Ewald Wortmann

Ewald Wortmann , also Hannes Wortmann called (* 17th April 1911 in Marne , † 15. September 1985 in Osnabrück ), was in the era of National Socialism during the Nazi medical killings as a doctor in the medical selection and in the Nazi killing center Sonnenstein active in Pirna .

Origin and studies

After graduating from high school, Ewald Wortmann studied medicine at the universities of Hamburg , Würzburg , Munich and Berlin . In 1933 he joined the SA . In contrast to most of the other T4 doctors, he was neither a member of the National Socialist German Student Union nor the NSDAP . In 1934 he passed the Physikum in Würzburg and the state examination in 1937 .

During his studies in Würzburg, he was also in psychiatric lectures by the private lecturer Werner Heyde , who later became the first medical director of Aktion T4 . In 1937, Wortmann worked as an assistant in the Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg from Ludwig Schmidt-Kehl , also known as "Rassen-Schmidt". There he did his doctorate on the "population movement of a Schleswig-Holstein village Eddelak in Dithmarschen" . Afterwards, Wortmann was employed in the university women's clinic and, as a member of a Würzburg student group, took part in a study trip to Bessarabia inspired by the Gau student tour together with the later T4 doctors Aquilin Ullrich and Klaus Endruweit . The aim of the two-month study trip to the German-speaking village of Teplitz was to describe the situation of the " ethnic Germans " there and to assess their state of health. The thesis written by the student group about their trip was awarded a prize at the 1939 Reich professional competition.

From September 1939 to February 1940, Wortmann worked as a doctor in the Hamburg-Langenhorn institution. Then he was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a medical doctor in Neumünster .

At the T4 organization

After the war, Wortmann stated that he was only released at the end of September or beginning of October 1940 with instructions to report to Hermann Paul Nitsche in the Fuehrer's office . He reported about this later:

“At this meeting, Nitsche asked me how I felt about euthanasia. I explained to him that I am not opposed to euthanasia. "

“At that time I didn't ask Prof. Nitsche about a justification for euthanasia. It never occurred to me that something a professor in an office in the Fuehrer's office might not be right or even illegal. "

According to the records of the T4 central office , Wortmann was listed there from May 12, 1940 to October 31, 1940 as an employee under the heading "Doctors in institutions".

Wortmann was initially assigned to the T4 expert Theodor Steinmeyer as an employee. The task of these experts was to visit sanatoriums and nursing homes in order to select sick people for the National Socialist “euthanasia” program on the basis of medical histories and information provided by the staff and to fill out the required registration forms for the T4 central office. The medical commission headed by Steinmeyer included 30 to 40 people who had already decided as experts on the killing of patients on the basis of the registration form campaign that had been running since the beginning of the year, without ever having seen the sick. Even with these selections in the institutions, decisions were made according to the “file situation”. Wortmann testified: “We never saw the sick themselves.” The goals of this group included the institutions in Ansbach , Regensburg , Straubing and Erlangen .

In the Nazi killing center in Sonnenstein

After completing the selection trip, Wortmann went, as instructed, to the Sonnenstein gassing facility in Pirna, where he was informed about the purpose of the facility by its director, Horst Schumann . The killing process was demonstrated to him on the basis of a newly arrived ambulance. Wortmann described this as follows:

“We sat at a long table or several tables in a larger room. Dr. Schumann sat in the middle and had the documents in front of him or the nurses always brought the patient's documents with them. Dr. Schmalenbach sat on the right, myself on the left of Dr. Schumann. […] The sick were brought in one at a time but continuously. An investigation did not take place. However, it may be that Dr. Schumann has asked questions in individual cases. I had nothing to do myself, just sit and watch. […] [The sick] were then photographed in an adjoining room and then taken into the room where they were killed together. Dr. Schumann put the system into operation himself and observed the process through a small glass window. He asked me to take a look myself. I pretended to look inside, but immediately turned away. "

Wortmann said that this process shocked him so much,

"That I immediately afterwards Dr. Schumann asked to send me away again. Dr. Schumann, however, told me that he couldn't decide that. Prof. Heyde will come and I should present the request to him. I have now waited for Prof. Heyde to come and had only one urgent wish, namely that no further transport would arrive in the meantime. Unfortunately a transport arrived in the meantime. I can still say that I was in an extraordinarily depressed mood, so that in the end I simply phoned Prof. Heyde in Berlin and asked him to be recalled. I still remember that he was very ungracious on the phone and instructed me to come to Berlin. Then I went to Berlin and probably took my belongings with me. "

Heyde tried to change his mind with reference to his career opportunities at T4. But although he could not be changed, no sanctions were threatened or imposed.

In a later testimony, however, Wortmann relativized his alleged complete inactivity in Sonnenstein and admitted that he too had written the so-called “consolation letters” under the cover name “Dr. Peace "signed.

After his release from the T4 organization, Wortmann worked in the hospital of a camp for Bessarabia and Baltic Germans in Litzmannstadt ( Łódź ) until he was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the Russian campaign .

After the war

In 1950, Wortmann returned from Soviet captivity. He opened a general practice in Friedrichskoog , married and had four children.

Wortmann could only be identified as the last T4 doctor for the so-called first medical trial against Ullrich and others before the Frankfurt district court . On March 21, 1963 he testified for the first time as a witness in the proceedings against the T4 doctor Georg Renno . A preliminary investigation initiated against Wortmann was closed on August 1, 1969. In the trial against his former superior and head of the Sonnenstein gassing facility, Horst Schumann , he refused to testify in October 1970. Wortmann was the only one of the T4 doctors who admitted at least “a certain moral guilt” , “because I did nothing about these things. But that's just a matter that hits me inside. At that time I couldn't compete against these things at all. I lacked the possibility and also the influence. "

In 1969/70 the North German Radio made a documentary about Wortmann and his family, in which the situation of a “typical” country doctor was to be presented under the title “De Doktor snackt flat”. The recordings took place in autumn 1969; the film was broadcast in June 1970.

literature

• Working group to research the National Socialist "euthanasia" and forced sterilization (ed.): "Tödliches Mitleid. NS-'Euthanasia' and the Present ”, Münster (2007), Verlag Klemm & Oels, ISBN 978-3-932577-53-6
• 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: Ewald Wortmann. 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. 687
• 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

Web links

• Literature by and about Ewald Wortmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ernst Klee: " Euthanasia ", in Die Zeit 11/1986

Remarks

1. ^ Statement from August 6, 1965, Az. 4 Gs 116/65 AG Marne
2. ^ Statement of March 23, 1963, p. 4; ZStL "Collection Euthanasia", folder Wi-Zz
3. ^ Statement of March 23, 1963, p. 10; ZStL "Collection Euthanasia", folder Wi-Zz
4. ↑ Heidelberg documents, “Reviewer” list, facsimile in Klee “Euthanasia in the Nazi State”, page 228f.
5. ^ Testimony of August 6, 1965 before the Marne District Court, 4 Gs 116/65
6. ^ Statement from August 6, 1965, page 3f .; ZStL, “Euthanasia Collection”, folder Wi-Zz
7. ↑ Statement of March 21, 1963, ZStL, "Euthanasia Collection", folder Wi-Zz
8. ^ Statement of November 22, 1966, quoted from Klee "What they did - was they became", p. 120.
9. ↑ Js 5/63 StA Ffm
10. ^ Statement of March 21, 1963; ZStL “Euthanasia Collection”, folder Wi-Zr, quoted from Schilter “Inhuman discretion” page 197.
11. ^ De Doktor snackt platt - Country doctor in Friedrichskoog , broadcast in Kulturspiegel on June 24, 1970.