Schloss Hartheim, also known as Hartheim Castle, is a

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

Alkoven Alkoven is a municipality in the district of Eferding in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Geography Alkoven lies in the Hausruckviertel. About 17 percent of the municipality is forest and 65 percent farmland. History The Renaissance style H ...

Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria borders Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the other Austrian states of Lower Austria, Styria, an ...

, some from

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It was built by Jakob von Aspen in 1600, and it is a prominent

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

castle in the country. The building became notorious as one of the centers for the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

killing program known as

Action T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of t ...

, in which German citizens deemed mentally or physically unfit were systematically killed with poison gas. After the end of Action T4 (August 1941), these killings were extended to include

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

and others considered undesirable by the state who were imprisoned in concentration camps. These people stem from various countries in the world. In this capacity it was known as the

Hartheim Killing Facility The Hartheim killing centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hartheim, sometimes translated as "Hartheim killing facility" or "Hartheim euthanasia centre") was a killing facility involved in the Nazi programme known as ''Aktion T4'', in which German ...

. In sum 30.000 people (18.000 people with handicaps and mentally ill people, about 12.000 concentrations camp prisoners and forced laborers) were killed in Hartheim until the end of the year 1944. In 1898, Prince Camillo Heinrich Starhemberg (1835–1900) donated the castle as a gift to the Upper Austria Charity Organization. With the help of additional donations, they used the castle from the beginning of the 20th century as a psychiatric institution (German: ''Psychiatrische Anstalt'', but originally called the ''Idioten-Anstalt'').

History to 1940

Hartheim lies in the middle of the so-called Eferding Basin, that runs along the

River Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

from Ottensheim to

Aschach an der Donau Aschach an der Donau is a municipality in the district Eferding in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Geography Aschach lies in the Danube Valley, on the edge of the Eferding Basin in the Hausruckviertel. About 2 percent of the area is ...

. As early as 1130, a family with the name Hartheim is mentioned in the records. They were vassals of the

bishops of Passau The Diocese of Passau is a Roman Catholic diocese in Germany that is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.Wilhering Abbey. In any case by 1323, another family was named as the owners. Until the middle of the 14th century the site consisted mainly of just one tower, subsequently a residence was added and it was surrounded by a small wall with ramparts and ditches. After changing hands several times the castle ended up in the possession of the Aspen family, who probably built the castle into its present shape. At the beginning of the 1690s they had a completely new castle built conforming to perceptions of the ideal

style with a regular four-winged building with four polygonal corner towers and a higher central tower. In 1799, George Adam, Prince of Starhemberg, purchased the castle. However, by 1862 the castle was in a rather poor condition, as a contemporary report describes: "Doors, windows and ovens are entirely missing, ... and several ceilings must be replaced." In 1898, Camillo Henry, Prince of Starhemberg, made a present of the castle building, the outbuildings and some land to the Upper Austrian State Welfare Society (''Oberösterreichischen Landeswohltätigkeitsverein'' or ''OÖ. LWV''). It was intended to use further donation to convert the building into an "Idiot's Institute" as it was described at the time. In addition between 1900 and 1910 major renovation and conversion work was carried out to enable the building to be used as a care home for mentally handicapped people. In 1926, a staircase was dismantled and replaced by a bed lift.

Nazi era and aftermath

Following Hitler's so-called "euthanasia decree" of 1939, Hartheim was selected as one of six killing facilities in the Reich. Between May 1940 and December 1944, approximately 30,000 people physically and mentally disabled or ill were killed at Schloss Hartheim by gassing with

Carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide ( chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simpl ...

as part of

, a program of mass murder named after the Berlin address "Tiergartenstrasse 4". These included about twelve thousand prisoners from the

Dachau Dachau () was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents which consisted of: communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is lo ...

and

Mauthausen Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

concentration camps who were sent here to be gassed, as were hundreds of women sent from Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944, predominantly sufferers of TB and those deemed mentally infirm . The castle was regularly visited by the psychiatrists Karl Brandt, Professor of Psychiatry at Würzburg University, and

Werner Heyde Werner Heyde (aka Fritz Sawade) (25 April 1902 – 13 February 1964) was a German psychiatrist. He was one of the main organizers of Nazi Germany's T-4 Euthanasia Program. Early life Heyde was born in Forst (Lausitz), on May 25, in 1902, and com ...

. In December 1944 Schloss Hartheim was closed as an extermination centre and restored as a sanatorium after being cleared of evidence of the crimes committed therein. In 1946,

Alice Ricciardi-von Platen Alice Ricciardi von Platen (April 28, 1910 – February 23, 2008), born Alice von Platen-Hallermund, was an Italian physician and psychoanalyst of German descent. She is best known as the author of ''Nazism and euthanasia of the mentally ill in Ge ...

, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who practised near

, was invited to join the German team observing the so-called

Doctors' trial The Doctors' Trial (officially ''United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.'') was the first of 12 trials for war crimes of high-ranking German officials and industrialists that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. The trial was presided over by American judges, who indicted Karl Brandt and 22 others. The 16 who were convicted included

Josef Mengele , allegiance = , branch = Schutzstaffel , serviceyears = 1938–1945 , rank = '' SS''-'' Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain) , servicenumber = , battles = , unit = , awards = , commands = , ...

; seven were sentenced to death. Her 1948 book, ''Die Tötung Geisteskranker in Deutschland'', ("The killing of the mentally ill in Germany"), was judged a scandal by German medical professionals. After World War II, the building was converted into apartments. 1969, the first memorial rooms were opened in the former gas chamber and admission room. Since 2003 Hartheim Castle is a memorial site dedicated to the ten thousands of physically and mentally handicapped persons, concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers who were murdered there by the Nazis. Also in 2003 the exhibition "Value of Life" was opened.Memorial Site Hartheim Castle
Official website. Retrieved July 14, 2022

Sources

* Pierre Serge Choumoff, ''Les Assassinats Nationaux-Socialistes par Gaz en Territoire Autrichien'', Vienna, Bundesministerium für Inneres, 2000,
''Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials''
(PDF) Table of contents, introduction and index only.
Eutanasia, le radici dello sterminio

References

External links

Schloss Hartheim
- official site {{Authority control Castles in Upper Austria Museums in Upper Austria History museums in Austria World War II museums Monuments and memorials in Austria Museums established in 2003 Palaces in Austria Tourist attractions in Upper Austria

History to 1940

Nazi era and aftermath

See also

Further reading

Sources

References

External links