Franz Wirz (physician)

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Franz Gerhard Maria Wirz (born April 10, 1889 in Düsseldorf ; † December 29, 1969 ) was a German dermatologist , university professor and Nazi functionary.

Life

Wirz completed a medical degree at the University of Munich from 1910 , where he was awarded a Dr. med. received his doctorate . In the same year he received his license to practice medicine . Wirz had been in the army since August 1914. One of his war comrades was the later Reichsärzteführer Gerhard Wagner . After the First World War , he worked as an assistant doctor at the dermatological polyclinic of the University of Munich. He completed his habilitation in Munich in 1923 for the subject of skin and venereal diseases and then worked there as a private lecturer and, from 1927, as a non-civil servant associate professor.

In the course of the seizure of power , Wirz joined the NSDAP ( membership number 1.931.666) and the SA in 1933 . Protected by Gerhard Wagner, Wirz became increasingly committed to National Socialism . As early as 1933 he was one of the masterminds of a successful denunciation campaign against his superior, the Munich dermatologist Leo von Zumbusch . From June 1934, Wirz took over full-time functions for the party. He became head of the Reich Main Office in the Central Office for Public Health of the NSDAP Reich leadership . In this function he was responsible for the area of ​​popular nutrition. Furthermore, he was a member of the Advisory Council on Public Health in the Reich leadership of the NSDAP and in 1937, as a representative for educational issues , he was the liaison to Walther Darré , the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture .

Above all, however, since 1934, Wirz headed the NSDAP's university commission under the deputy of the Führer Rudolf Hess . In this function he participated in the “cleansing of the German higher education system from Jewish influence”. From this activity violent power struggles developed with the Reich Ministry of Education , which was soon looking for ways and means to discredit Wirz. In particular, he was accused of his previous marriage to Isabella, née Thannhauser (1890–1980), who was considered fully Jewish according to the Nuremberg race laws . Wirz had married the doctor Thannhauser, who emigrated to Palestine in 1933 , in 1917. In 1927 the marriage from which the daughter Liselotte (* 1920) emerged was divorced. Wirz, supported by Martin Bormann , denied a pro-Jewish attitude and pointed out that he had informed the Reichsärzteführer Wagner early on about his marriage to a Jewish woman. Nevertheless, the university commission lost its initial influence after 1935 under the impression of the allegations brought against Wirz. Since 1935/36 it only led a shadowy existence.

Wirz was appointed full professor at the University of Munich in 1939, but was immediately given leave of absence from the University Office for party-political functions. As head of the Reich Main Office in the Central Office for Public Health , he finally dealt with National Socialist nutritional planning and in particular with the “whole grain bread question”, since he “saw whole grain bread as the solution to the bread question”. From 1939 he headed the Reich Wholemeal Bread Committee , to which 45 offices belonged.

During the Second World War he was also deputy president of the German Hospital Society and headed the hospital advice center at the NSDAP's main public health office . He was also the nutrition officer of the Reich Health Management and nutrition advisor at the authority of the four-year plan . He was a member of the Advisory Board of the Scientific Society for Natural Living and Healing and, from 1944, the Scientific Advisory Board of Karl Brandt, the authorized representative for health care .

After the war ended, Wirz was dismissed by the military government. From December 1945 to November 1947 he was in Allied detention. In 1948, he was classified in the denazification process in category III (“less polluted”). He later settled in Munich as a specialist in skin and venereal diseases.

Fonts (selection)

  • National Socialist health management and liquid fruit , Wacht-Verlag, Berlin 1938 (together with Erich Bruns)
  • Healthy and secure popular nutrition: The importance of the nutritional reform in the context of the National Socialist health management , Müllersche Verlh., Dresden 1938 (belongs to LL series of publications; H. 3)
  • National Socialist demands on people's nutrition , Müllersche Verlh., Dresden 1939
  • From bread: knowledge and insights , Hippokrates-Verlag, Stuttgart 1940

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 184.
  2. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 682
  3. ↑ Helmut Böhm: From self-administration to the leader principle. The University of Munich in the first years of the Third Reich (1933–1936) , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1995, p. 529 ff.
  4. ↑ a b c d Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 183f.
  5. ↑ a b c Hendrik van den Bussche : In the service of the "Volksgemeinschaft": Study reform under National Socialism using the example of medical training , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg 1989, p. 25
  6. ↑ Freie Universität Berlin: Documentation: Doctors in the Empire ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / geschichte.charite.de
  7. ^ Michael Grüttner: The University Commission of the NSDAP. In: Ursula Ferdinand, Hans-Peter Kröner, Ioanna Mamali (eds.): Medical faculties in the German university landscape 1925–1950. Synchron, Heidelberg 2013, pp. 29–43.
  8. ↑ Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, p. 185
  9. ↑ Jörg Melzer: Whole food nutrition. Dietetics, naturopathy, National Socialism, social demands. Steiner, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 190f.
personal data
SURNAME Wirz, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wirz, Franz Gerhard Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dermatologist, university professor and Nazi functionary
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1969