Gerhard Schneider

Forced sterilizations and patient murders – Mainkofen during the Nazi regime.

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This interview with Gerhard Schneider, the former commercial director of the Mainkofen District Hospital, looks back to a chapter in the clinic’s history whose traces were deliberately blurred for decades. As a young employee, Schneider came across extensive files in the building’s basement that were on the verge of being destroyed. They documented the hospital’s involvement in forced sterilizations and, later, the murder of female and male patients during Nazi rule—knowledge that was meant to be deliberately erased from the institution’s memory.

Schneider’s courageous decision to secretly save these files laid the groundwork for later reckoning. Only many years later, in a leadership position, was he able to make the suppressed history public and show that none of those responsible was ever held to account. Some were even placed on leave—on full pay until retirement.

Today, there is a memorial site for the victims on the hospital grounds. That this place exists is due in large part to Gerhard Schneider’s persistence and moral courage. The interview, conducted around 2015, sheds light on his research, his motivations, and the mechanisms of silence that remained effective for so long.

Sample

The following excerpt comes from the full interview published in the publication.

HMV: One more question is on my mind that I’d like to put to you. The inauguration of the memorial back then—in 2014—caused quite a stir. At the time, for example, there was still a street in Plattling named after Dr. Brettner, the doctor responsible for sterilizations here in Mainkofen. It was back then, precisely because the memorial was established and the debate around it flared up, that this street was actually renamed. How did you experience that at the time, and how do the people who live on that street feel about it today? I remember there was a lot of resentment.

GERHARD SCHNEIDER: Yes! The matter has calmed down over time. It took four years until the street was finally renamed from Dr. Brettner Street to Sonnenstraße. There was considerable resistance from residents, with the argument that they would now have to change all their addresses, no navigation system would be able to find them anymore, and so on. It took four years because my first publications were questioned. Sure—“Schneider from Mainkofen isn’t a historian,” they said; “he can claim anything …”

And then the city of Plattling commissioned an expert report from Mr. Skribeleit, whom I know personally; he is the director of the Flossenbürg concentration camp memorial. His academic staff prepared this report, and it showed that this really was the case. However, the report also states that Dr. Brettner was responsible for only about 30 cases. I, on the other hand, am at well over 300 cases—documented!

What’s interesting is that, after consulting with a member of the academic staff in Flossenbürg, the authors of the study evaluated only the figures from the Hereditary Health Court in Landshut! But that was only about one tenth of those affected! Passau, Deggendorf—all these Hereditary Health Court decisions—had not been taken into account, and that is how the large discrepancy arose. But the more than 30 victims of sterilization were still enough for the street to be renamed.