Hans Hefelmann

Hans Friedrich Kurt Hefelmann (born October 4, 1906 in Dresden ; † April 12, 1986 in Munich ) was a German certified farmer and in the National Socialist German Reich, as department head of the main office IIb of the Führer’s Chancellery, one of the main people responsible for the organization and implementation of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program ( Action T4 ).

Life

Hans Hefelmann was the son of a textile manufacturer. He studied agricultural science and graduated with a degree in agriculture. In July 1932 he graduated as Dr. agriculture.

He had already joined the NSDAP on February 1, 1931 ( membership number 452.188).

For a short time, Hefelmann worked on his father's estate and at an institute for economic research. Then he got a job with the office of the economic commissioner with the deputy of the Führer Rudolf Hess . In January 1936, after this department was closed, he came to the Fuehrer's office (KdF). In 1937, as head of the local subdivision IIb for matters relating to the Reich ministries and their subordinate departments, he was mainly responsible for appeals for clemency. From 1938 onwards, IIb had a say in requests from party members. Hefelmann's deputy was Richard von Hegener .

With the beginning of the so-called child “euthanasia” and the subsequent adult “euthanasia” ( known as “ Aktion T4 ” in post-war parlance), several bogus companies were founded in order to prevent the Führer’s office and the Reich Ministry of the Interior from being involved with them measures subject to confidentiality could be linked. For the organization of child “euthanasia” a “ Reich Committee for the Scientific Recording of Hereditary and Constitutional Serious Ailments ” was founded. Behind it was Hefelmanns Amt IIb. Hefelmann's office was also significantly involved in the organization of adult “euthanasia”. Werner Kirchert , who was intended to be the director of the first Nazi killing center in Grafeneck , who was the adviser to the Reichsarzes SS and Ernst-Robert Grawitz police , was appointed to the KdF and informed about his intended use. Since at least the leading positions should only be filled with volunteers, he was given a few days to think about it from the head of Office II and Hefelmann's superior Viktor Brack . However, Kirchert finally canceled and made the following statement after the war in the trial against the medical director of Action T4, Werner Heyde :

“At the end of September or the beginning of October, I became Dr. Hefelmann ordered. During this meeting, Dr. Hefelmann plans how to kill several hundred people at the same time as soon as the action begins, and how to camouflage such mass deaths. He spoke of railroad and omnibus accidents, etc., which could be given to relatives and the general public as the reason for the sudden death. Hefelmann rejected my objections that such a procedure would be practically impracticable. Obviously, Hefelmann's unyielding stance resulted from the attitude, `` My guide, I'm reporting! '' That was frequent at the time. I then gave Dr. Hefelmann can already see that under these circumstances I am not ready to take part in the action. "

Kirchert suggested his former classmate Horst Schumann for the post, who also became Grafeneck's first director and homicide doctor.

To transport the sick to the killing centers, the “ Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH (Gekrat)” was created, which was headed by Reinhold Vorberg from Amt IIc of the Führer’s office. Hefelmann's deputy, von Hegener, was responsible for the procurement of materials. He procured buses from the Reichspost for this organization , which later became known and feared harbingers of the murder of the sick as " gray buses ".

Hefelmann also contributed to the draft of a “euthanasia” law. As he testified on September 15, 1960, he had u. a. worked on such a bill together with Ministerialrat Herbert Linden from the health department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

Hefelmann, himself a medical layman, can be regarded as one of the most efficient employees in the organization and implementation of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program. The first medical director of Aktion T4, Werner Heyde, described him as "the most intellectually significant, clearest and most skilful man in the KdF". In the justification for the proposal to award the War Merit Cross, Class II, it says:

"Party comrade Dr. In addition to his extraordinarily significant collaboration in questions of health management within Hauptamt II, Hefelmann created the intellectual foundations for the practical implementation of a war-important special assignment for the Führer. He is responsible for independently managing a special sector of this special order. "

On January 4, 1943, Hefelmann was drafted into the Wehrmacht , but released again at the end of March 1944 - ostensibly because of malaria and jaundice  . He resumed his old job in the KdF and left Berlin in January 1945 with his deputy von Hegener and other employees. He became head of a refugee camp at the Stadtroda regional hospital in Thuringia. The hospital director Gerhard Kloos was known to Hefelmann as the head of a “ children's department ”, so he could count on his support. Before the arrival of the Allied troops, Hefelmann moved to Munich . There he officially registered and became a member of the Alpine and Animal Welfare Association.

On May 1, 1947, he went to Innsbruck and became a member of the "League for the United Nations". On June 24, 1948, he received an original entry permit for Argentina from Caritas Internationalis , where he emigrated in October 1948. There, Hefelmann initially hired himself as a carpenter's assistant, factory worker and mechanic. Finally, according to his statements, he became the managing director of a European and in November 1951 a German bookstore. He stayed in writing with Kloos and contacted Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who was also in Argentina . In December 1955 Hefelmann finally returned to West Germany and in February 1956 began working as a managing director in “Susis Bekleidungs-GmbH” in Waging am See, Bavaria .

Despite the criminal proceedings initiated against him at the instigation of Attorney General Fritz Bauer in 1964 and the predicted minimum life expectancy of only two years, Hefelmann was able to spend another 22 years of an evening in Munich (unmolested by legal responsibility for his work in the National Socialist German Reich), before he died there in 1986.

In 1964, both Werner Heyde and Hans Hefelmann, who were involved in the mass murder of " Aktion T4 ", again referred to these statements by Martin Luther . Belief in the devil, however, is incompatible with modern medicine and is therefore ruled out as a justification. Social considerations of usefulness, which were and are often asserted for euthanasia, would not have been accepted as a standard by Luther, since as a theologian he was bound by God's commandments.

Legal consequences

When Hefelmann became aware of the trial against the former “euthanasia” expert Hans Heinze in 1958, he tried to conceal his whereabouts in Germany by sending a letter to Heinze dated June 22, 1958 in Argentina. He rightly assumed that his name would be dropped in the relevant trial. In the letter to Heinze he described contemporary events in a subjective, justifying way:

“[...] As a German abroad who for many years constantly meets members of different nationalities, especially the English, French, North Americans and Poles, you know that the German is respected for his hard work and industrial achievements, because of the terrible events of the Hitler era but is not despised, but because he likes to pollute his own nest without compulsion and thereby wants to please others. This self-discrimination is completely alien to other peoples. One must ask oneself: Who could a new trial be of use, since we have to be careful about our reputation as allies of the West? "

After Heyde's arrest on November 12, 1959, Hefelmann fled to Spain , but returned to Munich on August 18, 1960. On August 30, 1960, he reported to the Munich I public prosecutor's office and, in the presence of his lawyer, handed over a letter in which he affirmed the voluntary nature of the participation of all leading parties in order to avoid allegations in the ongoing proceedings against Heyde that the KdF had doctors for the Participation in the National Socialist “euthanasia” program forced to come first. Hefelmann was arrested on the basis of the arrest warrant. Together with Gerhard Bohne and Friedrich Tillmann , he was indicted in the trial against Werner Heyde before the Limburg regional court. The Frankfurt attorney general Fritz Bauer accused him in the 833-page comprehensive indictment of having "insidiously, cruelly and deliberately killed at least 70,000 adults and at least 5,000 children."

While the main defendant Heyde left the trial by suicide and the co-defendant Tillmann died shortly before the start of the trial, Bohne used his exemption from detention to flee to Argentina. Hefelmann was also given exemption from detention on the basis of a medical report presented in December 1963. For the trial that began on February 18, 1964, those who were only partially able to negotiate were given medically prescribed relief. The former head of the Stadtroda children's department and then medical director of the regional hospital in Göttingen, Gerhard Kloos, wrote to Hefelmann's doctor and lawyer in a letter dated July 10, 1964 with his own report. a. carried out:

"As I was able to determine, he did not understand essential parts of the previous main hearing or immediately forgot [...] With this physical and mental finding, Dr. In my opinion, Hefelmann is no longer able to follow the further negotiations with complete attention and to defend himself with the necessary resilience. "

On the basis of several medical reports attesting that Hefelmann had a life expectancy of only two years, the Limburg regional court suspended the proceedings against him on September 14, 1964. In the course of the next few years, several medical reports followed, all of which questioned Hefelmann's ability to negotiate. On October 8, 1972, he was declared permanently incapacitated.

Hefelmann always vehemently denied concerns about the legality of his actions: "I have never been in doubt that I have behaved correctly in the legal sense and in questions of humanity ." He described the killings of sick children and adults as a "completely legal administrative act ".

literature

• 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: Hans Hefelmann . In other words: The personal dictionary 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. 43.
• Götz Aly (ed.): Aktion T4 1939–1945. The “Euthanasia” headquarters in Tiergartenstrasse 4. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-926175-66-4 .
• Henry Friedlander : The Road to Nazi Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 .
• Sometimes we had to get massive . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/1964 (on the “euthanasia” process in Limburg).

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Hefelmann in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ General Public Prosecutor Frankfurt a. M. Ks 2/63, trial against Prof. Werner Heyde u. a., page 756 ff., quoted from Klee: “Euthanasia” in the Nazi state , page 87.
2. ↑ Klee: What they did - what they became , pages 280/281, note 8.
3. ↑ indictment against Heyde, bean and Hefelmann of 22 May 1962 Js 17/59, Prosecutor General's Office Frankfurt a. M., quoted from Klee: What they did - what they became , page 284, note 77.
4. ^ Heydes testimony of October 31, 1961, indictment of the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt a. M. of May 22, 1962 Js 17/59, quoted from Klee: What they did - what they became , page 38.
5. ↑ Bundesarchiv Koblenz, quoted from Klee: What they did - what they became , page 38.
6. ↑ Before the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office on August 31, 1960 III a / SK, quoted from Klee: What they did - what they became , page 284, note 83.
7. ^ Luther Society (ed.): Luther . Journal of the Luther Society, 35th year 1964, Volume 1, p. 81
8. ↑ Heinze proceedings, Hanover Public Prosecutor's Office 2 Js 237/56, quoted from Klee: What they did - what they became , page 41.
9. ↑ Kloose's letter of July 10, 1964, quoted from Klee: What they did - what they became , page 51.
10. ↑ Nina Grunenberg : In the dock: Dr. Hans Hefelmann . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/1964, p. 22.