Curt Schmalenbach

Curt Schmalenbach (* February 24, 1910 in Elberfeld ; † June 15, 1944 (plane crash over Lake Como )) was in the National Socialist German Reich as part of the National Socialist "euthanasia" program as a doctor in the selection of sick people, as deputy head of the NS - Sonnenstein killing center in Pirna and head of the Hadamar Nazi killing center .

origin

Curt Schmalenbach studied medicine and was involved in the SS as early as 1931/32 . In 1932 he joined the NSDAP for the first time , but was expelled again when he stopped paying membership fees.

Schmalenbach obtained his doctorate and as a young doctor got to know the director and later medical director of the National Socialist "euthanasia" program Hermann Paul Nitsche in the Sonnenstein sanatorium in Pirna .

In 1938 Schmalenbach was drafted to do his military service in the air force . He then found employment as a research assistant in a chemical factory in Dresden - Radebeul and was appointed Medical Councilor in mid-1940.

In the T4 organization

According to the list of T4 experts , Schmalenbach was listed as of June 26, 1940 under the heading “Doctors at headquarters” . He was registered as an expert from August 28, 1941. At the end of 1940 Schmalenbach rejoined the NSDAP.

The first place of use was the Sonnenstein gasification plant in Pirna. Its head, Horst Schumann , later stated that Schmalenbach had arrived there in the fall of 1940 and had been instructed in his duties by him. During his absence, Schmalenbach had to carry out the gassings himself. As is usual in all killing centers, he did not sign the death certificates and the "letters of comfort" to the surviving dependents of the victims with his real name, but with the cover name "Dr. Palm ".

After the T4 doctors Kurt Borm and Klaus Endruweit were assigned to the Sonnenstein facility in November and December 1940, Schmalenbach was assigned to the T4 central office and was used as a liaison between the central office and the gassing facilities.

He was also a T4 assessor in numerous institutions, such as Andernach , Bethel , Galkhausen near Langenfeld , Göppingen , the Neudettelsau institutions , the Riedhof near Ulm and Schwäbisch Hall . Here the sick were selected for the killing centers. Most of the time, decisions were made according to the “files”, medical histories and information from the nursing staff. There is a statement by the local doctor Krause about Schmalenbach's activity in the Galkhausen institution, according to which Schmalenbach finished his assessment much faster than his two colleagues, whom he indignantly asked: "What, you want to put sick people back?" Krause had the impression that “Dr. Schmalenbach did not like the conscientious work of his two older colleagues and as if he had made his decisions relatively superficially. "

His expert work also related to " Aktion 14f13 ", the selection of incapacitated prisoners in the concentration camps for gassing in the three Nazi killing centers in Bernburg that remained after the first phase of the "euthanasia" program was stopped on August 24, 1941, Sonnenstein and Hartheim. For example, in November 1941 Schmalenbach went to selections in the Buchenwald and Ravensbrück concentration camps .

At the end of 1941 Schmalenbach was appointed head of the no longer used Hadamar gas station . Until the summer of 1942 it was not yet known in the T4 central office whether the gas murders should be resumed after the stop. Until it was finally clear, the Nazi killing centers were kept on standby. The nursing staff was partly seconded to sanatoriums and nursing homes or used for the "eastern deployment". It was a medical use in the context of the Organization Todt in the winter of 1941-42, which was attended by T4 members of the gassing institutions and by Viktor Brack , head of the Main Office II of the Registry of the leader and main responsible organizer of Action T4 , out has been. Schmalenbach also took part in this mission from January to March 1942 and was deployed in a military hospital in Minsk, Belarus, to care for wounded soldiers on the Eastern Front who had been damaged by the cold.

In the summer of 1942, the decision was made in Berlin to close down some of the killing centers. In Hadamar, the corresponding systems were therefore removed, the buildings used were restored to their original state and the rooms were prepared for their previous use. Schmalenbach's task was the organization of these measures and the administrative processing. The written documents about the T4 campaign in Hadamar were sent to Berlin, where the “Hadamar State Sanatorium and Nursing Institution - Berlin settlement center” had been set up. The work in Hadamar was finished by the end of July, so that on July 31, 1942, the institution could be returned to the sponsorship of the Hessen-Nassau district association in Wiesbaden.

Schmalenbach was then appointed as a medical officer and worked, among other things, in January 1943 at the University Women 's Clinic in Greifswald . From there he informed his T4 expert colleague Friedrich Mennecke on January 27, 1943:

"Now I've been back in service for almost four weeks ... I am waiting here, after I have not been released from Blankenburg to join the Air Force, at least not yet, for another special mission in Russia. This time this should come directly from Prof. Brandt and the necessary team is fully trained and should be deployed at some focal point. "

According to the current research situation, such a deployment did not take place. It is unknown what functions and tasks Schmalenbach had between January 1943 and June 1944. He was killed in a plane crash over Lake Como in Italy on June 15, 1944 .

There is an expert opinion dated July 8, 1941 by the head of the Munich NSDAP on behalf of the Fuehrer's Chancellery about Schmalenbach's “political reliability”. It says:

"Curt Schmalenbach - has lived in Munich since February 1940 [...] - is a doctor by profession, but according to the IDs presented, he has been in the special use of SS-Reichsführer Himmler, the Chancellery of the Führer and the High Command of the Wehrmacht since 1932. He was recently appointed to the Council and is always on the move with secret missions (e.g. to Paris, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, etc.). He also has an ID from the Führer's secret office (RL Bouhler ), according to which he is entitled to refuse any information about his activity and the purpose of his trip. "

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: "Curt Schmalenbach" 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
• Thomas Schilter: Inhuman discretion. The National Socialist 'euthanasia' killing center Pirna-Sonnenstein 1940/41 , Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-378-01033-9

Remarks

1. ↑ Heidelberg documents, "Reviewer" list, facsimile in Klee "Euthanasia in the Nazi State", p. 228/229 or Lemma T4 reviewer
2. ^ Statements by Schumann of May 31, 1967 and September 28, 1970, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Department 631a, Volume 524, Sheet 15 and Volume 476, Sheet 35.
3. ^ Statement by Dr. Krause of November 10, 1947 in Düsseldorf, ZStL., "Euthanasia Collection", folder Kn - Kz, quoted from Schilter "Inhuman discretion" page 186.
4. ↑ 1970, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Department 631a, Volume 447, Sheet 433f.
5. ↑ Bundesarchiv Berlin, Berlin Document Center, BDC-PK, quoted. according to Schilter "Inhuman discretion" page 185.