Hermann Pfannmüller

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Hermann Pfannmüller (born June 8, 1886 in Munich ; † April 10, 1961 ) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist at the time of National Socialism and directly involved as a perpetrator in euthanasia crimes as a T4 expert .

Life

After completing his school career, Pfannmüller studied medicine under Emil Kraepelin until 1911 and received his doctorate with the dissertation Influencing the N Metabolism in Infectious Fever by Abundant Carbohydrate Intake at the Munich Polyclinic in 1913 as a Dr. med. From 1913 he worked as a civil servant in the Nassau sanatorium and nursing home in Weilmünster . From October 1916 to 1920 Pfannmüller worked as an institution doctor in the Homburg sanatorium . Pfannmüller then worked as an institution doctor in the sanatorium and nursing home in Ansbach . There he first joined the NSDAP in 1922 and was active as the party's district leader in Ansbach. From 1930 Pfannmüller was senior physician and deputy director at the Kaufbeuren sanatorium under Valentin Faltlhauser . Pfannmüller was promoted to Medical Council First Class in 1930 and rejoined the NSDAP in May 1933. He appeared as a Gauredner and acted as Sturmbannarzt of the SA . From 1936 he worked as an honorary Gauamtsleiter of the department “Alcohol and Narcotics Control” at the Augsburg Health Department. From February 1, 1938, Pfannmüller was director of the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home near Munich and held this position until the beginning of May 1945.

Involvement in the euthanasia crimes

Letter from Werner Heydes to the expert Hermann Pfannmüller dated November 12, 1940

Pfannmüller, fanatical National Socialist and advocate of “race and hereditary biology”, took part in a meeting on August 10, 1939 to carry out the euthanasia campaign. From October 1939 he had 1119 patients from Eglfing-Haar recorded using registration forms, 25 of whom became the first victims of Operation T4 in January 1940 . Between January 18, 1940 and June 20, 1941, 2025 people were transferred via the Eglfing-Haar facility to the Grafeneck killing center and the Hartheim killing center , where they were murdered. In January 1943 two so-called hunger houses were set up in Eglfing-Haar, in which 440 patients were killed as a result of malnutrition, which was prescribed by Walter Schultze's so-called hunger food decree . Other patients were killed with overdosed sleeping pills.

As of October 1940, the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home was affiliated with Bavaria's first “ children's department ”, where Pfannmüller murdered 332 children with luminal or morphine scopolamine injections as part of child euthanasia , or had it done so.

From November 17, 1939, Pfannmüller was a T4 assessor and assessed these as “worth living” or “not worth living” on the basis of the registration forms of patients from other institutions. Pfannmüller continued his review work even after the end of the T4 campaign, so he was still listed on February 8, 1944 as an expert at the " Central Office T4 ". Pfannmüller examined more than 4,000 registration forms and made killing recommendations in several thousand cases.

post war period

Pfannmüller was arrested and interned in Eglfing-Haar on May 2, 1945 after the US Army marched in. In May 1947 Pfannmüller testified as a witness for the defense during the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial .

In 1949 Pfannmüller was tried before the Munich jury court because of the euthanasia crimes. The subject of the proceedings included his expert work in the context of Action T4, the transfer of patients to the killing centers, the establishment of so-called hunger houses and the killing of so-called "Reich Committee children" by injections and luminal gifts. Pfannmüller was sentenced to six years imprisonment in November 1949 for manslaughter or aiding and abetting manslaughter. On the other hand, he was not punished for setting up the hunger houses because the court was unable to prove that people died. Due to a revision of the judgment carried out at Pfannmüller's request , the proceedings were overturned by the Bavarian Supreme Court in mid-March 1950 and referred back. The jury court at Munich Regional Court I finally sentenced Pfannmüller on March 15, 1951 to a total sentence of five years imprisonment, taking into account internment and remand detention . A witness by the name of Ludwig Lehner, who heard the circumstances in the Eglfing-Haar sanatorium during a guided tour in 1939, testified as follows after the end of the war:

“There were as many children between the ages of 1 and 5 in about 15-25 cots. Pfannmüller explained his views in particular at this station. I should have memorized the following summarizing sayings pretty well, as they were surprisingly open either out of cynicism or stupidity. For me as a National Socialist, these creatures (meaning the said children) only represent a burden on our national body. We do not kill (he may also have said 'we do the thing') with poison, injections, etc., because the foreign press and certain gentlemen would in Switzerland (probably meant the Red Cross) only have new propaganda material. No, our method is much simpler and more natural as you can see . At these words he pulled a child out of bed with the help of a nurse who seemed to be constantly entrusted with the work in this ward. While he was showing the child around like a dead rabbit, with a connoisseur face and a cynical grin he stated something like: With this one, for example, it will take another 2 - 3 days . I can never forget the sight of the fat, grinning man, the whimpering skeleton in his fleshy hand, surrounded by the other starving children. Furthermore, the killer told then that no sudden withdrawal of food would be applied, but gradual reduction in rations. "
Dr. Pfannmüller, questioned as a witness, described Lehner's report as a likely subsequent construction of an opponent and explained: Even if this child had to be judged euthanatically, I would never have seen this child from the point of view of National Socialism in the question of judgment, because that In my opinion, euthanasia and also the things of the Reich Committee have nothing to do with National Socialism, but they are, just like the Act for the Prevention of Hereditary Children and the Marriage Health Act, legal measures that were born under the National Socialist regime, but their cause go back centuries in the way of thinking and thinking . "

Pfannmüller, who was responsible for over 3,000 deaths, denied his involvement in the euthanasia crimes in the trials and with family members. Hermann Pfannmüller died at the age of almost 75 in April 1961.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kerstin Freudiger: The legal processing of Nazi crimes , Tübingen 2002, p. 272f.
  2. ^ Wolfgang Müller: "The Palatinate Sanatorium and Nursing Institution 1909 - 1922", in: Festschrift 1909-2009 of the Saarland University Hospital, p. 9 (pdf; 560 kB)
  3. ↑ Hans-Ludwig Siemen: "The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Institutions during National Socialism", in: Michael von Cranach, Hans-Ludwig Siemen (ed.): Psychiatry in National Socialism - The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Institutions between 1933 and 1945 , Munich 1999 , P. 432
  4. ↑ a b c Petra Stockdreher: "Healing and Nursing Institution Eglfing-Haar", in: Michael von Cranach, Hans-Ludwig Siemen (ed.): Psychiatry in National Socialism - The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Agencies between 1933 and 1945 , Munich 1999, P. 346ff.
  5. ↑ Petra Stockdreher: "Healing and Nursing Institution Eglfing-Haar", in: Michael von Cranach, Hans-Ludwig Siemen (Hrsg.): Psychiatry in National Socialism - The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Agencies between 1933 and 1945 , Munich 1999, p. 355
  6. ↑ Hans-Ludwig Siemen: "The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Centers during National Socialism", in: Michael von Cranach, Hans-Ludwig Siemen (Ed.): Psychiatry in National Socialism - The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Institutions between 1933 and 1945 , Munich 1999, P. 357
  7. ^ A b Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 458.
  8. ↑ Hans-Ludwig Siemen: "The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Institutions during National Socialism", in: Michael von Cranach, Hans-Ludwig Siemen (ed.): Psychiatry in National Socialism - The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Institutions between 1933 and 1945 , Munich 1999 , P. 463
  9. ^ List of witnesses in the Nuremberg Doctors Trial on mazal.org
  10. ↑ Dreßen, Willi : "NS" Euthanasia "processes in the Federal Republic of Germany through the ages", in: Loewy, Hanno; Winter, Bettina (Ed.) (1996): Nazi "Euthanasia" in front of the court. Fritz Bauer and the Limits of Legal Coping ", Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt, New York 1996, ISBN 3-593-35442-X , pp. 35-54
    Pfannmüller proceedings on justice and Nazi crimes ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )     Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.jur.uva.nl
  11. ^ Affidavit by Ludwig Lehner [Protocol p. 7393] and Pfannmüller's subsequent reaction , cited by: Alexander Mitscherlich; Fred Mielke: Medicine without humanity: Documents of the Nuremberg Doctor Trial , Heidelberg 2004, p. 249f.


personal data
SURNAME Pfannmüller, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician and Aktion T4 expert
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1961