Johann Duken

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Hajo Wilhelm Johann Duken (born January 12, 1889 in Brake ; † August 20, 1954 in Heidelberg ) was a German pediatrician , university professor and National Socialist.

Life

Childhood, youth, studies

Duken attended the community school in his hometown and finished his school career in 1908 at a Bremen grammar school with the final examination . He then began studying medicine at the University of Heidelberg , which he continued in Berlin and graduated from the University of Munich with the state examination in 1913 . He then worked as an assistant at the Pathological Institute of the University of Munich and at the local Gisela Children's Hospital under Jussuf Ibrahim , where he worked in the X-ray department. During this activity he suffered severe burns due to inadequate protective measures from X-rays . After the outbreak of the First World War , he was employed in the X-ray department of the Munich garrison hospital and from 1915 did voluntary military service with the German army on the western and eastern fronts . In the post-war period he was active in ethnic-national associations. In 1918 he was the founder of an officer corps in Jena, took part in the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic and served as a volunteer with the Goslar hunters . Then he was a member of the Consul organization .

University professor in Jena - start of National Socialist activities

At the University of Jena , Duken was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . From 1919 he worked as an assistant at the Jena children's clinic under Ibrahim. There he initially dealt with childhood tuberculosis and, using foundation funds, set up a children's tuberculosis clinic (therapeutic) for this clientele in addition to the children's clinic , where he volunteered. In July 1924 he completed his habilitation in pediatrics at the Medical Faculty of the University of Jena and was appointed senior physician at the university children's clinic there in 1925 and an associate professor in December 1926.

In the course of the National Socialist “ seizure of power ” Duken was one of the 18 Jena university professors who had signed a “ Declaration by 300 German University Professors ” for Adolf Hitler , published in the Völkischer Beobachter on March 5, 1933 , the day before the Reichstag election . The NSDAP stepped Duken on May 1, 1933 ( membership number 2765363). Since his first wife was believed to have Jewish ancestors, his party membership was only valid after her death in 1934; this issue was heard before the Party Supreme Court . From July 1933 he was a member of the NS teachers' association and the NS doctors association. He also joined the SA and the NSV . In addition, from 1933 he worked as a trainer for political education in Jena and continued this commitment until 1935 in Gießen and Mainz. At the end of April 1933 Duken had already taken over the chairmanship of the Adult Education Center in Thuringia and the month after that of the adult education center in Jena. In September 1933 he became regional leader of the German Homeland School , the adult education center renamed by the National Socialists. At this time Duken also got to know the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , who swore an oath of allegiance from him for reasons unknown until now.

University professor in Giessen - intensification of National Socialist activities

At the beginning of October 1933 he was appointed professor of paediatrics at the University of Gießen , where he was also head of the children's university clinic there. Together with the hygienist Philalethes Kuhn , he got involved in Giessen for the National Socialist racial hygiene and the establishment of a corresponding institute at the university. In this context, he left the premises of the children's clinic, which he directed , to the race hygienist Heinrich Wilhelm Kranz , in order to set up an institute for genetic and race care.

In February 1934 at the latest he joined the SS (SS No. 107.248), into which he was accepted with the rank of SS-Untersturmführer. Within the SS he rose to SS-Obersturmführer in September 1939 . As an SS leader, he was assigned to the security service of the Reichsführer SS , where he was active as a spy reporting on colleagues and matters. He later became a member of the Lebensborn . From 1934 he worked for the racial office of the NSDAP in Berlin.

As a member of the German Christians , he and the Gießen University Rector Gerhard Pfahler published the magazine Glaube und Volk in the decision from 1934 onwards . Duken was considered gruff and unyielding in personal dealings. According to Pfahler, he “waged a“ campaign of lies ”against colleagues, head of lecturers and the rector” and “shot blindly around the area in typical East Frisian frenzy”. As early as 1934, he got into serious arguments with colleagues from the Giessen clinics because he refused to set up a National Socialist company cell organization in the clinic area.

University professor in Heidelberg - advocate of child euthanasia

On April 1, 1937, he was appointed to the chair of paediatrics at Heidelberg University as the successor to Ernst Moro , where he was director of the Children's University Clinic . Initially, he devoted himself to renovating the clinic and reorganizing this institution. He pushed ahead with the construction of a premature baby ward and a collection point for breast milk. From 1941 to 1945 he chaired the sister Frieda Klimsch Foundation , which was responsible for a children's sanatorium in Königsfeld in the Black Forest that was connected to the Heidelberg Children's University Clinic .

The dean Johann Daniel Achelis suggested Duken in 1943 for the award of the War Merit Cross , second class , because it had "particularly proven itself" as a clinic director under the difficult circumstances caused by the war. In 1944 Duken was appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Plenipotentiary for Health Care Karl Brandt . In 1944 he turned down offers to the University of Vienna and Berlin.

Duken openly spoke out in lectures in favor of the euthanasia of "feeble-minded children". According to Eckart, however, there is no evidence of Duken's active activity in the context of child euthanasia . However, it has been proven that in the Heidelberg Children's Clinic under his leadership, life-saving therapy measures were omitted for children and infants who were mentally handicapped in addition to somatic illnesses. Furthermore, after unsuccessful treatment and a negative prognosis, at least seven children were referred to a so-called children's department , where they were murdered with high-dose luminal doses, among other things .

“Professor Ducken from the Children's Clinic at Heidelberg University is a staunch National Socialist. He firmly believes in the doctrine of 'racial cleansing'. Most of all, he believes that terminally ill and frail or mentally inferior children have no right to life. If such a child is brought to his clinic, he will kill it. "

- From a 1941 British propaganda leaflet during World War II

post war period

Before the end of the Second World War , he was arrested on April 4, 1945 by soldiers of the US Army and briefly interned in Ludwigsburg and then Moosburg an der Isar , where he worked as a camp doctor. Because of his National Socialist activities, he was suspended from the university office by the American military administration in early October 1945 with retroactive effect to April 1, 1945. In June 1945, a commission from the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University assessed Duken as an extreme National Socialist, SD spy and advocate of euthanasia, who was therefore no longer acceptable as a university professor. On April 2, 1947, he was released from the Moosburg an der Isar internment camp due to incapacity for prison. After a first arbitration chamber procedure , he was classified as exonerated in January 1948. After it became known through press reports that incriminating facts were missing in the files of the ruling chamber, such as the opinion of the political commission of the Heidelberg Medical Faculty of April 1940, the proceedings before the appeal chamber in Karlsruhe were resumed. Here he was denazified because of his SS membership and SD activity as a follower . In the grounds of the judgment it was assessed that the “real goals of the basically philanthropic” Duken were “apparently only aimed at establishing a healthy national community”. After his release from internment, he worked in agriculture until 1950 and then worked as a pediatrician in Babstadt . He was retired by the University of Heidelberg at the end of September 1950, and his retirement was refused in 1954.

family

Johann Duken was the son of the captain Jan Duken (1854-1919) and his wife Catharina Weardina, née Campen (1852-1935). In his first marriage he was married to Elisabeth, née Freiin von Saalfeld (1898–1934), from 1917. She was a daughter of Prince Ernst von Sachsen-Meiningen . After his wife's death in 1935, he married Marie-Luise, née Bergmann (1915–1979). Duken had three sons and two daughters.

Fonts (selection)

  • Contribution to the knowledge of purulent diseases of the urinary tract in childhood - a bacterium of the influenza group as a causative agent of pyelocystitis: From d. Gisela Children's Hospital . Munich / Stuttgart 1919 (also: Med. Diss., Jena 1918)
  • The peculiarities of radiographic chest diagnostics in childhood as a basis for the assessment of childhood tuberculosis. G. Fischer, Jena 1924.
  • The outpatient diagnosis of children's tuberculosis. With e. Contribution by H. Beitzke: About the pathological-anatomical documents for diagnosis d. Hilus gland tuberculosis. JF Lehmann, Munich 1926 (from: Blümel: Handbuch d. Tuberculosis Care)
  • Basics for the educational treatment of the sick child in the hospital. G. Fischer, Jena 1933.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Bettina Irina Reimers: The new direction of adult education in Thuringia 1919–1933. Klartext, Essen 2003, p. 685.
  2. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 78.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1933–1986. Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, p. 169.
  4. ↑ Susanne Zimmermann, Thomas Zimmermann: The Medical Faculty of the University of Jena in the “Third Reich” - An overview. In: Uwe Hoßfeld (ed.): In the service of people and fatherland: The Jena University in the Nazi era. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-412-16704-5 , p. 130.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Wolfgang U. Eckart: Pediatrics. In: Wolfgang U. Eckart , Volker Sellin , Eike Wolgast (Eds.): The University of Heidelberg in National Socialism. Berlin 2006, p. 900.
  6. ↑ a b c Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the Children's Clinic in National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 80.
  7. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 121f.
  8. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 81.
  9. ↑ Extract from SS seniority list
  10. ↑ a b Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the Children's Clinic in National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 79f.
  11. ↑ a b Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the Children's Clinic in National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 81f.
  12. ↑ Quoted in: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 121.
  13. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 82.
  14. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, pp. 84f.
  15. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 86.
  16. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, pp. 87ff.
  17. ↑ Quoted in: Ulrich Schultz: Dichtkunst, Heilkunst, Forschung. The pediatrician Werner Catel. In: Götz Aly, Karl Friedrich Masuhr, Maria Lehmann, Karl Heinz Roth, Ulrich Schultz (eds.): Reform and conscience. “Euthanasia” in the service of progress. (= Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy. 2). Berlin 1985, p. 109.
  18. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 93.
  19. ^ Wolfgang U. Eckart: Pediatrics. In: Wolfgang U. Eckart , Volker Sellin , Eike Wolgast (Eds.): The University of Heidelberg in National Socialism. Berlin 2006, p. 903.
  20. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, p. 93f.
  21. ↑ Maike Rotzoll, Gerrit Hohendorf: Johann Duken and the children's clinic under National Socialism. Mainz 2010, pp. 95f.
personal data
SURNAME Duken, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duken, Hajo Wilhelm Johann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pediatrician, university professor and National Socialist
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Brake (Lower Weser)
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 1954
Place of death Heidelberg