Friedrich Panse

Friedrich Albert Panse (born March 30, 1899 in Essen , † December 6, 1973 in Bochum ) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist , at the time of National Socialism a T4 expert and professor at the University of Bonn .

Early years

Panse, the son of a locksmith, finished his school career in 1917 with a high school diploma . During the First World War , Panse was used as a private in the artillery in the final phase of the war . Between 1919 and 1923 Panse completed a medical degree at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster and in Berlin . This was followed by a practical year in medicine at the Psychiatric and Mental Clinic of the Berlin Charité under Karl Bonhoeffer . His approval in April 1924. In December 1925 a doctorate rumen to Dr. med. with the dissertation course and prognosis in manic-depressive insanity . From the beginning of May 1924 to 1935 Panse worked at the Wittenauer Heilstätten , where he initially worked as an assistant doctor and finally as a senior physician . His district medical exam took place in 1929. Luise Klapdor married in 1924 and the couple had a daughter.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the National Socialists came to power, Panse worked at the hereditary health courts in Berlin , Munich and Cologne . There he advised public health officers on hereditary questions. His habilitation took place at the University of Berlin at the end of January 1936, and he was exempted from preparing a habilitation thesis. From the beginning of January 1936, Panse became medical director of the institute under the director of the Provincial Institute for Psychiatric-Neurological Research, Kurt Pohlisch . At this institute, so-called “hereditary inferiorities” were recorded; Panses focus was on research into Huntington's disease . From May 1937 he was given a lectureship in neurology and psychiatry for " Racial Hygiene " and taught at the State Academy of Public Health in Berlin, the University Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt and gave lectures at the NS-Ordensburg Vogelsang . He also cooperated with the racial political offices, especially in the Cologne-Aachen district . An application made by Pohlisch in May 1939 to convert Panses' teaching position into a professorship for racial hygiene was granted by the NSDDB, as Panse was considered an "upright supporter of the Third Reich ". The establishment of this professorship was postponed due to the war, but Panse became an adjunct professor of neurology, psychiatry and racial hygiene at the University of Bonn in October 1942.

He joined the NSDAP in April 1937 ( membership number 5,616,924). He also belonged to the Nazi Dozentenbund (NSDDB), the National Socialist German Medical Association (NSDÄB), the Reichskolonialbund and the Reich Federation of German officials and the National Socialist People's Welfare at (NSV). He had been a member of the Red Cross since 1939 and a supporting member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) between 1934 and 1935 .

After the outbreak of World War II , he was drafted into the Wehrmacht , where he was last employed as a senior field doctor as an advisory Wehrmacht psychiatrist in Wehrkreis VI (Münster) . In the Ensen reserve hospital , Panse used high-dose galvanic electricity for the treatment (called “rumen”) of war neurotics. Günter Elsässer assisted him . In the spring of 1940, Panse and Pohlisch were recruited and instructed as an external expert for Aktion T4 at a secret conference in Berlin . From May 14, 1940 to December 16, 1940, Panse was an external appraiser for Aktion T4, as was his Bonn colleague Pohlisch, who held this position from late April 1940 to early January 1941. Panse processed around 600 registration forms from patients from German and Austrian sanatoriums and nursing homes and made killing recommendations in around 15 cases. Both Panse and Pohlisch were released from their expert work by the T4 central office , probably because their reports did not meet the expectations of the central office.

After the end of the war

At the end of the war he was taken prisoner of war , from which he was released in October 1945. In October 1945, the examination board of the University of Bonn certified Panse conscientious deliberations in his review work, but denied him a return to his professorship due to his involvement in the euthanasia. On September 8, 1945, Panse commented in writing on the following topics: "My position on National Socialism", "My position on racial hygiene in teaching and research", "On the question of the so-called 'destruction of life unworthy of life'". In the latter justification, Panse stated the following:

“In any case, it was the darkest chapter in the history of German psychiatry, whose reputation has suffered tremendously, the medical ethos has been badly shaken. I was aware of this from the first minute of knowing these things. Today I am convinced that in the given situation I did everything I could to save as many sick people as the circumstances would allow. [...] My conscience is completely pure in this difficult matter. "

Panse and Pohlisch were finally acquitted on November 24, 1948 and January 27, 1950 on the basis of “proven innocence” on charges of participating in euthanasia crimes in two trials before the Düsseldorf jury court. When the state government refused to reinstate Panses, the latter successfully sued for reinstatement. From 1950 Panse was head of the Rheinische Landesklinik for brain injured persons in Langenberg. In addition, he became director of the Düsseldorf-Grafenberg asylum, the University Psychiatric Clinic in Düsseldorf and a member of the Medical Advisory Council for questions relating to the provision of war victims at the Federal Ministry of Labor.

In 1966, Panse initiated a study in Düsseldorf with the drug Truxal from the manufacturer Troponwerke Köln (today Meda ) on children of the Neu-Düsselthal facility, without parental knowledge or consent, and with the approval of the State Youth Welfare Office in North Rhine-Westphalia . The drug is recommended for adults only.

As recently as 1960, when it came to the question of rent neurosis , he maintained the thesis that neurotic reactions to conditions peculiar to war were wishful and purposeful reactions that could not be viewed as a result of damage.

Panse retired in 1967 and died in 1973.

"A life of work in the service of suffering fellow men ... is completed."

- Psychiatric University Clinic Düsseldorf , obituary notice, quoted. according to Ernst Klee, August 6, 1999

The honorary membership of the German Society for Psychiatry and Neurology , which he had been president of in 1965/1966, was officially revoked in 2011.

Fonts (selection)

• Brain injured fates . Thieme , Stuttgart 1972.
• On the causal importance of exogenous factors for the development and course of schizophrenia . Kohlhammer , Cologne 1968.
• Problems, therapy and rehabilitation of chronic endogenous psychoses . Enke , Stuttgart 1967.
• Bayer Leverkusen , Pharmaceutical Scientist Department (Ed.): Pieter Bruegel's Dulle Griet (with Heinrich Jakob Schmidt ). Mann [in Komm.], Berlin 1967.
• The psychiatric hospital system . Thieme, Stuttgart 1964.
• Federal laws and benefits for those injured by war and the consequences of war . German Fachschriften-Verl. Braun, 2nd edition, Mainz-Gonsenheim 1959.
• Medical and vocational rehabilitation in the United States . Hanser , Munich 1958.
• Clinical and linguistic studies on agrammatism . Thieme, Stuttgart 1952.
• Fear and fright from a clinical psychological and socio-medical point of view . Thieme, Stuttgart 1952.
• The hereditary chorea . G. Thieme, Leipzig 1942.
• The genetic makeup and appearance of psychopaths. Bonn Univ. Buchdr., Bonn 1940.
• Hereditary questions in mental illnesses. J. A. Barth, Leipzig 1936. After the end of the Second World War, placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone .
• Sleep pill abuse . G. Thieme, Leipzig 1934 (together with Kurt Pohlisch).
• The damage to the nervous system from technical electricity. Karger, Berlin 1930.
• Advances in the detection and control of lead poisoning in industry and commerce; newly emerged lead poisoning hazards. R. Schoetz publishing house, Berlin 1929.

literature

• Ralf Forsbach : The medical faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich" , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3-486-57989-5 .
• Ralf Forsbach: Friedrich Panse - established in all systems. Psychiatrist in the Weimar Republic, in the “Third Reich” and in the Federal Republic. In: Der Nervenarzt 3/2012, pp. 329–336.
• Jürgen Junglas: "German Psychiatry and Euthanasia". Friedrich Panse 1946 between justification and reflection . October 3, 2007, Bonn, 17th annual meeting of the German Society for the History of Neurology. (pdf)
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
• Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. The "destruction of life unworthy of life". S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-10-039303-1 .
• Ernst Klee: What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews. 12th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5 .

Web links

• Biography in the portal Rheinische Geschichte
• Ralf Forsbach : Panse, Friedrich Albert , Biographical Archive of Psychiatry (BIAPSY), 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jürgen Junglas: "The German Psychiatry and Euthanasia". Friedrich Panse 1946 between justification and reflection. (Incorrect spelling of reflection in the original.) Bonn, October 3, 2007, 17th annual conference of the German Society for the History of Neurology.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich". Munich 2006, p. 213 f.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernst Klee: What they did - What they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews. Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 168.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Rhineland Regional Council: The clinic under the direction of Friedrich Panse
5. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 134.
6. ↑ Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich". Munich 2006, p. 493 f.
7. ↑ Friedrich Panse: On the question of the so-called “destruction of life unworthy of life”. Quoted by: Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the “Third Reich”. Munich 2006, p. 643.
8. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Frankfurt 2007, p. 449.
9. ↑ History of MEDA  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ^ Westdeutsche Zeitung , Scandal over drug tests on children in care , by Michael Passon, October 21, 2016
11. ↑ Daniela Schmidt-Langels, Otto Langels: Drug tests: The long suffering after the children's home on Spiegel.de, accessed on February 4, 2016
12. ↑ Christian Pross: reparation - the guerrilla war against the victims. Athenaeum, Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 3-610-08502-9 , p. 152 f.
13. ↑ Ernst Klee : Presentation Who honors perpetrators, murders their victims again. Pedagogical Institute Hamburg, August 6, 1999
14. ^ Resolution to withdraw honorary memberships from November 24, 2011 (PDF) ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2012 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. on the DGPPN website , here pp. 1–4.  
15. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-p.html