Wilhelm Hagen (physician)

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Wilhelm Hagen (born October 26, 1893 in Augsburg , † March 29, 1982 in Bonn ) was a German social hygienist, Warsaw medical officer in German-occupied Poland , university professor and president of the Federal Health Office .

Life

Hagen was the son of the surgeon Adolf Hagen and his wife Julie, nee Schunk. He grew up in his hometown Augsburg and finished his school career at grammar school with the Abitur . From 1912 he then studied medicine at the Universities of Erlangen , Munich and Freiburg . He was a member of the Germania Erlangen fraternity . Hagen interrupted his studies due to his participation in the First World War , where he was deployed in a reserve hospital. Coming from the youth movement , Hagen belonged to the Association of Socialist Academics in Munich from 1919 after the end of the war. He took part in the council revolution . He was married to Grete, nee Pukowski, since 1921. The study concluded Hagen 1921 in Freiburg with state examination and doctoral Dr. med. from. From 1921 Hagen worked as a district doctor in the Lennep district and from there in 1923 moved to Höchst am Main as a city doctor . From 1925 onwards, Hagen was head of child and youth welfare in Frankfurt am Main as a city medical advisor . From 1927 to 1929 Hagen published on youth welfare, infant mortality and health and "social aspects of problematic living conditions". From 1929 to 1931 he also took up a teaching position at the Pedagogical Academy for School Health Care. In 1932/33 he was co-editor of the specialist journal Health and Education . From 1927 Hagen belonged to the SPD , from which he left in 1933.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Hagen was relieved of his functions due to "political unreliability". He was dismissed (as a social democrat) in 1933 from his position as a city medical officer in Frankfurt. A postdoctoral qualification carried out by him was rejected in 1934 for “political reasons”. After that he tried unsuccessfully to emigrate . Eventually he took over his late father's medical practice in Augsburg. There he practiced as a general practitioner until 1940. Hagen became a member of the NSDAP in 1938 .

Second World War - medical officer in German-occupied Poland

During the Second World War , Hagen was obliged to serve as a medical officer (city doctor) and from the beginning of January 1941 headed the health department in Warsaw in the Warsaw district of the Generalgouvernement (GG). In addition, from the beginning of 1942 he held the office of Commissioner for Tbc Control in the Generalgouvernement . In this capacity, Hagen maintained separate medical care for Poles suffering from tuberculosis and Germans, but unsuccessfully advocated significantly better treatment for Poles. He wrote to the Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti, among other things, a letter in which on July 30, 1942 he also denounced the contradictions of politics in the Generalgouvernement, since, among other things, the withholding of adequate medical care from Poles and "full utilization of their labor" would contradict each other. He also denounced excesses and atrocities against Poland and asked to be released from his post as medical officer. Finally, in December 1942, Hagen even wrote to Adolf Hitler in writing :

“At a government meeting on the fight against tuberculosis, the head of the Department of Population and Welfare Weirauch informed us , as a secret Reich matter, that it was intended or being considered to relocate 200,000 Poles in the east of the General Government for the purpose of settling German military farmers with a third of the Poland - to deal with 70,000 old people and children under 10 years as they did with the Jews , that is, to kill them. "

- Wilhelm Hagen in a letter dated December 7, 1942 to Adolf Hitler.

In addition to his commitment to better medical care for the Poles, Hagen also warned of further repression measures in Poland:

“Our connections have already been disrupted so much by partisans that if these terrorist groups were to become stronger, the supply lines to the front would be seriously endangered. If we use force against a larger group of Poles, the gangs will receive a huge influx. In “ Mein Kampf ”, however, it says that an opponent who is not completely destroyed - how should that be possible with 15 million Poles! - only becomes stronger through oppression and martyrdom. "

- Wilhelm Hagen in a letter dated December 7, 1942 to Adolf Hitler.

Hagen passed this letter on to his friend and chief veterinarian Friedrich Weber , who forwarded it. Since Hagen finally, contrary to the regulations, equated Poles and Germans in medical treatment, he was denounced by SS and Police Leader Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler . In February 1943, Hagen was finally relieved of his post as medical officer in Warsaw by the head of the health department in the Generalgouvernement Heinrich Teitge . On March 29, 1943, Conti was informed that, based on Hagen's letter to Hitler, “the Reichsführer-SS intends to appoint Dr. To send Hagen to a concentration camp for the duration of the war because of his views that are dangerous to the state ”. Before a negotiation took place, however, Hagen was drafted into the Wehrmacht under the protection of Conti and Weber . After that, Hagen was employed as a troop doctor and hygienist in the 6th Army until the end of the war .

After the end of the war

After the war, Hagen practiced as a general practitioner again in his hometown. After a trial chamber procedure he was denazified in Augsburg in 1946/47 as exonerated . He tried to get reinstalled in the public health service of the city of Frankfurt am Main. Finally, he worked in an advisory capacity for the Bavarian state government . He completed his habilitation in 1948/49 at the University of Munich, where he worked as a private lecturer in social hygiene in 1949 . From 1949 he was editor of the specialist journal The Public Health Service . He led from 1950 at the instigation of Franz Redeker as Ministerialrat the Department of Health Care in the Ministry of the Interior . In this capacity, he attended World Health Organization (WHO) congresses and was commissioned as an expert by the WHO to write a paper on “Care for Mother and Child in Europe”. For the Ministry of the Interior he also worked out a draft law on preventive health care, which, however, was not supported by the Ministry of the Interior. In addition, Hagen taught health care at the University of Bonn from 1952 . In September 1956 he moved to the Federal Health Office and served there as President of this authority until his retirement at the end of October 1958. In an article written by Alfred C. Eberwein on the occasion of Hagen's 60th birthday, Hagen described Hagen as the “old master of social hygiene”.

Legal dispute with Joseph Wulf

Little known is the Hagen affair, which took place in the 1960s. In 1963 Hagen and Joseph Wulf broke into a lengthy legal dispute over a section about Hagen in one of Wulf's publications. In his 1961 book Das Third Reich und seine Vollstrecker , Chapter II, “Biographies of Liquidators and Helpers”, Wulf had described Hagen's work in relation to the Warsaw Ghetto on pages 334 and 335, including depictions of Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger and Odilo Globocnik , Ludwig Fischer and Hermann Höfle . Wulf came across Hagen's name after analyzing the Marigold archive . The section concerning Hagen is introduced with excerpts from the Hippocratic oath . This is followed by a section that describes how Hagen refused a Jewish ghetto delegation's request for milk for the children in April 1941. This is followed by a reference to Hagen's anti-typhus decree, which threatened Jewish doctors with the death penalty if they did not report every case of typhus. Hagen, who was present several times in person in the ghetto, was informed about the "catastrophic living conditions", the food shortage and the entire "horrific living conditions". Ultimately, Wulf lets Holocaust survivor Ludwik Hirszfeld have his say, who asked Hagen in vain to have his seriously ill daughter treated outside the ghetto. Hirszfeld, whose daughter eventually died of exhaustion, expressed himself in his memoirs as follows after the end of the war:

“Hagen knew the scientific works I published in German, but he flatly refused my request. I am not vengeful and therefore do not wish Mr. Hagen to have to watch his own child waste away before his eyes. "

- Ludwik Hirszfeld: Historia jednego zycia. Warsaw 1957.

Hagen called on the lawyer Konrad Redeker , who on April 16, 1963 contacted both Wulf and the Arani-Verlag, in which the book was published. In the letter, Redeker protested on behalf of his client against its listing under the chapter "Liquidators and accomplices", as it would make him an "accomplice in the murder of the Jews". A deadline was set for the "removal of this unusual defamation" by removing Hagen's name in new editions, confiscating copies that had not yet been delivered and marking the controversial passage as an error in the books in libraries. The fact that Hagen only noticed the corresponding passage two years after the publication of The Third Reich and its executors had to do with the incorrectly listed initial of his first name (N. instead of W.). Redecker did not dispute that the Hagen listed in the book is identical to Wilhelm Hagen. It was about the clarification of the question of whether Hagen, as a Warsaw medical officer, had "endeavored to implement a responsible health policy" or had been "complicit in the fate of the Jews". Since neither Hagen nor Arani-Verlag responded in a timely manner, Hagen filed a civil action against Wulf / Arani in May 1963 at the Bonn Regional Court for defamation and defamation .

Hagen also turned to Martin Broszat from the Institute for Contemporary History and asked him for support. Broszat replied: “That you, of all people, have become the subject of such a distortion, particularly saddened us” and went on to cite documents that gave Hagen an “excellent testimony” from the “Polish side” and that he had “an attitude of integrity”.

Finally, there was also a lengthy exchange of letters between Broszat and Wulf, in which Broszat asked Wulf to rehabilitate Hagen. Wulf, who had survived the Holocaust, was finally able to present a document in court at the end of 1963, in which Hagen demanded that Jews leaving the Warsaw ghetto be punished with fines and flogging or that “vagabond” Jews be shot. This "memorandum" written by Hagen on the fight against spotted fever dates back to July 7, 1941. In addition to his undoubted support for the Polish population, Hagen, according to Wulf, "did not approach the Jews any differently than the other representatives of the German occupying power". Hagen himself was shocked by the find. However, he justified the typhus memorandum as customary at the time. With the threat of shooting he wanted to motivate the following paragraph of his memorandum, in which he demanded sufficient food from the Jews.

After an out-of-court settlement failed, a settlement was finally reached in February 1968 before the Bonn Regional Court. In possible new editions of Wulf's publication, the chapter on Hagen should no longer appear and the court costs should each be borne by the opposing party. There should not be a correction supplement for the books already delivered or corresponding deletions there.

Awards

Fonts

  • Sixty years of health care. Düsseldorf 1978.
  • Mission and reality: social doctor in the 20th century, Graefelfing 1978.
  • Public health. Stuttgart 1974 ff., Together with Josef Daniels.
  • Health care. Munich 1965.
  • Growth and development of school children in the picture. Munich 1964.
  • 10 years post-war children. Munich 1962.
  • Young people in their professional qualification. Stuttgart 1958.
  • Preventive health care. Munich 1953.
  • Nursing textbook. Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg 1951.
  • Law to combat venereal diseases of July 23, 1953. Together with Fritz Bernhardt.
  • Tuberculosis and Tuberculosis Control. Steinebach, 1949.
  • Sport and body. Dresden 1926.
  • Health care in an industrial city: discussed using the example of the city of Höchst a. M. Frankfurt am Main 1925.

literature

  • Nicolas Berg : The Holocaust and the West German Historians. Exploration and memory. Series: Modern Time. New research on the social and cultural history of the 19th and 20th centuries, 3rd edition, Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-610-5 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Ulrike Lindner : Health policy in the post-war period: Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany in comparison. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-20014-3 .
  • Joseph Wulf : The Third Reich and its executors. The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Arani, Berlin 1961.
  • Willi Dreßen , Volker Riess: Exploitation and Extermination. Health policy in the General Government. In: Norbert Frei (Ed.) Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 157–171, here: pp. 158, 162, 164 f. and 167-169.
  • Udo Schagen , Sabine Schleiermacher : 100 years of history of social hygiene, social medicine and public health in Germany. Documentation by the German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention (DGSMP), CD-Rom, Berlin 2005.
  • Thomas Werther: Typhus research in the German Reich 1914–1945. Studies on the relationship between science, industry and politics with special consideration of IG Farben. Inaugural dissertation at the Philipps University of Marburg. Wiesbaden 2004. ( online , PDF; 1.08 MB.)
  • Klaus Kempter : Joseph Wulf - a historian's fate in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-36965-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Who is who? , Das Deutsche who's who , Volume 17, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971, p. 361.
  2. ^ A b c Ulrike Lindner : Health policy in the post-war period: Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany in comparison. Munich 2004, p. 44 f.
  3. ^ A b Heinrich Weder: Social hygiene and pragmatic health policy in the Weimar Republic using the example of social and industrial hygienist Benno Chajes 1880-1938. Matthiesen, Husum 2000 (Treatises on the history of medicine and natural sciences, 87) ISBN 978-3-7868-4087-9 , p. 413.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Udo Schagen and Sabine Schleiermacher: 100 years of history of social hygiene, social medicine and public health in Germany. Documentation by the German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention (DGSMP), CD-Rom, Berlin 2005.
  5. ↑ a b c d Alfons Labisch , Florian Tennstedt : Public Health Office or Public Health Office? On the development of the public health service since 1933. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 35–66, here: p. 44.
  6. ↑ Jakob Müller: The youth movement as the main German direction of neo-conservative reform. Europa-Verlag, 1971, p. 307.
  7. ↑ Willi Dreßen , Volker Riess: Exploitation and Destruction. Health policy in the General Government. In: Norbert Frei (Ed.) Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 157–171, here: p. 167.
  8. ↑ a b Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 218 f.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Hagen - Health in the Ghetto. In: spiegel.de. Issue 19/1963 of May 8, 1963, p. 38 f.
  10. ↑ Willi Dreßen , Volker Riess: Exploitation and Destruction. Health policy in the General Government. In: Norbert Frei (Ed.) Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 157–171, here: p. 167 (and p. 24: Norbert Frei in the introduction ) .
  11. ↑ Willi Dreßen, Volker Riess: Exploitation and Destruction. Health policy in the General Government. 1991, pp. 159 and 168.
  12. ↑ Quoted in: Willi Dreßen, Volker Rieß: Exploitation and Destruction. Health policy in the General Government. 1991, p. 168.
  13. ↑ Quoted in: Series: How Poland was betrayed - the short-lived independence of the Polish state from 1918 to 1946 (III). In: spiegel.de. Edition 50/1980 of December 8, 1980, p. 190.
  14. ^ Bruno Wasser: Himmler's spatial planning in the east. The General Plan East in Poland 1940–1944 . Birkhäuser, Basel 1994, ISBN 3-7643-2852-5 , p. 248.
  15. ^ A b Ulrike Lindner: Health policy in the post-war period: Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany in comparison. Munich 2004, p. 45.
  16. ↑ a b Wilhelm Hagen in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely accessible)
  17. ^ Finding aids in the archive of the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin. (To be determined via search function.)
  18. ↑ Joseph Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors. The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Berlin 1961, p. 334 f.
  19. ↑ Quoted in: Joseph Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors. The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Berlin 1961, p. 335.
  20. ↑ Klaus Kempter: Joseph Wulf - A Historian's Destiny in Germany. Göttingen 2013, p. 250.
  21. ↑ Nicolas Berg: The Holocaust and the West German Historians. Exploration and memory. Göttingen 2003, p. 596.
  22. ↑ Micha Brumlik : The historicization of contemporary history - Nicolas Berg's study on German Holocaust research. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 19, 2003.
  23. ↑ Klaus Kempter: Joseph Wulf - A Historian's Destiny in Germany. Göttingen 2013, p. 252 f.
  24. ↑ a b Klaus Kempter: Joseph Wulf - A Historian's Destiny in Germany. Göttingen 2013, p. 253.
  25. ↑ Klaus Kempter: Joseph Wulf - A Historian's Destiny in Germany. Göttingen 2013, p. 256.
  26. ^ Address book City of Frankfurt am Main. Awarding of the plaque of honor ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ak-dahesch.de
  27. ↑ BVÖGD - Johann-Peter-Frank-Medaille ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aerzte-oegd.de
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social hygienist, medical officer in the Generalgouvernement, university professor and President of the Federal Health Office
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1982
Place of death Bonn