511 Kinderheim

Kinderheim 511 is a german orphanage where Johan Liebert and other characters went to.  This orphanage is different from other german orphanages because as opposed from the others this is the only orphanage maintained by the Internal Department instead of the Welfare Department.  Kinderheim 511 has a tainted reputation among other orphanage administrators, like Erna Tietze, because of its involvement with inhumane government experiments.

Under the Internal Affairs Department

Description

Located somewhere around the former East Berlin, Kinderheim 511 is a special orphanage run by both the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Internal Affairs.  It was not just for ordinary orphans though, since it was also for the children of criminals, political activists, traitors, and spies and they were subject to inhumane discrimination.  The children could not do anything about whatever was done to them.  It was a place maintained by the contradiction between socialism and totalitarianism--they were treated like prisoners.  Directors and instructors displayed unethical behaviour to children, and they took the packages sent for the children for themselves and resold them.  Run by the principle of fear and violence, the children grew estranged from each other.  According to Erna Tietze, she said that it was an experiment laboratory.

Goals

Putting it in a politically correct statement, the goal of this orphanage was to serve as a model for reeducation among East German people. Plainly put, its goal was meant to reprogram children into being perfect soldiers entirely at the disposal of the government.

511 compared to other orphanages

Unlike other orphanages, 511 was run under the Internal department.  While orphanages before the fall of the Berlin Wall were generally faring well below the current standards, 511 children were receiving inhumane treatment. 

As Laboratory for Government Experiments

Methodology

Using a psychological intervention called desensitization , commonly known as brainwashing, hypnosis to produce catharsis (and also to annihilate any future display of emotion), and other operant conditioning techniques to facilitate human programming, the children were put together under observation.  Directors and instructors watched how children grew to hate each other and fought with each other, desensitizing them to human’s innate sense of respect and love towards another human being.  In order to create humans without emotions, they desensitized them using negative reinforcement, where they would only escape aversive situations (like being tremendously beaten) by not showing any emotions.

The children, in order for them to be completely under the control of the instructors, were not allowed to use their names.  Instead, they were given number codes by which they would be called.  Children who were not seen to be fit for their purposes were kicked out of the orphanage and transferred to another orphanage.  These children were found to be detached and in a blunted mood with no interest in socialising whatsoever.  The only reaction they would get from these children were the screams and ear covering whenever a book was read to them aloud.  After a year, those same children would somehow die.

Manipulation of children's thinking was done by telling them they were incapable of thriving, so they should follow the people teaching them the rules of survival if they wanted to become strong and not become a loser.  

The evidence of any inhumane acts, or their papers that documented their actual methodology, however, were not found after the fire consumed 511.

The boy kept on sleeping pills

"There was a boy who was always kept under sleeping pills.  Because he held the words that could destroy any person, the teachers thought he was a monster and kept him locked underground.  Such was the terror that they felt towards him that they swore they could see ten horns and seven heads.  But one day, the boy developed resistance to the drugs and awakened.  He manipulated his jailors and slipped back among the pupils.  But the boys didn't know who he was...because none of them knew each other's names or pasts.  The boy hated everything about the facility, so he began secretly plotting to have everyone kill each other.  First, he would steal all of their memories, so that they couldn't even remember their own names, and then offer them the path to death, through their torment...But the boys never even realized that they were being controlled.  Could it be that someone is trying to manipulate us? And so this incredible ferver raced through the orphanage." [quoted directly from Another Monster]

During Johan Liebert's stay

Johan was sent to 511 because Anna had been decided to be sent to Kinderheim 47.  Hartmann said Johan was a participant of a top-secret project of the government.  Hartman said he was issued a gag order but was able to tell this story: Johan told a fairy tale about the boy on sleeping pills that made the children in 511 run amok.  Johan told the boys to use the tricks they were taught, and the boys were able to make the instructors hate the directors.  

The directors and instructors, entirely a world of their own in 511, started to quarrel among each other about who would succeed the upper people who died most unusually.  Everything went into chaos, even the maladaptive behaviours displayed by the children could not be controlled.  Eventually, everyone was frenzied and started killing each other.  Fifty children and instructors died in the fire, and Johan just stood on his throne watching them kill each other and others burn. 

When Hartmann asked Johan what he did, the 10-year-old boy just said, “I threw an oil-soaked cloth into the open fire.”  It means that when people gather, hate is formed, and he just poured a little oil in it.  Johan’s goal was, according to him, to be the last person standing.  

Johan’s talent in smooth talking was not acquired in Kinderheim 511.  He was born a leader.  Their experiment could not have made someone like him because all the children who came out from 511 were usually involved in antisocial activities , like Stephen Joos and Roberto.

Known graduates of 511

• Wolfgang Grimmer
• Roberto
• Johan Liebert
• Christof Sievernich
• Stephen Joos

Persons known to be affiliated with 511

• Franz Bonaparta
• Hartmann
• Mikhail Petrov (formerly Reinhart Biermann)
• General Helmut Wolf

Disbandment

After its burning in 1985, the experiments on the social well-being of students were halted, and all documents were either burned when the building was burned down or was destroyed by the East German government.  According to Another Monster, investigations were done and people who were supposedly a product of 511 were subjected to hypnosis.  The exact mode of operation was not revealed by it because those people only recalled vague frightening mental images.  One thing is for sure though, that their curriculum was fit for someone who was being groomed to be a political leader or religious leader.  The particpants felt so much fear towards it that they would rather not remember.  

Others

Another Monster

Main article: Another Monster

Werner Weber went into the digging more information about Dr. Tenma and it lead him to knowing the existence of Kinderheim 511.  He was able to interview Erna Tietze, a social worker from Kinderheim 47 who knowa lot of things about 511.  They met at a cafe and look exactly as Weber had imagined her.  Weber held on to his initial impression of her until they finally talked about Anna.  It looks as like Anna was very dear to her and wishes her a good life even after what fate brought upon her.

When they finally touched the orphanages run by the Internal department, she said 511 is a breeding ground for experiments and that children of the 'dangerous elements' were being kept there.  She said that 511's goal was to create a band of perfect soldiers who would answer to the concerns of national interest unflinchingly.  Apparently, Tietze knew that much because she was involved in the investigation team created by the new government, and as a memeber, she saw how the former occupants of the orphanage where psychologically damaged by the curriculum enforced by the system. She said 511 was already up and running 20 years before she joined the work force and she just heard rumors about it.  She knew about its name because her orphanage received some of the children 'kicked-out' of 511.

Pictures

Children who were trained to be perfect soldiers

East facade of the burned down Kinderheim 511

The tall window with an exhaust fan we always see

Johan watches children in 511 kill each other

The remains of Kinderheim 511, as viewed from behind (from Another Monster)

The ruins of Kinderheim 511 on the east side of Berlin. The lot was bought to be turned into a supermarket, but was abandoned when the company went bankrupt (from Another monster)