Carl-Heinz Rodenberg

Carl-Heinz Rodenberg , more rarely Karl-Heinz Rodenberg , (born November 19, 1904 in Heide ; † 1995 ) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist . Rodenberg was an appraiser for the National Socialist murders of the sick, " Aktion T4 ", and from 1943 scientific director of the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion .

Life

The son of a doctor studied medicine and received his doctorate in 1930 at the University of Marburg on the subject of "About real combinations of epileptic and schizophrenic symptom complexes". As a medical intern, Rodenberg worked at the Marburg University Psychiatric Clinic, then as a scientific assistant at the German Research Institute for Psychiatry in Munich and until 1934 as a department doctor at the Branitz Sanatorium near Opole in Upper Silesia.

The NSDAP and the SA joined Rodenberg on April 20, the 1,932th After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, Rodenberg became an employee of the NSDAP's Racial Policy Office . From 1934 he headed the hereditary health department of the Upper President of the Upper Silesian Provincial Association . Since 1936 specialist in psychiatry and neurology, Rodenberg moved to Berlin in 1937 . There he headed the department for genetic and racial maintenance in the "Reich Committee for Public Health Service", was managing director of the State Medical Academy and, as a judge at the Hereditary Health Supreme Court, was involved in decisions on compulsory sterilization . From March 1, 1939, Rodenberg worked as a forensic biologist in the Department of Hereditary and Racial Care of the Reich Health Office .

Rodenberg on the T4 list of experts

For the period from February 28, 1940 to October 14, 1940, Rodenberg is listed as an expert for " Aktion T4 ". In this function, he helped to decide on the basis of registration forms with the data of sick and handicapped people about their continued life or death in one of the killing centers of "Aktion T4". Also in 1940 Rodenberg was taken over by the SS . At that time, the Sanitäts-SA-Sturmbannführer, a received report confirmed that Rodenberg had already been working as an informant for the security service (SD) for a long time . Rodenberg had “made valuable material available to the SD on several occasions” and showed “a keen interest in SD work. He also has numerous connections. Great importance is therefore attached to his acceptance into the SS. ” On January 30, 1944, Rodenberg was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer in the SS . On this occasion his "excellent ideological attitude, his camaraderie and his adroit demeanor" were emphasized.

In August 1942 Rodenberg moved to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Section IIIB3 "Race and Public Health". On October 27, 1942, Rodenberg was a participant in a conference initiated by the RSHA in Section IVB4 , headed by Adolf Eichmann . The topic of the conference was the sterilization of " half-Jews ", which was to be carried out on a "voluntary basis" as the only alternative to deportation . A realization of the plans did not take place.

On July 1, 1943, Rodenberg was appointed to the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt (RKPA) as a scientific advisor for sexual psychological issues and at the same time took over as scientific director of the “ Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion ”. The main task of the Reichszentrale was the registration and registration of homosexuals. Friedrich Panzinger described Rodenberg's further tasks in November 1944: Among other things, he was supposed to evaluate "material for further clarification of the emasculation problem " in criminal cases with regard to "instinctual criminals such as homosexuals, other moral criminals, pyromaniac , habitual criminals " in order to create the basis for legislative or create administrative measures.

Rodenberg had already dealt with the castration of homosexuals in specialist journals since 1941, which on December 30, 1942, earned him recognition from Himmler for "convincing essays" . For example, in 1941 Rodenberg stated in the journal "The Public Health Service" that a "desired pacification of sexual life, but also with homosexuals, can often be brought about by emasculation, and only through emasculation." So far, only a few homosexuals have "been a victim of the national community" brought and let themselves be neutered voluntarily, which Rodenberg saw as a "lack of responsibility" . On the basis of material collected by the criminal police, Rodenberg believed in 1942 in "Deutsche Justiz" to be able to prove that castration was a suitable measure "to deprive homosexuals of criminal dynamism and at the same time to help them themselves." Rodenberg's data referred to about 60% not homosexuals, but pedophiles . Rodenberg's efforts to create a legal regulation for the castration of homosexuals before the end of the war were unsuccessful. In October 1942, he justified his proposal with the costs that the state would incur by placing homosexuals in concentration camps and in preventive detention: “If they are castrated, they can be released in a shorter time, since they no longer pose a threat to the national community, and In addition, they can be put to good use again in life. ” Hitler , too , according to Rodenberg, attached “ great importance to combating these evils ” .

After the end of the war, Rodenberg lived in Wald-Michelbach in the Odenwald. Because of his participation in the conference on October 27, 1942, the public prosecutor's offices in Darmstadt and Berlin investigated in the 1970s without a charge being brought. Opposite the Ludwigsburg central office , Rodenberg denied his work in 1986 in the "Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion". He stated that his investigations into the therapeutic success of castration had only related to moral criminals, but not to homosexuals per se. His claim that he was indifferent to “how adult homosexuals voluntarily satisfy their sex drive among themselves” contradicted Rodenberg's publications during the Nazi era.

literature

• Burkhard Jellonnek: homosexuals under the swastika. The persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich. Schöningh, Paderborn 1990, ISBN 3-506-77482-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Biographical information on Rodenberg bei Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 127; Ernst Klee: Personal Lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 501; Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Bio-bibliographical manual. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-05-004094-7 , p. 454.
2. ^ T4 list of experts (Heidelberg documents no. 127.891) in facsimile with Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. The "Destruction of life unworthy of life." Fischer paperback, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 , p. 228.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Documents in the Berlin Document Center zu Rodenberg, quoted in Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 127. Himmler's recognition: ibid, p. 161.
4. ↑ Rodenberg as a participant see Klee, Personenlexikon , p. 501. On the content of the conference: Chronology of the Holocaust , entry October 27, 1942.
5. ↑ Panzinger's order of November 6, 1944, printed in full by Günther Grau: Homosexuality in the Nazi era. Documents of discrimination and persecution. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-596-15973-3 , page 167f. See also Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 128.
6. ↑ Carl-Heinz Rodenberg: Considerations on the subject area: emasculation from criminal-political report. In: The public health service. 7 (1941), p. 235. quoted in Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 159.
7. ↑ Carl-Heinz Rodenberg: On the question of the criminal therapeutic success of emasculating homosexual criminals. In: Deutsche Justiz 104 (1942), pp. 581-587, quoted in Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 160.
8. ^ Rodenberg to Ministerialrat Rietzsch (Reich Ministry of Justice) on October 3, 1942, quoted in Grau, Homosexualität , p. 320f. See also Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 161.
9. ↑ Correspondence between the Ludwigsburg central office and Rodenberg from March and May 1986, quoted in Jellonnek, Homosexuelle , p. 127. The Ludwigsburg central office tried unsuccessfully to mediate a conversation with Rodenberg aimed at by Jellonnek.