Ernst Günther Schenck

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Ernst Günther Schenck (born August 3, 1904 in Marburg , † December 21, 1998 in Aachen ) was a German doctor who held numerous positions in the Wehrmacht and SS during the Third Reich , most recently as Obersturmbannführer . Through his work in an emergency hospital in the former Reich Chancellery during the last days of the war, he met Adolf Hitler , whom he advised on the intended suicide, which is why Joachim Fest and James P. O'Donnell Schenck's memories were used in their publications. Schenck became known to a wider audience through Bernd Eichinger's film Der Untergang (2004), in which he - portrayed by Christian Berkel - is portrayed as a sensible, admonishing antithesis to Nazis fanatical to the end. Two critics of the film saw this positive portrayal as only a partial aspect of Schenck's personality, since Schenck had carried out "concentration camp experiments" as an SS doctor.

Life

Schenck, the son of a private lecturer, was an assistant doctor at the Ludolf Krehl Clinic in Heidelberg from 1930 after studying medicine and obtaining his medical license . From 1931 to 1934 he was senior assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research . After the handover of power to the National Socialists , he joined the SA in 1933 . In 1934 he became a senior physician. In 1937 he joined the NSDAP and became a member of various NS organizations, such as the NS-Ärztebund , the NS-Dozentbund , the German Labor Front , the National Socialist People's Welfare and the Reichs Luftschutzbund . In the same year he became a consultant in the main office for public health of the NSDAP Reichsleitung. He also worked at the Institute for Nutrition and Medicinal Herbology in Dachau . In June 1939 he and Karl Kötschau founded the Society for Natural Living and Healing , which only existed for a few months. In 1939 he became an advisor to the Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti . Since 1940 Schenck was the Waffen-SS nutrition inspector . After he had become chief physician in the internal department of the hospital in Munich-Schwabing in 1941, he was appointed adjunct professor in 1942. As an employee of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, from 1943 to 1944 he was responsible for "nutritional experiments" in the Mauthausen concentration camp . In this role he claimed in 1943: “The supply of vegetables and potatoes to the concentration camp is largely excellent.” In 1944, he was promoted to nutrition inspector of the Wehrmacht and senior doctor.

After the end of the Second World War he was a Soviet prisoner of war from 1945 to 1955. After his return to the Federal Republic of Germany he worked in the pharmaceutical industry, including at Grünenthal . He also took up a position as a reparation expert for hunger injuries at the Association of Homecomers .

Concentration camp activity

The author Stefan Reinecke referred in the daily newspaper to "Statements from prisoners in Dachau", who reported that on a plantation (with 200,000 medicinal plants) under the direction of Schenck, "in 1938 more than a hundred (died) of exhaustion and forced labor". Other prisoners died in a "nutrition or hunger experiment" in the Mauthausen concentration camp . Christoph Kopke wrote in the FAZ that Schenck “as a scientist owes part of his achievements to forced labor and the suffering of concentration camp prisoners” and that even after the war he missed an “admission of at least moral guilt”. The accusation of having carried out “human experiments ” is not raised by any of the authors. Kopke: "Because of his attempts at concentration camps, the Bavarian State Ministry for Culture and Education refused him to exercise his professorship at the University of Munich again, but a corresponding criminal investigation ended in 1968 with the termination."

Publications (selection)

  • On the question of special and concentrate catering for the Waffen-SS , SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt, Office Group B, printing: Metten & Co, Berlin SW 61 (without year of birth).
  • Fundamentals and regulations for the regulation of sick nutrition in war. Reichsgesundheitsverlag, Berlin et al. 1940.
  • I saw Berlin die. As a doctor in the Reich Chancellery. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung , Herford 1970.
  • under the pseudonym Egon-Gernot Scherberg: The tablet makers , Nicolai, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-87584-024-0 .
  • Patient Hitler. A medical biography. Droste , Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0776-X .
  • Never going home again? As a scientist, convict and doctor, spent 10 years in Soviet prison, labor and reform camps. Bublies , Koblenz 1997, ISBN 3-926584-45-9 .
  • Prof. Dr. med. Theodor Gilbert Morell. Hitler's personal physician and his medicines. Bublies, Schnellbach 1998, ISBN 3-926584-52-1 .

literature

  • Gine Elsner: Medicinal herbs, “folk nutrition”, human experiments. Ernst Günther Schenck (1904–1998). A German medical career. VSA, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89965-419-6 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer 16048). Updated edition. Fischer paperback publishing house, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , pp 530-531.
  • Christoph Kopke : The concentration camp as an experimental field: Ernst Günther Schenck and the plantation in Dachau. In: Ralph Gabriel , Elissa Mailänder Koslov, Monika Neuhofer, Else Rieger (eds.): Storage system and representation. Interdisciplinary studies on the history of the concentration camps (= studies on National Socialism in edition discord. Vol. 10). edition diskord, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-86099-553-7 , pp. 13-28.
  • Christoph Kopke: The "food inspector of the Waffen-SS". On the role of the physician Ernst-Günther Schenck in National Socialism. In: Christoph Kopke (Ed.): Medicine and crime. Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Walter Wuttke. Klemm & Oelschläger, Ulm 2001, ISBN 3-932577-32-9 , pp. 208-220.
  • Christoph Kopke: The “Politically Thinking Health Management” Ernst Günther Schenck (1904–1998) and National Socialism. Berlin 2008, DNB 1008064211 (also: Dissertation, Free University of Berlin, 2008).
  • Stefan Reinecke : The doctor from Berlin - The good spirit in the Führerbunker: But who was Ernst Günther Schenck if Bernd Eichinger and Oliver Hirschgiebel didn't draw him? In: the daily newspaper . No. 7462, of September 15, 2004, p. 15.
  • Gunther Schenk: Medicinal Herbology in National Socialism. Status, development and classification within the framework of the New German Medicine (= DWV writings on the history of National Socialism. Vol. 7). Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86888-006-9 (dissertation, University of Würzburg, 2009).
  • Jens Westemeier : Ernst Günther Schenck - From SS Doctor to “Aid to Historians”. In: Mathias Schmidt, Dominik Groß , Jens Westemeier (eds.): The doctors of the Nazi leaders. Careers and networks (= Medicine and National Socialism. Vol. 5). Lit, Berlin / Münster 2018, pp. 287–316.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . 2005, p. 530.
  2. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. 2005, p. 530.
  3. ^ Stefan Reinecke: The doctor from Berlin. In: the daily newspaper. September 15, 2004. Text also in the following review collection, p. 17.
  4. ^ Collection of reviews on the occasion of the film "Der Untergang" (PDF, p. 9) ( Memento from June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Schenck, Ernst Günther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scherberg, Egon-Gernot (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor in the Wehrmacht and SS
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Marburg
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1998
Place of death Aachen