Erich Grossmann

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Erich Großmann (born January 30, 1902 in Danzig , † December 14, 1948 in Oerbke ) was a German physician, racial hygienist , university teacher , SS leader and Senator for Public Health of the Free City of Danzig .

Live and act

Großmann was the son of a Prussian NCO. After attending school in Gdansk, he studied medicine . After completing his studies, he received his license to practice medicine in 1926 . It was in 1927 at the University of Würzburg Dr. med. PhD . He then specialized in hygiene, social medicine and gynecology. He then worked as a medical officer in Gdansk.

From 1933 Großmann was Deputy Senator for Public Health Helmut Kluck in Danzig . After Kluck left the Senate in 1937, he became its successor as Senator of the department now called Health Care and Population Policy. He also followed Kluck in 1937 as director of the State Academy for Practical Medicine in Gdansk, where he had previously been teaching gynecology. In this context he also took over his subjects of heredity and race studies. Großmann was a National Socialist (NSDAP membership number 720.199) and worked to integrate Danzig into the German Reich , he also worked in the Danzig Home Guard . In this context, on April 20, 1939, Adolf Hitler awarded him the Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP .

After the beginning of the Second World War , Großmann headed the health and public care department in the newly formed Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia at the authority of Reich Governor Albert Forster in Danzig . After the attack on Poland, he is said to have campaigned for Polish war casualties to be treated in Danzig clinics; He saw these as "honestly fighting opponents". He also spoke out against the relocation of the Kashubians from Danzig-West Prussia. Großmann, who acted as Forster's personal physician, was also Gauärzteführer and Gauamtsleiter of the Racial Political Office . He participated in the planning of the "murder of 1,400 Pomeranian patients in the forest of Piasnitz near Neustadt in West Prussia". In the first half of September 1939 he headed a commission in the Schwetz sanatorium, where the doctors working there were to use selection lists to record “all Jewish, convicted and unfit for work patients” for “transfer”. From September 10, 1939, around 1000 prison inmates near the Luszkowo estate were shot dead by the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz and SS men within a week . On September 19, 1939, Großmann was promoted to Oberführer of the General SS by Heinrich Himmler (SS no. 277.786).

After the State Academy for Practical Medicine was converted into the Gdansk Medical Academy , he became its rector in 1940 and its director after the establishment of the Institute for Hereditary and Racial Research there. From 1941 to 1945 he held the chair for racial hygiene there. At the end of the war he was in charge of medical care for the civilian population in his area of ​​influence from Danzig and Hela.

After the end of the war, Großmann was interned by the British. First he was detained in the Fischbek internment camp, where he unsuccessfully tried to re-establish the Medical Academy in another location. Before being extradited to Poland, Großmann committed suicide on December 14, 1948 in the Oerbke internment camp.

literature

  • Kurt Forstreuter , Fritz Gause (Ed.): Old Prussian Biography . Volume 3, Elwert, Marburg 1975, ISBN 978-3-7708-0504-4 .
  • Maria Fiebrandt: Selection for the Settler Society. The inclusion of ethnic Germans in the Nazi genetic health policy in the context of resettlements 1939–1945 (= writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism . Vol. 55). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-36967-8 .
  • Rembert Watermann: Medical Academy Danzig . In: Albertus University of Königsberg i. Pr., Göttingen Working Group: Yearbook of the Albertus University of Königsberg / Pr., Volume 21, Dikreiter Verlagsgesellschaft., 1971,

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Winfried Suss: The "people's body" in war. Health policy, health conditions and the murder of the sick in National Socialist Germany 1939–1945 Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, p. 465 f. mistakenly merges the biography of Erich Großmann with that of Hans Großmann .
  2. ↑ a b c d Fritz Gause: Großmann, Erich . In: Kurt Forstreuter, Fritz Gause (Eds.): Old Prussian Biography , Volume 3, Elwert, Marburg 1975, p. 932
  3. ^ A b c Maria Fiebrandt: Selection for the settler society. The inclusion of ethnic Germans in Nazi genetic health policy in the context of resettlements 1939–1945 , Göttingen 2014. p. 286
  4. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 204.
  5. ↑ a b c d Albertus University of Königsberg i. Pr., Göttingen Working Group: Yearbook of the Albertus University of Königsberg / Pr., Volume 21, Dikreiter Verlagsgesellschaft., 1971, pp. 40f.
  6. ^ Maria Fiebrandt: Selection for the settler society. The inclusion of ethnic Germans in the Nazi genetic health policy in the context of resettlements 1939–1945 , Göttingen 2014. pp. 294f.
  7. ↑ Volker Rieß: Central and decentralized radicalization. The killings of “unworthy life” in the annexed western and northern Polish areas 1939–1941 . In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann , Bogdan Musial (Ed.): Genesis des Genozids - Poland 1939–1941. Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-18096-8 , p. 128
  8. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Hitler's husband in Danzig. Gauleiter Forster and the crimes in Danzig-West Prussia. , Dietz, Bonn 2000. ISBN 3-8012-5029-6 , p. 184
personal data
SURNAME Großmann, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician, SS leader and Senator for Public Health of the Free City of Danzig
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Gdansk , West Prussia Province
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 1948
Place of death Oerbke