Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Gerhard Rothe
Gerhard Rothe
Born: 04.01.1929
Died: 01.10.1940
Place of installation:
Gustav-Adolf-Straße 40
Stumbling stone laying on:
20 September 2025
Life path
Alexander Gerhard Rothe was one of over 70,000 people who were murdered by the Nazi state due to mental illness or disability in one of the "euthanasia" centres in 1940/41.
He was born in Chemnitz to Horst Alexander Rothe and Wella Ernestine Krämer. They lived in the Altendorf neighbourhood. His father was a businessman. Gerhard had an older sister (1923-2016). His parents raised their children in the Lutheran tradition.
Gerhard fell ill at an early age. Seizures occurred when he was three quarters of a year old. He often rolled his eyes and twitched repeatedly in his left arm. His condition worsened in the second year of his life. The diagnosis was "idiocy and encephalitis" according to the terminology of the time. Gerhard was barely able to speak. He could only pronounce the word "Papa" clearly. Despite his illness, the child was initially categorised as "educable". His father was appointed carer. He lost his job in the spring of 1932.
Due to his incurable state of health, the father turned to the city's youth and welfare office in June 1932. As a result, Gerhard was examined by the assistant physician Dr Anton Schücker at the mental hospital in Chemnitz on 24 June 1932. He recommended that he be placed in a sanatorium and nursing home.
On 12 July 1932, Gerhard was admitted to the "Anstalt Katharinenhof in Großhennersdorf", which had once been founded as the "Königlich Sächsische Landesanstalt für schwachsinnige Kinder". The city of Chemnitz assumed the costs of care.
On 10 March 1933, the doctors treating the child in Großhennersdorf wrote a "letter on the child's development". This meant that the father, who was now working as a decorator, and the mother were also aware that their son's health was unlikely to improve. Alexander Rothe, the father, died on 12 September 1934 in Chemnitz.
On 27 September 1940, Gerhard Rothe was transferred to an "intermediate institution", namely the Großschweidnitz state and sanatorium. From there, he was "transferred in a collective transport" on 1 October 1940 together with 63 other patients "by order of the Reich Defence Commissioner of 29 May 1940" according to the patient's accompanying card. This unclear information was used by the central office of "Aktion T4", which was based at Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin, to conceal the destination. In fact, the patients were taken to the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing centre, where they were murdered with gas on the same day. To further conceal the circumstances of death, the "T4" centre sent the relatives a death certificate with false information. According to this, Gerhard Rothe died on 11 October 1940 in Hartheim (Upper Danube), where a killing centre had also been located since May 1940.
The urn with the alleged ashes was sent to Chemnitz at his mother's request and buried on 11 November 1940 in the St. Matthäus cemetery in the Altendorf district.
Author: Dr Jürgen Nitsche
Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
It is a project against forgetting: stumbling stones have been laid in Chemnitz every year since 2007.
Embedded in the pavement, the memorial stones commemorate the tragic fates of fellow citizens who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
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