Gustav Boeters

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gustav Emil Boeters (born December 3, 1869 in Chemnitz , † January 28, 1942 in Berlin ) was a German doctor . He became known during the Weimar Republic for his public calls for eugenic forced sterilization , which he also addressed to German state parliaments and the Reichstag in the form of draft laws (" Lex Zwickau ").

Life

Boeters studied medicine in Leipzig between 1889 and 1893 , where he was also involved in the Arminia fraternity in Leipzig . After his state examination in 1893, he received his license to practice medicine in May 1894 and received his doctorate in June 1894. He traveled to the United States for a while as a ship's doctor . Between 1902 and 1903 he worked as an assistant doctor at the state hospital in Pirna . He then settled as a general practitioner in Leutzsch near Leipzig. In 1904 he passed the state doctor examination. In 1908 he became a district doctor and vaccination doctor in Döbeln , and in 1919 in Marienberg . From 1922 he worked as a medical advisor in Zwickau . In 1926 he retired. In December 1930 he became a member of the NSDAP . In 1936 he moved to Berlin.

The "Sterilization Apostle"

Illegal sterilizations and private bills

Boeters advocated the sterilization of so-called "mentally inferior" people out of racial hygiene convictions . Following the American model, he was already performing sterilization while at the same time demanding that this practice be regulated by law. In 1921 Boeters convinced Heinrich Braun , the medical director of the Zwickau State Sickness Foundation, to sterilize three boys and a girl, which was illegal under the then applicable law. In 1925 he claimed to have completed 63 voluntary operations. Boeters turned himself in because of the sterilization, without the public prosecutor reacting. In addition, Boeters submitted a petition to the Saxon government in May 1923 . In nine points he suggested not only the sterility of blind , deaf , dumb or “stupid” born children at the expense of the state. He called for the operations to be extended to the corresponding inmates of the nursing and sanatoriums as well as the blind, deaf, “nonsensical”, epileptic and mentally ill people willing to marry . In addition, sex criminals and women with two or more illegitimate children without recognized paternity should be sterilized, as well as criminals on a voluntary basis for whom part of the sentence could be waived . Boeters published his suggestions in various specialist journals, triggering a lively debate.

The Saxon Ministry of Justice stated that the question was legally doubtful and that a Reich law to clarify it was desirable. Nevertheless, the idea of ​​sterilization “mentally inferior” was considered worthy of note. But Boeters' propaganda was exaggerated and only harmful to the matter. In June 1924, Saxony proposed to the Reich Health Office that sterilization for eugenic reasons be made possible on a voluntary basis. The Prussian State Health Council met on December 1, 1923 and essentially followed the recommendations of its expert Karl Bonhoeffer , who advised against state-legalized forced sterilization and instead recommended that voluntary sterilizations for eugenic indications be made possible.

Controversy about the "Lex Zwickau"

Boeters was anything but satisfied with this emerging consensus. He started a campaign, gave public lectures and received a platform in various newspapers and magazines, including the medical professional body Der Kassenarzt and the journal of social protestantism, Innere Mission . He called on the German doctors:

“An immensely important cultural task awaits its solution by the German medical profession! In addition to the already unbearable and steadily increasing economic burdens, we are threatened with the destruction of the intellectual prime of the German people - their downfall in a flood of intellectually and morally inferior existences, the mobbing of our race and thus Germany's departure from the ranks of cultural nations . Who can avert the impending danger at the last hour? Nobody further than the German medical profession! [...] I urge all colleagues in town and country to search for intellectually inferior people, etc. [...] and to operate on as many cases as possible themselves or to refer them to suitable specialist colleagues. "

- Gustav Boeters : Appeal to the German medical profession , 1924.

The response was mostly critical. Above all, the fact that Boeters wanted to treat the deaf and dumb and the blind equally to the mentally ill met with clear contradiction. But psychiatrists like Ludwig Wilhelm Weber also questioned the definiteness of such terms as “mentally inferior” and the inheritance of mental illnesses. Albert Moll accused Boeters of the fact that a reliable eugenic prognosis that could justify sterilization was not yet possible. The magazine Das Tage-Buch also published an article in 1925 about the “sterilization apostle” Boeters, in which he was accused of a loss of reality.

Boeters had actually been noticed several times in Saxony as mentally unstable. The authorities suspended him as a medical officer in 1922 because he was no longer up to his office. In 1925 it was decided to take early retirement. Internally, Boeters was considered a notorious " troublemaker ". Boeters himself, however, felt persecuted and in 1924 accused the Saxon Foreign Ministry of having sabotaged his publications. At the same time, he continued his propaganda activity undeterred.

In 1925, with the help of August Forel , Boeters submitted a draft law to the German Reichstag on “The prevention of unworthy living through operational measures”, which he called “Lex Zwickau” and which he also passed on to the German state parliaments in various versions. Thirteen diets dealt with it; only one, the state parliament of the Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe , expressed its approval until 1927.

Effect and meaning

While the actual “Boeters controversy” subsided around 1927, the debate about eugenically indicated sterilization in connection with an intended major reform of the criminal law continued. Boeters had at least succeeded in sparking a serious debate on the subject, although his own role in it remained controversial among contemporaries. This was also due to the fact that Boeters represented theses in various other publications that were considered untenable in science at the time. He explains the high recidivism of sex offenders through a malfunction of the gonads in the testicles and recommended castration to free the individual suffering from it. He also campaigned for the release of voluntary castration in order to "cure" homosexuality .

The Saxon doctor Rainer Fetscher warned in 1931 that Boeters should not be seen as the father of efforts towards sterilization. Magnus Hirschfeld , on the other hand, commented in his gender studies in 1930 : “After getting to know Boeters and his work better, I came to the conviction that this man, who is fulfilled by high ideals, is usually misjudged. Even if he occasionally uses excessively harsh expressions himself in the form of attack and defense, if one may not consider his point of view to be correct in principle or in particular, it remains a great merit of Boeters to have put the important problem of sterilization up for thorough discussion ... . "

See also

Publications

  • The solution to a difficult sexual problem. In: Munich Medical Weekly. 76 1929, pp. 1683-1686.
  • On primary gallbladder cancer and its relationship with gallstones. Leipzig, Univ., Med. Fac., Diss., 1894. Geissler, Frauenstein 1894.
  • Lex Zwickau. Draft for a law for the German Reichstag on "The prevention of unworthy life through operative measures" in the version of October 18, 1925. In: Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft. 13, No. 4 1926/1927, pp. 139-140; also in: Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Fortbildung , vol. 22, 1925, no. 24, p. 767; Munich Medical Weekly , Vol. 73, 1926, No. 13, p. 552.
  • The castration of sex criminals. In: Munich Medical Weekly. 77 1930, pp. 369-370.
  • The authorization to sterilize operations , in: Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Fortbildung , vol. 21, 1924, no. 16, pp. 506–507.

literature

  • Caris-Petra Heidel: The Saxony scene. From the propaganda center for racial hygiene to the stronghold of sick "euthanasia". In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke (Ed.). Deadly medicine under National Socialism. From racial hygiene to mass murder. Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2008, ISBN 9783412232061 ( Writings of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden . 7), pp. 119–148.
  • Medical Councilor Dr. Gustav Boeters: "Lex Zwickau", private draft for a sterilization law, 1924, and three statements from Betheler files, 1932. In: Anneliese Hochmuth: Spurensuche. Eugenics, sterilization, patient murders and the v. Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel 1929-1945 . Bielefeld 1997, pp. 212-215.
  • Florian Georg Mildenberger: … spoiled in the direction of homosexuality. Psychiatrists, criminal psychologists and coroners on male homosexuality 1850 - 1970. Zugl .: Vienna, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2002. MännerschwarmSkript-Verl., Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-935596-15-4 .
  • Michael Schwartz : Socialist Eugenics. Eugenic social technologies in debates and politics of the German social democracy 1890-1933 . Dietz, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3801240665 .
  • Johannes Vossen: The implementation of the policy of eugenics or racial hygiene by the public health administration in the German Reich (1923-1939). In: Regina Wecker et al. (Ed.). How National Socialist is Eugenics? International debates on the history of eugenics in the 20th century. Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2008, ISBN 9783205782032 , pp. 93-106.
  • Paul Weindling : Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945. 1st edition. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Melbourne 1989, ISBN 0521363810 .
  • Heinz Zehmisch: The hereditary health court. In: Ärzteblatt Sachsen. 13, No. 5 2002, pp. 205-207. ( PDF )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ H. Braun: The artificial sterilization of the feeble-minded. In: Zentralblatt für Chirurgie. 51 1924, pp. 104-106.
  2. ↑ Gustav Boeters: The sterility of the mentally ill, feeble-minded and predatory criminals. In: Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte und Krankenhausärzte 38 (1925), p. 341.
  3. ↑ Michael Schwartz: Socialist Eugenics. Eugenic social technologies in debates and politics of the German social democracy 1890-1933. Dietz, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-8012-4066-5 , pp. 274-304.
  4. ↑ Karl Bonhoeffer: The sterility of the mentally inferior. In: Clinical weekly. 3 1924, pp. 798-801.
  5. ^ Appeal to the German medical profession . In: Ärztliches Vereinsblatt für Deutschland 51 (1924), Col. 3-4.
  6. ^ Joachim Müller: Sterilization and Legislation until 1933 . Husum 1985, pp. 60-63.
  7. ↑ Andreas Seeck (ed.): Through science to justice? Text collection on the critical reception of the work of Magnus Hirschfeld. Lit, Münster 2003, ISBN 3825868710 , p. 119.
  8. ↑ Brigitte Kerchner: body politics . The construction of the "child molester" in the interwar period. In: Wolfgang Hardtwig (Ed.): Political cultural history of the interwar period 1918–1939 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36421-0 , p. 253 f . ( online [accessed May 28, 2013]).
  9. ↑ Schwartz, Sozialistische Eugenik , pp. 136, 317.
  10. ↑ Magnus Hirschfeld: Gender studies based on thirty years of research and experience. Püttmann, Stuttgart 1930, p. 42.
personal data
SURNAME Boeters, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boeters, Gustav Emil; Böters, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and racial hygienist
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1942
Place of death Berlin