Schloss Grafeneck

Gomadingen, The county of Reutlingen

In the middle of the 16th century at about the same time as the neighboring stud farm Marbach was built, Duke Christoph of Württemberg had a Renaissance palace erected. It included a chapel, hussar barracks and an opera house.

The complex’s dark years began in 1939 during the German National Socialism, when it was confiscated for the Reich’s purposes. Already before that, it had served the Samaritan Foundation as a “home for disabled men.” The Nazis carried out the so-called “Aktion T4,” which meant the gruesome murder of sick and disabled people due to the Nazis ideology and ideas of an Aryan race. At least 10.654 people, who for the most part lived in the south-west, died in the Grafeneck gas chamber. Grafeneck’s present purpose is to create a place of remembrance and reconciliation. Additionally, the Samaritan Foundation offers people with mental disabilities and chronic mental illnesses a home in the residential buildings located along the road leading to Schloss Grafeneck. The so-called Grafeneck memorial has become one of the most important and most visited places of remembrance.