Heinrich Wilhelm Kranz

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Heinrich Wilhelm Kranz (* the thirtieth June 1897 in Göttingen , † 5. May 1945 in Stassfurt ) was a German ophthalmologist , university teachers and Rassehygieniker to the Nazi era . He should not be confused with the psychiatrist, neurologist and university professor Heinrich Kranz (1901–1979).

Live and act

Heinrich W. Kranz was the son of a postmaster. He attended grammar school in Hofgeismar , Kassel and Holzminden and completed his school career in 1914 with a secondary school diploma in 1914. He took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 as a war volunteer. As a lieutenant in the reserve, he was discharged from the army in 1918 and studied medicine at the University of Marburg and Giessen , where he became a member of the Philippina Marburg gymnastics club . Just like Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer , Kranz took part as a member of the Marburg student corps in the battles with Spartakists in Thuringia, in which unarmed workers were shot. Kranz completed his studies with the state examination in 1921 and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . He then became a senior physician at the University Eye Clinic in Giessen, where he qualified as a professor in 1926 in the field of ophthalmology. After arguments with his superior, he resigned the Venia Legendi and from 1928 worked as a resident ophthalmologist in Giessen.

Career in National Socialism

Kranz joined the NSDAP and SA in December 1932 . He later claimed to have been a member of the NSDAP since 1930. In the SA, Kranz achieved the rank of SA-Sturmbannführer. From 1933 he was a representative of the "Enlightenment Office for Population Policy and Race Care". After this office, which was under construction , was renamed the “ Racial Political Office ” in 1934, Kranz was Gauamtsleiter for Hessen-Nassau . He was also an assessor at the Darmstadt Hereditary Health Court , member of the Hessian Court of Honor and headed the department for “Hereditary Health and Racial Care” of the Hessian Medical Association at the Gießen district office.

From 1934, Kranz taught racial hygiene and population policy at the Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care at the University of Giessen . Kranz was supported by the medical professor Philalethes Kuhn and the Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger . On January 1, 1937, he was appointed as a regular associate professor and on May 9, 1940 as a full professor for "Heritage and Race Care" at the University of Gießen, where he was director of the Institute for Heritage and Race Care . In 1939/40, Kranz was Lecturer Association Leader at the University of Gießen, and from October 1939 to November 1942 Rector of the University of Gießen.

As the successor to Verschuer , Kranz changed to the University of Frankfurt on December 1, 1942, as professor for "Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene" , where he also headed the "Institute for Hereditary Health and Racial Care" . In 1944/45 he was the Gaudozentenbundführer of Hessen-Nassau. From January 9, 1945 to April 1945, he took over the rectorate of the University of Frankfurt.

Kranz committed in 1945 on 5 May suicide . According to Sandner and Oehler-Klein, he died on May 11, 1945.

The Institute for Hereditary Health and Race Care in Giessen

In January 1936 the “Institute for Hereditary Health and Racial Care”, which was set up and directed by Kranz, was inaugurated in Giessen. On June 30, 1938, this institute was recognized as a university institute of the University of Giessen. Kranz outlined the institute's area of ​​responsibility as follows:

  1. Racial Politics Office (training and propaganda )
  2. Practical racial hygiene
  3. Naturalizations
  4. Hereditary clinical examinations (connections between race, constitution and disease)
  5. Twin research
  6. Criminal biological investigations
  7. Bastard investigations
  8. Auxiliary student examinations
  9. Hereditary biological inventory (hereditary burden, accumulation of diseases, inheritance)
  10. Marriage counseling
  11. Experimental hereditary work
  12. lecture

Among other things, Kranz initiated pseudoscientific forensic biological investigations - also within the framework of the so-called Gypsy research - which were supposed to provide evidence of a connection between “race and crime”. In collaboration with the statistician Siegfried Koller , Kranz also wrote a three-volume work on the “ anti-social problem ”, in which a so-called group of “community incapacitated” was defined. In addition, over 600,000 people were recorded genetically. This research on the National Socialist population policy also paved the way for forced sterilization and the murder of thousands of people classified as "incapable of community".

Kranz wrote an article for the journal National Socialist People's Service in 1942 in which it literally said: "The special treatment we demand of this chronically incapable of community originating from an anti-social clan is scientifically justified in every way."

Fonts (selection)

  • with Philalethes Kuhn : From German ancestors for German grandchildren: general understanding. Darst. D. Doctrine of heredity, d. Racial science and racial hygiene. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1933 (eight editions until 1943).
  • For the development of the racial hygiene institutes at our universities. In: goal and path. Volume 9, 1939, pp. 286-290.
  • Racial Soldiership. Christ, Giessen 1941.
  • A people's will to live decides their fate. Christ, Giessen 1941.

literature

  • Udo Benzenhöfer (ed.): Mengele , Hirt , Holfelder , Berner , von Verschuer , Kranz: Frankfurt university doctors in the Nazi era. Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-932577-97-0 .
  • Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , pp. 97 f.
  • Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Bio-bibliographical manual (= Education and Science Edition. Volume 10). Academy, Berlin 2006 ISBN 978-3-05-004094-3 ISBN 3-05-004094-7 .
  • Helmut Heiber : University under the swastika. Part II, Volume 2, Munich 1994, pp. 165-174.
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
  • Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care at the University of Gießen: Structure of the institute and integration into the university. In: Gießener Universitätsblätter, Gießen 2005, pp. 25–43 ( online ).
  • Volker Roelcke : Gerhard Pfahler and Heinrich Wilhelm Kranz: Two rectors under National Socialism. In: Horst Carl, Eva-Maria Felschow, Jürgen Reulecke, Volker Roelcke, Corina Sargk (eds.): Panorama 400 years of the University of Gießen. Actors - locations - culture of remembrance. Societätsverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 125–130.
  • Peter Sandner: Administration of the murder of the sick - The district association Nassau in the national socialism. Psychosocial, Gießen 2003, ISBN 978-3-89806-320-3 ( PDF; 1.1 MB ).
  • Sheila Faith Weiss: Human Genetics and Politics as Mutual Resources. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in the “Third Reich” (= research program. Volume 17). Max Planck Society, Berlin 2004, ISSN  1616-380X ( PDF; 513 kB )
  • Matthias Willing: The Preservation Act (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-16-148204-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Bio-bibliographical manual , Berlin 2006, p. 297
  2. ↑ a b c d e Peter Sander: Management of the Sick Murder - The Nassau District Association in National Socialism , Gießen 2003, p. 734
  3. ↑ Max Mechow, Renowned CCER, Historia Academica, Volume 8/9, page 134
  4. ^ Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. , Tübingen 2003, p. 188
  5. ↑ Helmut Heiber: University under the Hakenkreuz , Part II, Vol. 2, Munich 1994, p. 165.
  6. ↑ Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care of the University of Gießen: Structure of the institute and integration into the university , in: Giessener Universitätsblätter, Gießen 2005, p. 37f.
  7. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3), ISBN 3-88479-932-0 ; also dissertation Würzburg 1995, p. 7 f.
  8. ↑ Michael Grüttner: Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy , 2004, p. 97.
  9. ↑ Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care of the University of Gießen: Structure of the Institute and Integration into the University , in: Giessener Universitätsblätter, Gießen 2005, p. 36.
  10. ^ A b Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 335
  11. ^ Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care of the University of Giessen: Structure of the Institute and its integration into the University , in: Giessener Universitätsblätter, Giessen 2005, p. 41.
  12. ^ Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care of the University of Giessen: Structure of the Institute and its integration into the University , in: Giessener Universitätsblätter, Giessen 2005, p. 26f.
  13. ↑ Quoted from: Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care of the University of Gießen: Structure of the Institute and Integration into the University , in: Giessener Universitätsblätter, Gießen 2005, p. 29.
  14. ^ Sigrid Oehler-Klein: The Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care of the University of Giessen: Structure of the Institute and its integration into the University , in: Giessener Universitätsblätter, Giessen 2005, p. 30f.
  15. ↑ Quoted in: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 335.
personal data
SURNAME Kranz, Heinrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ophthalmologist, university professor and racial hygienist
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 1945
Place of death Staßfurt