Euthanasia: Maria "Kätchen" Reichardt

In 1917, during World War I, Willy was killed in action in France at only 44 years old, leaving Omi a widow and single mother with two daughters. As a result, she moved back to her native city of Berlin, where her father was still living. She found a reasonable rental apartment in an affluent neighborhood near Charlottenburg Palace. Hilla attended high school, but Kätchen stayed home because she was often too ill to attend. She was taught at home by a teacher from the auxiliary school from fall of 1921 to spring of 1923. Kätchen could read and write a little, but was unable to complete math tasks.

After each serious illness, her mental development regressed. Kätchen had contracted encephalitis at the age of one year and three months and family members attribute later developmental delays and difficulties to this early childhood illness.

When Kätchen was admitted to St. Johannes-Stift Niedermarsberg on July 24, 1925, the facility had: “... 470 beds and specialist departments for acute psychiatric treatment and psychosomatics: discharge preparation; clinical central and neuropediatric treatment; medium-long-term treatment (learning and mentally handicapped), and medium-long-term treatment (multiple handicapped). The hospital area includes extensive facilities for occupational work and occupational therapy for vocational promotion and rehabilitation, including appropriate craft workshops and a well-equipped social center.”

Then, at the beginning of 1928, she seemed to be again completely changed: “speaks by herself, laughs and plays nicely with the other children.” On August 29, 1933, her mother, Omi took her on a ten-day trip to the city of Trier. An entry under September 9, 1933 stated: “Came back today. Didn't cause any major problems on the trip.” In 1935, it’s mentioned that she had had seizures again and from that time onwards, they occurred about every quarter of a year. In 1936, it was also noted: “Still shows strong mood swings. At times cheerful, friendly, approachable, then again agitated, stubborn, grumpy, absent. Physical condition satisfactory. Weight: 99 pounds.” The most she ever weighed during her time in the sanatorium was 103.6 pounds and the last weight entry from March 1939 shows 94.8 pounds.

These mood swings continued in 1937. There are no entries for 1938, but in March 1939, the following entry was made: “Strong mood swings, sometimes friendly and approachable, sometimes agitated and angry. Is clean, needs to be fed. Communication with her is not possible.” Even though it was quite a distance from Berlin, Omi, her mother, and her sister, Hilla, visited Kätchen regularly in Marsberg.  

Family Members

Bernhard Hartung - Brother-in-Law and Physician 

Visit the Bernhard Hartung page for a more information about Dr. Hartung's story.

Jenny Reichardt - Paternal Aunt

As Kätchen was in Niedermarsberg, her “Aunt Jenny” chose Marsberg as her place of residence after her retirement. Bernhard wrote about her: “An aunt Jenny Reichardt - after her retirement as Lectrice to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands [in fact she was the lectrice of Emma, Wilhelmina’s mother] - had chosen the town of Niedermarsberg as her retirement home to look after her [Kätchen]. She often visited the child in the institution and supplemented the loving care of the Vincentian Sisters.”

During the family’s research about Kätchen, they found letters from Aunt Jenny to Kätchen in her records and discovered that Kätchen was Aunt Jenny’s beloved niece and that they must have had a very loving relationship. Jenny sent letters and parcels during her work life in the Netherlands and visited her as often as she could. Among others, the family found a Christmas card from Queen Emma for Kätchen from December 1925. The postcard was accompanied by a longer, lovely Christmas letter from Aunt Jenny to her niece. As the family learned from another letter Jenny sent to the sanatorium, she also supported her brother, Willy Reichardt, Kätchen’s father, and her sister-in-law, Kätchen’s mother, Omi, financially during the war and after, especially when Omi was a widow and had to pay the care allowance for the sanatorium by herself.

The late 1920s and early 1930 were the time of the Great Depression and inflation rose to never seen before heights in Germany. An increase of the care allowance came at a time of very fast rising living costs without an increase in pension or other support. Aunt Jenny was also heavily impacted. The situation in the Netherlands was as dire as in Germany, and she couldn’t support Omi anymore. She explains this in a letter to the director of the Sanatorium, asking him to prevent the increase in care allowance. The director did not have the power to decide about the issue and suggested that Omi send an official request to the responsible authorities. Eventually, her application to be exempt from the increased fee was approved and Omi was allowed to continue to pay 4 Mark instead of 5 Mark per day.

Three years later, in 1932, the situation worsened: “As a war widow – my husband was killed as an active major on the Western Front in 1917 – I have had the surviving dependants = care fees (words illegible) to support me and my children over the years. Until October 1st of this year, I received the orphan's pension for the child who was accommodated in Niedermarsberg in consideration of her illness. Until the spring of this year, I also received the child allowance. Both sums, which together amounted to 45 marks for the month, have now been abolished. In addition, due to the emergency regulations, my pension has been reduced by around a third since the last time the daily care rate was set. I am therefore now completely unable to continue paying the previous nursing rate of 4 Mark. In view of the fact that the total cost of living has fallen considerably since the care rate of 4 Mark was set and with reference to my extraordinary emergency situation, I take the liberty of making the very humble and urgent request to reduce the care rate for my child to 3 Mark. Raising this sum will require me to make enormous sacrifices, as this sum also consumes almost half of my pension.” In the end, this request was also granted and Omi only had to pay 3 Mark per month.

Adulthood and Death

According to the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases”, all disabled people need to fill out a report certifying whether the person in question suffered from a hereditary disease. This was also done in Kätchen's case and she was certified with “congenital feeblemindedness.” Although this was not true, as shown by all other medical and examination reports of the sanatorium at the time she was admitted. It is not clear whether this misdiagnosis was deliberate or an oversight, but it was a factor in why Kätchen later became a victim of the Nazi “euthanasia” program.

It is not known if this doctor’s entry determined the decision to transfer Kätchen, but the fact that she had “to be completely cared for” and was “completely incapable of any gainful activity” was an important finding as in the Nazi ideology, only people who could contribute to society had a right to live. Kätchen was transferred from Marsberg Sanatorium to Weilmünster Sanatorium on June 29, 1941.

Afterward, when going to visit Käthchen, Aunt Jenny was told that she was not in the Sanatorium anymore and had been sent to an unknown destination. The family made inquiries about Kätchen's whereabouts. On July 3, 1941, Bernhard wrote a letter to the Marsberg Sanatorium asking where Kätchen was sent. From there, his letter was forwarded to the “Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH” (non-profit patient transport company) in Berlin. He later received a letter dated July 17, 1941, with the information that “Käthe Reichardt, born 8/21/1882, was transferred to the Bernburg/Saale sanatorium and nursing home” and that they had asked the Bernburg institution to get in contact with the family. However, because the Käthe Reichardt mentioned in the letter had the wrong date of birth, the family felt that it was a different individual and wrote again. About ten days later, a letter was received from Bernburg with the following information: “We regret to inform you that the patient, Miss Auguste Luise Henriette Reichardt, born August 21, 1882, in Zeitz ... died here already on December 18, 1940, from a severe epileptic seizure.” Meanwhile, according to Bernhard’s autobiography, her mother Omi had received a letter from Marsberg that her daughter had been transferred to the Herborn Sanatorium for "war-related security reasons." Furthermore, on July 10, 1941, Omi received a telegram from the Weilmünster Sanatorium that Kätchen had died the same day and that the funeral would be that next Sunday.

Omi and Aunt Jenny went to Weilmünster Sanatorium. According to Bernhard’s autobiography, “a dead woman was presented to them, who, emaciated beyond recognition, could only be recognized by her mother as her daughter Käthe by her deformed feet.” Omi herself wrote in a letter to the director of the Weilmünster Sanatorium: “It was difficult to recognize my child - she had changed so much, if only her hair had not been cut off completely.” This information fits with the official cause of death, which was “Marasmus" (a severe cause of malnutrition caused by energy deficiency). Nevertheless, Omi was told that the patient had died of pneumonia, a false statement that was given to countless relatives at the time.

A few days later, she received an apologetic message, dated August 5, 1941, saying that she had accidentally received information about a patient with the same name who had been transferred.

Legacy

According to oral family history, in January, 1945, Hilla gave birth to her youngest daughter, Agnete, the last of four children she had with Bernhard, in addition to the three children he had from his first marriage. Her mother, Omi, took baby Agnete on as a “surrogate daughter.” She was a rather sickly child, but always driven by the urge to be active and to get outside. However, fearing that something might happen to her, Omi often would not allow her to play outside with other children or do things on her own. 

In later years, in order to come to terms with their family history and to know more about Kätchen’s fate apart from a few family stories and Bernhard's autobiography, the family started to conduct research about her. In 2024, the family sent an email to the successor of the Marsberg Sanatorium and Nursing Home and received information back that all records about former patients were kept in the central archives of the “Landschaftsverband Westfalen Lippe (LWL)”. They were very surprised when they got an email that the patient file of Kätchen still existed in the archives and that they could receive a digital copy; they received 144 pages with all different documents, among others the cited personal letters of Omi and Aunt Jenny, as well as copies of information from the director of the Marsberg Sanatorium and other authorities.

When the family contacted the Vitos Hospital Weilmünster, the successor of the Weilmünster Sanatorium and Nursing Home, they forwarded the email to the person responsible at the Hadamar Memorial, the central memorial for all “Euthanasia” murders in Hesse and received the following answer: “Mrs. Maria Katharina Reichardt, born on 12/15/1911 in Posen, was admitted to the Marsberg institution on a date unknown to us. From there, she was transferred to the Weilmünster State Sanatorium on 06/29/1941.” At this time, Weilmünster was a so-called “intermediate institution” for the Hadamar killing center. From January to August 1941, Hadamar was one of six “Euthanasia” killing centers of Aktion T4; patients from other institutions were initially collected in “intermediate institutions” and soon afterwards transferred to Hadamar and murdered.

Since 1991, a memorial stone in the cemetery of the Weilmünster institution has commemorated the victims of “Euthanasia.” Since 2003, the cemetery has been designated as a memorial to the victims and documents all known names of the deceased that are buried there. Further information on the history of Weilmünster Hospital can be found in the exhibition in House 105 and in the book by Christina Vanja (ed.): “Heilanstalt – Sanatorium – Kliniken. 100 Jahre Krankenhaus Weilmünster 1897 – 1997, Kassel 1997.”

Note: Kätchen's story was provided by a descendent of her sister and is based both on family oral history and evidence found in the historical records. The timeline surrounding her transfer, death, funeral, and related communication on her status are not linear and impact the family’s ongoing questions around Kätchen's final days.