6 - Case Histories: The Legacy of Nazi Euthanasia in Recent German Heimatkrimis

Summary

Deshalb übrigens … lesen die Leute so gerne Krimis. Man will die Geschichte hinter der Untat, oder irgendeine Geschichte. Denn dann erst ergibt das Böse einen Sinn. Wenn wir den Täter und sein Motiv kennen, wenn wir wissen, wann und wo und wie er es getan hat, dann weicht das Abgründige der Tat. Das beruhigt. Das festigt die Weltsicht. Aber das Böse ist in Wahrheit ein Abgrund.

[That’s why people like detective novels so much, by the way. People want to know the story behind the crime, or a story at least. Only then does evil make sense. If we know who the perpetrator is and what his motive was, if we know when and where and how he did it, then the deed no longer seems so abyssal. It’s reassuring. It secures our perspective on the world. But evil really is an abyss.]

—Rainer Gross, Grafeneck

Tucked away on a hill in the picturesque heart of the Swabian Alps in southern Germany is the baroque castle Grafeneck. Once a summer hunting residence of the dukes of Württemberg, the castle has been a home for people with disabilities since the late 1920s, run by the Lutheran Samaritan Foundation. More than one hundred residents live there currently; it is a lively community, a Begegnungsstätte (meeting-place), as the Samaritan Foundation calls it, which works toward the social integration of people with disabilities. Every Sunday Grafeneck hosts a café where residents and visitors can enjoy coffee and cake; annual concerts and summer parties are held; and many of Grafeneck’s residents go to work in the surrounding towns. Grafeneck’s history as a care facility, however, has not been entirely uninterrupted. During the National Socialist regime, the castle was expropriated and turned into the first of six institutions for the euthanasia program, committed to the extermination of people with supposedly hereditary illnesses in the interest of so-called racial hygiene. During the eleven months of its operation (January 18–December 13, 1940), 10,654 people were gassed and cremated there. In 1947 it was returned to the Samaritan Foundation and resumed its function as a care facility.