Brandenburg Old Prison

In October 1939, Hitler instructed the head of the Führer Chancellery Philipp Bouhler and Dr Karl Brandt to launch a program called T-4. The T-4 was a codename named after the program’s headquarters on Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin.  The T-4 stated that German citizens who had physical or mental disabilities and thus did not meet the racial criteria would be killed at special euthanasia centers. On the one hand, they were considered a danger to the nation’s survival if they spread their inferior genes further and on the other, they were considered an economic burden because they could not support themselves on their own without requiring care. Previously, the Nazis had murdered physically and mentally ill children in hospitals on a smaller scale through starvation and poison injections.

One task for Bouhler and Brandt was to find a practical and secluded place where the murders could be carried out. It was important that it was located near Berlin so that those responsible could make regular visits quickly and easily. In Brandenburg about sixty kilometres west of Berlin there was since 1931 a discontinued prison suitable for the purpose. In addition there was the psychiatry clinic Brandenburg – Görden nearby whose patients could be murdered in prison. It was also suitable located in an area with good infrastructure that allowed good transport opportunities.

In early December 1939, the nazis began in an adjacent abandoned prison building to construct a gas chamber measuring about 15 square meter,  a reception room and a dressing room. To camouflage the real purpose of the operation, the centre were given the official name, Brandenburg’s state hospital and health care institution (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Brandenburg).

The first test gassing was carried out in early January 1940. About 20 people were murdered as guinea pigs to determine whether or not to use carbon monoxide as a method of execution. The result fell well and carbon monoxide became the gas used in all euthanasia centers. There are few documents and testimonies that can tell about this first gassing, but present was probably following persons, Dr. Albert Widmann, chemist, Dr. Werner Heyde, psychiatrist, Dr. August Becker, chemist and SS officer, Richard von Hegener, Führer Chancellery (worked in child euthanasia program), Viktor Brack, Führer Chancellery and in charge of the T-4. After the war all tried to down play their role in this test gassing. 

The patients who were to be murdered arrived by bus to Brandenburg and were led into the killing facility. There they were registered, some patients were examined, but all patients were finally undressed and led into the gas chamber and murdered. Initially, the gas chamber was not camouflaged as a shower room, it was only later that those responsible realized the advantage of camouflaging it as part of the misdirection. Initially, patients were informed that it was an inhalation room used for psychotherapeutic reasons and were asked to take deep breaths. Another difference from the other five official euthanasia centers was that the gas chambers did not have tile walls as part of the camouflage process and that the gas pipelines were located close to the floor and not in the ceiling.

When the patients were dead, the bodies were carried out and cremated. Some dead were dissected before being cremated. The corpses were cremated at night in two mobile ovens that were placed in a connecting room. These were heated with oil and were connected to the chimney of the building. But the location of the prison in central Brandenburg meant that the stench of burnt flesh spread over the city. The chimney was also to short and flames bursting out of the chimney could be seen from distance. Therefore the cremation was transferred to Paterdamm in July 1940, a remote site about six kilometers south of Brandenburg, where they set up a provisional cremation building. To conceal the purpose of the site, it was called the Chemical and Technical Research Institute (Chemisch-Technische Versuchsanstalt). The corpses were transported at night in camouflaged post trucks to Paterdamm in order to maintain confidentiality as far as possible.

The last gassings in Brandenburg took place on October 29, 1940, when some children from Brandenburg – Girden were murdered. The reason for the liquidation of Brandenburg was because those responsible were concerned that the inhabitants of Brandenburg would react negatively if any suspicions of the murder of Germans could be confirmed. According to statistics, 9772 people were murdered during the nine months of the euthanasia centre in Brandenburg. All technical equipment was dismantled and several doctors and nurses were transferred to the mental hospital in Bernburg where the operation was resumed. The buildings were badly damaged at the end of the war and destroyed.