Hans Holfelder (medical doctor)

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Hans Holfelder (born April 22, 1891 in Nöschenrode ; † December 15, 1944 near Budapest ) was a German surgeon , radiologist , university professor and SS leader.

Life

Holfelder's father was a medical advisor and chief physician at the Wernigerode district hospital . Holfelder completed his attendance at elementary school and grammar school in Wernigerode in March 1910 with the final examination. After six months of military service with the Tübingen Infantry Regiment 180 , he began studying medicine at the University of Tübingen in the autumn of 1910 , which he continued in Munich , Gießen and Marburg until 1914 . In 1913 he worked with Hermann Krukenberg , an uncle on his mother's side, in radiology . After the outbreak of the First World War , Holfelder was a field doctor in the German Army . Due to a leave of absence from the front, he was able to complete his studies in 1916 with the state examination and received his doctorate with the dissertation published in 1917 on makeshift pressure differential processes with the addition of his own procedure for Dr. med.

From 1919 Holfelder was a volunteer doctor at the surgical department of the University Clinic in Halle under the surgery professor Victor Schmieden , under whose guidance he had already operated during the First World War. In the autumn of 1919, he and Schmieden moved to the University of Frankfurt am Main , where he was first assistant doctor from 1920 and senior doctor from 1922. Holfelder's habilitation took place in 1923 in the medical fields of surgery and radiology. From 1926 Holfelder worked as a lecturer at the University of Frankfurt and at the same time director of the X-ray Institute, which was built as an extension to the Sachsenhausen municipal hospital. In 1926 he became associate professor and in 1929 full professor for general clinical radiology at the University of Frankfurt. Holfelder was President of the German Radiological Society in 1931 and was awarded the Albers Schönberg Medal in 1938. From 1933 to 1934 he was also dean of the medical faculty at Frankfurt University. Holfelder was one of the most accomplished radiologists at the time. In addition to the further development of radiation therapy for tumors of the upper airways and food tracts and cross-fire radiation , his work was also associated with high-current therapy . Holfelder coined the technical term "concentrated X-ray therapy". Holfelder has received several awards at home and abroad for his medical research in the field of radiology.

Holfelder's time in Frankfurt is described as characterized by ambition and striving for power. In 1922 and 1923, for example, there were violent correspondence with the physicist Friedrich Dessauer , who had criticized Holfelder's measurements and their interpretation. The formation of a second X-ray diagnostic institute at the university in 1934 led to protracted internal disputes within the university from 1936 onwards, in which Holfelder defended himself against an ideal and material deprivation of his institute that he feared. Holfelder agreed to an agreement concluded at the end of 1941 between several professors at the university clinic, but at the same time made it clear that he saw the agreement halve his position and would draw the corresponding consequences for himself. Since January 1942, Holfeld's appointment to the University of Posen was under discussion. On May 1, 1943, Holfelder moved to Posen; an earlier appointment had failed due to the pending construction of a central X-ray institute in Poznan .

Political activity and SS leader

According to Holfelder himself, in a résumé written in 1937, he had become a member of the anti-Semitic association against the arrogance of Judaism in 1914, and he was also a member of the Reich Hammerbund. After the end of the war, he joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and financed and distributed anti-Semitic leaflets.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists the Gauleiter of Hesse-Nassau, advocated Jakob Sprenger , in August 1933 to join Holfelders the NSDAP , despite the existence at that date members-erase protection . Sprenger attested to Holfelder that he was not an “economic knight”, pointed to his early involvement in ethnic organizations and stated that Holfelder had made great contributions to the promotion of military sports and the National Socialist German Student Union at Frankfurt University . Holfelder's entry into the party was retrospectively dated May 1, 1933 ( membership number 1.592.030).

On June 15, 1933, Holfelder had joined the SS as a candidate ; He became an SS man in October 1933 (membership number 101,658). Holfelder was promoted several times in the SS; so in April 1935 as Sturmbannführer, in September 1936 as Standartenführer and most recently as SS-Oberführer at the end of January 1944 . Holfelder was the initiator and commander of the SS Röntgensturmbann at the SS leadership main office . Members of this special formation examined over 10,000 SS members for tuberculosis (TB) at a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg at the end of the 1930s . Later, serial examinations for TB took place in various Reichsgauen, in which six million Germans were examined by 1944. Healing procedures were then carried out on those infected with TB among those examined. According to a letter from Hans Jüttner in January 1941, the Röntgensturmbann led by Holfelder was to be increased from around 250 men to up to 850 men from February 1941. Until the end of the war, the SS Röntgensturmbann also examined " ethnic German " resettlers (in combination with race examinations ), concentration camp prisoners to maintain their work and to ward off epidemics, and members of the Hitler Youth , who were forced to join the Waffen SS during the examinations were.

During the Second World War , Holfelder im Warthegau was involved in plans to gas- kill 35,000 Poles with TB . In May 1943, Holfelder advocated the “extermination of the Jews ” to a high-ranking officer of the Wehrmacht in Posen and noted that it was “more humane to kill children than to let them live as Jews”. Holfelder was an advisory radiologist for the SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . From January 1944, Holfelder was an SS leader on the staff of the SS Upper Section Warthe. When the Warsaw Uprising was suppressed in 1944, Holfelder was wounded as the Röntgensturmbann was used as a combat unit due to the war situation. Holfelder died in combat operations during the Battle of Budapest .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information in Weiske, p. 43 ff.
  2. ↑ a b c d Horst Zoske:  Holfelder, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 528 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ Deutsche Röntgengesellschaft eV (July 28, 2008): Albers-Schönberg-Medal. ( Memento from February 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ A b c Mathias Schmidt, Tina Winzen and Dominik Groß: Hans Holfelder and der SS-Röntgensturmbann , in: Der Radiologe 2017, doi : 10.1007 / s00117-017-0246-7 .
  5. ↑ This assessment by Weiske: Holfelder. Pp. 44 f, 49.
  6. ↑ Weiske: Holfelder. P. 44 f.
  7. ↑ On the disputes see Weiske: Holfelder. Pp. 49-52, 55-57.
  8. ↑ Weiske: Holfelder. P. 57 f.
  9. ^ Curriculum vitae in Holfelder's SS officer personnel file, quoted in Weiske: Holfelder. P. 48. See also: Winfried Suss: The “People's Body” in War: Health Policy, Health Conditions and Sick Murder in National Socialist Germany 1939-1945. Munich 2003, p. 468.
  10. ^ Sprenger's letter in Holfelder's SS officer personnel file, quoted in Weiske: Holfelder. P. 48.
  11. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 267.
  12. ↑ Weiske: Holfelder. P. 48.
  13. ^ Hartmut Lehmann, Otto Gerhard Oexle: National Socialism in the Cultural Studies. Volume 2, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, p. 108 f.
  14. ↑ Weiske: Holfelder. P. 54 f.
  15. ^ A b Mathias Schmidt and Dominik Groß: Hans Holfelder and the Röntgensturmbann of the Waffen-SS , in: Der Radiologe 53 (2013), pp. 620f.
  16. ↑ Quoted in: Hartmut Lehmann, Otto Gerhard Oexle: National Socialism in the Cultural Studies. Volume 2, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, p. 109.
  17. ^ Date of death according to Klee: Personal Lexicon. P. 267 and Weiske: Holfelder. S. 58. The NDB gives December 16, 1944 as the date of death.
personal data
SURNAME Holfelder, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicians, university professors and SS leaders
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Nöschenrode
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1944
Place of death near Budapest