Friederike Pusch

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Friederike Pusch (born June 20, 1905 in Staßfurt ; † December 9, 1980 in Beckendorf-Neindorf ) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist who was involved in medical crimes in the context of child euthanasia .

Life

After graduating from high school, the officer's daughter completed an apprenticeship as a medical-technical assistant and then worked in her profession at the Pharmacological Institute of the University of Leipzig . She then completed a medical degree from 1930 to 1935 at the universities of Freiburg, Innsbruck and Leipzig. While still a student, she joined the NSDAP after the handover of power to the National Socialists in May 1933 . After completing her studies, she worked as an assistant doctor at the Potsdam State Institute until 1938, where she headed the special education department with assistant doctor Werner Röhricht. During this time she was approved in 1936 and in 1937 at the University of Leipzig as a Dr. med. PhD .

In 1938, Pusch moved to the Görden state institute in Brandenburg an der Havel as a senior physician , where she first headed the welfare department and finally an infant department. In the case of Günther E. , who was mentally and physically retarded , Petra Fuchs proved Pusch's involvement in the Nazi euthanasia. In an undated statement signed by the director of the institution, Hans Heinze and Pusch, the following is stated about E.: He comes from “a hereditary clan. His siblings are housed in the local institution, one sister suffers from Mongoloid idiocy. G. has been in institutions since 1936. […] G. can hardly be regarded as capable of education. Günther suffers from innate nonsense in terms of the sterilization law. He is constantly in need of institutional care ”. This is followed by the entry on May 21, 1940: "Will be moved to another institution today by order of the Reich Commissioner". This entry marks the date of death of ten-year-old Günther, who was murdered on this day by gas in the Brandenburg prison. The medical record also contains a registration form for Action T4 signed by Heinze . Fuchs assumes that Günther's murder is related to research interests: In order to research the “nonsense”, underage inmates of the Görden State Institution were murdered in order to “then scientifically examine and evaluate the brains of these girls and boys”.

After all, from summer 1940 she worked in the children's department of the Görden State Institution, where minors were victims of medical crimes as part of child euthanasia. From 1941 onwards, she worked with the Reich Committee for the scientific recording of serious genetic and genetic diseases . In July 1942, she followed Ernst Illing as head of the children's department at the Görden state institution , where she worked closely with the institution's director, Hans Heinze, and was jointly responsible for the killings on the ward. She stayed in this role until the end of World War II . Her area of ​​responsibility also included “introducing doctors from other children's departments to the method of killing.” From the testimony of a guest we can infer the killing variants not documented in the medical histories: This [Ms. Pusch, the author] explained to me how they handle child euthanasia ( euthanasia with luminal tablets and syringes) [...] In addition, the non-treatment of diseases and systematic undersupply are likely to have been responsible for the enormously high death rate among the Görden Reich Committee children ”.

In July / August 1943, Pusch completed a neurohistological training with Julius Hallervorden at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research . Since then, at the latest, she has also devoted herself to basic and accompanying pathological research. After the liberation from National Socialism in July 1945 , Pusch still sent "organic material" from the prosecution at the Görden state institute . H. Brains of the euthanasia victims - at Hallervorden to Dillenburg-Gießen, where the outsourced Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research was now located.

Pusch initially stayed at the Görden State Institute and now headed the children's and youth department there. At the end of 1947 she was transferred to the Neuruppin State Institute, where she resigned from her employment in 1948. From 1949 she worked at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Halle. At the end of the 1950s, she moved to the neuropsychiatric department at the Blankenburg Polyclinic. After retiring in 1968, she worked for the psychiatric counseling center in Wernigerode until the end of the 1970s .

Pusch was neither prosecuted nor interrogated for the killing of the underage victims of euthanasia. The MfS carried out investigations into the Pusch case, but without taking any further measures. The background to this was the request for mutual assistance from an examining magistrate from Frankfurt am Main, who was presented with an incriminating testimony. As a result, he had unsuccessfully turned to the responsible public prosecutor of the GDR in November 1964 .

literature

  • Thomas Beddies, Kristina Hübener (Ed.): Children in Nazi psychiatry. (Series of publications on the history of medicine in the state of Brandenburg, Vol. 10). Be.bra-Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-937233-14-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Thomas Beddies, Kristina Hübener (Ed.): Children in the Nazi Psychiatry , Berlin 2004, pp. 195ff
  2. ↑ Petra Fuchs: "Günter E. - Comes from a hereditary clan" . In: Petra Fuchs, Maike Rotzoll, Ulrich Müller, Paul Richter, Gerrit Hohendorf (eds.): "Forgetting about annihilation is part of annihilation itself". Life stories of victims of the National Socialist “euthanasia” , Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0146-7 , p. 156
  3. ↑ Petra Fuchs: "Günter E. - Comes from a hereditary clan" . In: Petra Fuchs, Maike Rotzoll, Ulrich Müller, Paul Richter, Gerrit Hohendorf (eds.): "Forgetting about annihilation is part of annihilation itself". Life stories of victims of the National Socialist "euthanasia" , Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0146-7 , p. 158
  4. ↑ Thomas Beddies: The inclusion of minors in the National Socialist medical crimes - illustrated using the example of the Brandenburg State Institute Görden . In: Praxis der Kinderpsychologie und Kinderpsychiatrie 58, (2009) 7, p. 521
  5. ↑ Hans-Walter Schmuhl : Brain research and the murder of the sick. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research 1937-1940. Issue, state of research and scope of interpretation . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , issue 4/2002, Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISSN 0042-5702, p. 605 ( PDF )
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Rose: Institutional Psychiatry in the GDR .: The Brandenburg Clinics between 1945 and 1990 , be.bra-Wiss.-Verlag, 2005, p. 251
  7. ^ Ernst Klee : Irrsinn Ost, Irrsinn West: Psychiatrie in Deutschland , Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 93
  8. ^ Henry Leide: Nazi Criminals and State Security: The Secret Past Policy of the GDR , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-35018X , pp. 351f.
personal data
SURNAME Pusch, Friederike
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and neurologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Staßfurt
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1980
Place of death Beckendorf-Neindorf