Tötungsanstalt Kaufbeuren

The Kaufbeuren District Hospital is a specialist psychiatric clinic in Kaufbeuren in Bavaria. During the National Socialist era, the predecessor institution, Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Kaufbeuren-Irsee, was involved in the murder of numerous patients at its locations in Kaufbeuren and Irsee in the course of "euthanasia". The then director of the Kaufbeuren main station and its branch, Valentin Faltlhauser, was an active advocate of the killing of mentally and physically impaired people.

After the National Socialists came to power and numerous ordinances, the “Heil- und Pflegehaus Kaufbeuren-Irsee” was actively involved in the euthanasia killings of mentally and physically impaired people between 1939 and 1945. Its significance for the murders of the sick under National Socialism lay primarily in the fact that the institution, with 1.200 beds, was already the largest facility of its kind in Swabia in the 1930's. Since September 1939, people from all over Bavaria have been transferred to the Kaufbeuren-Irsee asylum.

Action T4

At the beginning of 1940, the director Valentin Faltlhauser received a list for the first time with the names of those patients who were to be transferred to specific imperial institutions in the course of the T4 campaign and who were to be killed there with gas. A total of 687 patients were transported to the Grafeneck and Hartheim killing centers between August 26, 1940 and August 8, 1941 and murdered there. With the end of the T4 campaign and the end of the transports, the Kaufbeuren-Irsee sanatorium carried out the killings of the adults and children themselves.

"Starvation of patients"

The "withdrawal diet" used in a targeted manner was the continuation of the T4 action that had been canceled. In Bavaria, the state welfare associations had been pushing for a reduction in accommodation costs since the late 1920's. Even before the beginning of the war, Valentin Faltlhauser advocated dieting for patients based on work performance. In Irsee, the "hungry diet" had therefore been used since August 1942 and in Kaufbeuren since October 1942. On November 30, 1942, Walter Schultze signed the “Hunger Food Decree” on behalf of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, according to which all “unable to work” patients were undernourished and exhausted due to malnutrition. The majority died from the resulting deficiency symptoms or from corresponding secondary diseases. The food given contained no carbohydrates, no fat, no meat and only little bread. The change in meals significantly increased the death rate in the institution during these years.

Tuberculosis experiments

The senior physician at the Mittelberg children's sanatorium, Georg Hensel, carried out medical experiments on physically and mentally impaired children at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee sanatorium between 1942 and 1944. In order to find a vaccine against tuberculosis, Hensel, in consultation with Valentin Faltlhauser, vaccinated at least 13 children a self-developed vaccine. The medical experiments were fatal for six of the children.

Liberation by US troops

American troops occupied Kaufbeuren at the end of April, but did not yet intervene in the institution's operations. It was not until July 1, 1945 that the rumors about the infanticide reached the military office, whereupon three soldiers and a photographer broke into the institution and stopped the killing. In the months after the end of the war, the Allied troops described the liberated institutions and the doctors involved in a report. This report by the American intelligence service bears the handwritten title “Medical extermination camp in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria” and was probably not far from the truth, as the following description shows:

“Almost every inhabitant knew exactly that people there were being used as guinea pigs and systematically slaughtered. The perpetrators or passive contributors were in no way aware of their crimes, they were Germans, not Nazis. There were also Catholic sisters among them. The head nurse, who admitted to having killed 'about' 210 children by intramuscular injections in two years, simply asked: 'Will something happen to me?' The stinking corpses of men and women were found in an unrefrigerated morgue who had died twelve hours to three days earlier. They weighed between 26 and 33 pounds. Among the children still alive was a ten-year-old boy who weighed less than 10 kilos. And whose legs were 6 centimeters in diameter at the ankles. Dr. Valentin Faltlhauser, 69 years old, Chief Medical Officer since 1919, was the director and was arrested. Also Franziska Vill, secretary to Dr. Faltlhauser was arrested. His deputy Dr. Lothar Gärtner, 43 years old, and who had been employed since January 1, 1930, committed suicide by hanging himself with the cord of a bedside lamp. Three other doctors were also arrested".