Heinrich Eufinger

Heinrich Julius Josef Eufinger (born January 29, 1894 in Wiesbaden ; † March 11, 1988 in Wilhelmshaven ) was a German gynecologist and SS doctor.

Life

Education and career up to 1945

Heinrich Eufinger attended grammar school in Frankfurt am Main from 1904 to 1912 and then went on to study medicine , first in Würzburg , then in Freiburg im Breisgau and Frankfurt am Main . His studies were interrupted by his participation as a volunteer in the First World War in the 63rd Field Artillery Regiment. In 1920 Eufinger passed his state examination and received his doctorate in Frankfurt am Main. In 1927/28 he completed his habilitation in the field of obstetrics and gynecology and became a private lecturer at the University of Frankfurt am Main.

Heinrich Eufinger and Erna Möhle married in 1927. Their daughter Renate was born in 1928, followed four years later by the birth of their daughter Marianne (1932), called Ema, who later became the wife of the painter Gerhard Richter .

On April 15, 1933, Heinrich Eufinger joined the NSDAP and in the same year became a member of the National Socialist German Medical Association . From 1934 to 1937 he was a non-scheduled associate professor at the University Women's Clinic in Frankfurt am Main. From 1937 to 1945 Eufinger was the leading director of the City Women's Clinic in Dresden and from 1937 to 1942 he was an unscheduled adjunct professor for obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Leipzig . After he had been a member of the SA from 1933 to 1935, Eufinger joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1935 and was involved in forced sterilization until 1945 . A total of around 900 forced sterilizations were carried out in Eufinger's area of ​​responsibility. Eufinger was heavily involved in the SS and made suggestions on racial policy. The leadership of the Nazi state had confidence in him because he treated various women from leading representatives of the state. The gynecologist began his career in the SS as an SS squad leader , and on January 15, 1943, he became a leader of the SS Elbe section . The SS civil badge , issued at the request to also show the SS membership when wearing civilian clothes, Eufinger received on April 1, 1943. Finally, he was on 29 January 1944 in time for his 50th birthday, at the instigation of the Reichsführer of the SS Heinrich Himmler promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer . The gynecologist Eufinger's political and scientific career are so intertwined that a separation is hardly possible.

Career in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR

After the end of the Nazi regime, Eufinger lost his position and his license to practice medicine was revoked. From November 1945 to September 1948, Eufinger was interned by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in special camp No. 1 in Mühlberg . As a senior doctor, he saved the life of the Soviet camp commandant's wife. After his release, an investigation was initiated in Dresden for grievous bodily harm, membership in a criminal organization and essential support of the National Socialist tyranny. The proceedings were discontinued by the People's Police , presumably because of Soviet protection, and Eufinger was allowed to practice as a doctor again. He became chief physician of the gynecological department of the Burgstädt Clinic near Chemnitz (from 1953 to 1990 Karl-Marx-Stadt).

Career in the Federal Republic of Germany and afterlife

When his appointment as adjunct professor at the Medical Academy in Dresden failed, the Eufinger family moved to Wilhelmshaven in 1956. On January 1, 1957, Eufinger became chief physician at the Sanderbusch women's clinic near Wilhelmshaven. In 1965 he retired .

Eufinger died on March 11, 1988 in Wilhelmshaven. In the obituary of the specialist journal Der Frauenarzt (1988, Issue 3), Eufinger's life's work is honored with the following words, among other things: “The 15 years of activity in Frankfurt was filled with unusually fruitful scientific work. Here he has not only done a lot, but also very good. (…) The years (…) in Dresden were (…) filled with powerful clinical work. ”The obituary closes with a reference to Eufinger as a representative of a“ profound humanistic education ”. Eufinger was not held accountable for his crimes in the era of National Socialism, either in the Soviet occupation zone or in the GDR or in the FRG.

The name Eufinger only became known to the general public through the works of the painter Gerhard Richter . Since Gerhard Richter was married to Eufinger's daughter Ema from 1957 to 1982, he also portrayed his father-in-law Eufinger several times in the 1950s and 1960s. A tragic aspect in Gerhard Richter's family became known in 2004 through a newspaper article in the Tagesspiegel . His aunt Marianne Schönfelder was murdered in February 1945 in the second phase of the National Socialist euthanasia program, Aktion Brandt , after her forced sterilization . His later father-in-law Heinrich Eufinger was one of the perpetrators as SS-Obersturmbannführer and responsible for the forced sterilizations in Dresden. Gerhard Richter knew nothing about these connections when he married Ema Eufinger. However, in 1965 he was one of the first visual artists in the post-war period to deal with euthanasia with the painting Herr Heyde , which deals with the arrest of the SS doctor primarily responsible for the mass murders of physically and mentally disabled people , and with the painting Aunt Marianne gave the victims of euthanasia a face.

Fonts

• Circumscribed fat nodes of the liver. In: Dissertations from the Medical Faculty of the University of Frankfurt am Main. Vol. 1, 1920, pp. 179-192 (dissertation, University of Frankfurt am Main, 1920).
• The colloid structure of the plasma during gestation. In: Archives for Gynecology. Vol. 133, Issue 2, 1928, pp. 453-532 (habilitation thesis, University of Frankfurt am Main, 1928).
• Diagnosis of pregnancy. In: Josef Halban , Ludwig Seitz (ed.): Biology and pathology of women. Vol. 6, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin 1925, pp. 961-1058.
• With Wilhelm Ostermann: The blood structure of the child in pregnancy toxicoses. In: Archives for Gynecology. Vol. 139, Issue 1/2, 1929, pp. 154-160, doi: 10.1007 / BF01715601 .
• The stickiness of leukocytes as a clinical function test and its significance for gynecological problems. In: Archives for Gynecology. Vol. 149, H. 3, 1932, pp. 630-644, doi: 10.1007 / BF01820071 .
• Associate Editor: Obstetrics and Gynecology. Results of research for practice. Volumes 1–55, Thieme, Leipzig 1939–1995.
• Problems and tasks of cancer research. Northwest German University Society, Wilhelmshaven 1958.

literature

• Eckhart Gillen : Gerhard Richter: Mr. Heyde or the murderers are among us. Dealing with the trauma of suppressed history in West Germany. In: Ders .: Difficulty searching for the truth. Berlin 2002, pp. 186–191 (PDF file; 2.80 MB).
• Ernst Hohenthal: A family secret in the public domain. New revelations about Gerhard Richter's Herr Heyde. In: Christies's Magazine. Vol. XXIII, No.5, New York and London 2006, ISSN  0266-1217 , pp. 62 f.
• Jeanne Anne Nugent: Family Album and Shadow Archive: Gerhard Richter's East, West, and all German Painting, 1949–1966. Dissertation in the History of Art presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia 2005.
• Christiane Rothmaler: Sterilizations according to the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring" of July 14, 1933. An investigation into the activity of the Hereditary Health Court and the implementation of the law in Hamburg between 1934 and 1944 (= treatises on the history of medicine and natural sciences. Vol. 60). Matthiesen, Husum 1991, ISBN 3-7868-4060-1 .
• Albrecht Scholz, Birgit Töpolt: The practice of forced sterilization in Dresden (doctors and medicine under National Socialism). In: Ärzteblatt Sachsen. Vol. 4, 2005, pp. 164–167 ( online as PDF ; 135 kB).
• Jürgen Schreiber : A painter from Germany. Gerhard Richter . A family drama. Pendo, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-86612-058-3 .
• Heidi Stecker: Victims and perpetrators: Aunt Marianne and so on. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. Vol. 103, H. 28/29, July 17, 2006, pp. A-1982 / B-1703 / C-1647.
• Birgit Töpolt: Prehistory and practice of the forced sterilization in the Dresden area 1933-1934. 2000 (medical dissertation, TU Dresden, 2002).

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Eufinger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Heinrich Eufinger in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
• Jürgen Schreiber : The great secret of the painter Gerhard Richter. In: Der Tagesspiegel . August 23, 2004.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Image: Gerhard Richter: Familie am Meer (oil painting, 1964) Note: Heinrich Eufinger in the middle of the image
2. ↑ Image: Gerhard Richter: Herr Heyde (oil painting, 1965)
3. ↑ Image: Gerhard Richter: Tante Marianne (1965)