Aquilin Ullrich

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Aquilin Ullrich (born March 14, 1914 in Dillingen ; † May 30, 2001 in Stuttgart ) worked in the National Socialist German Reich as a doctor in the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg and in the planning group of the central office T4 .

Origin and studies

Aquilin Ullrich was born on March 14, 1914 in Dillingen an der Donau as the son of a senior teacher and grew up in a Catholic and monarchist family. A brother of his also became a doctor, a priest; his two sisters became nurses.

As a boy he joined the Catholic Bundischen youth movement . After graduating from high school in March 1933 and completing the voluntary labor service , Ullrich first began studying theology, but then switched to medicine. As a medical student, he joined the National Socialist German Student Union and the SA in February 1934 . At the suggestion of his fellow student Klaus Endruweit , both committed themselves to a year-long service in the Reichswehr in October 1934 . Since he was not allowed to be a member of a political organization during this time, Ullrich resigned from the SA before taking up his duties in order to rejoin after the end of his military year.

Ullrich studied first in Munich and in 1935/36 in Würzburg . There he resigned from the SA and became active as a Fähnleinsführer with the German Young People of the Hitler Youth . In order - as he stated - to test the seriousness of his love for his future wife, whom he had met in 1936, he moved to the University of Freiburg im Breisgau . There he met Heinrich Bunke and joined the NSDAP with him on May 1, 1937 . From the winter semester he was back in Würzburg. It was here that he first made contact with Werner Heyde , who at the time was senior physician at the Würzburg University Neurological Clinic and whom he valued as a medical capacity.

As a participant in a Würzburg student group to which Klaus Endruweit and Ewald Wortmann also belonged, Ullrich took part in a study trip to Bessarabia in the summer of 1938, which was initiated by the Gaustudenten tour . The study project, which was written over her two-month trip to the German-speaking village of Teplitz, was awarded a prize at the Reichsberufswettkampf (Ethnicity Research Department) in 1939. As a member of the successful student group, Ullrich was also introduced to Hitler at the award ceremony on May 1, 1939 and also received the city plaque in bronze on the base of the city of Würzburg.

In the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg and in the central office T4

After a shortened state examination , Ullrich, like many of his fellow students, was licensed as a doctor on November 14, 1939 . Heyde, who in the meantime was also the medical director of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program in Berlin , recruited Ullrich, whom he knew from Würzburg, for the T4 organization in March 1940. From March 15 to November 1940 he was employed as a representative of the head of the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg , Irmfried Eberl .

Ullrich testified about his tasks later in his trial:

"During the killing process, if Dr. Eberl was present to assist him in all the tasks for which the work of a doctor was prescribed. This was an inspection of the undressed mentally ill in the anteroom in front of the gassing room and the subsequent killing. "

He had to use the visitation of the sick to "... note conspicuous characteristics that could be important for establishing a later cause of death."

The "letters of condolence " called "letters of consolation" in the parlance of the central office T4 to the bereaved relatives of those killed were among his tasks. Here he used the cover name “Dr. Schmitt ".

At the end of June or beginning of July 1940, Ullrich Heyde recommended his fellow student from Freiburg, Heinrich Bunke , and his fellow student from Würzburg, Klaus Endruweit, to work in the T4 organization. Bunke started in Brandenburg in August 1940 and finally succeeded Ullrich, who moved to the planning department of the T4 organization in Berlin in December 1940. Here he also worked on the draft of a “euthanasia law”, the publication of which ultimately failed because of Hitler.

Ullrich was also a member of a medical commission that recorded the sick in the Bethel Institutions in February 1941 . In the summer of 1941 Ullrich received his doctorate as Dr. med. in Würzburg.

According to his own statements, he left the T4 headquarters in April 1942. From April or June 1942 to the end of March 1943 he was an assistant at the Pathological Institute of the University of Munich. Then he served in the Wehrmacht .

After the war

After the war ended, Ullrich was able to flee from American captivity in 1945. In 1946 he went into hiding with forged discharge papers and worked as a miner in a mine in the Saar area.

The meeting with one of his former university teachers in 1949 enabled him to get an assistant position at a Stuttgart clinic. In 1952, Ullrich established himself as a specialist in gynecological diseases and obstetrics as well as an attending clinic in Stuttgart. The doctor who left the church in the summer of 1939 found his way back to the Catholic Church. The connection to the former T4 staff did not break. So he met Werner Blankenburg , who went into hiding under the false name "Werner Bieleke" in Stuttgart.

Arrest and trial

In the course of the investigation against Werner Heyde, the name Ullrich was mentioned several times by witnesses. On August 22, 1961, he was taken into custody, but on September 8, 1961, he was released again subject to conditions, although he had admitted his work in the Brandenburg gassing facility. He was able to practice as a doctor again and also spend a vacation at the Schliersee .

On January 15, 1965, the General Public Prosecutor's Office in Frankfurt am Main brought an action against the T4 doctors Ullrich, Bunke , Borm and Endruweit "insidiously, cruelly, for low motives , deliberately and deliberately killing several thousand people each time". The trial before the jury court of the Frankfurt am Main regional court began on October 3, 1966. In the so-called first medical trial, the verdict was reached on May 23, 1967:

“The mass killings carried out as part of the 'T4' campaign ... meet the criteria of murder within the meaning of Section 211 of the Criminal Code in the version applicable at the time of the offense and in the version valid today. Every human life, including that of the mentally ill, enjoys the protection of § 211 StGB until it is extinguished ... no cultured people [has] ever carried out such an action. "

Ullrich was found to have assisted the murder of at least 1,815 mentally ill patients, of which at least 210 were killed by hand. However, like all the other co-defendants, he was acquitted because of the lack of “awareness of the illegality” (unavoidable error of prohibition ) of his actions.

“The accused assumed that they only participated in the killing of the mentally ill 'without a natural will to live' and that their killing was permitted. Since this is no longer guilty, the defendants were acquitted. "

On August 7, 1970, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment because of factual contradictions. The new trial was to begin on December 16, 1971. On December 6, 1971, Ullrich submitted an expert opinion, according to which he could no longer be regarded as capable of negotiation due to the serious risk in acute stressful situations. This assessment was confirmed by the medical officer on December 14, 1971, so that on December 15, 1971, one day before the start of the trial, the proceedings against Ullrich were temporarily suspended. With the exception of Kurt Borm, the proceedings against the other defendants were also temporarily suspended. Ullrich was able to continue his medical practice until February 1984. Then the Stuttgart District President ordered the suspension of his license to practice medicine.

From January 29, 1986, the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court was again heard. In consideration of the limited ability to negotiate of the defendants Ullrich and Bunke, which has been confirmed by the expert report, only once a week for two hours.

On May 18, 1987, the district court in Frankfurt / M. Ullrich was sentenced to four years imprisonment for complicity in murder in at least 4,500 cases. In the appeal proceedings, the Federal Court of Justice reduced the sentence to three years in a judgment of December 14, 1988 on the grounds that complicity in murder could only be proven for 2,340 people, so that the number of murder cases was reduced by almost half.

Ullrich was released after a prison term of 20 months. Aquilin Ullrich died on May 30, 2001 after the implantation of a knee joint.

literature

  • Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state . 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2
  • Ernst Klee: What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews . 12th edition. Fischer-TB, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5
  • Ernst Klee: "Aquilin Ullrich" Entry in ders .: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 12
  • Henry Friedlander : The Road to Nazi Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin, Berlin-Verlag, 1997. ISBN 3-8270-0265-6

Remarks

  1. Peter Weidisch: Würzburg in the "Third Reich". In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. Volume 2, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , p. 1273, note 60.
  2. a b c Statement by Ullrich, quoted from Klee: “ Euthanasia ” in Die Zeit 11/1986
  3. For more information, see Klee "Euthanasia in the Nazi State", page 320ff.
  4. a b Ks 1/66 GStA
  5. 2 StR 353/68
  6. The researcher of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program Ernst Klee commented on this with the sarcastic words: “Whoever murders a person is sentenced to life imprisonment. In the case of aiding and abetting mass murder, there are apparently quantity discounts ”(Klee“ What they did - was they became ”, page 128)

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