Hedwig Eyrich

Hedwig Eyrich (born February 21, 1893 in Reutlingen as Hedwig Schüle ; † after 1963) was a German doctor , psychiatrist and novelist . As an employee of the Stuttgart health department during the time of National Socialism , she was actively involved in child “euthanasia” .

Life

In the 1920s, Hedwig, nee Schüle, worked under the later T4 expert Werner Villinger as a neurologist in the newly founded "Children's Department" of the University Clinic for Mental and Nervous Diseases in Tübingen . It was there that she met the resident doctor Max Eyrich , whom she married in 1924. The marriage had two children.

Under the influence of Villinger and his superior, the psychiatrist and neurologist Robert Gaupp , the focus of child psychiatry in Tübingen was more on racial hygiene than on therapy. Hedwig Eyrich and her husband, who were close to National Socialism, stood out even more than Villinger himself because of the “sometimes incriminating diction in the medical histories ”. The two initially worked together in Tübingen until Max Eyrich went to Bonn in 1929 as a senior physician at the Provincial Children's Institute for Mentally Abnormalities , where his wife then worked as a psychiatrist and "educational advisor".

In April 1933, Max Eyrich became a "neurologist advisor for welfare education" (from 1934: state youth doctor ) at the state youth welfare office in Stuttgart , where he was involved in the " euthanasia murders " and the selection of "gypsy children" in a responsible position . Due to the downsizing regulation , Hedwig Eyrich had to give up her job temporarily. Instead, she worked as an author of fictional " girls' books " that appeared in the series Library of Young People of Heyne-Verlag .

Later, however, she again worked as a doctor in provisionally by Karl Lempp led health department of the city of Stuttgart. Hedwig Eyrich recorded children and young people with mental and physical disabilities (which she was by no means obliged to do). These registration forms were then forwarded by the health department of the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior under Eugen Stähle and Otto Mauthe to the “ Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Hereditary and Constitutional Serious Ailments ”, which organized the “child euthanasia”. Erich Ruthardt , who was already twenty-four at the time, was among the victims . Hedwig Eyrich misled his mother, taking advantage of her predicament and lying that her son should only be "brought to a children's home for observation for some time", to agree. Since Erich Ruthardt could no longer be killed in a “ children's department ” due to his age , she arranged for him to be placed in the Eichberg state hospital , where he was murdered in a “wild” euthanasia campaign on October 13, 1943, one day after his arrival.

post war period

After the war, Max Eyrich was brought to court in the so-called Grafeneck trial , but after his acquittal was able to resume his profession as a state youth doctor in 1950. Hedwig Eyrich was not charged. She also managed to continue working as a doctor after the war.

After the death of her husband, she published his monograph Schulversager in 1963 .

Fonts

Specialist literature

• Max Eyrich, Hedwig Eyrich: On the prognosis of epidemic encephalitis in childhood. In: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry. Vol. 117, H. 1, December 1928, pp. 620-648, ISSN  0303-4194 .
• Hedwig Eyrich: ETA Hoffmann : Youth and development time. In: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry. Vol. 127, H. 1, December 1930, pp. 498-524, ISSN  0303-4194
• Hedwig Eyrich: ETA Hoffmanns Bamberger Tagebuch 1808–1813. Breakthrough of the creative. In: Archives for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases. Vol. 181, H. 3/4, January 1949, pp. 453-462.
• Hedwig Eyrich (ed.): School failure: vital causes of intellectual achievement and Educational weaknesses. (= Curative educational series. ) Neckar-Verlag, Villingen 1963, OCLC 34715124 .

Fiction

• Hedwig Eyrich: The girls from Sonnenberg. A holiday story. (= Youth Library. ) Heyne, Dresden 1938, OCLC 254696616 .
• Hedwig Eyrich: Inge and the lost prince. (= Youth Library. ) Heyne, Dresden 1942, OCLC 249837370 .

literature

• Rolf Castell (Ed.): History of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-46174-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Case files of Spruchkammer 37, Stuttgart 1946–1950. Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg , stock EL 902/20, Bü 76405 ( online ).
2. ^ ^{A b c d} Karl-Horst Marquart, Elke Martin: Erich Ruthardt - assigned to the Eichberg sanatorium for the murder by the Stuttgart health department.
3. ^ ^{A b c} Rolf Castell: History of child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961. P. 508 f.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Rolf Castell: History of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961. P. 32 f.
5. ↑ Frank Köhnlein: Between therapeutic innovation and social selection. The establishment of the “Children's Department of the Mental Clinic” in Tübingen under Robert Gaupp and its development up to 1930 as a contribution to the early history of university child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany . Neuried 2001.
6. ↑ State youth doctor (until 1934: neurological advice center for welfare education), general. Holdings of the main state archive in Stuttgart .