Die erste Filiale des Grazer Feldhofs im Schloss Lankowitz für weibliche „Irrenpfleglinge“ (1877–1940)

Abstract

The old Lankowitz castle was home to the first branch of the lunatic asylum Feldhof in Graz from 1877 until 1940. From 1943 until 1945 it was operated as a so-called “Arbeitsabteilung” (i.e. ‘correctional institution for minor offenders’) with an additional section for the isolation of (e.g.) tuberculosis patients. Altogether more than 2,100 patients with various mental disorders were transferred to Lankowitz. Until 1940 only women of low social status – and regarded as incurable, yet “able to work” – were admitted to the institution. Together with the prisoners, they were provided for by Sisters in the Order of St. Vincent de Paul. In 1940 this institution was shut down in the course of the “Action T4” (i.e. forced euthanasia). 147 inmates were brought back into the lunatic asylum Feldhof in Graz in four separate phases of transportation, and – with only very few exceptions – were murdered in killing institutions in 1940 and 1941. Only 17 patients seem to have survived the National Socialist-regime. In the years between 1943 and 1945 about 65 male and female inmates in the Lankowitz workhouse died of tuberculosis or induced starvation (i.e. “Entzugskost”, “euthanasia-cost”). After the end of the war in 1945 the survivors were finally brought back into the psychiatric hospital Feldhof in Graz.