Otto Z. (1897 – 1938 Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home)

Otto Z. (pseudonym) was born in Ulm in 1897 as the only son of a construction worker. His father died after falling from scaffolding while working on Ulm Minster. After doing an apprenticeship as an electrician he was drafted into military service. He served as a stoker in the naval division in Wilhelmshaven. He also contracted the sexually transmitted disease lues there. Although he was treated, he did not receive the antiluetic treatment that would have been required for a complete cure. After the war, he moved to Munich and started a family, with two children.

He was opposed to the Nazi regime. Following a trial for high treason, he was transferred to Dachau Concentration Camp in November 1935. A report by the Gestapo describes the background: “Electrical engineer, married [...], last resident in Munich [...] he was taken into ‘protective custody’ on September 13, 1935 for having engaged in communist activities, and he was sent to Dachau Concentration Camp on November 16, 1935. (BAObb, EH, patient files no. 5422). At the concentration camp, even the guards noticed Otto Z.’s poor condition in 1938. He was mentally disturbed and spoke inarticulately. Following a medical-psychiatric assessment, it was determined that he was suffering from paralysis as a result of uncured lues. The Gestapo Office in Berlin then ordered Otto Z.  to be placed in a closed sanatorium and nursing home. On August 4 he was transferred to Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home. He died there in the same year.

After the war, his widow Therese requested that the progression of her husband’s illness and cause of death be clarified. On August 5, 1953, Munich Health Department concluded “that it was not possible to take his mental abnormalities [...] into account sufficiently during his internment in the concentration camp”. If Z. “had been working, he would very probably have been noticed earlier on and would have received treatment sooner. [...] It was stated that as a result of his political imprisonment, the patient’s condition had deteriorated considerably. [...] It can be assumed that the psychiatric diagnostics at the concentration camp were inadequate. The assessor knows from his own experience as a senior physician at the mental hospital that mentally ill people remained unrecognized in concentration camps for a long time until it was no longer possible to keep them there. The monotonous activity at the concentration camp contributed to the fact that the paralysis [...] was not recognized until it was too late” (ibid.). As a result, the widow was awarded a monthly pension of 200 deutschmarks along with capital compensation for herself and her children.