Heinrich Bunke

Heinrich Friedrich Karl Bunke (* July 24, 1914 in Wohlde , district of Celle ; † September 16, 2001 in Celle ) worked as a doctor in the Nazi killing centers in Brandenburg and Bernburg in the National Socialist German Reich as part of the National Socialist "euthanasia" program .

Origin and studies

Heinrich Bunke was born on July 24, 1914 as the son of an elementary school teacher in Wohlde, in the Celle district. He left the upper secondary school in Celle in 1934 with the Abitur. He voluntarily made a half year labor service before it for one year Reichswehr went.

1935/36 took Bunke in Kiel , a medical school and entered 1935 in the fraternity Teutonia Kiel and the National Socialist German Students' League one. In the winter semester he went to the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . There he became acquainted with Aquilin Ullrich . Both joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 . In order to enable his use as a Wehrmacht doctor at the beginning of the war, Bunke was granted an emergency license after eight semesters .

At the T4 organization

The end of June or early July 1940, Bunke at the proposal of fellow students Ullrich to Werner Blankenburg in the office of the leader ordered. As head of Office IIa, he was responsible for the staff of the Central Office T4, which was commissioned with the implementation of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program. Werner Heyde , the medical director of the murder of the sick, known as " Aktion T4 " in post-war parlance, initiated Bunke into the confidentiality of the project. Although his specific functions were not disclosed to him, he declared himself ready to cooperate, since for him the authority and professional reputation of Heyde as a full professor at the Würzburg University as well as the reference to the secret Führer's order , which was also written on September 1st 1939 existed, were decisive. The argument that during the war all available forces were needed for the “struggle for survival of the German people” and therefore “ ballast existences ” such as the incurably mentally ill “put to sleep in a medically sound way” seemed plausible to him.

In the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg

Bunkes first place of work was the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg . Here he began in August 1940 as a representative of the head of this institution, Irmfried Eberl , his activity. In correspondence he used the cover name “Dr. Rieper ”. Bunke also arranged for the sick to be transferred from the original or intermediate facilities to the Brandenburg gassing facility. Among other things, on September 29, 1940, he signed an order for the transfer of 75 men from the Neuruppin institution to Brandenburg with his real name. Among the sick people killed here were children , as Bunke testified after the war:

“In Brandenburg, children between the ages of eight and twelve, or up to fourteen years of age, were also gassed. [...] Some of the children's corpses were dissected by Prof. Hallervorden from Berlin and taken along for scientific analysis "

In the Nazi killing center in Bernburg

At the end of 1940 the Brandenburg gasification plant was closed. The staff moved to Bernburg (Saale) , where a new killing facility was set up in November 1940 in a separate part of the sanatorium and nursing home .

In April 1941, Bunke received his doctorate. med. and completed a four-week training course with Julius Hallervorden at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch in May or June 1941 . Here he was instructed in the selection and preparation of medically interesting brains that Hallervorden wanted for his histological examinations. In the NS killing center in Bernburg, a section room was set up next to the gas chamber to enable the brain to be removed on site. Until now, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research had had the sections carried out by its own staff. It was on one such opportunity that Hallervorden met Bunke in Brandenburg in October 1940.

Before they were gassed , the victims designated for a section were marked with a red cross on their back by Bunke, so that the corpse burners, who had to clear the gas chamber and cremate the corpses, could sort them out and move them to the section room. Bunke explained:

“Very soon I brought up the conversation in Brandenburg that I considered it irresponsible, in the interests of science, to leave such a large amount of patient material scientifically unused. So I ordered individual corpses to be dissected brain-wise in order to make these brains available to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research (Prof. Dr. Hallervorden). This did not become acute in Brandenburg because the necessary facilities were lacking. In Bernburg, however, when the institution was set up, I insisted that the necessary facilities be set up immediately. "

In Bernburg, Bunke signed with the cover name “Dr. Basement, cellar". Bunke repeatedly denied operating the gas tap in Brandenburg and Bernburg in his trial after the war. Such behavior would, however, contradict the instructions of those responsible for Action T4 in the Führer’s office. Viktor Brack , the head of the main office II of the Führer’s Chancellery commissioned with the implementation of the “euthanasia” program, repeatedly stated that the introduction, not least of all, also symbolic under the aspect of the “ public health ” motivation of the whole action, that only doctors initiate the killing by turning on the gas tap.

“Following this successful attempt, Viktor Brack […] spoke a few words. He was satisfied with this experiment and emphasized again that this action should only be carried out by the doctors, according to the motto that the syringe belongs in the doctor's hand. Then Professor Dr. Brandt and also emphasized that only doctors should carry out these gassings [...] "

For Bernburg, however, there are testimonies that a doctor was not always present and therefore the gas tap was also operated by non-medical staff.

Bunke was at least involved in visiting the victims in front of the gas chambers and checking which cause of death for the individual sick should be entered in the death certificates later.

According to his own statements, Bunke left the T4 organization in October 1941, after the first phase of the “euthanasia” program was stopped on August 24, 1941. However, he was listed as an employee until March 31, 1943 in a personnel list of the T4 Central Office. The fact that Bunke wanted to leave the T4 organization was proven by witness statements.

After the war

After the end of the war, the British occupation forces used Bunke as a doctor to treat TB patients. In July 1945 he received an assistant position at the State Women's Clinic in Celle, completed training as a specialist in gynecological diseases and in 1951 settled as an independent gynecologist and attending physician at two hospitals.

Arrest and trial

On April 12, 1962, Bunke was arrested, but released on April 19, 1962 under various conditions. So he could continue to practice and also spend a vacation on Sylt.

The Public Prosecutor's Office Frankfurt / M. On January 15, 1965, brought a lawsuit against him and the T4 doctors Kurt Borm , Klaus Endruweit and Aquilin Ullrich "insidiously, cruelly, for low motives, deliberately and deliberately killing several thousand people each" . Even before the trial began, the district president in Lüneburg ordered in September 1966 that the medical appointment of the bunker should be suspended. More than 5000 people from Celle and the surrounding area, as well as the Celle Medical Association, supported Bunke at the Lower Saxony state government , with the result that Bunke was allowed to continue practicing. The trial before the jury court of the Frankfurt am Main regional court began on October 3, 1966. In the so-called first medical trial, the verdict was reached on May 23, 1967:

“The mass killings [...] carried out as part of the 'T4' campaign meet the criteria of murder within the meaning of Section 211 of the Criminal Code in the version applicable at the time of the offense and in the version valid today. Every human life, including that of the mentally ill, enjoys the protection of § 211 StGB until it is extinguished [...] no cultured people [has] ever carried out such an action. "

Bunke was found to have assisted the murder of at least 4,950 mentally ill patients. However, like all the other co-defendants, he was acquitted because of the lack of “awareness of the illegality” (unavoidable error of prohibition ) of his actions. On August 7, 1970, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment because of factual contradictions. The new trial was to begin on December 16, 1971. However, as early as July of this year, Bunke presented a medical certificate according to which he had suffered a serious, life-threatening heart attack in April 1968 after he became aware of the prosecution's appeal against his acquittal. Bunke is no longer able to negotiate. On November 26, 1971, the proceedings against him were suspended. With the exception of Kurt Borm , the proceedings against the other defendants were also temporarily suspended. Despite their inability to negotiate, Bunke and colleagues were able to continue to run their practice and treat patients.

As Bunke on January 29, 1986 again before the Frankfurt / M district court. Should appear, he submitted a confirmation that he could only be questioned for two hours once a week. On May 18, 1987, the Frankfurt am Main regional court sentenced him to four years in prison for complicity in murder in at least 11,000 cases. In the appeal proceedings, the Federal Court of Justice reduced the sentence to three years by judgment of December 14, 1988 on the grounds that complicity in murder could only be proven for 9,200 people.

After a prison term of 18 months, Bunke was released.

Heinrich Bunke died in Celle in September 2001.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 180-182.
• Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state . 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 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 am Main 2004. ISBN 3-596-24364-5
• Ernst Klee: "Heinrich Bunke" entry in ders .: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , page 12
• Henry Friedlander : The Road to Nazi Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3-8270-0265-6
• Ute Hoffmann: Cause of death: "Angina". Forced sterilization and "euthanasia" in the state sanatorium and nursing home in Bernburg . Ministry of the Interior of the State of Saxony-Anhalt - Press Office, Magdeburg 1996, ( memorials and memorial work in the state of Saxony -Anhalt (1)).

Remarks

1. ↑ Quoted from Klee “Euthanasia” in “Die Zeit” 11/1986
2. ↑ Quoted from Hofmann “Death cause Angina”, pp. 73/73.
3. ↑ What is meant is a "test gassing" in January 1940 in the Brandenburg sanatorium
4. ↑ Testimony of the T4 gas specialist, August Becker, Heyde-Anklage, page 293 ff., GStA Frankfurt / M., Against Prof. Werner Heyde u. a., Ks 2/63, cit. after Klee "Euthanasia in the Nazi State" p. 112.
5. ↑ Statement by the “burner” Werner D., quoted from Hoffmann: “Angina as a cause of death” , page 73.
6. ↑ Facsimile list of "experts" from the "Heidelberg documents" (BA Koblenz, R 96 I / Bd. 1, sheet 127890) in Klee "Euthanasia in the Nazi State", pages 228/229.
7. ↑ Ks 1/66 GStA Ffm.
8. ↑ 2 StR 353/68
9. ↑ The researcher of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program Ernst Klee commented on this with the sarcastic words: “Whoever murders a person is sentenced to life imprisonment. In the case of aiding and abetting mass murder, there are apparently volume discounts ”(Klee“ What they did - What they became ”, page 128).

Web links

• Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia." In "Die Zeit" 11/1986