Kurt Pohlisch

Kurt Karl Ferdinand Pohlisch (born March 28, 1893 in Remscheid ; † February 6, 1955 in Bonn ) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist , at the time of National Socialism a T4 expert and professor at the University of Bonn .

Early years

Pohlisch attended elementary school between 1899 and 1903 and then switched to the Realgymnasium, which he graduated in 1912. He then completed a medical degree, which he began at the University of Bonn and continued at the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy for military medical education . Between April 1912 and September 1912 Pohlisch did military service there as a corporal medical officer and was trained as a medical officer until 1920. During the First World War , Pohlisch was continuously employed in the medical sector. Pohlisch in March 1920 ended his military career, approved there in the same year and received his doctorate in 1921 for Dr. med. His marriage to Gesine Behling took place in 1920, the couple had no children.

Between 1920 and 1934 Pohlisch was assistant or senior physician under Karl Bonhoeffer at the Psychiatric and Mental Clinic of the Berlin Charité . After the Hereditary Health Act came into force , he spoke out as an expert eight times in favor of forced sterilization in ten cases. He also advocated the "sterilization of hereditary demons". Pohlisch's habilitation took place in November 1928.

time of the nationalsocialism

From mid-June 1934, Pohlisch was initially an associate professor and from the beginning of November 1934 to spring 1945 full professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Bonn. At the same time, he took over the post of head physician at the Bonn University Psychiatric Clinic, as well as the director's office of the Bonn state hospital and the Rhenish children's institution for mentally abnormalities . From May 1936 he headed the Provincial Institute for psychiatric-neurological research, where so-called “hereditary inferior values” were recorded. From 1939 Pohlisch was a member of the advisory board of the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists .

He joined the NSDAP in July 1937 ( membership number 4,614,419). He was also a member of the National Socialist Lecturer Association (NSDDB), the National Socialist German Medical Association (NSDÄB), the National Socialist Teachers' Association (NSLB) and the Reich Association of German Civil Servants and the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV). From the end of 1933 he was involved in the development of the Marine Hitler Youth (HJ) and from May 1933 a promotional member of the SS .

Even before the outbreak of the Second World War , he was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the end of August 1939 , where he was also employed as a senior field physician as an advisory Wehrmacht psychiatrist in Wehrkreis VI (Münster). In the spring of 1940, Pohlisch was recruited and instructed as an external expert for Operation T4 at a secret conference in Berlin. From April 30, 1940 to January 6, 1941, Pohl was an external appraiser for Aktion T4 , as was his Bonn colleague Friedrich Panse , who held this position from mid-May 1940 to mid-December 1940. Pohlisch processed around 400 registration forms from patients from German and Austrian sanatoriums and nursing homes and in some cases made recommendations for killing. Both Panse and Pohlisch were released from their expert work by the T4 central office , probably because their reports did not meet the expectations of the central office. In mid-1940 Pohlisch worked on a euthanasia law ("Law on assisted suicide for the terminally ill"), which was passed in October 1940 but never became legally valid. On December 4, 1940, Pohlisch demanded in a lecture on "inheritance maintenance in the Third Reich" at the University of Bonn: "To render harmless or to eradicate those ... systems that are disturbing to our national body."

After the end of the war

At the end of the war, Pohlisch was in a hospital in Bethel. Pohlisch was taken prisoner of war, from which he was released on March 12, 1946. Pohlisch came into custody in September 1947 because he was accused of participating in euthanasia crimes. Pohlisch and Panse were acquitted in two trials before the Düsseldorf jury court on November 24, 1948 and January 27, 1950 due to "proven innocence". Pohlisch returned to his chair at the University of Bonn in 1952 and was full professor of neurology and psychiatry there until his death in February 1955.

Fonts (selection)

• Tobacco . Thieme , Stuttgart 1954.
• Inheritance maintenance in the Third Reich . Bonner Universität Buchdruck, Bonn 1941. Was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone after the end of the Second World War .
• Sleep pill abuse . G. Thieme, Leipzig 1934.
• The children of male and female morphinists . G. Thieme, Leipzig 1934.
• Social and Personal Conditions of Chronic Alcoholism . G. Thieme, Leipzig 1933.
• Drugs and Constitution . Publishing house "Auf der Wacht", Berlin-Dahlem 1932.
• The spread of chronic opiate abuse in Germany . S. Karger , Berlin 1931.
• The psychiatric-neurological symptoms of carbon oxide poisoning . S. Karger, Berlin, 1929.
• About forms of psychological reactions to drug poisoning . S. Karger, Berlin 1928.
• The hyperkinetic symptom complex and its nosological position . S. Karger, Berlin 1925.
• Results of the bar stitch operation . Berlin, 1921.

Awards

• Iron Cross 2nd Class (1915)
• War Merit Cross II (1942) and First Class (1944)

literature

• Ralf Forsbach : The medical faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich" , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2006. ISBN 978-3-486-57989-5
• Ernst Klee : The personal lexicon for the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
• Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. The "destruction of life unworthy of life" ; Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1983; ISBN 3-10-039303-1
• Ernst Klee: What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews . 12 edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5
• Alexander Mitscherlich ; Fred Mielke: Medicine without humanity: Documents of the Nürnberger Ärzteprozesses , 1st edition, Heidelberg: Fischer 1960. ISBN 3596220033 , paperback-is today- 2008 - in the 16th edition distributed.
• Heinz Schott and Rainer Tölle: History of Psychiatry. Disease teachings, wrong turns, forms of treatment . Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-53555-0

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the “Third Reich”, Munich 2006, p. 200f.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 467f.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} 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. 165f.
4. ↑ Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich", Munich 2006, p. 493f.
5. ↑ Heinz Schott and Rainer Tölle: History of Psychiatry. Disease teachings, wrong ways, forms of treatment , Munich 2006, p. 543
6. ^ Karl Gutzmer (red.): Chronik der Stadt Bonn , Chronik-Verlag Harenberg, Dortmund 1988, ISBN 3-611-00032-9 (p. 184)
7. ↑ Ralf Forsbach: The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the "Third Reich", Munich 2006, p. 637
8. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-p.html