WILHELM SAUL (1906 – 1976) AND
MARIE WEGE (1901 – 1943)

Wilhelm Saul Sr. and his wife Wilhelmine ran a small farm in Scharnebeck, Im Fuchsloch 13, with a few pigs and cows and a barn with grain, straw and hay. Life on the farm was characterized by hard work and membership of an independent Protestant church (SELK). It was a community that kept to itself. The couple had five children: Marie, Minna, Wilhelm Jr, Anna and Emma. As there were no employees, the children had to help out early on.

After finishing school, the daughters worked as domestic helpers on various farms, where they usually met their future husbands. Minna married the farmer Johannes Schmidt from Stelle in 1930. The youngest daughter Emma married the wheelwright Wilhelm Schlichting from Südergellersen. Anna married Hermann Tiedge in 1938. The eldest daughter Marie married Hans Wege, a well builder six years her junior, in 1931. Marie’s father Wilhelm Sr. bought a small farm in Brietlingen for Marie and her husband, where the Wege family lived and worked from then on.

Marie’s husband Hans Wege brought a premarital daughter into the marriage, and they had three more children together: Hans-Heinrich, Marianne and Hildegard. On April 8, 1938, Hans Wege applied to the Brietlingen municipality for a one-off child allowance. From this moment on, the Wege and Saul families became the focus of National Socialist »eugenics«. Although Marie had been a patient at the Lüneburg institution and nursing home between August and December 1928, the health authorities certified that there were no »serious health concerns« regarding the application for a one-off child allowance.

Nevertheless, the application for child benefit did not remain without consequences. A sterilization notice about Wilhelm Saul Jr. filed a year earlier was now used as an opportunity to summon him to the health department and examine him. A »clan table« was drawn up. Accompanied by his father, Wilhelm Jr. attended the appointment. Despite efforts to the contrary, the Saul family was subsequently classified as »hereditary«. As a result, Wilhelmine Saul was denied the so-called »Cross of Honour of the German Mother« and hereditary health court proceedings were initiated regarding the infertility of Wilhelm Saul Jr.

Five years after the birth of her youngest daughter, Marie Wege fell ill again. On February 8, 1943, she was admitted to the Lüneburg asylum by a family doctor from Scharnebeck for »manic-depressive insanity«. She was very restless and refused to eat. An attempt to feed her artificially failed – she collapsed. She died barely two weeks after her admission on February 19, 1943, with »myocarditis« given as the cause of death. Although Marie had only been a patient at the Lüneburg asylum for a few days before her death, she was visited by her parents, her husband and other relatives. The clinic was unable to save her life. The extent to which she was a victim of a lack of care remains unclear. After Marie’s death, the family said »Well, maybe they helped her along«, reports Lisa Michaelis, Marie and Wilhelm Saul’s niece.

As Wilhelm Jr. was not in a position to take over his parents‘ farm, it was transferred to his sister Anna in 1946. As a brother, he received a lifelong right of residence, free food and drink and pocket money. In 1958, Anna sought compensation and reparation for her brother’s forced sterilization. She received support from a cousin. They filed a lawsuit with the Civil Chamber of the Lüneburg Regional Court. The case was dismissed on September 19, 1959.

The reason given was: »According to §189 para. 1 BEG, applications for compensation had to be submitted to the competent compensation authority by April 1, 1958. The informal application received on April 17, 1958 did not meet this deadline. […] However, it would also not be possible to substantiate a claim for compensation. As can be seen from the hereditary health files of the Lüneburg State Health Office that were consulted, the sterilization of the applicant […] took place due to ›feeblemindedness with grafted schizophrenia‹. The procedure went according to plan. There are no indications whatsoever that this measure was directed against the applicant for reasons of opposition to National Socialism, race, faith or ideology, as required by Section 1 of the Federal Compensation Act [BEG], either from the files consulted or from the applicant’s submission. Since the […] sterilization carried out was ordered on the basis of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring of 14 July 1933 […], it must rather be assumed that eugenic reasons were decisive for this. The application was therefore to be rejected.«

Wilhelm’s sister Anna appealed against the rejection notice and filed a lawsuit. One week before the hearing date on February 12, 1960, she and her cousin withdrew their appeal »in agreement« with Wilhelm Saul Jr. The reasons are still unknown today. Wilhelm Saul Jr. lived on his parents‘ farm with his sister Anna and her family until two years before his death. From 1973, his niece Lisa took over care of him. He died in 1976 in the Lower Saxony State Hospital in Lüneburg. It was only in the last years of his life, when the family gradually became overwhelmed with his care, that Wilhelm became a psychiatric patient. After his death, the family had him transferred to Scharnebeck so that he could be laid to rest at home.