Gerhard Wenzel

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Gerhard Wenzel (born January 16, 1905 in Roßbach (Braunsbedra) ; † after 1953) was a German psychiatrist who was involved in Nazi crimes at the Uchtspringe state hospital as part of the " child euthanasia " program .

Life

After passing his Abitur, Wenzel completed a degree in medicine and received his doctorate in 1935 from the University of Leipzig with the dissertation "Gestielte Sculptures and their fates from 1920 to 1930 from the Leipzig University Clinic". med.

He joined the NSDAP in 1932 even before power was handed over to the National Socialists . He also became a member of the SA in 1933 .

From 1935 Wenzel worked as an assistant doctor at the Uchtspringe State Hospital and was made civil servant there in 1937. After the beginning of the Second World War he served as a senior physician in the Air Force and in June 1941 was made indispensable for a job at the Uchtspringe State Hospital. From July 1941 to April 1942 he headed the euphemistically called " children's department " at the Uchtspringe state hospital, then briefly returned to military service and then continued to head the Uchtsspringer children's department from June 1942 to September 1943. During this time he prepared over 1,000 reports on "Reich Committee children" and authorization to treat - in other words, instructions to kill - were issued for up to 130 children. Wenzel had sisters carry out killing orders: first by giving Luminal in food and later by injecting morphine , which he also carried out himself. The parents of the murdered children were ultimately given false information about the death of their child.

From autumn 1943 to December 1945 he was employed in the special hospital department in Göttingen . Because of the crimes committed in the Landesheilanstalt Uchtspringe crime Wenzel was there in custody taken from which he could escape on 15 October 1946th Wenzel went into hiding under the cover name Martin Rhodus and registered under this name in Sarstedt in December 1948 . In November 1951 Wenzel was arrested in Sarstedt and transferred to Hildesheim .

He was eventually put on trial with the medical doctor Hildegard Wesse . On December 22nd, 1952, the first trial against Wesse and Wenzel was initially rejected by the First Criminal Chamber at the Hildesheim Regional Court , as the confessed defendants denied their guilt. Negotiations took place again a year later. On December 2, 1953, after three days of trial, Wenzel and Wesse were acquitted of the charge of killing disabled children by the jury court at the Göttingen regional court . Both Wenzel and Wesse were "convinced of the legality of their actions". As a witness for exculpation, u. a. the former expert on child euthanasia Ernst Wentzler .

After the trial, he worked in the brain injury home in Braunsfeld / Lahn.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 669.
  2. ↑ a b Kerstin Freudiger: The legal processing of Nazi crimes , Tübingen 2002, p. 345f.
  3. ↑ 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, pp. 211f.
personal data
SURNAME Wenceslaus, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and Nazi euthanasia perpetrator
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Rossbach (Braunsbedra)
DATE OF DEATH 20th century or 21st century