Ernst Baumhard

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Ernst Baumhard (born March 3, 1911 in Ammendorf near Halle (Saale) ; † June 24, 1943 in the Atlantic with submarine use) was a gassing doctor in the Nazi killing center Grafeneck and the Nazi killing center Hadamar in the context of the murders during National Socialism .

Origin and studies

Ernst Baumhard was born on March 3, 1911 in Ammendorf near Halle as the son of a doctor and studied medicine . As SA -member he visited the SA University School Office Sandersleben . He belonged to the National Socialist German Student Union and in 1937 also joined the NSDAP . In 1938 he took over the management of the medical department of the Nazi student leadership at the University of Halle . Baumhard was introduced to Hitler personally on May 1, 1938, as one of the first winners in the Reich professional competition . In 1939 Baumhard received his license to practice medicine and, after defending his dissertation, became The Effects of Straw Dust on the Human Organism and Measures to Prevent Damage by it. Examination results from the Cröllwitz paper mill for Dr. med. PhD .

At the T4 organization

From November 1, 1939, Baumhard is listed as a member of the T4 organization under the heading “Doctors in the institutions” on an “expert” list of the T4 central office .

In January 1940, he and other T4 doctors took part in the first "test gassing" of sick people in the old Brandenburg penitentiary . Other participants included Hitler's “euthanasia” commissioners, Karl Brandt , Philipp Bouhler and Leonardo Conti , the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior responsible for health issues. The SS-Sturmbannführer from the Forensic Institute of the Security Police Albert Widmann gave the instructions for the doctors who were to undertake the killing of the patients. The effect and duration of the gasification process could be observed through a peephole in the door to the gas chamber .

At the Nazi killing centers in Grafeneck and Hadamar

From the beginning of 1940 Baumhard was appointed deputy gassing doctor at the Nazi killing center in Grafeneck as part of the National Socialist "euthanasia" program (in post-war parlance "Aktion T4") and in April 1940 he succeeded Horst Schumann as head of the gassing facility . Here he appeared in correspondence under the code name “Dr. Hunter ”.

From February 26 to March 4, 1940, Baumhard was with a medical commission led by the medical director of the T4 organization Werner Heyde in the Bedburg-Hau institution and assisted together with the director of the NS killing center in Bernburg , Irmfried Eberl and Friedrich Mennecke in the selection of institutional patients. About 350 to 400 sick people were then taken by train to Grafeneck and gassed there.

The confidentiality obligation was not always taken so strictly in Grafeneck. It is known that Baumhard invited the director of the Winnenthal sanatorium, Senior Medical Officer Otto Gutekunst, to visit Grafeneck on the occasion of the removal of his selected patients. Gutekunst later said:

“Of course I was interested in finding out what was going on up there; I couldn't imagine how the killing of so many people was going to happen. I told him I would come ... The doctor [Baumhard dV] showed me a barracks with beds that were probably never used, because they were all freshly made, the gas room with the shower head protected, the incinerators, and I also saw an adjoining room a big pile of ashes with bits of bones As far as I can remember, an employee from Grafeneck was tapping these pieces of bone with a hammer. After my return I told my pastor Flachsland in Winnenden that he shouldn't say, if an urn from Grafeneck was buried: 'I will put your ashes ashes', but rather 'I will throw away the ashes' to emphasize that it is is not about the ashes of the dead. "

Baumhard sent a similar invitation to the last gassing in December 1940 to Dr. Martha Fauser, the director of the sanatorium and nursing home in Zwiefalten .

On June 4, 1940, the head nurse Änne Hagemeier was shot under mysterious circumstances in Grafeneck. The case never came to an unequivocal clarification. In the Grafeneck procedure, one of the "consolation" writers put this on record:

“In the summer of 1940, when I was in bed as a result of the concussion , on June 4, 1940, a transport arrived that contained a leper whose face, according to the nurse, was already pitted. The leper was soon taken by Dr. Baumhard shot dead with a pistol to avoid infecting the nurses. Baumhard ordered that everything should stop, but the head nurse Hagemeier from the Rhineland jumped to the other side and was fatally hit by the bullet. Dr. Baumhard, who told me about it himself, was very upset and beside himself. He wanted to take his own life. "

After the Nazi killing center in Grafeneck was dissolved at the end of 1940, Baumhard moved to the Nazi killing center at Hadamar, where he acted as director and first gassing doctor and took the cover name “Dr. Moss ”. After differences with the T4 organizer Viktor Brack , Baumhard and his deputy Günther Hennecke joined the Navy in the summer of 1941 .

According to the “Hartheim Document”, statistics from the T4 organization, 9,839 people were killed in Grafeneck in 1940 and 10,072 in Hadamar from January 1941 to the end of August 1941. During the period in which Baumhard was in Hadamar, 6,262 victims fell.

From August 25, 1941, Baumhard drove in the Navy as a naval doctor and medical officer on submarines . During one such mission he was killed on June 24, 1943 on U 449 .

Investigations by the Frankfurt / Main public prosecutor's office with regard to his activities in Grafeneck and Hadamar were discontinued in August 1946 with the note “Probably deceased”.

literature

  • Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state . 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 .
  • Ernst Klee: "Ernst Baumhard" 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.
  • Ernst Henry Friedlander : The way to the Nazi genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin, Berlin-Verlag, 1997. ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 .
  • Peter Sandner: “Administration of the murder of the sick. The Nassau District Association in National Socialism ”, Gießen, 2003, ISBN 3-89806-320-8 .
  • "Relocated to Hadamar", historical series of publications by the State Welfare Association of Hesse, catalogs Volume 2, Kassel 1994, ISBN 3-89203-011-1 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Heidelberg documents, “Reviewer” list, facsimile in Klee “Euthanasia in the Nazi State”, pp. 228/229
  2. ^ Statement by Dr. Gutekunst on April 23, 1948, Tübingen Public Prosecutor's Office, Grafeneck Trial, Ks 6/49, quoted from Klee “Euthanasia in the Nazi State”, page 164.
  3. ^ Statement by Dr. Fauser on January 27, 1948, Tübingen public prosecutor's office, Grafeneck trial, Ks 6/49, quoted from Klee “Euthanasia in the Nazi State”, page 292
  4. ^ Testimony of the T4 office worker from November 11, 1947, Tübingen public prosecutor's office, Grafeneck trial, Ks 6/49, quoted from Klee "Euthanasia in the Nazi State", pages 194/195. The typist in question later became engaged to Baumhard in November 1940.
  5. ^ Statistics in Klee “Documents on 'Euthanasia'”, pp. 232/233
personal data
SURNAME Baumhard, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German killing doctor for the T4 campaign
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Ammendorf
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1943
Place of death during the sinking of a submarine