Hertha Wind's Notes from the Psychiatric Ward

Transfeminine Hertha Wind wrote these notes to her wife while she was involuntarily detained in the Frankenthal district hospital and psychiatry from August 1933. Her wife's lover had prepared Hertha's forced admission to a psychiatric hospital behind Hertha's back.

Within the Nazi ruling system, there were institutions such as psychiatric hospitals with the help of which sexual and gender behaviour that was viewed as deviating from the norm could be declared sick. Like this, some people perceived as gender nonconforming were branded as outsiders of the “Volksgemeinschaft" (national community). In psychiatric hospitals, so-called “cure attempts” were carried out on them by force. This could include, for example, confiscating their preferred clothing and, in the case of transfeminine victims, cutting off their hair.

Psychiatric hospitals were also places where sterilizations were performed or ordered. Gender nonconforming people could be at risk of this. With the help of psychiatric assessment reports, some of them were declared sick and incapacitated.