Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler

Elfriede Lohse Wächtler (December 4, 1899 in Dresden - July 31, 1940) was a German expressionist painter whose works were banned as "degenerate art", and in some cases destroyed, by the Third Reich.

In 1929, she had her first nervous breakdown, and was briefly committed to a Hamburg psychiatric institution. She was later released, and had many successful expositions in the two years that followed. In 1931, however, she returned to her parents' Dresden home because of further emotional problems.

In 1932, she was formally diagnosed with schizophrenia, and admitted to the Arnsdorf institution. In 1935, Lohse divorced her; a legal guardian was appointed, and she was surgically sterilized.

In 1940, she was deported to the Pirna-Sonnenstein mental institution (located in the Sonnenstein castle in Pirna), where, on July 31, she was murdered along with the majority of the other residents as part of the Reich's T-4 Euthanasia Program.

External links

* [http://www.elfriede.lohse-waechtler.de/Galerie.htm Major paintings]