Grafeneck: Past and present

From January to December 1940, over 10,600 people were murdered in Grafeneck. The victims came from sanatoriums, nursing homes, and psychiatric clinics in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia. After the murders ended in the winter of 1940/41, Grafeneck was used for the “Kinderlandverschickung” (children’s evacuation program), later by the French occupation authorities, and returned to the Samaritan Foundation in 1946/47. The disabled people who had been expelled from Grafeneck at the beginning of the war and who survived the war moved back into the castle. Since then, Grafeneck has once again been used by the Samaritan Foundation as a place of residence, living space, and workplace for disabled and mentally ill men and women. Traces reminiscent of the “euthanasia” murders became visible as early as the 1950s and 1960s:

Two urn graves, an early memorial site in the institution’s cemetery, and finally, in 1982, the first plaque commemorating the crimes of 1940. The actual place of remembrance and commemoration, an open chapel, was created in 1990 with the guiding principle: “Commemoration needs a place.” The necessary addition to this, a “place of information,” was created in October 2005 with the Grafeneck Memorial Documentation Center. This is also the year in which the Samaritan Foundation Grafeneck celebrates its 75th anniversary.

The historic site of Grafeneck looks back on almost a thousand years of history. Grafeneck has undergone profound changes over the centuries. During the Renaissance around 1560, a hunting lodge for the Dukes of Württemberg was built on the site of the high medieval castle complex. In the mid-18th century, Duke Carl Eugen expanded it into an impressive Baroque summer residence.

The 19th century saw the decline of the castle. Grafeneck fell into disrepair and individual buildings were “sold for demolition.” The castle served as a forestry office until it finally came into private ownership at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1928, it was acquired by the Protestant Samaritan Foundation in Stuttgart, which converted the castle into a home for disabled men. Shortly after the start of the Second World War, in October 1939, Grafeneck was confiscated for “Reich purposes.”