Friedrich Crusius moved to Munich when he was six years old, when his father, Otto Crusius, took up the Chair in Classical Philology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in 1903. After his Abitur (general qualification for university entrance), Friedrich Crusius began studying, also at the LMU, but had to break this off because he was called up to fight in the First World War. After the war, he resumed his studies and, in 1922, passed his state examinations for the teaching profession in the Classical Languages, German and History. Friedrich Crusius worked at first as an assistant in the Department of Classical Philology at the LMU. He met Adelheid Stifler, known as Thea, while he was still a student. The couple married in 1926 and moved to Djursholm in Sweden. There, Friedrich Crusius, who had now gained his doctorate, was employed as a private tutor. At the end of 1927, the family, now including their son Peter, who was born in Sweden, returned to Munich, where Friedrich Crusius again worked as a teacher. Their daughter Marie-Luise was born in 1931. In 1935, Friedrich Crusius was given sick leave because of a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the private health resort Neufriedenheim in Munich-Sendling. In the same year, an official medical report diagnosed schizophrenia. Although his wife Thea managed to secure the most modern methods of treatment and get him moved several times to other hospitals, Friedrich Crusius’ condition worsened. In 1938 he was forcibly admitted to the sanatorium and nursing home Eglfing-Haar. The final entry in his medical file dated September 1940 describes him as “[a]utistic, blocked, stiff, grimacing, emptily sitting around”. On October 24, 1940 Friedrich Crusius was sent to the sanatorium and nursing home Niedernhart near Linz and shortly afterwards deported to the killing site Hartheim. While his wife Thea managed to get her husband moved back to Niedernhart by citing the fact that he was related to the deputy “Führer” (leader) Rudolf Hess, even this could not save him. Friedrich Crusius died on March 8, 1941, officially of acute circulatory problems following a high fever. For his brother Otto, however, there was no doubt. “He … was exterminated as a life unworthy of life“, he wrote to his brother’s daughter Marie-Luise 25 years after the death of Friedrich Crusius. (text Barbara Wenzl, edito rC. Fritsche, translation C. Hales)
