Karl Astel

Karl Astel (born February 26, 1898 in Schweinfurt , † April 4, 1945 in Jena ) was a German physician, sports doctor, racial researcher , National Socialist racial hygienist and politician.

biography

In his youth, Astel was shaped by his father, a security commissioner and chief of the Schweinfurt municipal police. During the First World War he served in the Bavarian Army from 1916 to 1918 . He came into contact with the National Socialist movement at an early age . While studying medicine in Würzburg , he co-founded the Deutsche Hochschulgilde Bergfried and the local branch of the Young National Federation in Schweinfurt. Astel was a member of the Epp Freikorps in 1919 and in the Bund Oberland in 1920 ; he took part in operations against the Munich Soviet Republic and took part in the Kapp Putsch and in 1923 in the Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch . As a fanatical National Socialist, he was often involved in street fights. Astel was a member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund as well as the Kampfbund for German culture . In 1930 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 264.619); Membership in the SS followed in 1934 (SS No. 132.245).

After graduating, he worked as a sports doctor in Munich . In 1932 he took over the management of the "genetic health advice center" in the race and settlement main office of the SS (RuSHA). At the same time he was also head of the racial hygiene office of the Reichsfuhrer School of the SA in Munich. In July 1933 he became president of the Thuringian State Office for Racial Affairs in Weimar, which was founded on July 15 of the same year, and was responsible for thousands of forced sterilizations from 1933 to 1945. In part-time he was a judge at the Hereditary Health Court in Jena.

Astel was appointed full professor at the Medical Faculty of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena on June 1, 1934 by his fellow Freikorps comrade Fritz Sauckel , to whom he owed his appointment as head of the State Office for Racial Studies, without a habilitation and without a regular appointment procedure . Here Astel was given its own institute, initially called the "Institute for Human Genetics and Genetic Research" and since 1935 "Institute for Human Genetic Research and Race Policy" (also called the University Institute for Human Hereditary Research , Population Science and Race Policy ). The inaugural lecture of the now promoted to SS-Hauptscharführer was Rassendämmerung and its mastery through spirit and deed as the fate of the white peoples . In 1936 he was also head of the "Health and Welfare System Thuringia".

From 1939 to 1945 Astel was rector in Jena, in 1940 he became a state councilor in the state government of Thuringia , which was practically insignificant after the synchronization . From 1942 to 1945 he also served as the Gaudozentenbundführer of Thuringia. In 1942 Astel was appointed SS-Standartenführer. His work was now directly used to commit crimes against humanity . With the support of the SS, Astel developed the University of Jena into an influential Nazi research association geared towards “race and life law”. Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler supported him in this . He was co-editor of the magazine Volk und Rasse. Illustrated monthly for German folklore, race studies, race care. Journal of the "Reich Committee for Public Health Service" and the "German Society for Racial Hygiene". at Lehmanns Verlag Munich .

On April 4, 1945, Karl Astel committed suicide.

His son was the poet Arnfrid Astel .

Act

Astel was one of the leading Nazi racial researchers. After his appointment in Jena, his work focused on scientifically underpinning the so-called “race question” as an extermination program. For this he used the work of Ernst Haeckel . Astel and his colleagues in Jena, including Heinz Brücher , Gerhard Heberer , Victor Julius Franz , Johann von Leers and Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski , saw in Haeckel the pioneer of a biological conception of the state. Astel, for example, referred to this tradition in a keynote speech The Task , which he gave at the opening of the winter semester 1936/37. He called for an SS model university to be set up in Jena .

For Astel, the “racial quality” of the Germans is decaying because “laws of nature” are misunderstood that “not only apply to plants and animals, but also to all living beings, including humans”. The laws of nature understood in this way become the design principles of state and society. Astel says:

“While many generations chased illusions and tried in vain to improve the weak, sick, incapable, infirm, criminal and alien by external measures, they contributed to the sensitive racial decline, albeit largely unintentionally. With all the vital forces of the healthy and capable, people accumulated considerable masses of unfit and inadequate people of all kinds. These burdened and burden the people's life tremendously in both cultural and economic terms. "

He called on "nobles of all countries" to

“The unhappy life that is unworthy of life, which has accumulated in their peoples during the rule of the inferior , must be removed together again (...) for the good of all. That is the good news that National Socialism has to proclaim to suffering and hoping humanity. "

Astel was more influential in the SS as a race theorist than Hans FK Günther . An example of the active co-creation and implementation of Nazi policy by this racial hygienist is that the kinship table according to Karl Astel from 1933 was the one that was later adopted by the Reichsfuhrer School of the SA and the RuSHA for purposes of population statistics. These later than pedigrees known pedigrees served under the Nazis as so-called Aryan certificate .

Publications

• Rassendämmerung and its mastery through spirit and deed as a question of fate for the white peoples (= National Socialist Science. H. 1). Central publishing house of the NSDAP Eher , Munich 1935. As a document again in: Walter Wuttke-Gronenberg, Medicine in National Socialism. A work book. Schwäbische Verlagsgesellschaft, Tübingen 1980, 1982, ISBN 3-88466-006-3 , Doc. 156.
• Breed course in Egendorf. A race hygiene course of the Thuringian State Office for Race Creation. Edited and ed. by Karl Astel. Lehmann , Munich 1935.
• The practice of racial hygiene in Germany. Speech at the 1st Scientific Conference of the German Society for Hygiene, Berlin, 5. – 6. October 1938. In: Reichsgesundheitsblatt. Vol. 13 (1938), No. 52, Supplement 4, pp. 65-70.
• with Erna Weber : The different reproduction. Investigation into the reproduction of 12,000 civil servants and employees of the Thuringian state administration. Lehmann, Munich 1939.
• “Out of the bottleneck!” Speeches by the Reich Defense Commissioner of Wehrkreis IV, Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter F. Sauckel and the Rector of the University of Jena, State Councilor Prof. Dr. K. Astel. German Association for Combating Tobacco Dangers, Berlin 1941.
• with Erna Weber: The number of children of the 29,000 political leaders of the Thuringia district of the NSDAP and the causes of the determined reproductive frequency. 4. Investigation of the different reproduction in Thuringia. Metzner, Berlin 1943.

literature

• Michael Grüttner : Biographical lexicon on National Socialist science policy. Synchron, Wissenschaftsverlag der Authors, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 16.
• Uwe Hoßfeld , Jürgen John , Oliver Lemuth, Rüdiger Stutz (eds.): "Combative Science." Studies at the University of Jena under National Socialism. Böhlau, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-412-04102-5 .
• Racial studies and racial hygiene in the "Mustergau", 1930–1945 (= Thuringia. Sheets on regional studies. No. 41). State Center for Political Education Thuringia, Erfurt 2004.
• Uwe Hoßfeld: National Socialist Scientific Instrumentalization . The role of Karl Astel and Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski in the genesis of Heinz Brücher's book "Ernst Haeckel's blood and spiritual heritage" in 1936. In: Erika Krauße (ed.): The letter as a historical source of science (= Ernst Haeckel House Studies. Vol. 8). Science and Education, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86135-488-8
• Uwe Hoßfeld, Olaf Breidbach : Ernst Haeckel's politicization of biology (= Thuringia. Blätter zur Landeskunde. ZDB -ID 1316491-0 , no. 54). State Center for Civic Education Thuringia, Erfurt 2005.
• Uwe Hoßfeld: "Rasse" pictures in Thuringia 1863–1945 (= Thuringia. Sheets on regional studies. No. 63). State Center for Political Education Thuringia, Erfurt 2006.
• Uwe Hoßfeld: Institutes, money, intrigues. Racial madness in Thuringia, 1930 to 1945. Erfurt 2014.
• Brigitte Jensen: Karl Astel. A "fighter for public health". In: Barbara Danckwortt, Thorsten Querg, Claudia Schöningh (eds.): Historical racism research. Ideologists, perpetrators, victims (= Edition Philosophy and Social Sciences EPS. Vol. 30). Argument, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-88619-630-5 , pp. 152-178.
• Erich Stockhorst : 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . 2nd Edition. Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 .
• Uwe Hoßfeld : Karl Astel. In: Michael Fahlbusch , Ingo Haar , Alexander Pinwinkler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Völkischen Wissenschaften. Actors, networks, research programs. With the assistance of David Hamann. Vol. 1. 2., fundamentally expanded and revised edition. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-042989-3 , pp. 50–54.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Astel in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bavarian Main State Archives IV , z. B. War Tribe Roll 2052, 22018; digitized copy at ancestry.com, accessed March 21, 2018
2. ^ Paul Weindling : "Mustergau" Thuringia. Racial hygiene between ideology and power politics. In: Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. Edited by Norbert Frei , R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991 (= series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 81–97; here: p. 86
3. ↑ Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Bio-bibliographical manual . Akademie, Berlin 2006, p. 306. ISBN 978-3-05-004094-3
4. ^ Paul Weindling, p. 88
5. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-932-0 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Supplement 3.) - At the same time: Dissertation Würzburg 1995), p. 115.
6. ↑ Thomas Etzemüller: In search of the Nordic man. German racial anthropology in the modern world. Transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8376-3183-8 , p. 124.
7. ^ Uwe Hoßfeld : Institutes, money, intrigues. Racial madness in Thuringia, 1930 to 1945. State Center for Civic Education Thuringia, Erfurt 2014, p. 64.
8. ↑ Wuttke-Groneberg, pp. 285f.
9. ↑ The inaugural speech was published in the Völkischer Beobachter on January 24, 1935, which marks its high status for the NS, as well as in the National Socialist monthly , the official journal. See his publications: 'Rassendämmerung ...'
10. ↑ Cf. for example the pre-printed form: Kinship tables according to Karl Astel. (blank board (blank form), instructions for filling in and sample boards). Schindler printing works, Weimar 1936.