Central Criminal Medical Institute of the Security Police

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The Central Criminal Police Institute of the Security Police (KMI) was a research facility of the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA) in Vienna that was being set up from September 1943 during the Nazi era .

Organization and staff

As part of the “establishment and standardization of the security police”, the Central Criminal Medicine Institute was set up in Vienna according to a circular issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior on September 28, 1943. The KMI was affiliated to the Reich Criminal Police Office and was thus part of the Reich Security Main Office . All official bodies with security police tasks were required to process inquiries from the Forensic Medicine Institute more quickly. The premises of the Institute for Forensic Medicine and Criminology at the University of Vienna at Sensengasse 2 were to function as the KMI office . Finally, premises in the Vienna General Hospital were used as a makeshift for the KMI. The equipment of the KMI was insufficient, so the head of the RKPA, Arthur Nebe , instructed employees of the KMI in January 1944 to procure equipment in Copenhagen for the central institute. Further equipment should be organized from the RSHA, such as stamps, typewriters and work coats.

The institute management was entrusted to the forensic doctor and Viennese university professor Philipp Schneider , who continued to hold the chair of forensic medicine at the University of Vienna . His representative was the coroner Ferdinand Schoen . Originally the plans envisaged that Nebe should set up KMI in Berlin under the direction of Schoen. The RKPA has assigned an assistant doctor, a secretary, a medical-technical assistant and a chemist to the KMI as additional staff. From the end of 1943, Hans Battista also worked at the KMI.

tasks

The Central Criminal Medicine Institute should primarily serve as a research facility for security and criminal police tasks and participate in the training of SS and police doctors. The area of ​​responsibility of the KMI also included the scientific processing and further development of forensic medicine, guideline competence in forensic medicine issues, the investigation of cases of particular interest from a forensic medical point of view and the training of police officers in forensic medicine questions.

The area of ​​responsibility for examinations of semen and human blood changed from the Forensic Institute of the Security Police (KTI) to the KMI. In the event of a murder, the criminal police departments should inform the KMI of the autopsy date as soon as possible or receive the autopsy protocols immediately. In addition, in the case of jurisdiction, the KMI should also receive copies of evidence with evidence of the facts and, if necessary, copies of investigation files. The KMI's area of ​​responsibility did not include any questions in the psychiatric field or judicial autopsies without particular interest in the security police.

Subordinate agencies

In addition to the Central Forensic Medicine Institute, decentralized forensic medical investigation centers were to be established elsewhere in the German Reich at the forensic medical university institutes, which were to merge with the forensic investigation centers at the local criminal investigation (control) centers to form forensic science institutes. These institutions should be headed by forensic medicine professors. The KMI should direct and promote the local forensic medical research to the decentralized offices. The planned establishment of forensic investigation centers was probably no longer realized due to the war.

KMI and the Lüdke case

After the police investigation was over, the alleged serial killer Bruno Lüdke was brought from Berlin to Vienna for a criminal biological and forensic medical examination at the end of 1943 for security reasons (high risk of an outbreak after bomb damage) . In Vienna, he was examined by employees of the Forensic Science Institute and the Forensic Biology Institute of the Security Police as well as local scientists (psychologists, anthropologists, etc.). Interviews with Lüdke were recorded on film material and records. Lüdke was photographed at the KMI on December 17th. Schoen took part in Lüdke u. a. performed an occipital and lumbar puncture to analyze the CSF level after he had forced Lüdke to consume one hundred grams of pure alcohol. At the end of the investigation, Lüdke's murder was intended, but Schneider refused. After Schneider was informed in January 1944 by the RKPA boss Arthur Nebe that he wanted to try out the effects of Soviet poison ammunition on Lüdke at the KMI together with Albert Widmann from the KTI, Schneider refused this request. According to a memo from Nebes on April 11, 1944, Schneider announced that “the KMI could not take part in experiments that went beyond the previous framework of science. As a university professor, he could not allow experiments to be carried out on people. In the end , that would be Secret Service work that he would have to refuse. If his opinion is not shared, he must offer his resignation. ”Although Nebe considered releasing Schneider from his management position at the KMI and instead - as previously considered - appointing Schoen, Schneider remained in office. Lüdke was possibly the only "particularly interesting" case examined at the KMI.

literature

  • Friedrich Herber: Forensic medicine under the swastika. Voltmedia, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-938478-57-8 .
  • Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office , Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930908-87-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Friedrich Herber: Forensic medicine under the swastika. Militzke, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-86189-249-9 , p. 248 ff.
  2. ↑ a b Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office Hamburger Edition HIS, Hamburg 2003, p. 332f.
  3. ^ Ingrid Arias: The Vienna Forensic Medicine in the Service of National Socialist Biopolitics - Project Report , p. 11 (PDF; 850 kB).
  4. ^ Friedrich Herber: Forensic medicine under the swastika. Militzke, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-86189-249-9 , pp. 251-252.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 30.
  6. ^ Friedrich Herber: Forensic medicine under the swastika. Militzke, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-86189-249-9 , pp. 252, 401-402.
  7. ^ Friedrich Herber: Forensic medicine under the swastika. Militzke, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-86189-249-9 , pp. 25, 401f.
  8. ↑ Quoted in: Ingrid Arias: The Vienna Forensic Medicine in the Service of National Socialist Biopolitics - Project Report , p. 15f. (PDF; 850 kB)
  9. ^ Ingrid Arias: The Viennese forensic medicine in the service of National Socialist biopolitics - project report , p. 16 (PDF; 850 kB).