DORTMUND-APLERBECK

In November 1941, the »Children’s ward« in Dortmund took in the children and adolescents from the »Niedermarsberg children’s ward«. Initially, the »Children’s ward« was housed in the youth psychiatric ward at St. Johannisstift. Due to public unrest, it was relocated to the Dortmund-Aplerbeck institution in December 1941. It was the second facility in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia and remained in operation until at least 1943.

The medical director of the Institution and nursing home was Fritz Wernicke, while Theo Niebel was the senior physician in the »Children’s ward«. At least 491 children and adolescents were admitted there, of whom at least 236 died. 162 deaths remain unexplained.

After the war, the careers of both doctors responsible continued without interruption. There were never any criminal investigations into the »Children’s ward« in Aplerbeck. Wernicke continued to work as a doctor and died in 1961. Niebel became a senior medical officer in 1957 and died in 1974.

Although survivors Karl-Heinz Wagener and Paul Brune had made the crimes against the children in Aplerbeck public after the end of the war, they were forgotten until 1989. Various initiatives to come to terms with the past followed. Today, there are various memorials and plaques on the site commemorating the crimes.

The picture shows the building that housed the Dortmund-Aplerbeck »Children’s ward« see Uwe Bitzel: »Lebensunwert« (Unworthy of Life): The Aplerbeck Institution and its Patients under National Socialism, Dortmund 1995, p. 79.