collective past, whether joyful or
painful.
The word says that remembering concerns us
internally, it concerns us. Some remembrance
requires courage and perseverance. Some
remembrance is a duty imposed upon us by the
will to justice and truthfulness towards guilt and
failure....
"Thinking about past matters," writes Hannah
Arendt, "means for human beings to go into the
dimension of the deep, to strike roots and thus
to stabilize themselves so that one is not
washed away by everything possible - the spirit
of the age, history or simply the temptation.
Dr. Hartmut Traub, Excerpt from the speech manuscript for
the memorial service for the victims of Nazi "euthanasia" on
27.01. 2017 in the German Bundestag

Childhood & School
Class photo - ca. 1930-32 - Erna 2 row from top left (white arrow)
7

The birthplace:
The
„Mühlenkamp“
Senne II - a rural
community near
Bielefeld
(Germany) –
House No. 6
Photo around 1940
Die Verortung: Ernas Welt
8

Erna was born 2 weeks before Christmas - on 12 December 1922 - in Senne II (today "Sennestadt").
She is the 11th and youngest child - and is "educated", and certainly “betüddelt” and spoiled, primarily by the
older siblings as nestling.
The Kronshage family lives on this farm, which they also manage with joint forces - their father still works 9 halfday
as a carpenter in a factory.

Entrance on the right - farmstead "Mühlenkamp"
visible in the background
Birthplace
„Mühlenkamp“
today
Verler Straße 76 – 33689
Bielefeld-Sennestadt
10
The house - renovated - today

„Mühlenkamp“
Hof Westerwinter
Erna Kronshages little world in
Senne II – with the "Mühlenkamp" as centre
of life... - on today's maps and aerial photos -
Nearby is the former station "Kracks“ / today
train stop “Sennestadt”
11

A 33
Erna Kronshages
little world:
Red grid square:
corresponds to the
"globe" - one page
before...
12

Typical landscape of the “Senne” until the 1950s.....
This postcard motif shows the typical landscape of the "old" Senne - agricultural areas are streaked with small
scattered spruce forests, heathland, sand dunes, sand depressions. Until the construction of the "Sennestadt" in the
early 1960s, the Senne was sparsely populated - mostly with remote small farms........ Ernas Residence Senne II
was a small rural community on sandy roads - south of Bielefeld. with approx. 2,500 inhabitants …
13

Senne II - district "Kracks" - postcard from the 20s / 30s - the church and the inn Ramsbrock - bottom right - as village "Zentrum" 14
(centre)

Senne II - excursion site on the southern slope of the Teutoburg Forest - with the former inn Ramsbrock - and the now crowded A2 motorway/Autobahn...
15

On New Year's Day 1923, Erna is
baptized Protestant-Lutheran in
the church of Senne II by
Pastor Jansen -
and on 21.03.1937 (Sunday
Palmarum) Erna Kronshage is
confirmed in the church of
Senne II by Pastor Holzapfel.
The confirmation ruling was:
"God is love; and he who abides in
love abides in God and God in
him." (1John, 4:16).
16

Die Familie Kronshage ca. 1930
The extended family Kronshage - photo around 1930
Top row from left: - Johanne/“Hanna“ *1913, Martha *1911, Frieda *1909, Emma *1906, Lina *1903,
Heini *1905, Willi *1917, Ewald *1919
Bottom row from left: - ERNA *1922 (also image section bottom left), Anna *1902, Mama Anna
*1879, Papa Adolf *1876, Adolf *1899 17

„In den Kugeln“ - In the bullets.- This painting by the painter Edgar Ende (1901-1965 - Father of the writer Michael Ende)
was created in 1932 - and on the eve of the Nazi disaster, it symbolically shows the wind of the
Industrial factory chimneys - and spherical cage globes around the doves of peace and around the spirit of man...-
a thoroughly humid and hopeless atmosphere...

Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the “Reich” in Germany in 1933.
19

Planting a „Hitler oak“ at the square "Verler Dreieck" in Senne II - near the
"Mühlenkamp" (see map) on May 1, 1933 - Erna is 10.5 years old - and is certainly
one of them...
Illustrating pictorial material

Erna attends the
community school I in
Senne II 1929 - 1937
21

Illustrating pictorial material from the time:
A classroom from 1935 ...
22

Reproduction of the original school-leaving certificate for Erna Kronshage from 1937 - (grade cut 1.78) 23

Work as
‘‘House
daughter‘‘
24

Erna Kronshage works at home after school as a “housedaughter
in her parents‘ business”
At that time, the profession of "house-daughter" was the
professional title for a young woman who learned
housework until marriage - an activity that was "usual"
and widespread at that time.
She lives in her family - for pocket money,
accommodation, food and insurance - today this would
probably mean: "au pair", which usually also includes
childcare in the mostly foreign household.....
Adolf Hitler says about the role of women in Nazi Germany in
1934, among other things:
“We do not consider it right for women to enter the world of
men, into their main area, but we consider it natural for these
two worlds to remain divorced. (...) What the man uses in
heroism on the battlefield, the woman uses in eternally
patient devotion, in eternally patient suffering and bearing.
Every child she gives birth to is a battle she fights for the
existence or otherwise of her people."
Contemporary illustrative pictorial material
25

Erna goes with the handcart to fetch the "streussel" (cowshed bedding).
Erna and a little nephew...
Erna Kronshage grows up to be an adult woman...
26

The station "Kracks" - as it is still popularly
known today (train stop "Sennestadt" - now
demolished) - from the point of view of
Kronshagen's fields
27

illustrative visual material
At the "Mühlenkamp", the bicycles of commuters who travel by train from "Kracks" station to work in the
surrounding area are looked after from morning to evening... 28

Grammophone & radio "Volksempfänger" - plus the daily
newspaper and a few magazines - these are the
"entertainment media" of this time...
Illustrating pictorial material 29

The Kronshage siblings were normal "teenagers" of their time:
Ernas brother Willi plays the accordion at the Deelen door - and
brother Ewald looks almost like a "James Dean" blend - Erna
"adorns" herself with the military cap of one of her brothers.....
30

But then - during the war the "Mühlenkamp" serves to "secure
the food supply of the German people" in accordance with the
Nazi regulations - which is why Erna Kronshage as "housedaughter"
does not have to participate in other Nazi service
obligations for the youth - but is also "obligated to serve"...
The brothers are now soldiers, and the older sisters now have their own
families. Erna is pretty much on her own - with her old parents.

Erna "fights" herself with the handcart for an oak tree in the yard:
on the left of the bench seat we see the bicycles "parked" by the
commuters from the station "Kracks" to Paderborn and Bielefeld...
32

illustrative visual material
The bomb trauma
33

Illustrating pictorial material
Out of the clear sky: On June 2, 1940, a lonely English airman bombed the Westerwinter
estate on the opposite side of the road - 80 to 100 meters away from the Konshages...

Dieses Original-Foto
zeigt das Ausmaß
der Bombardierung …
… eine junge Nachbarin ... a young Ernas neighbor kommt is dabei killed ums - Leben –
ein junger a young Mann man dort there wird is seriously schwer injured verletzt - –
die the Hofgebäude farm buildings liegen in ruins...
Trümmern…
This re-colored original photo
shows the extent of the bombing
of the neighbouring courtyard ...
35

A nocturnal inferno -
like out of the blue -
It hadn't bombed before.
in East Westphalia-Lippe...
36

The bomb craters
are about 80 - 120 m away
from the “Mühlenkamp”:
Circle of white: the "Mühlenkamp" - yellowish
marked in the foreground: one of the bomb craters ...
Translation of the press release from 04.06.1940:
Original-Photo
Bombs on a senne farmstead
The sad heroic deed of a British aviator
In the night to Sunday a British aviator dropped several
bombs on the peaceful homestead Westerwinter in
"Kracks", which hit and partially destroyed a residential
house and an adjoining building. A young girl aged 22
was killed and a young man seriously injured by a
collapsing ceiling.

Ernas bomb trauma - out of the blue:
White circles: the "Mühlenkamp" - the red dots mark the bomb impacts

I don’t want anymore - I can’t anymore... …
39

In 1942 Erna Kronshage becomes sporadically unpunctual and
resists - she rebels against her parents and refuses her
cooperation - to which she is obliged.
Erna no longer wants to live and work at home - she feels tired and weak and overwhelmed -
and urgently needs a "break".
Erna finds herself in a kind of "goal-closing panic" to miss her life and sees no development for
herself.
She longs for "smarter people" and for appropriate social contacts that correspond to her age
and development...
40

At that time, Ernas mother turned to the Nazi social worker, "Brown
Sister" for short, because of Erna's unpunctuality and her disputes -
because of the brown costume of the Nazi sisterhood, who as the
"female elite troupe of the NSDAP" are to assess the respective
situations with their knowledge of hereditary and racial care in order to
report "behavioural abnormalities"...
And this "brown sister", eager for duty, sees in Ernas' arbitrary
dawdling real "behavioural abnormalities", for agriculture now has to
serve the "securing the food supply of the German people" in the war,
and only Ernas' unswerving duty there at home justified her exemption
from other Nazi compulsory events...
Erna Kronshage is therefore quoted for an examination by an official
doctor (comparable today to the examination of her ability to work by
the company doctor in the case of persistent unpunctuality at work...),
during which she then even asks herself to be admitted to the
provincial sanatorium in Gütersloh to become "fit" again - because she
has already been spurred on by her sister Frieda, who was
successfully restored there in only 4 weeks 3 years earlier after a "state
of arousal", without any hereditary health consequences..
Illustrating pictorial material:
A young Brown Nazi Sister
Erna now expects the same help so as not to disappoint her parents
any further....
And this initially confusing and seemingly naive desire to admit Ernas
to this "sanatorium", which she probably literally understood in this way,
is owed to the good experiences of Sister Frieda there...
.
41

Today’s explanations of the
causes of sudden
“insubordination” and
refusals to work:
• The progressive "loneliness" as formerly "betüddeltes" youngest child - as the "nest hook" of a 13-headed original family, which
has now gradually shrunk to a 3-member micro-family due to war missions of the brothers and sisters and the accompanying
departure of the older brothers and sisters from the parental home - with a big age and generation difference: Erna Kronshage
is still under 20 years old - her parents are already 66 and 63 years old...).
• The "moral dilemma": Erna Kronshage is torn between enjoying the nest warmth of the "Hotel Mama" on the one hand - and
age-appropriate aspirations for departure, separation and independence on the other...
• The trauma of war: the bombing of the neighbouring farm "out of the blue" - with the killing of a neighbour and the serious
injuries of a young man there and the almost complete destruction of this neighbouring farm as a whole... - the turmoil of war in
general - the fears for her 4 brothers at the front -
• the air-raid alarm and the bombing of a nearby factory...
• Summary of possible causes from today's perspective:
• physically overtaxed / intellectually undertaxed
• "unable to work" - needs a "time-out
• "Zero buck" phase (puberty - adolescence)
• Burn-out syndrome (physical overload)
• Depressive mood (no prospects for the future - no patience of friends of the same age - loneliness)
Post-traumatic stress disorder (bomb attack on neighbouring farm)
• Fear Syndrome (Fear of War - Worrying about the Brothers at the Front)
42

Erna wants to enforce this supposed "recreation"
stay against the will of her parents, who have
custody.
And so, probably on the advice of the "brown
sister", she makes "nails with heads" with a daring
"trick"...
To achieve this, she chats off her father's admission
papers from the public health officer - and hands
them over to a police patrolman who parks his
patrol vehicle nearby by chance.
In this way, she can undermine the consent of her
parents, because now, accompanied by the now
alarmed "Brown Sister", she spontaneously takes
the initiative - under the keyword: "Danger in delay!"
- as a "self and a person endangering the general
public" - direct into the sanatorium in Gütersloh.
Even if one is at first astonished about this "selfinstruction"
- but Erna tries for the first time actively
to take her person & health into her own hands -
and asserts herself for the first time against the will
of her parents...
illustrative visual material

On 24.10.1942 Erna Kronshage arrives at the provincial-sanatorium
Gütersloh
- here are some contemporary postcards to illustrate the "culture shock" between such a "healing factory" in the spirit of Nazi
psychiatry and - for comparison - the rural and peaceful ambience of the parental "Mühlenkamp" farm...

Provincial-sanatorium Gütersloh

A real "culture shock": e.g. the comparison of your
sleeping chamber under the "roof-juchhe" at home
with the dormitory in Gütersloh, which permanently
smells of a mixture of sweat, vapours and sagrotan...
... and then the bare and sterile hospital corridors, in
which the voices of fellow patients echo...
illustrative visual material
46

Diagnosis: „Schizophrenia“
47

Erna’s first diagnosis is schizophrenia...
Upon arrival in Gütersloh, "schizophrenia" is surprisingly diagnosed, also due to the dawdling and the inexperienced
flapsy of the defensive attitude in the admission interview - but also the ominous 4-week stay of sister Frieda in the
sanatorium in 1939 is now given a new status in the family anamnesis by pedigree by the local Nazi psychiatrists - in
contrast, all external possible re-active or age and developmental trigger mechanisms for Nena's behavioural disorders
are simply ignored...
At that time, schizophrenia was understood to be a mentally conditioned hereditary disease that can develop slowly or
suddenly from within and without external causes.
According to today's understanding, schizophrenia is associated with an
• Loss of inner perception for what
• Reality or
• Dream or
• fantasy is and
• these different levels of time and realities flow into each other and intermingle.
The possibilities and channels to perceive oneself, to approach others and the environment - to be there for others or to
develop sympathies, to inspire oneself... -
... have suddenly and irretrievably fallen apart and fragmented in a schizophrenia as in many small snippets and shards
without a direct external cause...
And schizophrenia already at that time differs explicitly from all the temporary, sometimes peculiar states that are
"psycho-somatic", reflex-like without any action of their own, are physically triggered as protective-reactions when
48
external events present themselves as threatening or incisive for the soul...

Heredity (eugenics) was the "scientific" basis for exploring hereditary diseases - and was already taught in schools in
contemporary display boards at the time - and formed the basic theory for training in health, social and medical helper
professions.
illustrative visual material
49

By means of relevant diagrams, the theory of heredity was to be made accessible to the population...
illustrative visual material
50

The diagnosis "schizophrenia" was
then "alternatively" "calculated"
with the highly popular eugenics /
heredity and a family related
ancestor and clan table - often only
with the slightest "deviations from
the norm/conspicuousness" or in the
generation sequence far back in time
- and thus justified as "scientifically
proven" triggering possibility....
Especially the 4-week stay of Ernas
sister Frieda in Gütersloh three years
earlier now becomes Erna's "fate":
the "temporary state of excitement"
that was triggered at Frieda's
workplace at that time now becomes
a "psychopathic state of excitement"
in retrospect in the pedigree.
´- (Schizophrenia)" reinterpreted ...
51

Erna’s sister Frieda was released after 4 weeks stay
(25.02-25.03.1939) from the institution as cured:
In Frieda's medical history, the following criteria
are explicitly underlined on a routing slip:
2. Discharge promising
2. b) not toxic for reproduction
2. c) capable of reproduction
= so no hereditary disease !!!
Handwritten was added - but not filled out:
• form of the disease:
• Prospects of recovery:
• Report to medical officer:
• Resubmission noted to 4.4.39 -
• (but Frieda has already been released from the
sanitarium) –
• The confusing conceptualizations of the Nazi
doctors in retrospect for this "temporary state of
excitement" of Erna's sister Frieda in 1939 were
then reinterpreted in Ernas' documents:
• "as insanity in sanitarium treatment
• "as Psychopathic state of excitation
(schizophrenia)"
• "as transient psychological disorders that have
been interpreted as schizoid psychopathic
excitement.“
• But there is definitely no evidence of real
schizophrenia by Frieda...
52

This Schizophrenia therapy in the
course of "more active medical
treatment" (developed in 1929 by Dr.
Simon, then director of the Gütersloh
institution) was carried out in Gütersloh
around 1940:
"cardiazol shocks" for the artificial
triggering of epileptic seizures (which
later become known as electro-shocks) -
and the "Work therapy" (e.g. gardening
in the "work-crew", potato peeling
kitchen, etc.)
illustrative visual material
Erna is sent off to work therapy to peel
potatoes and to work in the nursery - but
she already knows that from home.
Therapies:
cardiazole shocks
occupational therapy
53

Artificial epileptic seizures are triggered to reduce
internal tension in people with schizophrenia.
This was done in Gütersloh with "Cardiazol", which
was injected into the arm bends.
A bite roll of gauze is grafted between the teeth to
protect against tongue bites in the cramp.
First there are strong feelings of fear - and then the
attack breaks out with convulsions, cramps and a
deep unconsciousness.
Afterwards Erna feels completely weak and
confused and can hardly remember anything.
After some series of seizures a panic fear of further
shocks arises.
"Cardiazol shocks" are therefore more a
punishment than a "relaxation" in the everyday life
of an institution...
illustrative visual material
54

A Cardiazole administration to trigger a seizure - here reproduced with illustrative and illustrative scene photos from
a film...
The Cardiazole is administered in a certain dose
Injection of the cardiazole into the vein of the arm bends
fixation
illustrative visual material
Experiencing the onset of the seizure phase as
so-called “aura" with often inner horror images...
55

1
The feeling of the traumatically experienced
"aura" passes over …
2
… into the seizure with gradual
Loss of consciousness...
un-off phases
with epileptic
seizure
3
A bite roll of gauze is grafted between the
teeth to protect against tongue bites in the
cramp.
5
cramps of all limbs - including the toes
4
Muscle stiffeners with
Stretching and vibrating phases
6
56
Wake-up phase - fixations due to subsequent confusion

"After Cardiazole treatment, a little quieter“…
Entry in the physician's report of the treating psychiatrist in
Gütersloh on "activating" medical therapy with
Cardiazole cramps at Erna Kronshage
"After the cardiazole treatment
somewhat calmer" - and - "already
after the one-time suspension of the
treatment immediately restless,
almost constantly in motoric
movement" - at night - "loud senseless
talking..., twitching with the hands
and the head"...
57

Consequences and side effects of
cardialzol shock therapy
The "inventor" Ladislaus of Meduna suggests "regularly
triggering 30 strokes at three-day intervals" - an extreme
physical and psychological burden. ...
Intravenous injections of Cardiazol fight a torture with a
different torture suffered by the patients as a death or
end of the world experience. "Feelings of annihilation
arise," states the specialist literature dryly. Often enough,
Cardiazole shocks throw patients completely off course,
who feel the injection "like an electric shock". Others
experience "photisms" in the form of flashes of light and
red vision, or "pain up to the outermost end of the body".
Dr. Ernst Adolf Schmorl writes in 1938 in the "Allgemeine
Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und ihre Grenzgebiete" about
the "influence of cardiazole cramp treatment on the
clinical picture of psychoses" using the example of 130
cases: In almost all of them he notes a "clear
disinhibition" or even a "linguistic unleashing".
Employment would be easier to manage. He claims to
have noticed a "certain grace of movement", but also
"fax syndromes" with a high degree of confusion.
Schmorl wants to suggest that the antispasmodic is
suitable for "immobilising", he always recommends
individual "cardiazole strokes". From the doctors' point of
view, this effect in particular makes martyrdom justifiable.
illustrative visual material
• "Throw a person with a behavioral disorder from the roof of
a skyscraper and let them suffer the dying experience to
the last possible point of intervention and catch them with
a blanket just before the impact.
• Praise this method as a therapy that has a quality of
experience that changes people at least for a certain
time... (see also the medical entries in the documents
about Erna Kronshage's sometimes spontaneous
"ridiculous and confused behavior").
• Such "final" chemically triggered experience models
certainly change the biochemical metabolism in the brain,
i.e. the messenger substances in the neurotransmitters,
which then naturally - positively or negatively - change the
behavioral possibilities of the brain in the future.
• The disciplinary aspect of most of these therapies,
especially the painful and dangerous forced shock
therapies, emerges from psychiatric self-reports.
• Benedikt Fontana, Director of the Waldhaus Psychiatric
Clinic in Chur, said in 1988 in retrospect of persistent
prisoners in his institution:
Source: Jürgen Schreiber: A painter from Germany - Gerhard Richter - Das Drama
einer Familie, Berliner Taschenbuchg Verlag, 2007, pp. 95-96
• “If they bucked,
• we had to shock them.”
58

A necessary note on Nazi psychiatry
In order to more or less understand psychiatry in the Nazi era, the image of man and
society that became internationally accepted in the 1930s on a "scientifically founded
basis" must also be taken into account. Eugenics - the doctrine of race and heredity -
was not only a German special "invention", but determined what was then, one might
almost say, "global" psychiatry knowledge...
In Germany it was the myth of the "Volksgemeinschaft" and a racist idealization of the
so-called "Ariertum", as well as the striving for a "healthy body of the people", which
can only actually be realized through exclusion and exclusion.
According to this ideological program, the "sick", the so-called
"Asocial" and "people with disabilities" selected, treated inhumanely and finally
liquidated and murdered.
Doctors, nurses, officials and numerous helpers carried the system of this "killing
unworthy life" with them...
Erna Kronshage knew little or nothing about these connections between war, time
spirit, eugenics and Nazi ideology and the fatal consequences, including the murder
of patients at the time of her wish to go to Gütersloh, or interpreted this as a rumour -
or suppressed it in order to finally assert herself against her parents in their quest for
independence?
59

illustrative visual material
elder
Psychiatry Straitjacket
60

illustrative visual material
„Infertilization - Forced sterilization“

The Law for the
Prevention of Hereditary
Offspring
was adopted shortly after the Nazi seizure of
power on 14 July 1933 as the first race law
in a long series of repressive measures and
came into force in January 1934.
The idea of the law was thoroughly racist:
"The aim of the inheritance and race care
appropriate to the German people is: a
sufficient number of hereditary healthy, for
the German people racially valuable families
with many children at all times. The idea of
breeding is the core content of the idea of
race. The future legal guardians must be
clear about the breeding goal of the German
people."
so the comment of Gütt, Rüdin, Ruttke in: Law for
the Prevention of Hereditary Offspring of 14 July
1933, Munich 1934
Title Page of the Law Commentary

In 1934, the Nazis
enacted the "Law for
the Prevention of
Young Offspring with
Hereditary Diseases".
At that time it was
assumed that the
children,
grandchildren or
great-grandchildren
of these people
could also be
mentally ill or
handicapped.
However, this has
since turned out to
be untrue.
Dr. Hartwich, then
head of Gütersloh
Hospital, thus
applied for
"infertility" for Erna
Kronshage.
Left: Reproduction of the
original application for
"sterilisation" from Gütersloh

Adolf Kronshage with his favourite cow
Since Erna is not yet of
age (then 21 years
old), Ernas father still
has full custody.
He vehemently
opposed Gütersloh's
application and the
court's decision to
sterilize his daughter.
At the same time, he
repeatedly demands
that Erna be released
from the Gütersloh
institution because he
believes that Erna will
recover most quickly at
her home in the
"Mühlenkamp".
For this reason,
extensive
correspondence
developed between the
institution, the
"hereditary health
courts" and the father
of Erna.
Despite his poor
health, he fights
vehemently for his
daughter - and forces
with his objections that
at least two courts must
process the application
one after the other...
to the right: Excerpts from the
protest letters and resistance
submissions of the father to the
institution and the inheritance
health courts.
64

illustrative visual material
On March 29, 1943, a judge and two
psychiatrists sit at the table at Heil-Anstalt
Gütersloh. They form the Bielefeld
Hereditary Health Court and decide every
20 minutes on the sterilization of a total of
11 patients. Erna Kronshage is "presented"
there as the third "case" from 8.40 a.m. to
9.00 a.m.: without lawyer or help this last
measure is decided.........
Erna laughs with excitement and
embarrassment at the hearing. To the
question of the gentlemen why she laughs,
she answers recklessly with the actually
deep sentence:
"My laughter is crying".........
The minutes of the meeting then read:
"Erna Kronshage made a tense
impression at the hearing and
laughed for no reason. She said
that her laughter was crying” ...
And this behavior is now pathologically
interpreted in order to underline once again
the "schizophrenia" questioned by Ernas
father.
But 20-year-old Erna laughs so as not to
cry, for she would be ashamed of these
men - to whom she is alone........
65

Reproduction of the original decision to sterilise the Hereditary Health Court of Bielefeld as the
first instance
66

Reproduction of the original decision to sterilise the Hereditary Health High Court in Hamm as
second instance
67

The "hereditary strains" that lead to Erna Kronshages diagnosis of "schizophrenia" and
thus to "infertility" through forced sterilization...
Schizophrenia is defined as an "endogenous" event - i.e. occurring suddenly or slowly from within - and not "exogenously" - as a reaction to
"external events"... - and consequently - according to the opinion of the time - there must also be a high genetically determined trigger
mechanism in the "genome" for this...
In the Erna Kronshage case, the Provinzialheilanstalt Gütersloh submitted the following information to the Hereditary Health Court in
Bielefeld: 1. from the medical report on infertility:
One of the father's
sisters was in hospital
for pregnancy psychosis.
An older sister of the
patients was in hospital
treatment for mental
illness.
The "mental illness" named by the "older sister" Frieda is described very differently in the further course of the hereditary health file:
• 2. entry from the "hereditary family tree": (the diagnostic suffix "schizophrenia" was added to Sister Frieda only upon
application for Erna Kronshage...)
(...) Gütersloh
Sanatorium 25.2.39 to
25.3.1939 due to
psychopathic arousal
(schizophrenia)
•
• 3. Friedas "schizophrenia" becomes a "schizoid psychopathic state of excitement" again from the decision to infertility in the
2nd instance at the "Erbgesundheitsobergericht" Hamm - which was successfully treated in 4 weeks..:
... temporary mental
disorders have
occurred that have
been interpreted as
schizoid psychopathic
arousal.
68

illustrative visual material
The execution of forced sterilization
69

illustrative visual material
The father's objections are of no use:
The Hereditary Health High Court in
Hamm finally decides that Erna is
operated on by a Dr. Stüwe on August 4,
1943 in the hospital in Gütersloh and
thus made "infertile".
In the "Medical Report" (left) it says
succinctly: "The wound healed in 7 days
without side effects"...
70

Deportation
71
illustrative visual material

illustrative visual material
The bomb war and the front-line operation cause more and more deaths and serious injuries.
Hospitals and hospitals are therefore overcrowded - and from 1943 onwards people are
urgently looking for beds to treat the many injured. 72

Prof. Dr. Karl Brandt, Begleitarzt
Adolf Hitlers
Overcrowded spare hospital in a gym
"The thought that a war wounded
man has no bed because there is
already a mentally ill man in it is
unbearable for Hitler" –
Prof. Dr. Karl Brandt,
Adolf Hitler's personal physician and
Reich Commissioner for the Health
Service
writes Manfred Vasold 2007 in the
"Encyclopedia of National Socialism".
73

Erna's father Adolf Kronshage has repeatedly demanded in the meantime that Erna be released from the
institution, and this could have also formally happened after forced sterilization: Meanwhile, however, there are
instructions from the Reich Ministry of the Interior - quote: "Prisoners who were ordered to the institution by
the police can no longer be released home because these "mentally unstable persons in air-raid
shelters... can very easily lead to disputes...". Therefore the "dismissal must be rejected"...
Erna Kronshage is inevitably trapped...
At the same time, in the course of the so-called "Aktion Brandt", beds are to be cleared in the psychiatric facilities
for the acutely necessary care and nursing of bomb victims and war wounded - i.e. for general hospital and
hospital needs.
The guidelines and guidelines were handed over directly and centrally from Berlin to the individual nursing homes
by the planners under the personal physician Dr. Karl Brandt, appointed by Hitler in 1943, as head of the entire
medical care system and coordinator of medical research.
There it was determined where and how much capacity should be redistributed accordingly - and according to
which selection criteria this should be done - see the "secret" letter on the assignment of patients to the respective
"service groups".
Recent studies show that, at least in Gütersloh, it was perhaps not so much these service groups or "behaviours"
or "sanctions" towards individual patients that were taken into account when drawing up the transport lists, but
rather the need to vacate apparently suitable residential areas in the area of the facility.
To what extent this deportation transport was communicated with the survivors on 12.11.1943 is not known...
74

Such "secret" orders also reached Gütersloh
illustrative visual material
Deportation: Implementation instructions in accordance with the (special) action Brandt: The medical institutions are partly evacuated in order to get free
places to care for civilian and uniformed war wounded by providing and converting them into military and civil hospital beds: And in this displacement process
the psychiatric patients in question are systematically named locally on a decentralized basis and "hunted down" with the deportation...
For this purpose there were "secret" implementation orders (see the two original letters above) to the individual hospitals involved. Thus, the patients to be
separated should be assessed according to service groups: who is still useful and who is a "useless eater". Then, as a rule, the deportation groups were put
together.

Illustrating pictorial material:
The" Grey Buses" -
here for the trips of
Institution to the railway station ...
All deportation transports are carried out by the GEKRAT (alias: "Gemeinnützige Krankentransportgesellschaft"): a Berlin Nazi
organization that precisely coordinates this carriage driving to death despite war and air raids...

illustrative visual material
Erna Kronshage is deported on 12.11.1943 with 99 fellow patients.
The transport leads via Hanover and Berlin to German-occupied
Poland - to the "Tiegenhof", 630 km away - near the city of Gnesen. 77

From now on it's finally downhill: Erna Kronshage is part of the evacuation deportation to Gnesen
on November 12, 1943: about 630 kilometers...
illustrative visual material
78

People become piece goods:
Demonstration photo montage
The deportation patients are marked with leukoplast strips between the shoulder blades,
which cannot be manipulatively removed.
79

Foto: nach imagenes.4ever.eu
80

illustrative visual material
Nazi euthanasia.
annihilation
81

illustrative visual material
The historian Götz Aly
has calculated:
Approximately one in
eight adult Germans is
directly related to
someone who was the
victim of Nazi sick
murders.
And if you add the
married relatives,
almost everyone would
find someone in the
families.
… jeder 8.
erwachsene
Deutsche …
Most families didn't talk
about it.
The murdered are
forgotten.
Source: SPIEGEL
discussion of 22 April
2013
Every 8th adult German …
82

If only one minute's silence were allowed for each of the approximately 300,000 victims of the
various "euthanasia" phases, it would be 5,000 hours of silence - well over half a year (0.57
years) or almost 30 weeks (29.76 weeks) or 208 days (208.333 days).
83

Nazi euthanasia-
PHASES 1939 - 1945
"Children's Euthanasia" 1939-1945
approx. 8,000 victims (handicapped children)
in approx. 40 "children's departments".
Killing type: different
"Action T 4" 1940-24.08.1941
at least 70,243 victims (centrally controlled)
6 killing facilities
Killing type: Gas
„Action 14f13" 1941-1944
approx. 20,000-30,000 victims
(concentration camp prisoners)
various killer sites
Killing type: different
Prof. Dr. Karl Brandt,
Adolf Hitler's accompanying surgical physician, SS
Group Leader and Lieutenant General of the
Waffen SS as well as Commissioner General for
Medical and Health Services, has been entrusted
by Hitler with the implementation and coordination
of the actions...
illustrative visual material
"Wild Euthanasia"/"Decentralized Adult Sicricides" 1940-
1945
approx. 80,000 -120.000 victims (psychiatry and nursing
homes)
various killer sites
Killing type: different
"Action Brandt" 1943-1945
Evacuation of sanatoriums to the facility
of hospital beds for the war-disabled
"Air War Evacuation„
approx. 30,000-45,000 victims (psychiatry and nursing homes)
various killer sites
Killing type: „‘Luminal‘ scheme": reduced-calorie diet with slight
barbiturate overdose

Mentally handicapped and Psychiatric patients
are "useless eaters" for the Nazis, who only cost
money - but bring nothing - which impair the
"healthy body of the people".
From 1939 Hitler pursued a simple and quick "solution" and
gave the order to kill these people "by grace", "to redeem"
them.
A questionnaire is used to select the people for these murders
of the sick by doctors:
There are three things at stake here:
• Who's the sick one?
• How severe is the disease or disability?
• Can and will he work?
In 1941, the first phase of centralized murder is interrupted
after a total of more than 70,000 murder victims ("T4"
campaign) due to interventions by isolated church people.
From the end of 1942, the "euthanasia" murders continued -
but now behind closed doors: with the support of the "T4"
organizations in Berlin, each sanatorium determined - for
various reasons - which patients as death candidates were
transferred to a killing sanatorium by special train. There are
mass murders with sleeping pills and starvation. Only simple
water soups are served, without nutrients, and dry bread with
Pell potatoes as topping.
At least 1,017 patients will also be deported from the
Gütersloh sanatorium.
85

Protests by churches through petitions, letters and sermons –
by intervention of the churches, the centrally controlled "T4" sick murders in 1941 are first stopped - but then from 1942/43
on, organized locally and continued on a large scale and in various phases of the process with the help of the central rope
teams from Tiergartenstraße 4...
Pastor Paul-Gerhard Braune,
head of Lobetal in the v.
Bodelschwingh Institutions -
His fight against "euthanasia" is
regarded as an important act of
Protestant resistance under
National Socialism. He
succeeded in preventing the
evacuation of the inhabitants of
the Hoffnungstaler Anstalten.
This fight against "euthanasia" and the conquest of the
Inner Mission led to his imprisonment by the Gestapo on
August 12, 1940. He was detained for three months in the
Gestapo prison in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in Berlin.
In 1943 Braune stood up for arrested homosexual
inhabitants of the Hoffnungstaler Anstalten and wrote,
unsuccessfully, petitions for mercy for those condemned
to death.
Bishop Count von Galen, Münster –
sermon from the pulpit that now also in the
province of Westphalia sick people are
being removed from sanatoria and nursing
homes and the relatives were informed
after a short time that the sick person had
died and the body had already been
cremated. He had the "suspicion,
bordering on security, that one follows the
doctrine that "one may destroy so-called
life unworthy of life". ... "Poor people, sick people, unproductive
people because of me! But did they forfeit their right to life? Do
you, I only have the right to live as long as we are productive, as
long as we are accepted as productive by others?"
The sermons were initially spread throughout Germany - mostly
by typewriting - within small Catholic groups, but very soon
reached a wider public via workplaces and air-raid shelters.
In particular, the killing of war invalids, which the bishop only
described in subjunctive language as a possible consequence,
was taken up as an assertion of facts and considerably intensified
the effect of the sermons.
Since those in power came to the conclusion that secrecy in the
killing of the sick had failed and "euthanasia" had proved to be
unacceptable among large sections of the population, Action T4
was interrupted and only continued in a less conspicuous form a
year later.
illustrative visual material

from the cover picture of the DVD cover of the film "Tiegenhof", 2011

Gauheilanstalt Tiegenhof near Gnesen - in
occupied Poland
Name before and after the German occupation: Dziekanka/Gniezno
Aerial view - bottom left: Typical pavilion - top right: Main house on a book cover for
the 100th birthday 1994
illustrative visual material
88

illustrative visual material
Above the pavilion roofs of Tiegenhof

illustrative visual material
Above the pavilion roofs of Tiegenhof - in the background the silhouette of Gnesen/Gniezno

Block 13 in the Gauheilanstalt "Tiegenhof" in Gnesen - equipment for a Polish documentary -
Photo: Martyr Museum in Zabikowo from the film "Tiegenhof - - 2011 (Film – click here)
91

The Tiegenhof/Gnesen institution as a destination for deportation transport has
developed into a killing centre under the direction of Dr. Victor Ratka since
1939:
• From the end of 1939 to the beginning of 1945 - in a good 5.5 years -
almost 3,600 people were killed in "Tiegenhof/Dziekanka" according to
publications of the current clinic management - i.e. about 700 people per
year –
• that is an average of almost 2 deaths per day in an institution with an
occupancy rate of just over 1,000 patients from about 1943...
• this corresponded to an average mortality rate of at least 70 % per year.
• Especially in "Dziekanka" before the Nazi era, "normal" was a mortality rate
of only 1 to 2 % per year.
• From the end of 1939 to 1941, more than 1,000 Polish inmates were initially
murdered in Dziekanka - partly in converted small trucks as gas wagons in
which the exhaust gases were diverted to the loading area with the
"passengers"... (“SS Special Command Herbert Lange”)
• The latest research on Dziekanka/Tiegenhof assumes that 5,000 or more
sick-killers have been killed...
92

illustrative visual material
93
Dying Room, memorial plaque for the "Euthanasia" victims (1948),
Entrance Women's Pavilion

Still from the film "Tiegenhof", 2011
94

95
According to testimonies of witnesses in the post-war period, violent attacks also took place in Tiegenhof.
Administering the deadly drugs by the nursing staff... - Illustrating pictorial material

e.g. a fatless vegetable soup
result in the "yellow soup" as
creeping poison ...
+ dissolved sleeping pills
The mass killings of deportation patients from the "Reichsgebiet" from about the end of 1941 to the beginning of 1945
mostly take place according to Prof. Dr. Hermann Paul Nitsche's "Luminal Scheme" - which he first "scientifically" tests on
60 patients and then gradually refines and develops - and which he offers to the Nazi "euthanasia" directors of institution
for the decentralized/"wild" actions from August 1943 - after the first killing action "T4" discontinued in 1941:
The Luminal scheme consists of a so-called hunger diet with "yellow soup" = the administration of fatless food with
dissolved sleeping pills (barbiturates - e.g. Luminal) in only a slightly increased dose = so that death only occurs after
weeks or months. This death is then ultimately a creeping poisoning syndrome in the immune system weakened by hunger
food - specifically, infections such as pneumonia or bronchitis are the "official“ "natural" causes of death - or simply a
"complete exhaustion of the body" as with Erna Kronshage - without any external traces of violence - an almost "perfect"
murder....
96

Erna Kronshage is killed on 20.02.1944 in Tiegenhof/Gnesen.
It takes exactly 100 days from the day they arrive from Gütersloh until they are
murdered...
Illustrating pictorial material
97

Dr. Victor Ratka - Director Tiegenhof
& T4 expert
• born on 27.11.1895 Ober-Lazisk - + 05.04.1966 Heitersheim), late
recognized Volksdeutscher as Upper Silesian and director of a Polish
"sanatorium";
• From 1918-1921 he studied medicine at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in
Freiburg;
• Preliminary medical examinations 1918-1921 (Archive: B 73/51);
• Doctoral certificate of 01.10.1922 (Archive of the University of Freiburg under
D 11/83, D 29/27/1427);
• Ratka conducted studies within the framework of the David Julius Wetterhan
Foundation*) from 1917-1922 (Archive: B 1/619) ...
• ) .... in addition - from messages of the Jewish community of the city of
Freiburg/Breisgau: The private man David Julius Wetterhan from Frankfurt a.
M., who died here in September 1914, had established a foundation of
168,000 marks in his will at the University of Freiburg to promote natural
history and medical studies".
• In 1928 Ratka became senior physician of the Lublinitz institution;
• From 1934 director of DZIEKANKA institution in Gniezno/Gnesen (named
"Tiegenhof" after occupation in 1939), during the war a pure murder
institution;
• Ratka was recognized ("Germanized") as a native of Upper Silesia and as the
director of a first Polish sanatorium only later as a "Volksdeutscher"...
• Admission to the SA.
• From 01.09.1941 as assessor temporarily seconded to T4 headquarters,
selection of patients and concentration camp prisoners ("Aktion 14f13" -
selection doctor in concentration camps for the "segregation" of "antisocial
prisoners").
• 1943 Joined the NSDAP;
• in spring 1945 timely departure from Gniezno first to Thuringia - then
departing in the direction of the occupation zones of the Western occupying
powers - denazification proceedings in Kassel - classified there merely as
"followers";
• Two judicial proceedings against him for his role in Nazi euthanasia activities
and in the Tiegenhof clinical were closed for "inability to negotiate or after his
death.
• until his death on 05.04.1966 - at the age of 71 - retired as former director of
a "German sanatorium".
98

Fate of the deportation transport from the Provinzialheilanstalt Gütersloh to
Tiegenhof/Gnesen on 12.11.1943
• 12.11.1943: 50 men - 50 women - deportation destination: Gau-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt
Tiegenhof/Gnesen im Warthegau -
• 90 patients (42 men - 48 women -[including Erna Kronshage] are killed in Tiegenhof by the
end of the war - 10 (5 men - 5 women) die in the post-war period...
• The mortality rate of the deportation transport from Gütersloh to Tiegenhof from November
12, 1943 to the end of the war was 90%.
• (Source: Bernd Walter: Psychiarie und Gesellschaft in der Moderne, 1996, table p. 945 - excerpt)
99

Original death
certificate Erna
Kronshage of the
German occupation
authorities in
occupied Poland of
20.02.1944

At the request of her parents, Erna
Kronshages' body is returned to
Senne II.
For this purpose, the coffin is
transported 600 km in a Reichs-Bahn
luggage van to the shunting tracks of
the "Kracks" railway station - in other
words, very close to Mühlenkamp,
where Erna was born 21 years earlier.
The family secretly opens the coffin
and checks superficially and
amateurishly whether traces of
violence are visible on the body.
On 5 March 1944 Erna Kronshage is
buried in the family grave at the old
cemetery in Senne II - today
Sennestadt.
Illustrating pictorial material
101

Although the cause of death on 20.02.1944 is indicated "officially" with "general exhaustion" (in the family one also
speaks again and again of "pneumonia") - writes Father Holzapfel of the community Senne II. on 05.03.1944 in the
death register: "Cause of death unknown. She died in a mental hospital in Tiegenhof, Kr. Gnesen." - This is perhaps
the silent protest of the priest who does not believe in a "natural" death.....
102

Commemorate

Above: Panorama of the cemetery Tiegenhof, from where the coffin is transferred... - Below left: Obituary and right:
Family tomb in Senne II - today this tomb unfortunately no longer exists...

• The tomb of the Kronshage family on the old cemetery
in Sennestadt has been levelled and completely
disappeared since 2013. Also the memorial in the
background - from which however the inscriptions at
another cross in the vicinity were taken over: In the
truest sense of the word "grass has grown over the
matter" -- because the old cemetery is mainly
transformed into a green corridor without individual
grave markings.
• Meanwhile there are "official" considerations to
preserve "historically valuable" gravestones - and yet
perhaps also to install a memento of Erna Kronshage
there on the grounds of the "Old Cemetery"...
105
Blumen am eingeebneten Grab Erna Kronshages – Video-Still aus dem WDR-Lokalzeit-
TV-Beitrag zu Erna Kronshage 2014 ...

6.12.2012: On the 90th anniversary of her birthday a "stumbling block" will be laid
in memory of Erna Kronshage
The artist Gunter Demnig sets a so-called "stumbling block" for
the victims of the Nazi regime's violence - in each case near
the last "free place of residence":
Here: near the residential building "Mühlenkamp" - at the
pedestrian crossing towards Kracks station - at the traffic
light/barrier crossing Verler Straße | Sender Straße |
Krackser Straße - in D-33689 Bielefeld-Sennestadt
(Germany)
Mühlenkamp
Stolperstein
Gunter Demnig
when laying the
stumbling blocks

The stumbling block in memory of Erna Kronshage near the
"Mühlenkamp" residential building
107

Ribbon of lights with names as a memorial for 1,017 deported "euthanasia" victims in the
hospital church in Gütersloh
108

Central memorial and information centre for the
Victims of the National Socialist "euthanasia" murders
Tiergartenstrasse 4 - in Berlin

Culture of Remembrance: Virtual Memorial Site
http://www.gedenkort-t4.eu/de/vergangenheit/kronshage-erna
110

Click here:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erna_Kronshage
http://erna-4-teens.blogspot.de/
http://erna-kronshage-lite.blogspot.de/
http://erna-k-gedenkblog.blogspot.de/
Film „Tiegenhof“, 2011:
http://www.erna-k-gedenkblog.blogspot.de
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4oqrOEgq
V9adnNNWWNWSjJORlU 111

On this inclined plane there was no longer any hold...
Erna Kronshages 484 days of suffering in summary
• Spring/autumn 1942 - Refusal attitude and behavioral abnormalities:
• Admission "at one's own request" to the Provinzialheilanstalt Gütersloh on
24.10.1942
• The rapid diagnosis of 10/1942: "Schizophrenia" =
• Application for "infertility" by the Gütersloh Sanatorium to the Hereditary
Health Court according to the "Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken
Nachwuchses" = 2/1943;
• The father as guardian repeatedly raises massive and vehement objections
• Decision in the 2nd instance: Forced sterilisation takes place in 8/1943
• Deportation to Tiegenhof/Gnesen (in occupied Poland) in 11/1943 for "air raid
protection reasons" or due to the provision of hospital beds for the care of war
wounded in the Gütersloh sanatorium - a Nazi killing centre active since 1939
within the framework of the various "euthanasia" waves.
• Murder by hunger and barbiturates on 20.02.1944 in the "Heilanstalt" Tiegenhof

Author and design of this magazine: Edward Wieand -
Mail: info(at)eddywieand-sinedi.de - extended update 7/2018
Translated into English with DeepL-Translator
113

Lecture on Erna Kronshages' ordeal at the Albatros School in February 2017 - a special needs school in Bielefeld-Senne