Ungargasse 20 (laid 2012)
Hermann Hackel (Hackl)
Branded as „work-shy“
Hermann Alfred Hackel (Hackl), born March 30, 1897, in Wiener Neustadt, was transferred to the Gugging mental institution on July 10, 1941, and was killed there on January 7, 1944, as part of Dr. Gelny’s killing operation.
Hermann Hackel was 146 cm tall, weighed 47 kg, was of short stature, and had a hunchback. People around him made fun of him for this. He was a trained baker and worked in his profession for ten years but became unfit for work due to “bone caries” in his hand. Despite repeated requests to the Employment Office, he remained unemployed and was labeled as “work-shy.” In 1940, he entered the district nursing home on Ungargasse.
On July 10, 1941, a transport of five nursing home residents was sent to the Gugging institution by order of the Reich Governor in Lower Danube (Decree IIIb-3-310-6/8-1941 from June 6, 1941). Hermann Hackel was one of those deported.
The initial examination in Gugging recorded: “Oriented in all respects, speaks articulately, willingly provides information, eight years of schooling, has appropriate school knowledge, is informed about current events, reads the newspaper.”
Previously, the health authority in Wiener Neustadt had a different view: “suffers from mental weakness, needs institutionalization,” as did the Klosterneuburg District Court: “the detainee is mentally ill,” “confinement in a closed institution is permissible.” This order was extended several times.
The stay in the closed institution had an effect. He became depressed, apathetic, uninterested, sat around idly, and was not very responsive. Then he started working daily again, and there were no problems. A note in the care history reads: “He wants to return to the nursing home because he is better off there; he was admitted to the home due to his inability to work; he was never mentally ill.”
Then his further decline: “Puts manure and dirt in his pockets, lets food leftovers spoil in them, has no sense of cleanliness.” “Blunted, sits around apathetically and without interest.” At the end of 1943, Hermann Hackel was extremely emaciated and bedridden. At the beginning of 1944, he fell ill with pneumonia, from which he died on January 7, 1944.
The course of his illness and cause of death are typical for the “wild euthanasia” and the killing of patients by medication, which Dr. Gelny described proudly in a letter to the district governor: “In the end, through my efforts, the elimination of more than 400 incurable patients who burdened the state heavily in the current situation was achieved in the past four months, and the gentlemen [in Berlin] were most keen that I would not be hindered in my activities.”
Anton Blaha