Jost Walbaum

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Jost Walbaum (born January 22, 1889 in Steinheim , † December 6, 1969 in Laatzen ) was a German physician, radiologist, medical officer and National Socialist politician and SA chief.

Early years

Jost Walbaum was the son of the cattle dealer Anton Walbaum. He finished his school career at grammar school with the Abitur and completed a medical degree at the universities of Würzburg , Kiel , Rostock and Munich and received his doctorate in 1919 with the dissertation : On gunshot injuries to the larynx and the larynx nerves at the University of Rostock as a Dr. med. At the First World War Walbaum took part of the Bavarian Infantry Regiment 226 from August 1914 to August 1918 as a soldier. From 1919 he worked as an assistant doctor and from 1920 to 1933 as a general practitioner. In the meantime, he had passed the dispensing test for homeopathic treatment in 1928. He then worked as a specialist in radiology . Since 1909 Walbaum was a member of the Catholic student association KDStV Markomannia Würzburg .

time of the nationalsocialism

At the beginning of August 1930 Walbaum joined the NSDAP ( membership number 289,493). He also became a member of the SA and rose there in January 1940 to SA Oberführer. From 1933 he worked as a provisional city doctor and was already a full city doctor in Berlin in 1934. From 1935 he was also a medical officer and headed the health department in Berlin-Tiergarten . From 1937 to 1943 Walbaum was a public health officer and magistrate chief medical officer in Berlin. In addition, he held the following positions: Consultant for health at the municipal politics department (1931), district office manager for public health (1934), judge at the hereditary health court (1934), head of the district administration in Berlin (1934-1937). In addition, Walbaum was a member of the city council in Berlin from 1933 to 1934. Walbaum, who had treated Hermann Göring for his addiction to morphine, became his friend.

Second World War

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Walbaum was from December 15, 1939, department head and health manager of the Health Office in the Generalgouvernement (GG) with the rank of health minister. As the representative of the Reich Health Leader in the GG, he was also regional health leader and thus entrusted with all matters affecting German doctors, nurses, etc. in the GG. From 1940 Walbaum was also head of the health chamber in the GG.

Walbaum was responsible for the ghettos in Warsaw, Lublin and Łódź , among other things . In October 1941 he made a public statement at a working conference in Bad Krynica on the subject of “fighting epidemics”: “There are only two ways, we condemn the Jews in the ghetto to starvation or we shoot them. If the end effect is the same, the other one is more daunting. "

At the end of 1942 / beginning of 1943 Walbaum was relieved of his functions in the GG. Walbaum himself stated after the end of the war that the reason for his dismissal was his resistance activities. His former colleague Friedrich Siebert, on the other hand, considered Walbaum to be “ambitious and addicted to titles” and justified his dismissal with the disproportionately high income that Walbaum had earned as head of the medical association in the GG. In May 1943 he was appointed city medical officer and head of health in Münster .

After the end of the war

At the end of January 1948, the Polish War Crimes Mission filed an extradition request for Walbaum with the British Military Government . In the application, backed up with incriminating testimonies and documents, Walbaum was denounced by the Polish and a. Accused of having been jointly responsible for euthanasia measures and the shooting of typhus patients in the Generalgouvernement. (In an essay, typhus and ethnicity in Poland , Walbaum described typhus in Poland as a “purely Jewish disease”). Since in August 1948 and again a few months later German exonerating witnesses testified for Walbaum in proceedings before the extradition tribunal, he was not extradited to Poland.

Walbaum lived in Hanover-Vinnhorst and worked there as a homeopathic doctor. A preliminary investigation initiated by the Hanover public prosecutor's office against Walbaum in the early 1960s on suspicion of complicity in murder (murders of the sick in the former Generalgouvernement) was discontinued in November 1968.

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Ernst Klee : What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews . 12th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5 .
  • Sabine Mecking: "Always loyal": Municipal officials between the Empire and the Federal Republic, In: Volume 4 of writings (historical place Villa ten Hompel), plain text, 2003 ISBN 3898611612 .
  • Werner Präg / Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (eds.): The service diary of the German Governor General in Poland 1939–1945 . Publications of the Institute for Contemporary History , Sources and Representations on Contemporary History Volume 20, Stuttgart 1975, ISBN 3-421-01700-X .
  • Thomas Werther: Typhus research in the German Reich 1914–1945. Studies on the relationship between science, industry and politics with special consideration of IG Farben. Inaugural dissertation at the Philipps University of Marburg. Wiesbaden 2004. ( online , PDF file; 1.08 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sabine Mecking: "Always loyal": Municipal officials between the Empire and the Federal Republic, In: Volume 4 of writings (historical place Villa ten Hompel), plain text, 2003, p. 138
  2. ↑ a b c d Werner Präg / Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Ed.): The service diary of the German Governor General in Poland 1939–1945 , Stuttgart 1975, p. 954
  3. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 652.
  4. ↑ Thomas Werther: Typhus research in the German Reich 1914–1945. Studies on the relationship between science, industry and politics with special consideration of IG Farben. Inaugural dissertation at the Philipps University of Marburg. Wiesbaden 2004, p. 77.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee : German Medicine in the Third Reich. Careers before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-10-039310-4 , p. 344, note 69.
  6. ↑ Willi Dreßen , Volker Riess: Exploitation and Destruction. Health policy in the General Government. In: Norbert Frei (Ed.) Medicine and Health Policy in the Nazi Era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history . Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 157–171, here: p. 159.
  7. ^ Ernst Klee: German Medicine in the Third Reich. Careers before and after 1945. 2001, p. 344, note 69.
  8. ↑ Quoted in: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 652.
  9. ↑ Willi Dreßen, Volker Riess: Exploitation and Destruction. Health policy in the General Government. 1991, p. 161.
  10. ^ Ernst Klee : German Medicine in the Third Reich. Careers before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-10-039310-4 , p. 321.
  11. ↑ Ernst Klee: What they did - What they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews , Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 226
  12. ↑ Ernst Klee: What they did - What they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews , Frankfurt am Main 2004, pp. 225, 228, 337f
personal data
SURNAME Walbaum, Jost
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician and National Socialist
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Steinheim
DATE OF DEATH 6th December 1969
Place of death Laatzen