Hermann Boehm (eugenicist)

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Hermann Boehm at the Nuremberg Trials (1947)

Hermann Alois Boehm (born October 27, 1884 in Fürth ; † June 7, 1962 in Gießen ) was a German doctor, professor of " racial hygiene " and for the NSDAP as a high-ranking SA medical group leader who was often active . He researched and published on race doctrine under the term race care (today eugenics ).

Life

Studies, World War I and Work (1884–1919)

Boehm, son of the practitioner Ludwig Boehm and his wife Anna, nee Goebel, completed after high school in 1903 at the humanist Wilhelm Gymnasium München a study of medicine at the University of Munich . There Boehm passed the second state examination in 1909 and received his license to practice medicine in 1910 . Boehm received his doctorate in 1911 from the University of Munich. med. with the dissertation title On a case of acute hemorrhagic disseminated myelitis following a paranephritic abscess . From 1911 Boehm worked as a pathological anatomist. Boehm probably took part in the First World War.

Boehm was married since 1919.

Participation in National Socialism (1920–1932)

From 1920 to 1921 Boehm belonged to the Pan-German Association and from 1923 to 1926 was also a member of the German-Völkischer Officer's Association . He was also involved in the Völkisch legal block . Boehm first joined the NSDAP in early July 1923 . In November 1923 he took part in the Hitler putsch in Munich , for which he was later awarded the Blood Order . Boehm also received the NSDAP's Golden Party Badge .

After the re-establishment of the NSDAP in the spring of 1925 - which was temporarily banned as a result of the failed coup in 1923 - Boehm rejoined it in March 1925 (membership number 120). In addition, from 1931 Böhm was a member of the SA , in which he belonged to the staff of the Supreme SA leadership . In 1942, Böhm rose to the position of SA medical group leader within the SA , which corresponds to a general chief medical officer in the army .

From 1931 to 1933 Boehm was a consultant for racial hygiene in the National Socialist German Medical Association (NSDÄB).

Active as a race teacher during the Nazi era (1933–1945)

From June 1933 to July 1934 Böhm headed the "Racial Hygiene" department in the Reich Committee for the Public Health Service. In November 1934, Böhm became honorary professor for “race care” at the University of Leipzig . From the beginning of August 1934, Boehm was the director of the Pathological Institute at the Rudolf-Heß-Hospital in Dresden , where National Socialist doctors were trained and the motherhouse of the Brown Sisters was located. He was also a senior medical officer and from autumn 1934 worked at the Higher Hereditary Health Court in Dresden. In the Gau Sachsen Boehm also sat before the disciplinary court of the NSDÄB from 1934 to 1937.

From March 1937 to 1939, Boehm trained physicians in the area of ​​"genetic and racial care" at the genetic research institute of the German Medical Association's leadership school in Alt Rehse, which he directed until 1942, on the instructions of the Reich Medical Association . From 1938 Boehm was also an honorary professor at the University of Rostock . The Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti informed Boehm that the leadership school of the German medical profession had no long-term future. The planned takeover of a full professorship for Boehm at the University of Rostock did not materialize, so that Boehm finally moved to the University of Giessen on January 1, 1943 , where he became full professor for "Racial Hygiene" and director of the "Institute for Hereditary and Racial Care" there " has been. Boehm held these positions until his dismissal by the American military government after the end of World War II .

Boehm published several articles in specialist journals: In March 1934 he gave a lecture in the journal for advanced medical training on the “basics of genetics” and a few months later in a training letter on “people care”. Boehm wrote a number of articles for the Volkischer Will . From 1939 Boehm was one of the editors of the journal Der Biologe , which was previously published by the German Ahnenerbe . During the Second World War, Boehm continued to devote himself to the subject of "racial hygiene" and gave lectures to doctors and others. a. on the subjects of "General inheritance theory", "National Socialist racial thought and inheritance" as well as "Inheritance and teeth". In addition, Boehm worked as an individual assessor for the preparation of hereditary parentage reports.

Post-war period and the Federal Republic (1946–1962)

In 1946, Boehm's script May I marry my cousin? placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone . In January / February 1947, Boehm was questioned as part of the investigation into the Nuremberg doctors' trial. After the war, Boehm ran a private medical practice in Gießen .

In the 1950s, Boehm's pension claims from the Giessen professorship were rejected by the Hessian State Personnel Office and the Minister for Political Liberation , who subsequently declared Boehm's appointment to the chair to be invalid: the appointment was not based on a technical basis, but only because of his close ties to it National Socialism came about. The Giessen faculty members thereupon defended the legality of the appointment, which they had ultimately contributed to, and achieved Boehm's retirement as professor of human genetics with full pension payments .

Fonts

  • On a case of acute hemorrhagic disseminated myelitis following a paranephritic abscess , dissertation Munich 1911.
  • Hereditary lore , Berlin 1936.
  • Basics of genetic and racial maintenance , Berlin 1936.
  • As editor: Erbgesundheit, Volksgesundheit. The principle and application of the Act for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases. An introduction for doctors, Berlin 1939. (Commentary on the aforementioned law )

literature

  • Michael Buddrus , Sigrid Fritzlar: The professors of the University of Rostock in the Third Reich. A biographical lexicon. Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-11775-6 , p. 71 f.
  • Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich and Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich - bio-bibliographical manual . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-05-004094-7 .
  • Thomas Maibaum: The leading school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007. Dissertation ( pdf )
  • Benoit Massîn: Anthropology and human genetics under National Socialism or: How do German scientists write their own history of science . In: Heidrun Kaupen-Haas and Christian Saller (editors): “Scientific Racism - Analyzes of Continuity in Human and Natural Sciences”. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, pp. 12–64. ISBN 3-593-36228-7 .
  • Robert N. Proctor: Racial Hygiene - Medicine Under the Nazis . Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 4th edition 2000. ISBN 0-674-74578-7 .
  • Matthias Schwager: The attempts to establish racial hygiene at the Leipzig University during National Socialism with special consideration of the life and work of Hermann Alois Boehm . University of Leipzig, Leipzig 1993. (Dissertation)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Annual report from the K. Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich. ZDB -ID 12448436 , 1902/03
  2. ↑ a b c d Thomas Maibaum: The leadership school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007, p. 148ff
  3. ^ A b c d e f g Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Bio-bibliographical manual , Berlin 2006, p. 351
  4. ^ A b Hermann Boehm (eugenicist) in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary for the Third Reich . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, entry on Boehm, Hermann . ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 . (Updated 2nd edition)
  6. ↑ a b c J. Zapnik: Leadership school of the German medical profession in Alt Rehse
  7. ^ Caris-Petra Heidel: Schauplatz Sachsen: From the propaganda center for racial hygiene to the stronghold of the sick "euthanasia" . In: Deadly Medicine in National Socialism: From Racial Hygiene to Mass Murder. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar, 2008, ISBN 3-412-23206-8 , p. 127f
  8. ^ A b Thomas Maibaum: The leadership school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007, p. 125.
  9. ↑ Letter B . In: German Administration for National Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone, list of literature to be sorted out . Zentralverlag, Berlin 1946, letter B.
  10. ^ Statements by Hermann Boehm from the medical trial at the Nuremberg Trials Project at Harvard Law School
  11. ^ Sigrid Oehler-Klein at the conference on university medicine after 1945: Institutional and individual strategies in dealing with the past , conference report by Anne Cottebrune, 5. – 7. October 2005, Giessen. Online on H-Soz-Kult . (Accessed on February 24, 2009.) For more details:
    Sigrid Oehler-Klein (editor): The Medical Faculty of the University of Gießen during National Socialism and in the post-war period - people and institutions, upheavals and continuities . Steiner, Stuttgart 2007. ISBN 978-3-515-09043-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Boehm, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boehm, Hermann Alois (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, professor for "Racial Hygiene"
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Fuerth
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1962
Place of death to water