Johannes Stein (doctor)

Johannes Stein (born July 26, 1896 in Orsoy ; † March 23, 1967 in Bonn ) was a German National Socialist doctor, professor of internal medicine and clinic director in Heidelberg . In 1940 he moved to the newly founded Reich University of Strasbourg .

Life

Stein was the son of a Protestant pastor. From 1915 to 1918 he was a soldier in the First World War , where he was deployed on various fronts: 1915 in the winter battle in Champagne , 1916 in the trench warfare on the Beresina , in 1917 on the eastern border of the Bukovina and finally in 1918 in the battle of the Kemmelberg im Belgian-French Heuvelland . There he was wounded on April 19, 1918 and was sent to the hospital. Most recently he was lieutenant in the reserve .

After the First World War, Stein studied medicine at the Universities of Münster and Bonn and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . In 1922 he went to the Heidelberg University Clinic as a medical intern and completed his habilitation in 1926 in the subjects of neurology and internal medicine with Viktor von Weizsäcker . In November 1926 he was appointed private lecturer , in July 1931 associate professor at the University of Heidelberg and in 1933 appointed chancellor of the university by its rector Wilhelm Groh .

After the handover of power to the National Socialists , Stein joined the SS on May 1, 1933 (SS no. 111.812) and was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer there in June 1943 . From the summer of 1933 he was the "leader" of the lecturers affiliated with the National Socialist Teachers' Union (NSLB) and aggressively recruited members by declaring joining the NSLB to be a national "obligation". In November 1933 Stein became head of the university's newly established Psychological Institute and in April 1934 professor of internal medicine and director of the Heidelberg University Clinic. After his chancellorship in 1933/34, he served as the university's prorector from 1935 to 1941 .

According to Lutz Hachmeister , Stein was "a convinced racial theorist" and "worked closely with the eugenicist , schizophrenia researcher and later 'euthanasia' perpetrator Carl Schneider ". In 1936, at the Heidelberg university jubilee, he gave a speech on “Medicine and the People” alongside Joseph Goebbels and Bernhard Rust . The Nazi Party he joined in 1937 (May 1, membership number at 4,271,547). During the Second World War he was also chief medical officer of the reserve.

After the Reich University of Strasbourg was founded, Stein was appointed professor of internal medicine there in December 1940 and was dean of the medical faculty from 1941 to 1944 . In 1941 he was co-editor of the volume on the history of the German University of Strasbourg .

On July 16, 1943, Stein wrote to the rector of the Reich University of Strasbourg, Karl Schmidt, for the racial biological research of his colleague Wolfgang Lehmann : “Btr .: Investigation of Indian prisoners of war. I consider the attempt to conduct racial studies on Indian prisoners of war to be very important. It is unlikely that such a favorable investigation opportunity will be offered in the future either. ”Four days later, the rector approved the project to the Reich Minister for Science Bernhard Rust . It is not clear from the files whether the “racial investigations” requested for the Indian prisoners of war in the Stalag VC in Offenburg were actually carried out. It is certain that Stein, as dean, will provide information about the medical experiments on people, some of which were funded by the German Research Foundation, which were carried out by his Strasbourg colleagues August Hirt , Eugen Haagen and Otto Bickenbach in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and which led to the death of the people was. Stein should also be consulted about the planned “secret habilitation process” by the concentration camp doctor Sigmund Rascher .

In 1944 Stein became a member of the leadership of the Reichsdozentenführung. At the end of 1944 he was taken prisoner by the French.

From 1950 Stein was chief physician at the Johanniter Hospital in Bonn, the city in which he died on March 23, 1967.

Fonts

• (Ed. With Ernst Anrich ): On the history of the German University of Strasbourg. Hüneburg-Verlag , Strasbourg 1941.

literature

• Wolfgang U. Eckart (Ed.): The University of Heidelberg in National Socialism . Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-21442-7 .
• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 167.
• Lutz Hachmeister : Heidegger's will. The philosopher, the mirror and the SS . Propylaea, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-549-07447-3 .

Web links

• Jürgen Klüpfel, Carl Friedrich Graumann : An institute is born: On the history of the institutionalization of psychology at the University of Heidelberg (= historical series, 13; Psychological Institute (Heidelberg): discussion paper, no. 49). Psychological Institute, Heidelberg 1986, DNB 861191420 ( Chapter IV: During National Socialism )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lutz Hachmeister: Heidegger's Testament. The philosopher, the mirror and the SS . Propylaea, Berlin 2014, p. 268 f.
2. ↑ Wolfgang U. Eckart (Ed.): The University of Heidelberg in National Socialism . Springer, Heidelberg 2006, p. 33.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 167.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Short biography in: Klaus Dörner (Hrsg.): Der Nürnberger Ärzteprocess 1946/47. Verbal transcripts, prosecution and defense material, sources on the environment. Index tape for the microfiche edition . On behalf of the Hamburg Foundation for Social History of the 20th Century. German edition, microfiche edition. Saur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-32028-0
5. ↑ Wolfgang U. Eckart (Ed.): The University of Heidelberg in National Socialism . Springer, Heidelberg 2006, p. 33 f.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lutz Hachmeister: Heidegger's Testament. The philosopher, the mirror and the SS . Propylaea, Berlin 2014, p. 269.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Lutz Hachmeister: Heidegger's Testament. The philosopher, the mirror and the SS . Propylaea, Berlin 2014, p. 270.
8. ↑ Quoted in: Ernst Klee : Auschwitz, the Nazi medicine and its victims . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 256.
9. ↑ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 256.
10. ↑ Angelika Uhlmann: The medical faculty of the Reich University of Strasbourg and the human experiments in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . In: Judith Hahn u. a. (Ed.): Medicine under National Socialism and the concentration camp system. Contributions to an interdisciplinary symposium . Mabuse, Frankfurt a. M. 2005, ISBN 3-935964-74-9 , pp. 165-187, here p. 174.
11. ↑ See also Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, the Nazi medicine and its victims . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 378-381.
12. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 599 f.