Kurt Borm

Kurt Walter Werner Borm (born August 25, 1909 in Lichtenberg near Berlin, † 2001 in Suderburg ) was SS-Hauptsturmführer in the National Socialist German Reich and, as part of Aktion T4, as a doctor in the Nazi killing center Sonnenstein in Pirna and as an employee in the central office T4 works in Berlin.

Origin and studies

Kurt Borm was born on August 25, 1909 in Lichtenberg near Berlin as the son of a city councilor and head of the welfare office. After attending grammar school in March 1929, he passed the Abitur and began studying medicine at the University of Berlin . After four semesters, Borm continued his studies in Rostock , where he took the Physikum in October 1932 and returned to Berlin in 1934. After 16 semesters, he completed a degree that was delayed by financial problems in August 1937 with the state medical examination and the grade “sufficient”. Borm, who was active in the Normannia student fraternity in Berlin , joined the NSDAP on December 1, 1930 (membership no. 410.614). On November 4, 1933, he became a member of the Allgemeine SS (membership no. 203.962). In September 1938 Borm received his license to practice medicine after completing the compulsory assistant . As an assistant doctor he worked for a year in the internal department of the municipal hospital "Am Urban" in Berlin.

Borm married in November 1939. The marriage had two children.

War effort

As early as autumn 1938, Borm volunteered to take part in a two-month exercise by the SS skull and crossbones associations . As a medical examiner he was finally used in the Sudetenland . On September 11, 1939, Borm volunteered for the Leibstandarte SS "Adolf Hitler" . In this formation of the SS available troops , from which the Waffen-SS emerged, he was deployed as a troop doctor in Prague and Munich and promoted to SS-Obersturmführer on April 20, 1940 . He was then assigned to the medical inspection of the Waffen SS in Berlin.

In the Nazi killing center in Sonnenstein

On September 20, 1940, Borm was given leave of absence with instructions to report to the Fuehrer's office for a special assignment . After the war he described it as follows:

"As I can remember today, I first negotiated with Haus, who first recorded my personal details and then drove me to the building of the Reich Chancellery . In the Reich Chancellery, I remember being shown into a small room in which […] Blankenburg was sitting at his desk. "The latter explained to him" there was a Hitler order, on the basis of which the incurably mentally ill should be relieved of their suffering. […] I can only reliably state that Blankenburg was talking about a draft law that is in the drawer and, out of consideration for the psyche of the population, should not yet be published. […] In general terms, he informed me about the group of those affected and the method of selection. [...] In the course of this briefing, Blankenburg instructed me that these measures were a ' secret Reich matter' and that I was absolutely obliged to maintain the strictest confidentiality, even towards close family members. "

In the central office T4, Borm was listed under the heading "Doctors in the institutions" from November 25, 1940. Borm stated that he had arrived at the Sonnenstein gassing facility assigned to him in Pirna in December 1940 and had been instructed there by the facility manager Horst Schumann in the individual departments and his area of ​​responsibility. Schumann later said:

“At the end of 1940 the doctors Dr. Endruweit and Dr. Borm [...] whereby Dr. Borm when the older one appeared as speaker [...] While I was Dr. Endruweit as closed, reserved, shy and insecure, Dr. Borm the impression of a soldier type on me. I still remember well how he introduced himself to me. He said something like: 'I received the order to contact you. You should instruct me. ' [...] Dr. As the older one, Borm was practically my representative and during my frequent absence the supervisor of the entire institution [...] During my multiple absences the business in Sonnenstein continued and for this purpose Dr. Borm responsible [...] I can say with certainty that the company - i. H. killing people - not resting. "

Borm, on the other hand, denied in his trial that he himself had initiated the killing of the sick by operating the gas tap:

"My task was to establish the identity of the patients presented for euthanasia, to find an appropriate diagnosis as the cause of death and to influence the prison staff ideologically so that a good idea would be realized here."

As is usual for all T4 doctors, Borm did not use his real name in correspondence, but the code name “Dr. Storm ". Just like his colleague Klaus Endruweit, he was dissatisfied with his work in Sonnenstein, as he felt underutilized and technically under-challenged. However, he had no moral or legal concerns.

In March 1941, he represented the local gassing doctor Heinrich Bunke , who had been given leave of absence because of the “ Examen rigorosum ”, for a few weeks in the Bernburg Nazi killing center . He then sat in for several weeks at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin-Buch with Julius Hallervorden .

When the so-called first phase of the National Socialist “euthanasia” program was stopped by Hitler's instructions on August 24, 1941, the gassings in the Sonnenstein asylum were also stopped. In a conference in Pirna led by Viktor Brack , in which the T4 staff took part, the doctors as well as the office and economic managers of all gassing plants, the further use of the T4 staff that had become free was discussed. Brack announced that part of the staff would be used for medical purposes in the framework of the Todt Organization the following winter . From January 15 to March 15, 1942, Borm also took part in an aid operation for the wounded in the 1942 winter battle with the base in Vyazma-Gshatsk.

In the central office T4

After returning from Russia, Borm was employed in the Berlin central office of the T4 organization as an employee of Hermann Paul Nitsche , the medical director of Aktion T4. Borm later downplayed the importance of his work in the T4 headquarters and described himself as “a Dr. Nitsche assigned medical unskilled worker ”. Even if he was not one of the T4 leaders, he was involved in a responsible position in the implementation of the "euthanasia" program. This was also confirmed by Werner Blankenburg's promotion proposal, head of Office IIa of the Fuehrer's Chancellery, of March 6, 1943 for the Main Command Office, Office Group D, Medical Services of the Waffen-SS, which stated:

"SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Kurt Borm [...] has been working on a special order you are familiar with since November 20, 1940. He was promoted to Obersturmführer on April 20, 1940. On behalf of Reichsleiter and SS-Obergruppenführer Bouhler, I request that Dr. Borm, who has proven himself excellently since the execution of the action, to be promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer at the next valid date. signed Blankenburg. "

The proposed promotion to SS-Hauptsturmführer took place on April 20, 1943.

Starting in October 1942, sought Borm according to § 42 of the Criminal Code in preventive detention taken Insane in various prisons on their ability to work. Borm was also active in the so-called second phase of the “euthanasia” program, Aktion Brandt , by procuring medicines and distributing them to the relevant institutions.

His employment in the central office T4 was interrupted by the leave of absence for an assistant service again in the internal department of the Berlin hospital "Am Urban". Borm used this time of eight months for his dissertation on the subject of "An extraordinary case of paroxysmal tachycardia" , which he presented to the Berlin Medical Faculty on February 9, 1943. Despite this interruption, Borm remained an employee of the T4 central office until the end of the war.

After the war

After the end of the war, Borm went to Schleswig-Holstein and in June 1945 found a job in the Uetersen municipal hospital . During the job interviews, he deliberately kept quiet about his past. He was assigned to the internal department. After another internist training, he advanced to the position of chief doctor.

Arrest and trial

Although it was known at least four months before the arrest who Borm was and where he was staying, he was only arrested on June 13, 1962, but released from custody on June 29, 1962 under various conditions. He then settled back in Uetersen as a general practitioner.

The Attorney General's Office Frankfurt am Main brought an action on 15 January 1965 lawsuit against him and the T4 doctors Bunke, Endruweit and Ullrich for aid for murder of thousands of mental patients. Since the public prosecutor's office had doubts as to whether Borm could not be accused of further criminal offenses and thus had to be further investigated, the proceedings against him were separated. The other defendants were in the so-called first medical trial with the judgment of the regional court Frankfurt / M. acquitted on May 23, 1967. On August 7, 1970, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment because of factual contradictions.

Now, for “procedural reasons”, the proceedings against Borm were again combined with the proceedings against the other co-defendants, as further allegations against him were not pursued.

The new trial was to begin on December 16, 1971. On November 26, 1971, the proceedings against Bunke were discontinued because he was temporarily unable to stand trial. The same thing happened on December 15, 1971 with Ullrich and on February 6, 1972 with Endruweit, so that the proceedings could only be continued against Borm.

On June 6, 1972, the court acquitted him . Although Borm had objectively assisted the killing of at least 6652 mentally ill people, it could not be proven that he had acted culpably , since he "irrefutably lacked awareness of the illegality " of his actions. The "impermissible" of his action was not recognizable to him, because:

“In the decisive years of his growing up, the formation of values and understanding of the environment, he hardly heard anything other than the glorification of National Socialist ideas. He grew up in a civil servant household with the state-loyal attitude that usually exists there, as experience shows, and the unconditional belief in the legality of sovereign conduct ”. The judgment was upheld by the Federal Court of Justice on March 20, 1974.

The court approved what Borm said about the allegations in the proceedings:

“In conclusion, I would like to say that I feel criminally free from any responsibility with regard to the charges against me . Based on the teachings given to me, I have believed 'what you are doing is right'. I came to this conviction because I had been told that there was a law, which, however, had not yet been published due to a leadership resolution. […] In addition, I viewed the reports on the patients to be euthanized with the greatest respect. I assumed that these were reimbursed with the same precision as in the pursuit of the Hereditary Health Act . […] With all this, it should not be overlooked that I was relatively young at the time when I was born in 09. Prof. Dr. Nitsche was an authority for me . He told me that almost all the ordinaries were committed to the euthanasia campaign ”.

The confirmation of the acquittal of Borm by the Federal Court of Justice prompted 15 prominent artists, writers, politicians and journalists, among them Joseph Beuys , Norbert Blüm , Heinrich Böll , Günter Grass , Siegfried Lenz , Martin Walser , Ulrich Wickert , to write an open letter to Federal President Gustav Heinemann , which was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on June 10, 1974. Since the reason for the acquittal was based solely on the finding that Borm was a staunch National Socialist at the time of the crime, the court was accused of privileging the convictions "against whose uncontrolled horror this republic was created 25 years ago."

After the acquittal, Borm worked again as a general practitioner in Uetersen for a few years and continued to have a "large influx" of patients. During this time, his house was often the target of vigils and paint attacks. Kurt Borm lived in Uetersen until 1998 and then moved in with one of his sons. He died in 2001 in Suderburg (Lower Saxony).

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 121-123.
• Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state . 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 .
• 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: "Kurt Borm" 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.
• Ernst Klee: "Murder and Healing", in "Die Zeit" 17/1986. ( Online ).
• 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 .
• Wagma Hayatie: From Nazi "euthanasia" to a specialist in Uetersen: the physician Dr. Kurt Borm. In: Sönke Zankel (Ed.): Uetersen and the National Socialists: New research results from students of the Ludwig-Meyn-Gymnasium. Schmidt & Klaunig, Kiel 2010, ISBN 978-3-88312-417-9 , pp. 97-138.
• Wagma Hayatie: "I had my duty to do for my people and my homeland". The scandalous case of the “euthanasia” medic Kurt Borm . In: Sönke Zankel (Ed.): Scandals in Schleswig-Holstein. Contributions to the history competition of the Federal President . Schmidt & Klaunig, Kiel 2012 ISBN 978-388312-4193 , pp. 167-208.

Web links

• Kurt Borm in the Rostock matriculation portal
• Kurt Borm's Nazi past
• Kurt Borm in Uetersen
• Kurt Borm's acquittal
• Literature by and about Kurt Borm in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sönke Zankel (Ed.): Uetersen and the National Socialists: New research results from students of the Ludwig-Meyn-Gymnasium, From Nazi “euthanasia” to specialist in Uetersen: the physician Dr. Kurt Borm , p. 132.
2. ^ Information from the registry office in Berlin-Lichtenberg
3. ↑ first enrollment of Kurt Borm in Rostock Matrikelportal
4. ^ Friedrich Haus, human resources manager of Aktion T4
5. ↑ Statement from June 19, 1962, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv , Department 631a, Volume 512, Sheet 11f., Quoted from Schilter: “Inhuman discretion”, page 188.
6. ↑ BA Koblenz, R 96 I / Bd. 1, p. 127890, facsimile in Klee “Euthanasia in the Nazi State”, pages 228/229.
7. ↑ Schumann's statement of May 31, 1967, Js 10/65 StA Frankfurt / M., Quoted from Klee “What they did - what they became”, page 121.
8. ^ Borms statement of March 11, 1963, quoted from Klee "What they did - what they became", page 121. However, this statement can be considered refuted by Schumann's statement of November 30, 1966 (see Klaus Endruweit ).
9. ↑ Borms statement of March 11, 1963, quoted from Klee “What they did - what they became”, p. 121.
10. ↑ BA Berlin, BDC, BDC-SSO, quoted from Klee: “What they did - what they became” page 122.
11. ↑ Ks 1/66 GStA Ffm.
12. ↑ 2 StR 353/68
13. ↑ Opening and liaison decision of the Frankfurt / M district court. dated May 28, 1971.
14. ^ Judgment of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court of June 6, 1972, Ks 1/66, quoted from Klee: "What they did - was they became" p. 126.
15. ↑ 2 StR 589/72.
16. ^ Statement of March 11, 1963, page 18f., Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, department 631a, volume 512, quoted from Schilter: "Inhuman discretion" page 191.