Lungenheilstätte Grabowsee-
Lung Sanitorium, Oranienburg,Berlin
Down a winding road and through the forests of Oranienburg, Berlin we found ourselves at this vast complex of abandoned and heavily decayed buildings steeped in history dating back to 1855. Many hours were spent inside photographing all the different buildings - each with their own specific purpose when they were functioning over the decades. Shadows of their former selves, these buildings remain in place, battered by the elements and waiting their fate.Down a winding road and through the forests of Oranienburg, Berlin we found ourselves at this vast complex of abandoned and heavily decayed buildings steeped in history dating back to 1855. Many hours were spent inside photographing all the different buildings - each with their own specific purpose when they were functioning over the decades. Shadows of their former selves, these buildings remain in place, battered by the elements and waiting their fate.
Lungenheilstätte Grabowsee- 1929
Lungenheilstätte Grabowsee - History
In the 19th century, tuberculosis was taking hold over the population of Europe and accounted for 50% of deaths in Germany for people aged 15-40 years. People were powerless to prevent the disease as it rampaged through the heavily populated urban areas often affecting the poorer in society. Consequently, around the 1850s, the view that fresh air was a good antidote to the disease was prevalent in medical circles. This in turn ;lead to the opening of the first Lungenheilstätte (Lung Sanatorium) which opened in the village of Göbersdorf in lower Silesia in 1855. The Tuberculosis-Sanatorium in Görbersdorf TB Sanitorium became so successful that patients went there from all over Europe for treatment and the centre had room for approximately 1100 patients at one time.
Climatic treatment when combined with ultraviolet therapy were thought to be essential in the treatment of tuberculosis – and as such, sanatoriums began opening up in remote forest regions giving an idyllic picture postcard impression of life in these Sanitoriums. However, the reality was different as 70% of patients succumbed to the disease despite this treatment.
Lungenheilstätte Grabowsee – a medical experiment
In 1896, The Red Cross leased 20 hectares (for 50 years) of secluded woodland next to Grabowsee to build the Sanitorium with the specific intention of testing the viability of opening such a medical centre in the flat lowlands of Northern Germany as opposed to the alpine regions at higher altitude.
The General Secretary of the Red Cross, Pr. Dr. Pannwitz enthusiastically backed the Heilstätte Grabowsee project and helped to set up 27 Military hospital barracks by the spring of 1896. After the initial results proved successful, the Red Cross decided to open up the Heilstätte Grabowsee.
Due to the increasing popularity of such Sanitoriums, Health Insurance Companies began to build their own Sanitoriums to accomadate the growing demand. It was in the interests of businesses to send workers to Sanitoriums to aid a quicker recovery from illness and then be able to return to work much faster.
As patients were spending prolonged periods of time at the Heilstätte Grabowsee, the complex was continuously expanded and modernised - at its peak the area consisted of:
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Thee two-story buildings with, with 59 and 54 beds
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Single story barrack with 29 beds
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Service building with a kitchen, mess hall, and offices
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Machine house with an apartment for the machinist
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Washhouse with a disinfection facility and apartments
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Gas facility
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Church
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Chief doctors building
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Ten sleeping halls
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Green house
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Barn with apartments for the coachmen and gardeners.
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The Heilstätte Grabowsee could comfortably accommodate 200 patients and cost 3 Mark per day which was later increased to 3,75 Mark. This cost was absorbed by the Health Insurance Companies in line with the Health Insurance Act introduced by Bismarck.
North Gate House. April 2022
Director's Mansion. April 2022
Admissions Ward. April 2022
Heilstätte Grabowsee during the First and Second World War
During the First World War, the Heilstätte Grabowsee functioned as a military hospital, and was used to house prisoners of War. The area around Berlin was highly militarised and numerous prisoners of war camps were erected up until 1918.
The defeat during the first world war, and the subsequent economic crisis which gripped Germany forced the Red Cross to sell off the Heilstätte Grabowsee to the Landesversicherungsanstalt Brandenburg in June 1920. They invested and continued to expand the Lung Sanatorium so that by 1929 its bed capacity had increased to 321. This increased to 420 by the end of its construction phase in the mid 1930s.
Petroleum lamps were initially used instead of electricity, which were later replaced by acetylene gas lamps. A local acetylene gas storage and generator provided the buildings with the needed gas and electricity.
Another interesting feature of Heilstätte Grabowsee was the use of an underground electric 'meal train'. Whereby the meals were cooked and prepared in the main administrative building, an underground electric train shuttled the food into the southern building which then distributed the food via internal food lifts. The facility also included phones which connected to each room via internal lines, electric clocks as well as radio speakers.
There was also a coffin elevator at the back of one of the treatment buildings, which allowed the staff to discretely bring the dead to the nearby chapel without having to wheel them out in front of onlooking patients.
By the 1930s, Oranienburg had transformed itself into an important military city. It was one of the main research centres of the German atomic bomb and harboured the test centre for the first stealth fighter. In addition, it housed two concentration camps in KZ Oranienburg and KZ Sachsenhausen as well as several other smaller military and research installations. The Nazis used slave Labour from the nearby KZ Sachsenhausen to work in the Klinkerwerk – a giant stone quarry that was meant to deliver raw materials for the newly envisions Reichshauptstadt Germania.
Albert Speer had planned to expand the Klinkerwerk to the north in early 1940, however this was delayed until mid 1940 after protests by the Lungenheilstätte Grabowsee that the ensuing dust from the granite works would disturb the recovery of the patients.
By the early 1940s, the Heilstätte Grabowsee was turned into a Reservelazarett (Reserve Hospital) of the Wehrmacht.
Ballroom, Administrative Building & Kitchen Area. April 2022
Robert Koch Building, Care & Inpatient Wards. April 2022
Grabowsee and the Soviets
By 1945 the treatment methods for tuberculosis changed dramatically and only the most seriously ill patients were sent to Sanatoriums. Alternate treatment was becoming available via the antibiotic streptomycin in 1943.
Additionally in 1945, the Heilstätte Grabowsee was no longer primarily used to treat tuberculosis patients anymore and The Red Army arrived at Oranienburg. The Americans who were stationed in the area at that time, didn’t want the Soviets to get a hold of the valuable technology in Oranienburg that the Nazis had and deployed an intense bombing campaign over the area – destroying amongst other things the Auerwerke which had been enriching Uranium oxide for the Nazis. Consequently, Oranienburg still is the most radioactive area in Germany to this day.
The Red Army took over the Heilstätte Grabowsee and turned it into a military hospital as they similarly did with the Beelitz Heilstätten to the south of Berlin. The Soviets undertook some slight modifications, such as turning the morgue in the cellar into Sauna, and bricking up certain parts of the long connecting corridors. Not much else is really known about the goings on of the Soviets at Grabowsee – and it is generally unknown when the Russians actually left. It is - however - known that Russian troops left Oranienburg in 1994 so it is possible that this is the time that the Russian left Grabowsee.
Care Unit. April 2022
South Building - Inpatient Ward. 2023
Heilstätte Grabowsee until closing
The Heilstätte Grabowsee was put under monument protection in 1994 yet the Sanatorium was merely left abandoned in the forest without purpose or care. It is true that the Soviets ran the whole complex of buildings into a poor state, it was still fully functional and habitable. The subsequent years heralded their decline into becoming uninhabitable and unfit for any kind of purpose.
Despite the vandalism and natural decay over the years, small details have survived. The entrance of the administrative building is still covered in beautiful tiles created by the sculptor Hans Lehmann-Borges depicting birds and squirrels – and the interior of the entrance hall still gives a glimpse of the grandeur the Heilstätte once had.
Hans Bohm Building - Inpatient Ward. 2023
East building - Wash Rooms & Inpatient Ward. 2023
Nurses' Hostel of The Soviet Military Clinic. 2023
Heilstätte Grabowsee today
In 2005, an organisation called Kids Globe leased the property with the aim to convert it into an international academy. Movies have also been filmed at the location.
https://www.kidsglobe.org/en/bauwelt-grabowsee-1929-en/
In 2021 there had been plans to construct new apartments on the grounds of the former Heilstätte by Berlin based real estate company Gratus Immobilien AG but the plans were suspended in 2016 as German law dictated that the various animal species living in the area had to be documented to ensure that no endangered species would be pushed out due to construction work.
Whilst we were there in April 2022, no sign of any renovation was visible and according to Mr. Hanke - who runs the Kids Globe Organisation - no plans were in the pipeline to make something better of the ghosts that lie deep in the forests of Oranienburg.