Ostarbeiterinvasion“ und „phantastische Mortalität.“ Die Tötung kranker ausländischer Zwangsarbeiter in der Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Pfafferode 1944–1945

What to do with incapacitated forced laborers in Nazi Germany? The solutions ranged from care by factory, camp or resident doctors, through hospitals, and special foreign hospitals to deportation “to their home country,” although it was uncertain whether they would ever get home. The methods of dealing with them deteriorated throughout the course of the war. By 1944 at the latest, “mentally ill Eastern workers and Poles” were to be admitted to sanatoriums and nursing homes, where their future fate was to be decided. This was partly used as license for murdering tuberculous-infected foreigners. The Pfafferode asylum in today's Thuringia was from September 1944 a “collection point” for the states of Thuringia and the provinces of Saxony and Anhalt. This example shows how Eastern European forced laborers were also victims of murder. Detailed statements by the staff attest to the handling of patients on wards 17 and 18, personally supervised by Director Theodor Steinmeyer, where a striking number of patients died.