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- Published: 2007-08-08
- Uploaded: 2010-09-15
- Author: mothcorrupteth
The castle was built by Jakob von Aspen in 1600. It is one of the most important Renaissance castles in Austria.
In 1898, Prince Camillo Heinrich Starhemberg (1835 - 1900) donated the castle as a gift to the Upper Austria Charity Organization. With the help of additional donations, they used the castle from the beginning of the 20th century as a psychiatric institution (German: Idioten-Anstalt).
After World War Two, the building was converted into apartments. Beginning in 1969, the gas chamber was opened to visitors. Hartheim Castle is now a Memorial Site dedicated to the thousands of physically and mentally handicapped persons who were murdered here by the Nazis. Additionally, about eight thousand prisoners from the Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps were sent here to be gassed.
In 1946, Countess Alice Ricciardi-von Platen (28 April 1910 in Weissenhaus - 23 February 2008 in Cortona, Italy), a psychiatrist who practised near Linz, Austria, was invited to join the German team observing the so-called Doctors Trial in Nuremberg. The trial was presided over by American judges, who indicted Karl Brandt and 22 others. The 16 who were convicted included Dr. Josef Mengele; seven were sentenced to death. Her 1948 book, Die Tötung Geisteskranker in Deutschland, ("The killing of the mentally ill in Germany"), was judged a scandal by German medical professionals.
Category:Castles in Austria Category:Action T4 Category:Euthanasia Category:The Holocaust in Austria
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