Starvation Food Decree
The hunger food decree of the Bavarian State Minister of the Interior of November 30, 1942 followed the termination of the T4 campaign . As a result, the diet of psychiatric patients, particularly those who were no longer able to work, was reduced to such an extent that their death was to be expected after three months. The decree led to the death of many thousands of psychiatric patients in Bavaria.
The decree was signed by Walter Schultze , who from 1933 to 1945 headed the health service department in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior as ministerial director. Schultze was also from 1935 to 1944 as "Reichsdozentenführer" head of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association (NSDDB).
As far as we know today, the decree signed by Schultze is at the same time “a kind of retrospective justification for actions [...] that have long been practiced” and “the ordering of new and more brutal measures that are not addressed in the decree itself, basically […] A document of camouflage and disguise . ” The director of the Kaufbeuren sanatorium , Valentin Faltlhauser , had already ordered the restriction of the diet of patients unable to work in 1941. Since August 1942, Faltlhauser had patients unable to work given a completely fat-free "special diet"; the sick died within three months of starvation edema . Faltlhauser spoke about his experiences at a conference of the prison directors with Schultze on November 17, 1942, to which reference is made in the “Hunger Decree”. Later statements by the meeting participants are contradictory; One person present saw an attempt to “find another way of eliminating the sick” after Operation T4 in its previous form had been discontinued in August 1941. According to the current state of knowledge, “special food” was administered in seven Bavarian institutions on special wards, the judicial authorities assumed that two institutions. In addition, it was not recognized during the investigation that the introduction of a “special diet” was not covered by the “hunger waiver”.
literature
- Heinz Faulstich . Starvation in psychiatry. With a topography of Nazi psychiatry. Lambertus, Freiburg 1998, p. 142. ISBN 3-7841-0987-X . ( Table of contents ).
- Michael Spieker, Stefan Sandor (eds.): “We are slowly being starved”. In memory of the National Socialist starvation waiver. Tutzing 2015, Academy for Political Education, 81 pages. ISBN 978-3-9814111-2-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Illustration from: "Euthanasia" and forced sterilization in the Mainkofen sanatorium. Symposium May 9, 2014.
- ↑ Faulstich, Starvation in Psychiatry. With a topography of Nazi psychiatry. Lambertus, Freiburg 1998, pages 317-325.
- ↑ Faulstich, Starvation Death , p. 323.
- ↑ quoted from: Faulstich, Hungersterben , page 320. The contradicting statements are to be seen against the background of the threat of criminal prosecution.