Campaign Brandt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Brandt campaign summarizes the decentralized killings of sick people in sanatoriums and nursing homes during National Socialism . In some asylums, sick people died from overcrowding and deliberate neglect; in other institutions the displaced inmates were murdered on a large scale. The action named after Hitler's attending physician and authorized representative (General Commissioner) for the medical and health service Karl Brandt partially succeeded Action T4 .

term

The term "action Brandt" goes back to the historian Götz Aly returned, the presumed 1985, Brandt was in July 1943 the head of the central office T4 , Paul Nitsche issued a new order on the killing of patients. Older publications did not assume a central control of the murders and used the term "wild euthanasia". Several regional studies carried out after 1985 showed that the murders of the sick under National Socialism after the end of Action T4 could not be attributed to a central control alone, and they emphasized the importance of regional initiatives. The historian Winfried Süß uses the term “regionalized euthanasia”.

History and organization

Action T4, in which mentally ill and handicapped people were killed from the beginning of 1940 , had been stopped by Hitler by an order of August 24, 1941. By then, 70,273 people had been killed by gas in the six killing centers. Although this euphemistically so-called “ euthanasia ” was continued in various forms, the “adult euthanasia” was no longer carried out by centralized gassing, but was carried out decentrally in the individual sanatoriums and nursing homes by means of overdosing drugs or systematically starving the patients. Other examples of continued killing programs are “ Aktion 14f13 ” for concentration camp prisoners unable to work or the child “euthanasia” carried out until the end of the war , in which physically or mentally handicapped children up to the age of three were killed. In the further course of the war, older children and young people also fell victim to this program in specially set up " children's departments ".

On August 24, 1941, when Hitler stopped the previous "adult euthanasia", he also ordered the construction of replacement buildings for damaged hospitals in cities threatened by air warfare. For this purpose, the Todt Organization should build alternative hospitals that were to be connected to the sanatoriums and nursing homes (“Todt Campaign”).

On October 29, 1941 Herbert Linden was appointed "Reich Commissioner for Hospitals and Nursing Agencies". (Ordinance of October 23, 1941, Reichsgesetzblatt - RGBl. - 1941 I p. 653). Linden was previously ministerial director and consultant in Department IV Health Care in the Reich Ministry of the Interior and acted here as coordinator for the “ Chancellery of the Führer ”, which was commissioned with the implementation of the “euthanasia ”.

Karl Brandt , Hitler's accompanying surgeon and his medical representative for Operation T4 , coordinated the disaster medical care of the areas at risk of air warfare with the state health administration in the Reich Ministry of the Interior from the beginning, although the formal authorization by the "Leader's Decree on Sanitary and Health Care" only took place on June 28, 1942 (RGBl. 1942 I p. 515). He was then authorized to carry out special tasks and negotiations to balance the need for doctors, hospitals and medicines between the military and civil sectors of the medical and health sector. In this function he was directly subordinate to Hitler and received direct instructions from him. At the same time, the State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior and "Reich Health Leader" Leonardo Conti was appointed to be responsible for all uniform measures to be taken in the area of ​​civil health care. As a result of the insufficient preparation of the National Socialist health system for the long war, the high number of wounded soldiers led to a shortage of hospital beds. In addition, the Allied bombing attacks increasingly destroyed the medical infrastructure in large cities. For this reason, beds for alternative hospitals and military hospitals were to be created in sanatoriums and nursing homes that were less threatened by the air war. In order to achieve this, a large part of the existing inmates should be relocated.

On August 5, 1942, Linden requested the competent authorities to comment on the following questions by means of an express letter:

“In recent times it has been shown again and again that in order to procure hospital beds in the event of a catastrophe, it is increasingly necessary to resort to medical and nursing homes. Since the beds that have been made available in the institutions through the planned economic precautions taken so far are otherwise available, additional measures are required in order to be able to meet further requirements. I therefore ask you to report to me by August 15th of this year (adhere to the deadline exactly)

1) How many mentally ill people can still be accommodated in the institutions (including charitable and private) of the local district with the best possible utilization of the number of beds available,

2) How many more mentally ill people in disaster cases by setting up emergency camps in

a) heated corridors, common rooms, etc.

b) in chapels of institutions

can also be included. (...)

3) (only for air-endangered areas): which sanatoriums and nursing homes are to be evacuated in the event of a special disaster in order to be used as an auxiliary hospital. For this purpose, I ask you to name institutions that are not considered to be particularly hazardous to air.

In the event of a disaster, I would ensure that these institutions are evacuated immediately, so that the patients who have become homeless can be transferred from the hospitals to be evacuated to the alternative institution to be created within the shortest possible time. It must be left to the local authorities to consider measures now to ensure the conversion of the institutions to be cleared to hospital operations.

Since, according to my statements above, the sanatoriums and nursing homes are supposed to offer an essential reserve for the additional procurement of sick beds in the event of a disaster, they can no longer be considered for accommodating the homeless in the future. Furthermore, I ask you to refrain from demanding the evacuation of the sanatoriums and nursing homes that are located in or on the periphery of endangered cities, since the evacuation of these institutions must severely restrict my freedom of movement in the event of a disaster. "

Due to the air protection obligation according to § 2 of the Reich Air Protection Act of June 26, 1935 (RGBl. 1935 I p. 827), there should be sufficient capacities in sanatoriums and nursing homes for disaster and aerial warfare cases. This was to be achieved on the one hand by increasing the occupancy and emergency beds and on the other hand by moving mentally ill patients from overcrowded institutions to less endangered parts of the country. In advance, the individual sanatoriums and nursing homes were asked to list the patients who could be considered.

The capacities provided for air war victims and reserve or replacement hospitals provided an opportunity to resume “euthanasia” on a large scale. The outwardly presented reasons obscured the intention to kill the sick. In contrast to Action T4, there were no more differentiating selection criteria, so that an assessment by doctors and central killing lists could be omitted. The selection of the victims was also left to the management of the delivery institutions. Decisive for the number of patients to be relocated and thus killed were only the sick people's ability to work and the number of beds predicted as a result of an air raid. Internal organizers described the securing of hospital bed care associated with the killing of psychiatric patients as "Aktion Brandt".

At the beginning of 1943 the Ministerialdirektor Fritz Cropp was appointed as head of the health department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior by State Secretary Conti as "General Advisor for Air War Damage". He was thus responsible for the disaster medical care of the civilian population. Starting in June 1943, he had the civilian hospital beds, the number of hospitals destroyed by air raids and the number of the mentally displaced as compensation reported monthly.

A month earlier, his subordinate Linden urged that the psychiatrists who had tried and tested in the T4 campaign be placed in managerial positions at the various sanatoriums and nursing homes. Since these institutions fell under the sponsorship of the federal states, the reference to new measures to be carried out by the “Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Heil- und Pflegeeanstalten” (a cover organization of the Führer’s chancellery to carry out “euthanasia”) had to be necessary Enforce. In a letter dated April 4, 1943 to the Medical Administration of the Province of Hanover, Linden announced frankly:

“I definitely believe that the measures carried out by the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft will be revived in due course, although the way they are carried out may be different, in particular it may be necessary to involve the public sanatoriums and nursing homes to a greater extent in the execution of the Activate measures. But precisely then the existence of a director who absolutely affirms these measures would be of extraordinary importance. "

From this the conclusion can be drawn that at this point in time it had apparently been fundamentally decided not to carry out the future phase of "euthanasia" centrally in the gas chambers of the three killing centers in Bernburg, Hartheim and Sonnenstein, as before, but decentrally in the sanatoriums and nursing homes . The most well-known reception and killing centers of the new type were included

Killing Practices

At the end of June 1943, the first institutions (sanatoriums, nursing homes and old people's homes) in the Rhineland were "cleared", which quickly expanded to include Westphalia as well as the cities of Hamburg and Berlin. For the method of killing the mentally ill transferred to other institutions, Hermann Paul Nitsche , who had already acted as the chief expert for Operation T4 , developed the so-called " Luminal Scheme " as early as 1940 . A slight overdose of this sleeping aid should inconspicuously kill the transfer patient:

"This happened because the patient was given 0.3 grams of Luminal once or several times, usually twice a day, a dose that is permissible in itself, but too high for some patients in a weak condition - sometimes 0.3 grams of Luminal three times."

Nitsche introduced this method in a meeting with selected practical psychiatrists on August 17, 1943. The relevant drugs were delivered to the individual institutions by the Reich Criminal Police Office via the central service station T4 .

Another possibility for the murder of the mentally ill was to give them specially dosed starvation food - referred to in Kaufbeuren-Irsee as "E-Kost" or "Euthanasia Food" - which - even more so due to neglected care and unheated rooms - in led to the desired starvation of patients over a foreseeable period. This malnutrition was legalized in Bavaria with the hunger food decree of November 30, 1942.

The organization and implementation met the expectations of their initiators. For example, the director of the Waldheim sanatorium and nursing home, Gerhard Wischer , wrote to Nitsche in a letter dated November 4, 1943:

“I […] have a lot to do, as almost all new admissions come to me from the area around Leipzig, Chemnitz and Meißen. Of course, I could never accommodate these recordings if I didn't take appropriate measures to free up space, which goes very smoothly. However, I am very much lacking the necessary medication. "

Of 300 female patients from Hamburg who were transferred to the Am Steinhof sanatorium in Vienna on August 17, 1943, 257 perished by the end of 1945. That is more than 80% of the patients.

Just as the selection criteria and the number of victims were not prescribed, personal initiative was also encouraged with regard to the type of killing. In the Austrian institution Maria Gugging , the local doctor Emil Gelny developed a method with which patients were murdered by electric current, a type of killing that was based on executions with the electric chair. Other variants were injections with air, morphine or scopolamine . In some cases, the killings were delegated to particularly trustworthy nursing staff.

Billing

It was not the reception institutions who were responsible for billing the costs of the transfer patients, but rather the T4 central office of the Führer’s office under the cover name "Central clearing center for medical and nursing homes", with Hans-Joachim Becker as head (nickname "Million-Becker"). ). The details were meticulously regulated in an “information sheet for the reception centers for the mentally ill” of July 10, 1944 under the reference number “B. (Ru.5)”.

Intensification of the killings

In 1944 the number of decentralized killings increased. Due to the ongoing bombing war of the Allies, which was no longer limited to military goals, but shifted more and more towards area bombing of residential areas, it was no longer just about sick beds, but also about the procurement of replacement rooms for destroyed public facilities.

On the basis of surveys carried out since 1941/42 of all institutions in the Reich, old people's homes and hospitals were finally included in the Brandt campaign. In addition to the existing sanatoriums and nursing homes, special alternative hospitals were set up in which, in addition to the usual cases of illness, the physically ill, the mentally and physically disabled, the deaf-mute, the blind, tuberculous, welfare pupils, disabled workers, displaced Eastern workers , refugees, civilians confused by the bombing, and obviously also seriously wounded soldiers were housed. The so-called “unproductive committee of society” should be eliminated here both inconspicuously and systematically.

Funds from the Reich Ministry of Finance for the establishment of auxiliary and alternative hospitals were passed on by Cropp to the “Reich Commissioner for Hospitals and Nursing Agencies”. This presented a program for the “establishment of emergency and alternative accommodation in wood-saving construction as part of the measure to clear West German sanatoriums”. The sanatoriums and nursing homes increasingly had a reserve hospital, a hospital for the physically ill and non-medical institutions. The previous patients were moved to the alternative accommodations, which were similar to the type of barracks used in the concentration camps (length 12.50 m, width 4.25 m) before they were transported to their new reception centers as required. In addition to the degree of air hazard, the willingness of those responsible for the institution to actively support this second “euthanasia” phase were decisive for the selection of the locations for these emergency shelters.

At the end of 1944, Linden reported to the Reich Ministry of Finance that the allocated funds had been used for 145 barracks. At the same time he applied for funds for 1945 in double the amount. However, the prefabricated building elements could no longer be erected due to a shortage of other building materials and labor. In anticipation of this development, Linden had already ordered the installation of additional bunk beds with straw in the institutions in the summer of 1944. In the end, crematorium ovens were built in individual institutions, such as in Kaufbeuren-Irsee or planned as in the Pfafferode state sanatorium and nursing home on the outskirts of Mühlhausen / Thuringia , as there was no longer enough space in the local cemeteries.

The Treise chapel on the premises of the LWL-Klinik Warstein was expanded in 1985 to become a memorial for the victims of euthanasia and in 2012 to include the names of the victims there

Number of victims

Similar to Aktion 14f13 , the number of victims cannot be precisely determined for Aktion Brandt, since many killings were neither recognizable as such nor were they registered as such. In contrast to Action T4 , statistical documents have not been preserved. At least 30,000 victims are estimated. The victims include Ernst Lossa , Marianne Schönfelder , Walburga Kessler and Erna Kronshage .

Classification in the National Socialist extermination ideology

The Brandt campaign also represented a consequence and at the same time an intensification of the basic National Socialist conception, according to which the “ destruction of life unworthy of life ” serves the “healthy”. Due to the needs of the war, this now included not only terminally ill or hereditary sick people, but generally all unproductive people or people undesirable for other reasons, so that - as in Action 14f13 - no special reason was given for their killing. The additional bed capacity required for the air war victims only served as an external reason for a radicalized further development of the Nazi ideology, which lies in the internal logic and which began with forced sterilization and claimed millions of victims with the Nazi murders and the Holocaust .

literature

  • Götz Aly , Angelika Ebbinghaus , Matthias Hamann, Friedemann Pfäfflin , Gerd Preissler (eds.): Separation and death. The clinical execution of the useless. Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88022-950-3 ( Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy. 1).
  • Götz Aly (Ed.): Action T4. 1939-1945. The “Euthanasia” headquarters in Tiergartenstrasse 4. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-926175-66-4 ( Sites of the History of Berlin 26).
  • Heinz Faulstich : Death from hunger in psychiatry 1914–1949. With a topography of Nazi psychiatry. Lambertus, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1998, ISBN 3-7841-0987-X .
  • Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. The "destruction of life unworthy of life". S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-10-039303-1 .
    • (Ed.): Documents on "euthanasia". Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-596-24327-0 ( Fischer-Taschenbucher 4327).
    • What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-24364-5 ( Fischer-Taschenbucher 4364).
  • Eugen Kogon , Hermann Langbein , Adalbert Rückerl (ed.): National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. A documentation. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-24353-X ( Fischer-Taschenbucher 4353).
  • Matthias Meusch: “Aktion Brandt”. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 26 f.
  • Thomas Schilter: Inhuman discretion. The National Socialist "euthanasia" killing center in Pirna-Sonnenstein 1940/1941. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-378-01033-9 (At the same time: Diss. Phil. Humboldt University 1997: The "euthanasia" killing center Pirna-Sonnenstein 1940/1941.)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ In Robert Jütte , Wolfgang U. Eckart, Hans-Walter Schmuhl , Winfried Suss (eds.): Medicine and National Socialism. Balance sheet and perspectives of research Wallstein-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8353-0659-2 , p. 231.
  2. ↑ Winfried Suss: Decentralized Sick Murder. On the relationship between central and regional powers in “euthanasia” since 1942. In: Horst Möller, Jürgen John, Thomas Schaarschmidt (eds.): NS-Gaue - regional central bodies in the centralized “Führer state”. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58086-0 , pp. 123-135, here pp. 123, 135.
  3. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl: Euthanasia and the murder of the sick
  4. ↑ quoted from Faulstich, p. 309f
  5. ↑ Judgment of the Dresden Regional Court of July 7, 1947, No. 1 Ks 58/47 against Paul Nitsche and others. in: Joachim S. Hohmann: The "euthanasia" process Dresden 1947. A contemporary historical documentation. Peter Lang Publishing House. Frankfurt am Main, 1993, ISBN 3-631-45617-4 . P. 417f.
  6. ↑ Matthias Meusch: "Action Brandt". 2005, p. 26 f.