A street in the Bierstadt district was named after the doctor and university professor Heinrich Pette (1887-1964) by resolution of the city council on February 23, 1967.

Heinrich Pette was born in Eickel on November 23, 1887. He studied medicine in Marburg, Berlin, Munich and Kiel and passed his first state examination in Kiel in 1912. A year later, he completed his doctorate, also in Kiel. During the First World War, Pette served as a medical officer in the navy. After the war, he initially worked as an assistant doctor in Leipzig and Essen and then took up another assistant doctor position in the Neurological Clinic at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

In 1923, Pette habilitated in Hamburg, and four years later he was appointed associate professor. In 1929 and 1930, he was director of the Magdeburg Neurological Clinic and in 1930 moved to Hamburg's St. Georg General Hospital as senior consultant, where he remained until 1934.

After the National Socialists "seized power", Heinrich Pette joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933. The main reason for joining the party was probably Pette's career ambitions. In fact, in July 1934, he took over the management of the Neurological Clinic at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. The following year, he was elected second chairman of the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists (GDNP).

In addition to the NSDAP, Pette also became a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare Association, the Nazi Altherrenbund and the Nazi Doctors' Association. He held no office in any of these organizations.

Pette had a positive attitude towards the health policy measures introduced by the National Socialists. In particular, he supported "racial hygiene" approaches until the mid-1930s. In lectures and publications, he attempted to develop contemporary approaches to neurology. However, Pette's attitude changed towards the end of the 1930s. He now openly opposed "hereditary biology" approaches if they contradicted his research. Pette put forward scientific arguments against hereditary biology, meaning that his criticism was scientific and not political in nature. As the second chairman of the GDNP, Pette cultivated political contacts and publicly declared his support for the Nazi regime on several occasions. In 1938, for example, he gave an effusive speech in praise of Adolf Hitler and his health policy.

Pette was involved as an expert in a total of 16 decisions by the Higher Hereditary Health Courts on forced sterilization. In three decisions in 1940, he gave in to the objections of those affected and ultimately did not approve the sterilization. Pette therefore had leeway in his decisions and used it where decisions on sterilization contradicted his scientific convictions, for example in cases of epilepsy. For other "diseases", however, Pette advocated sterilization, such as "feeblemindedness" or "drunkenness", although the contemporary perspective on heredity was already critical and valid scientific evidence was lacking.

In some cases, Pette pushed through his diagnosis of a hereditary disease even against the opinion of the Hereditary Health High Court and thus sterilization. A total of four such cases have been reconstructed.

After the Second World War, Pette claimed in his denazification proceedings that he had come into conflict with the chairman of the Hereditary Health Court due to his opposition to the Hereditary Health Act and had been excluded from acting as an expert witness. However, the results of the comprehensive studies on Pette prove the opposite. Pette was neither excluded from the proceedings nor did he boycott them. In his denazification proceedings, Pette rather tried to conceal his personal actions in the context of the hereditary health proceedings by lying.

After the end of his denazification proceedings, Pette was able to return to his position as head of the Neurological Clinic in Hamburg. From 1948, he also conducted research into spinal polio and multiple sclerosis at a foundation institute. The foundation institute was renamed the Heinrich Pette Institute in 1965.

In the post-war period, Pette continued his strategy of exculpation beyond the denazification process. He created a self-image that initially portrayed him as a critic of the Nazi regime, then even as an opponent and finally in a resistance role. A high point of this self-victimization was Pette's testimony to the Heyde/Sawade committee of inquiry of the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament in 1961. The committee investigated whether representatives of the Schleswig-Holstein state government and several doctors had covered up for Werner Heyde (alias Fritz Sawade), one of the main perpetrators of the T4 campaign, for years. Pette had met Heyde/Sawade in 1952, which earned him the accusation that he had known of his identity and had not reported it. He told the committee of inquiry that he had been a persecuted person and a campaigner against "euthanasia".

Heinrich Pette died on October 2, 1964 in Merano (Italy). As a neurologist, he had gained international renown and importance in the field of spinal polio and multiple sclerosis. He was highly honored, including receiving the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957. In 1963, he was awarded the Medal for Art and Science of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

His relationship to National Socialism, however, remained in the dark for a long time. It was not until 2012 that the specialist institute named after him felt compelled to commission an investigation into Heinrich Pette's past.

However, due to the short processing period of eight weeks, in which not all sources could be examined, this report was unable to provide a clear picture of Pette as a person. For this reason, the Heinrich Pette Institute decided to commission a second expert report. In 2014, the two historians Axel Schildt and Malte Thiesen were commissioned with this follow-up project. Schildt and Thiesen opened up new sources in their study and provided a more comprehensive picture of Pette. Based on their findings, the Heinrich Pette Institute decided to dispense with its namesake and to call itself the Leibnitz Institute for Experimental Virology until the end of a name-finding process.

The Historical Expert Commission appointed by the City Council in 2020 to review traffic areas, buildings and facilities named after people in the state capital of Wiesbaden recommended renaming Heinrich-Pette-Straße due to Pette's membership of various National Socialist organizations (NSDAP, NSDÄB, NSV, NS-Altherrenbund). As deputy chairman of the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists, he held offices and functions in professional organizations within the Nazi state that were brought into line with National Socialism.

Through his advocacy of and involvement in National Socialist health policy, in particular as an expert witness in so-called hereditary health procedures in accordance with the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases" of 1933, Pette supported the National Socialist regime and made a visible commitment to National Socialism. Through his involvement in sterilization procedures, he deliberately harmed other people and actively participated in the discrimination, exclusion and persecution of groups of people during the "Third Reich". After the end of Nazi rule, Pette relativized and trivialized the crimes of the Nazi regime and relativized his own role in a whitewashing and exculpatory manner.