Hans Münch (doctor)

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Hans Wilhelm Münch (born May 14, 1911 in Freiburg im Breisgau ; † 2001 in Roßhaupten ) was a German doctor. During the Nazi era he was a camp doctor in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp and in the Dachau concentration camp . He was charged in the Kraków Auschwitz trial and was the only accused to be acquitted. He later worked as a resident doctor in Roßhaupten (Bavaria).

Life

Hans Münch was the son of the forest scientist Ernst Münch and the nephew of the dialect poet Paul Münch . After high school he began studying medicine. He studied at the universities of Tübingen and Munich and was political director of the Reichsstudentenführung . In 1934 he joined the National Socialist German Student Union (NSDStB), the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) and in May 1937 the NSDAP . In 1939 he was after successfully defended dissertation doctorate and married a doctor.

With the beginning of the Second World War he took over the representation of drafted doctors in Bavarian country doctor's practices. In 1943 he joined the Waffen SS and in June 1943 was transferred to the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS Rajsko , a satellite camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Münch was the deputy head of Bruno Weber at the Waffen-SS Hygiene Institute in Auschwitz . Münch also experimented with Jewish women who were housed in Block 10 of the Auschwitz main camp. Judging by the experiments of Carl Clauberg and Horst Schumann, his attempts may have been more harmless, but it is doubtful that they were only because Hans Münch intended from the outset to carry out harmless experiments. The inmate doctor Slavka Kleinová, who was housed in Block 10, does not at all describe him as the “good person” that Hans Münch is often described, but rather as someone who “enjoyed himself making injections into the skin with solutions , which contained streptococcal toxins with or without the addition of sulfonamides, in order to observe the skin reactions of the patients. ”Another deputy of Weber was Münch's colleague SS doctor Hans Delmotte . Among Münch's colleagues there was also Josef Mengele of the same age, who came from Bavaria . In the summer of 1944, Münch was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer. After the Auschwitz concentration camp was dissolved in January 1945, Münch worked in the Dachau concentration camp for about three months .

Trial in Poland in 1946

After the war ended in 1945, he was recognized and arrested in an American internment camp as a former Auschwitz concentration camp doctor . In 1946 he was extradited to Poland as a prisoner . He was charged with his experiments on rheumatism and malaria . In Auschwitz Trial before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland Münch made his statement. Many inmates testified in his favor. He left Krakow as a "humane, unconvicted war criminal", as he himself later said. The reason for the acquittal was, among other things, that he had strictly refused to select the arriving prisoners on the ramp. At the beginning of 1944 he was asked by the medical officer Eduard Wirth to make a selection at the ramp, but claims to have refused by his own account and was nevertheless promoted to SS-Untersturmführer a short time later. The judgment of the Polish National Court in Krakow on December 22, 1947 read, among other things:

"The defendant Hans Münch was benevolent towards the prisoners, helped them and thereby endangered himself."

It was the only acquittal of 40 defendants. Hans Münch was also called "the good person from Auschwitz", who also saved prisoners from death by gassing. Münch later took over a country doctor's practice in Roßhaupten (Ostallgäu).

Life as a contemporary witness

In 1964 he was interrogated in the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt and called up as an expert in subsequent proceedings .

In Robert Jay Lifton's book (1986) about the SS doctors at Auschwitz, extensive conversations between the author and Hans Münch (anonymized as "Ernst B.") are reproduced. He is described as the only SS doctor for whom the ties to the Hippocratic oath proved to be stronger than the ties to the SS oath , since he refused to take part in the selection of those arriving on the Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp Participate in transports of Jewish women, men and children for work in the concentration camp or for immediate extermination in the gas chambers .

Hans Münch has been to several discussions and commemorative events in the Federal Republic of Germany. He was valued as the savior of many Auschwitz prisoners, who thereby put his own life in danger. On January 27, 1995, on the anniversary of the liberation, he visited the Auschwitz Memorial at the invitation of Eva Mozes Kor , who survived the human experiments of his work colleague Mengele as a child.

In his last years, Hans Münch lived in the Allgäu on the Forggensee . He died in 2001 at the age of 90.

Beginning of the controversy

Preliminary proceedings 1998

In 1998 Der Spiegel published an interview with Münch. Hans Münch and the interviewer Bruno Schirra had watched the film Schindler's List before the interview . Various quotes from Münch are printed in the report:

“Yes, of course I am a perpetrator. I saved a lot of people. By killing a few people. [...] I am a humane, not convicted war criminal. I was able to make experiments on people that are otherwise only possible on rabbits. That was important scientific work. [...] These were ideal working conditions, excellent laboratory equipment and a selection of academics with a worldwide reputation. [...] The malaria experiments were quite harmless. I did a test: is the man immune or not? [...] I was king in the hygiene institute. [...] They might not have been gassed, but they would have died miserably from epidemics. "

- Hans Münch

Dirk Münch, son of Hans Münch, publicly expressed his lack of understanding about the interview a few days later. He said his 87-year-old father had been unable to concentrate for two years. He criticized that watching the three-hour long film Schindler's List was too strenuous for his father.

The Bavarian Ministry of Justice initiated a public prosecutor's investigation based on Hans Münch's interview in Spiegel ; the Ludwigsburg central office for the investigation of National Socialist crimes initiated a preliminary investigation. In a letter to the Bavarian state government, the Simon Wiesenthal Center requested the immediate arrest of Münch. They searched the Stasi files of the Gauck authorities and asked Spiegel to hand over the tapes of the Münch interview so that they could check whether the public prosecutor should intervene. Three clues contributed to the suspicion of involvement in Nazi crimes: Münch's involvement in the ramp service, in selections within the camp, and in human experiments that led to the death of the test subjects. The preliminary investigation against Hans Münch was discontinued in January 2000 because of "advanced dementia" . In 2001 Münch died.

Participation in Shoah documentaries

Münch was interviewed in the documentary Der Judenmord - Germans and Austrians report from 1998.

In March 2000, the documentary The Last Days started in German cinemas . It started in the USA in 1999 under the original title The Last Days and was released from the age of 16. The film was supported by the Survivors of the Shoa Visual History Foundation , a foundation founded by Steven Spielberg . In the film, Münch met the survivor Renée Firestone , whose sister had died in human experiments in Auschwitz, as a contemporary witness , and they both talked. A film review indicated that the American film did not contain any clear evidence that the contemporary witness Münch was already suffering from Alzheimer's disease at the time . A short note can only be found in the credits of the film, but in French.

Trials and conviction in France 2000–2001

In 1998, Hans Münch had made derogatory comments on the French radio station France Inter about Roma and Sinti and expressed the opinion that gas chambers were the only solution for them. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on 7 May 2001 that the Paris Court of Appeal had annulled the acquittal in June 2000th In this trial, Münch was charged with "inciting racial hatred". He stayed away from the trial in 2000. He had a "mental disorder" attested by a medical report, which resulted in his acquittal.

In mid-May 2001, Hans Münch was found guilty in Paris for inciting racial hatred and playing down crimes against humanity . The prosecutor had asked for a suspended sentence. He was found guilty, but out of consideration for the age and state of mind of the then 89-year-old, the Paris Court of Appeal waived a sentence. Münch also stayed away from this trial.

The French radio broadcast a repeat of the 1998 interview in September 2001. The organization Lawyers Without Borders , the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Union of Jewish Students in France have filed complaints against this. All of the accused responsible for the public broadcaster Radio-France were acquitted of the allegation of aiding and abetting the call to racial hatred in 2002 on the grounds that all listeners understood that Münch's statements about Sinti and Roma and about the Nazi extermination camps of the Nazi Propaganda came from.

today

Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future"

The foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" lists Hans Münch as one of the participants in malaria experiments on inmates in Auschwitz. She does not mention his collaboration in Dachau in the malaria tests there, which were carried out until April 5, 1945 under the direction of Claus Schilling .

Fritz Bauer Institute

In 2002 and 2003, the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main concentrated on the analysis of the first Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial and its history of impact in the FRG. It was expressly invited to take part in the public series of biographies of perpetrators and victims in the Nazi regime . On November 4, 2002, Helgard Kramer gave the lecture SS doctors in Auschwitz and in the First Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial . The content was announced as follows:

“In the Auschwitz concentration camp, SS doctors became technicians for mass murder. Concentrated on the case of the on-site doctor at Auschwitz, Eduard Wirths, who wrote a justification after the end of the war in 1945 and committed suicide while in British custody, and on the case of Hans Münch, against whom, according to an interview with Bruno Schirra published in the Spiegel , an investigation in 1998 was initiated by the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office for involvement in Nazi crimes, the self-portrayal of the SS doctors is being examined. Münch, who was the only one of 40 members of the Auschwitz SS personnel to be acquitted by the highest Polish court in Krakow in 1947, became an important 'neutral' witness to the reality of Auschwitz in the First Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial and advanced to become an expert in later proceedings. Eduard Wirths' justification was also used in the proceedings. In particular, it is investigated which ideas of 'humane behavior' and 'decency' were developed in the statements of the SS doctors on the one hand, and in the reasons for the judgment of the First Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial on the other. "

Study: Examination of past processes

In the course of Holocaust research , Helgard Kramer reported on details in a 2005 study: Hans Münch was interrogated in the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, and in the following proceedings on March 2 and 5, 1964, he was even called up as an expert. Until 2000, the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office only had access to the judgment of the Kraków trial, not the minutes of the hearing and the hearing of witnesses. Münch had claimed that he had become a member of the Waffen SS and that he had only come to Auschwitz-Birkenau towards the end of 1944 . During the conversation during the second interrogation, he merely corrected that he had already arrived in 1943. On the basis of the evidence from the hearing of the witnesses, it turned out that Münch responded to the public prosecutor's specific questions at the main hearing in 1947 as to whether he had participated in selections on the ramp:

"The on-site doctor asked me to take part in selections, and I couldn't officially refuse, because then it would be a disobedience to order, but I have found a way to avoid this as a doctor."

Münch was asked about the medical experiments he was performing in Block 10. The interrogation was broken off when he asked for a colleague to speak to. Professor Jan Sehn prepared the Auschwitz Trial in Kraków in 1947 as an examining magistrate. He commissioned Münch, who was in custody, with the medical care of another prisoner and had the entire files of the SS Hygiene Institute Rajsko brought to his cell "in order". The files were then kept by the Krakow journalist Mieczysław Kieta , who was later most strongly committed to relieving Münch. Kieta worked in the command of the SS Hygiene Institute as a laboratory technician under Münch's supervision. Münch was certified by several prisoners as being “decent”. Three inmates were quoted frequently. The most important was the Hungarian medicine professor Geza Mansfeld . He praised Münch very much because he had prevented his selection for the gas chamber and had procured him medication (Mansfeld suffered from a stomach ulcer). In return, Münch received training in serology , bacteriology and chemistry . Mansfeld was one of the internationally known "capacities" and was supposed to convey his knowledge to the Hygiene Institute free of charge. Antoni Kępiński it later in his work The so-called concentration camp syndrome theorized that even small kindnesses shaped the memory of the prisoners for years as emotional bright spots, since the bearing life of roaring, fear of death, hunger and humiliation existed.

At the end of the investigation, it emerged that the three letters of discharge from his inmates were clean bill actions . The letters of discharge were - even before Münch's first questioning - forwarded by the Bishop of Hildesheim to the Cardinal of Warsaw, from there presumably to examining magistrate Jan Sehn. After the acquittal, Münch came to Bavaria and was allowed to work as a doctor again (see license to practice medicine ) . On the recommendation of the former prisoners, Philipp Auerbach , State Commissioner in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior for those who were racially, religiously and politically persecuted , took him on. On July 30, 1948, Auerbach sent the Ministry of Labor the medical approval of Münch to practice with the cash register. Excerpt from it:

"I would like to inform you that Dr. Münch belongs to the group of people I look after. "

- Philipp Auerbach : Letter dated July 30, 1948

Article in “Die Welt” 2005

After Münch's death, an article by Bruno Schirra appeared in the newspaper Die Welt on January 25, 2005 , looking back on the conversations between 1995 and 1999. Schirra, himself a Jew, wrote in it that Münch had been in for longer than any other SS member Auschwitz was, and repeatedly mentions, Münch's sympathy for his professional colleague Mengele. Die Welt states once again that Münch stood in the infirmary during the selection of the prisoners and carried out medical experiments, for example boiling human flesh into broth in order to gain breeding grounds for research on rheumatism. It is also reported that Münch commented on the film scenes of the gassings in Schindler's List , another film by Steven Spielberg with the theatrical release in 1993, with the words: They are presented in detail and point by point - this contradicts his earlier statement about gassings never having participated. Schirra wrote in retrospect how he and Münch met for the first time on January 27, 1995 on the anniversary of the liberation of the camp at the Auschwitz Memorial and how he had intended to write a report about the good people of Auschwitz .

Schirra describes how the former prisoner and involuntary employee Imre Gönczy later approached him. He had been called by someone who introduced himself as the “cook of the human bouillon”, which was made of human flesh (thighs of men and breasts of women). Schirra and "Emmerich" (Münch called his former colleague Imre Gönczy that) had visited the former camp doctor in his house.

Legal point of view

On April 15, 2005, the conference “Nazi perpetrators from an interdisciplinary perspective” took place in Berlin. Ursula Solf, retired public prosecutor D., said:

"The legal basis for murder or manslaughter, based on the Criminal Code of 1872, says that the perpetrator must be proven a" specific act ". If a link is missing in the causal connection of the offense to be proven, the following applies: “in dubio pro reo” (in case of doubt for the accused). The mere fact of having worked as an SS doctor in Auschwitz was not sufficient punishment for a conviction. This is what the discussions about the SS doctor Dr. Münch clearly […], who denied all his life having been involved in the murder of Jews, which is why the discussions focused on whether he had selected at the ramp or not. The fixation on individual guilt in the context of the legal processing of the Nazi system and its (murder) institutions represents a dilemma in my opinion. As executors of Nazi racial madness inside and outside the extermination camps and in the euthanasia centers, for example, the SS -Doctors can at least be convicted of aiding and abetting deprivation of liberty and bodily harm. Many trials, at least against state officials in administration, justice and armed organs, could have had a different outcome if the legend of the legality of the National Socialist takeover of power had not been accepted, but the breaches of the Weimar Constitution and the Weimar Criminal Code had been recognized as such and would have been punished. "

- Ursula Solf, retired public prosecutor D.

See also

Movie

  • Only one in forty. An SS doctor and the emergency situation at Auschwitz . Television documentation 1981. (50 Js 31738.6 / 98, special volume Asservate; manuscript for television documentation).
  • The last days . American cinema documentary by James Moll. Survivors of the Shoa Visual History Foundation (founded by Steven Spielberg). Original title: The Last Days . Directed by James Moll. USA 1999, 87 min., Approved for ages 16+. German launch: March 20, 2000
  • WDR: At our home in Auschwitz . documentation

literature

  • Kurt R. Grossmann: The unsung heroes. People in Germany's dark days . Berlin-Grunewald 1957
  • Robert Jay Lifton: Doctors in the Third Reich . Stuttgart 1988 (Original edition: RJ Lifton: The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide . New York 1986)
  • Book about the film: The last days. Based on the film by James Moll. Editors: Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, vgs-Verlag Cologne 1999, 240 pages.
  • Helgard Kramer: Steps to a Confession. Stages of an SS perpetrator coming to terms with his biographical past . In this. (Ed.): The present of the Nazi past . Berlin / Vienna 2000, pp. 93-139.
  • Ulrich Oevermann: Doctors in SS uniform: Professionalization-theoretical interpretation of the Münch case . In: Kramer (Ed.): Gegenwart , p. 68 ff. Kramer, steps , p. 101, p. 133 ff.
  • Hans-Joachim Lang : The women from Block 10. Medical experiments in Auschwitz . Hamburg 2011.
  • Bernhard Frankfurter (ed.): The encounter. Auschwitz: A victim and a perpetrator in conversation. Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85115-222-0 .
  • Bruno Schirra : Do you still recognize me, Doctor? Die Welt , January 25, 2005
  • Edition of April 14, 2000 In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt
  • The last days . In: Friday , No. 11/2000. To the cinema documentary about Auschwitz, 1999

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Political director of the Reichsstudentenführung ( memento of the original from September 30, 2007 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nadir.org
  2. ^ A b c FU Berlin: SS medics in Auschwitz .  ( 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. (PDF) Berlin 2005@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / web.fu-berlin.de  
  3. ^ Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz ; Frankfurt am Main, 1980; P. 389f.
  4. ↑ Hans-Joachim Lang: The women of Block 10. Medical experiments in Auschwitz. Hamburg 2011, p. 178.
  5. ^ Archive of the International Trade Service, Bad Arolsen, Sachdokumente, folder 1/34, p. 53.
  6. ↑ Aleksander Lasik: The organizational structure of KL Auschwitz . In: Aleksander Lasik, Franciszek Piper, Piotr Setkiewicz, Irena Strzelecka: Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Volume I: Structure and Structure of the Camp . Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum , Oświęcim 1999, p. 320.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Bruno Schirra : Do you still recognize me, Doctor? In: Die Welt , January 25, 2005
  8. ↑ Bruno Schirra : The memory of the perpetrators . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1998, pp. 90-100 ( online ).
  9. ↑ Bruno Schirra : The memory of the perpetrators . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1998, pp. 90 ff . ( online ).
  10. ↑ This should also have been in the mirror , but cannot be found there: table of contents. In: Der Spiegel . No. 42, 1998 ( online ). Probably another press product from October 12, 1998
  11. ↑ Public prosecutor's office at the Frankfurt Regional Court 50 Js 31738.6 / 98.
  12. ↑ Ibid., Vol. II, Bl. 455 ff. Earlier investigations against Münch were discontinued due to a lack of incriminating material. See termination order of September 25, 1963, 4Ks 2/63, vol. 88, p. 16674 and of July 13, 1989 (Js 23281.6 / 89) 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, Duplo special issue A, p. 15.
  13. ^ SH documents, statement by Radvanský 1999, 50Js 31738.6 / 98.
  14. ↑ Representation of camp doctor Heinz Thilo in 1943 in Birkenau BIIf
  15. ↑ Special volume Ärztliche Gutachten, 50 Js 31738.6 / 98.
  16. ↑ Film Review The Last Days
  17. ↑ French public prosecutor insists on ruling on racism ( memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2001) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.123recht.net
  18. ^ Report taz: Hans Münch condemns
  19. ↑ Guilty verdict against former concentration camp doctor Münch ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2001) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.123recht.net
  20. ↑ French radio acquitted of the charge of aiding and abetting the incitement to racial hatred. (2002)
  21. ↑ Barbara Diestel, Wolfgang Benz: The Dachau Concentration Camp 1933-1945. History and meaning . Ed .: Bavarian State Center for Political Education. Munich 1994 ( online ). The Dachau Concentration Camp 1933 - 1945. History and meaning ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.km.bayern.de
  22. ↑ List of events on: Biographies of perpetrators and victims in the Nazi regime Fritz Bauer Institute, 2002
  23. ↑ 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, special volume Gutachten Smoleń, excerpt from the negotiation protocol, hygienic-bacteriological examination center of the Waffen-SS in Auschwitz O / S, p. 26 ff. And p. 32.
  24. ↑ 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, special volume expert opinion Smoleń, excerpt from the negotiation protocol, p. 46; in his interrogation of October 6, 1947, p. 30.
  25. ↑ 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, special volume expert opinion Smoleń, excerpt from the minutes of the negotiation, p. 27.
  26. ↑ 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, special volume expert opinion Smoleń, excerpt from the minutes of the negotiation, 132 ff.
  27. ^ Letter from the public prosecutor Ursula Solf to Smoleń dated December 2, 1999, 50Js 31738.6 / 98, vol. I, p. 212
  28. ↑ Special report Smoleń, p. 11, p. 15. Smoleń points out that the pages of the main book of the SS Hygiene Institute, which concern the end of 1943, have been torn out
  29. ↑ Mieczysław Kieta, Das SS-Hygiene-Institut in Auschwitz, in: Hefte von Auschwitz, texts from the Polish magazine Przegląd Lekarski on historical, psychological and medical aspects of life and death in Auschwitz. Vol. 1, Weinheim 1987, pp. 213-217.
  30. ↑ See also Lifton, Ärzte, p. 378 f.
  31. ^ Antoni Kępiński: The so-called concentration camp syndrome . Attempt at synthesis . In: The Auschwitz Hefte , Vol. 2; 1987, pp. 7-14; Zenon Jagoda et al. a .: Behavioral stereotypes of former prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp . In: The Auschwitz Hefte , Vol. 2; 1987, pp. 25-60; Zdisław Ryn: The dynamics of mental disorders in concentration camp syndrome . In: The Auschwitz Hefte , Vol. 2; 1987, pp. 69-74.
  32. ↑ Münch was a Protestant until May 1943, when he became a “believer in God” according to SS custom. See Federal Archives, DC, holdings R, SS-O
  33. ↑ letter of July 17, 1947 (signature of the Polish investigation. Bl 151) with attachments: letter and testimony Geza Mansfeld of 5 December 1946 Kurt Prague on 7 December 1946 and Pavel Reichl February 5, 1947 (Bl 49th –57), 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, special volume Expert Opinion Smoleń.
  34. ↑ Philipp Auerbach: Letter of July 30, 1948, cf. 50 Js 31738.6 / 98, SH documents.
  35. ^ Conference report May 15, 2005 Topic: Nazi perpetrators from an interdisciplinary perspective
personal data
SURNAME Münch, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Münch, Hans Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor
DATE OF BIRTH May 14, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Freiburg in Breisgau
DATE OF DEATH 2001
Place of death Horseheads