Klaus Endruweit

Klaus Endruweit (born December 6, 1913 in Tilsit ; † September 3, 1994 in Hildesheim ) was a German physician. In the German Reich he worked as a doctor in the Nazi killing center Sonnenstein in Pirna as part of the Nazi murders .

Origin and studies

Endruweit was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, as the son of a deaf and dumb teacher. He attended pre-school and the Reformreal high school in Tilsit, which he graduated from high school at Easter 1933. Immediately afterwards he did six months in the voluntary labor service in a service labor camp of the " Stahlhelm ". Endruweit then spent three weeks in a military training camp run by the Hitler Youth (HJ) and joined the SA .

In the autumn of 1933 he began studying medicine in Munich . Here he also joined the National Socialist German Student Union and lived in a comradeship house of this organization. Together with his fellow student Aquilin Ullrich , after two semesters in October 1934 he undertook a one-year service in the Reichswehr , which he served in a tank reconnaissance battalion in Königsberg . Since he was not allowed to be a member of a political organization during this time, Endruweit resigned from the SA before taking up service, only to rejoin after the end of his military year.

Endruweit initially studied further in Königsberg, but moved to Würzburg in the winter semester of 1935/36 . Like Ullrich, he resigned from the SA and became a Fähnleinführer with the German Young People in the Hitler Youth.

In March 1937, Endruweit went to Berlin after having passed the Physikum , continued studying here for the first two clinical semesters and was active as a field researcher in the Hitler Youth. However, he returned to Würzburg in 1938 and, as a member of a Würzburg student group, together with Aquilin Ullrich and Ewald Wortmann, took part in a study trip to Bessarabia initiated by the Gaustudenten tour . The aim of the two-month study trip to the German-speaking village of Teplitz was to describe the situation of the ethnic Germans and to assess their state of health. To this end, Endruweit and two colleagues examined 656 residents. On the basis of this material he developed his later dissertation . The thesis written by the student group about their trip was awarded a prize at the 1939 Reich professional competition.

In World War II

Like many of his fellow students, Endruweit received an emergency license on November 1, 1939 and was employed as a Wehrmacht doctor in a Würzburg field hospital and then in an infantry battalion in the French campaign. For his achievements in the battle of the Aisne he received the EK II .

In the Nazi killing center in Sonnenstein

His fellow student from Würzburg, Aquilin Ullrich, who has meanwhile been involved as a doctor in the National Socialist “euthanasia” program (referred to as “ Aktion T4 ” in post-war parlance ) and who works in the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg , recommended Endruweit to the medical director of the organized murder of the sick, Werner Heyde , for working in the T4 organization. Endruweit, who had been promoted to assistant doctor in September 1940 and, unlike his former classmates, did not become a member of the NSDAP , declared himself ready to do so and was called "uk" (indispensable) from November 22, 1940 in the Nazi killing center Sonnenstein in Pirna under its head Horst Schumann .

After the war, Endruweit described his visit to the Fuhrer's office, which was responsible for organizing the “euthanasia” program :

"MW [to the best of my knowledge] when I was introduced to the ' KdF ' I went straight to the Sonnenschein institute for Dr. Schumann referred. […] Before I went to Sonnenstein in any case, I was informed in Berlin that the job I was supposed to be doing now was a secret Reich business and that I had to keep my work confidential. "

In the Sonnenstein gassing facility, Endruweit was informed about the purpose of the facility by Kurt Borm because of the absence of the director Horst Schumann . Schumann himself introduced him to his specific tasks. Endruweit later stated that although he could not approve of his work for medical and moral reasons, he had no doubts about the legality of the entire action. In his post-war trial, he denied ever having performed a gassing or dissection. For the jury court of the Frankfurt am Main regional court , however, Endruweit's activities were as follows:

"The defendant Dr. In his work, Endruweit was aware that by presenting the patient to the doctors , he was supposed to simulate an examination . This purpose served - as the defendant Endruweit was also aware - the test questions asked in Sonnenstein as well as in Brandenburg and Bernburg, to which the patients reacted just as in the other institutions. After the presentation to the doctors, the patients were taken to the cellar, where the killing room and the cremation room were located. The defendant Dr. Endruweit was never present at the killing and never turned on the gas tap. He also didn't pick any causes of death. His job after the killing consisted only of signing 'comfort letters' prepared by a secretary. Although he had not yet obtained his doctorate at the time, he used the code name 'Dr. Bader '. "

Endruweit's supervisor at the time, Schumann, gave completely contradicting statements as a witness in various proceedings:

"If Dr. Endruweit denies ever having entered the doctor's room and claims that he never looked through the little window into the gassing room, so this is not true. All doctors including Dr. I briefed Endruweit - down to the last detail - because after all they had to represent me when I was absent from Sonnenstein. The briefing included, in particular, letting in the gas and observing the sick through the window. I don't understand how Dr. Endruweit can deny that. "

“I have already given information about the tasks of the doctors in my previous interrogations. In this context I would like to emphasize again that on the orders of Brack and Heyde only the doctors were allowed to operate the gas supply. If transports occurred during my frequent absence, the doctors under my control had to operate the gas in my place. In Sonnenstein it was Dr. Borm and Dr. Endruweit. Since Dr. Endruweit was still very young and soft, we largely spared him so that I could imagine that during my absence it was mainly Dr. Borm operated the gas. "

Endruweit took leave from May to July 1941 to go to Würzburg to complete his dissertation . In August 1941, he submitted his medical dissertation on the subject of “Teplitz. Teplitz to its deputy head, Friedrich Keiter , at the Racial Biology Institute, which was subordinate to the Racial Politics Office of the NSDAP . Health examinations in a German village of Bessarabia as part of an imperial professional competition " and received a doctorate to Dr. med.

He only returned to Sonnenstein after the first "euthanasia" phase had stopped (August 24, 1941). On November 28, 1941, he took part in the conference on the future deployment of T4 personnel in Pirna. He was assigned to the Todt Organization as a medical officer in November 1941 and was employed near Wroclaw . During an assignment in France he met Heinrich Bunke , whom he knew from his time as a gassing doctor at the Bernburg killing center .

After the war

At the end of the war still deployed on the Eastern Front, Endruweit was taken prisoner by the Americans, from which he was soon released. In June 1945 he was able to find accommodation in Hildesheim at the municipal hospital in exchange for free accommodation and food. On July 1, 1946, he opened a doctor's practice in Bettrum in the Hildesheim district . At the same time he was a board member of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians from 1956 and of the Lower Saxony Medical Association in Hildesheim from 1956 to 1957 and 1962 to 1965 . He was able to practice unmolested there until his arrest on June 20, 1962. On the same day he was released from custody on the condition that he report to the police once a week. So he could continue to practice.

process

The General Public Prosecutor's Office in Frankfurt am Main sued Endruweit together with the three other T4 doctors Borm , Bunke and Ullrich on January 15, 1965 of "insidiously, cruelly, for base motives, deliberately and deliberately killing several thousand people ". The trial of the main hearing before the jury court of the Frankfurt am Main regional court was set for October 3, 1966. Even before the start of the trial, the district president in Hildesheim ordered Endruweit's appointment as a doctor to be suspended on September 16, 1966. Similar to his co-defendant, this decision triggered a wave of expressions of solidarity and sympathy from circles of his doctor colleagues, associations and various mayors.

In the so-called first medical trial, the verdict was passed on May 23, 1967:

“The mass killings carried out as part of the 'T4' campaign ... meet the criteria of murder within the meaning of Section 211 of the Criminal Code in the version applicable at the time of the offense and in the version valid today. Every human life, including that of the mentally ill, enjoys the protection of § 211 StGB until it is extinguished [...] no cultured people [has] ever carried out such an action. "

Endruweit was found to have assisted the murder of at least 2,250 mentally ill patients. However, like all the other co-defendants, he was acquitted for his actions because of the lack of “awareness of the illegality” (unavoidable error in the prohibition ).

“The defendants assumed that they only participated in the killing of the mentally ill 'without a natural will to live' and that their killing was permitted. Since this is no longer guilty, the defendants were acquitted. "

On August 7, 1970, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment because of factual contradictions. The new trial began on December 16, 1971. As early as February 6, 1972, Endruweit presented a certificate stating that he had suffered a heart attack . Endruweit, like his co-defendants Bunke and Ullrich, left the proceedings as temporarily incapable of negotiating. The proceedings were only continued against Kurt Borm.

Despite his incapacity to stand trial and the incontestable suspension of his medical appointment since 1978, Endruweit could illegally continue his medical practice unmolested. The practice was only closed on March 1, 1984 following instructions from the district government.

In February 1984 the weekly police report was waived by the deposit of a security deposit of ½ million DM .

From January 29, 1986, Endruweit, Bunke and Ullrich were tried again at the Frankfurt am Main regional court. On the very first day of the hearing, Endruweit was excused from participating due to illness. In 1990 the proceedings against him were finally abandoned due to permanent incapacity to stand trial.

Endruweit never saw himself as a criminal. In a statement on July 1, 1963, he stated:

"Taking into account my upbringing, my authoritarian thinking, the general view of time, I did not get the idea at the time that a government agency could order and carry out something that was not legal."

Klaus Endruweit died on September 3, 1994 in Hildesheim.

Honor

The Hildesheim district office of the Lower Saxony Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians and the Lower Saxony Medical Association published an obituary on September 7, 1994 in the Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung . It says:

"We will remember him with honor."

literature

• Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. The "destruction of life unworthy of life". 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 ( Fischer-Taschenbucher 4326 The time of National Socialism ).
• Ernst Klee: What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews . 12th edition. Fischer-TB, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5
• Ernst Klee: "Klaus Endruweit" entry in ders .: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 12
• Henry Friedlander : The Road to Nazi Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin, Berlin-Verlag, 1997. ISBN 3-8270-0265-6
• Thomas Schilter: “Inhuman discretion. The National Socialist 'euthanasia' killing facility Pirna-Sonnenstein 1940/41 ”, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-378-01033-9

Remarks

1. ↑ Heidelberg documents, “Reviewer” list, facsimile in Klee “Euthanasia in the Nazi State”, page 228f.
2. ^ Statement of June 18, 1962, page 1f., Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv , department 631a, volume 513, quoted from Schilter: "Inhuman discretion" page 193.
3. ↑ Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, judgment of May 23, 1967 Ks 1/66, GstA Ffm, quoted from Klee: “What they did - what they became” page 305.
4. ^ Statement by Horst Schumann on November 30, 1966, Js 10/65 General Public Prosecutor's Office Frankfurt am Main, quoted from Klee “What they did - what they became”, page 305.
5. ^ Statement by Dr. Horst Schumann on May 17, 1968, Js 18/67 General Public Prosecutor's Office Frankfurt am Main, quoted from Klee “What they did - what they became”, page 305
6. ↑ ^{a b} Ks 1/66 GStA
7. ↑ ^{a b} 2 StR 353/68

Web links

• Literature by and about Klaus Endruweit in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ernst Klee: " Euthanasia ", in Die Zeit 11/1986