Alsterdorf Institution
Evangelical Foundation Alsterdorf
The beginnings of the Protestant Foundation Alsterdorf go back to the year 1850. On 16 April, the young pastor Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann founded in his vicarage of the small Elbgemeinde Moorfleet a "Christian school work." He took up mentally healthy, but socially disadvantaged children, she taught in cultivation techniques and gave them knowledge and skills in crafts and agriculture. When he pastor at the 1853 Hamburg St. Michaelis Church , was he changed his school work in the "St. Nicholas-pin" around. 1860 bought the old Sengelmann Brauhof in Alsterdorf and moved to St. Nicholas pen there. After establishment of a horticultural school, he founded the Alsterdorfer institutions.
As pastor at St. Michael's Church Sengelmann often visited the Hamburg district programs. In the poor neighborhoods of the 17th Century, he met the mentally handicapped Carl Koops. Sengelmann recognized the lack of development opportunities for the boys. After futile attempts to find for him a foster family, he started a fundraising campaign to establish an asylum. With the money he bought additional land in Alsterdorf and built a small half-timbered house, on the 19th October 1863 four mentally handicapped boy and moved in a house father. The disability assistance soon became the focus Alsterdorfer work. 1867 were to be preachers Sengelmann office on Michel to make as an unpaid director of the expansion in government offices. Become a very wealthy man by inheritance, he brought his entire personal fortune as a loan, then an heir to the foundation.
A construction boom, the systematic training of appropriate staff and the development of differentiated educational programs on the basis of contemporary knowledge started. Sengelmann conception of educational ability was wide: He teach mentally disabled people and employed them in workshops, gardening and agriculture. In 1895 he took a leading medical educators of his time, the teacher, John Paul Gerhardt as headmaster after Alsterdorf. He built the classroom with preschool classes for mentally disabled children. Sengelmann died in 1899, there were more than 600 mentally, physically and mentally handicapped people as well as 140 employees and their families in the Alsterdorfer institution.
In 1930, the director, Friedrich Karl Lensch (1898-1976), a Protestant theologian , Lieutenant Colonel of the SA , Volkssturm leader , a member of the German Labor Front and the National Socialist People's Welfare and Nazi pastor out. Under him the preparations for a "specialty hospital for all types of mental defect states" and "National Socialist model farm" , was begun. Many residents forced to experimental treatments under their direction: X-ray irradiation of the brain, insulin - and cardiazol -shock treatments, permanent bathrooms, bedrooms and fever cures. Outside the institutions he supported the forced sterilization of mentally handicapped, tramps, beggars, "gypsies", prostitutes, & homosexuals.
The years following the second World War II were characterized by the reconstruction of severely damaged homes on the Foundation's premises. Many of the buildings were only provided with emergency roofs. Under the leadership of the new Director Oberkirchenrat Volkmar Herntrich re-construction began: The Church Academy gets its seat in Alsterdorf. New buildings for employees and sisterhood, and the new-school nursery nurses arise. The Evangelical Hospital Alsterdorf - ahead of the war expanded and opened to the surrounding population - may continue to operate. Industrial buildings were repaired. The special school was in temporary barracks back to work.
In 1979 TIME magazine has a report on catastrophic living conditions for disabled people in Alsterdorf. The public response brought leadership and supervising authority in solid justification and explanation of print - in the crossfire of criticism are no longer registered with the present exemplary projects. But the external pressure accelerates the development: The per diem charge of the foundation, so far the lowest of all the institutions for the disabled in Hamburg, is increased by the former social authority. In addition, the Foundation grants a loan to build a new house, which improves the living space situation. The six-story Carl-Koops-house is inaugurated in 1982 and has about 220 people living facilities at 2 - 3-bed rooms - dormitory.
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