Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski

Lothar August Arnold Stengel-von Rutkowski (born September 3, 1908 in Hofzumberge / Kurland , today Tērvete , Latvia ; † August 24, 1992 in Wittmund , Germany) was a doctor , poet and representative of the National Socialist racial hygiene .

biography

Before 1945

Lothar von Rutkowski came from an old German-Baltic family. His father was the Protestant pastor Arnold von Rutkowski , his mother Elisabeth von Bahder. At the age of ten he witnessed the murder of his parents by the Bolsheviks . Together with his brother he moved to Germany, where he was adopted in Marburg an der Lahn by the historian Edmund E. Stengel . He began to deal with the "race question" after 1927 and studied the works of Fritz Lenz and Hermann Muckermann . In Marburg he attended the Philippinum grammar school , where he graduated from high school in 1928. He was a member of the German Knappenschaft , the Junghessen and the Jungstahlhelm . From 1928 to 1933 he studied medicine, anthropology and racial hygiene in Munich, Marburg and Vienna. He was a member of the völkisch youth league eagle and falcon . In Munich he became a member of the Gilde Greif Munich .

In April 1930 Stengel-von Rutkowski joined the NSDAP ( membership number 223.102) and in November 1930 the SS (membership number 3,683). In the SS, he was appointed Untersturmführer on March 24, 1934, Hauptsturmführer on September 12, 1937 and Sturmbannführer in 1939.

After completing his studies, Stengel-von Rutkowski was the head of the race hygiene department of the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) of the SS in Munich until 1934 . When the race office was founded, he was responsible in the department for health certificates.

In 1934 he was naturalized and married Monika Hoppe. This marriage produced five children. In 1934 he passed his state examination.

Karl Astel brought him to Weimar in 1933 as head of department of the Thuringian State Office for Racial Affairs . From November 1934 he headed the teaching and research department of the Weimar Race Office at the University of Jena . There he became Karl Astel's closest collaborator. Rutkowski was close friends with the racial theorist Hans FK Günther . Under Astel, Stengel-von Rutkowski advanced to become one of the main operators of a “German Biology” and “German Philosophy”. With his “pseudo-biophilosophical” and race-theoretical statements in his publications, he influenced large parts of the population. In 1936 he was appointed as a judge at the Jena Hereditary Health Court. From October 1, 1937, he was a government and medical councilor.

In 1938 he received his doctorate in Jena with his thesis The reproduction of the Thuringian farmers .

In 1940 he was a lecturer in racial hygiene , cultural biology and racial hygiene philosophy at the medical faculty. In the same year he became deputy head instructor . With his work “Was ist ein Volk?” He completed his habilitation in Jena in 1941. One of Stengel-von Rutkowski's tasks was to set up "a large collection point for all documents relevant to the history of the racial idea" for the SS in Jena . In this context he managed Wilhelm Schallmayer's estate and took care of the archives of Alfred Ploetz and Ernst Rüdin . In addition to the dissemination of racial hygiene and cultural-biological ideas, Stengel-von Rutkowski also advocated Ernst Haeckel's ideas . Stengel-von Rutkowski's definition of race had a decisive influence on the Nazi ideology and found its way into the Nazi dictionary from the SS office.

Stengel-von Rutkowski was co-editor of Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's magazine “Deutscher Glaube. Monthly magazine for species-specific lifestyle, world view and piety ” , which appeared between April 1934 and February 1944. In the on 29./20. July 1933 founded and existed until May 1934 Association German Faith Movement was he for the eagles and hawks member of the Council leader.

Since 1940 he was used as a troop doctor for the Waffen-SS several times in the Balkans, in the Soviet Union and in the "fight against gangs" in Greece. In 1944 he was the main department head in the marriage office of the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS. Since January 1944 he worked as a doctor at the RuSHA in Prague . In 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets.

After 1945

Due to his political involvement in science and his personal closeness to the Nazi state, Stengel-von Rutkowski was dismissed from public service in absentia on September 13, 1945. In the Soviet occupation zone , various of his writings were placed on the list of literature to be sorted out. In July 1949, after four years of imprisonment in Russia, he returned to Marburg, where he wrote a manuscript of justification entitled Der Rassengedanke in Wissenschaft und Politik .

In 1954, Stengel-von Rutkowski completed a medical exam in Düsseldorf and from 1958 to 1972 he worked as a medical officer for the Waldeck district in Korbach as well as a general practitioner and became a leading member of “racist-religious associations” . According to Isabel Heinemann, who refers to his files in the Berlin Document Center (BDC), he was a member of the German Unitarian religious community . Together with Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, Stengel-von Rutkowski founded the "Free Academy" on April 4, 1956 (entry in the register of associations on January 6, 1957 in Nuremberg). From 1956 to 1972 he was their "scientific secretary". After Hauer's death in 1962, he became chairman of the academy. In 1972 he retired in Korbach, where he wrote numerous volumes of poetry. In 1992, Stengel-von Rutkowski wrote that he was guilty of the death of his sister Gisela, born in 1916, who was mentally ill and was murdered on June 13, 1941 in the Hadamar killing center .

Publications

• Race and spirit. In: National Socialist monthly books. Volume 4, Issue 35 (February) 1933, pp. 86–90
• Basics of heredity and race care. Langewort, Berlin-Lichterfelde 1934. 3rd supplementary edition 1939; 4th rev. 1943
• Hans FK Günther , the pioneer for the Nordic idea. Rather , Munich 1936
• The kingdom of this world. Songs and verses of a pagan. Wölund, Erfurt 1937 (poems)
• German also in faith. Sigrune, Erfurt 1939
• The different reproduction of the 20,000 Thuringian farmers. Lehmanns , Munich 1939
• The walk through the year. Lyric watercolors. Sigrune, Erfurt 1939 (poems)
• What is a people? The biological popular term. A cultural biological investigation of its definition and its importance for science, worldview and politics. Kurt Stenger, Erfurt 1940 ( habilitation thesis )
• Science and value. Fischer, Jena 1941
• About omnipotence and order of life. Nordland , Berlin 1942
• The natural law of the present. Nordland, Berlin 1943
• Trail through the dunes of time. Marburger Spiegel, Marburg 1958 (poems)
• The unicorn's face. Hohenstaufen, Bodman 1968 (poems)
• In search of new ideological dwellings. Zs. Reality and Truth, Issue 3/74
• The religion of life and idealism of values. Studies on the work of the Free Academy 24, Tübingen 1977
• The work of the free academy 1956–1976. , Zs. Reality and Truth, 1977, No. 2
• Bird flight and minute of being. Hohenstaufen, Bodman 1978 (poems)
• In the mirror of being. Hohenstaufen, Bodman 1983 (poems)
• The hiker. Pictures between day and dream. Poems. Edition L, Lossburg 1988 (poems)
• Magic in pictures and words. Hagel, Korbach 1990
• Course of the year and life track. Early poems. European publishing house, Vienna 1990 (poems)

literature

• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 168.
• Uwe Hoßfeld : National Socialist Scientific Instrumentalization : The Role of Karl Astel and Lothar Stengel von Rutkowski in the genesis of the book by ( Heinz Brücher ) Ernst Haeckel's blood and spiritual heritage (1936). In Erika Krauße (ed.): The letter as a historical source of science. Ernst-Haeckel-Haus-Studien, 8th publ. For science and education, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86135-488-8 .
• Uwe Hoßfeld, Michal Šimůnek: The cooperation between the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and [the] German Charles University in Prague in the field of "racial theory" 1933–1945. Erfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-937967-34-9 .
• Hinrich Jantzen: names and works, volume 3 (sources and contributions to the history of the youth movement, volume 12). Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-7638-1253-9 , pp. 299-304.
• Wolfgang A. Ritter: The poet Lothar Stengel von Rutkowski. A hiker between nature and spirit. Loßburg 1992, ISBN 3-927932-61-2 .
• Andreas Mettenleiter : Testimonials, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements III (I – Z). In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 269-305, here: p. 295.
• Paul Weindling : "Mustergau" Thuringia. Racial hygiene between ideology and power politics. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era (= series of quarterly issues for contemporary history, special issue). R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 81-97, here: pp. 93-96.
• Carola L. Gottzmann , Petra Hörner: Lexicon of the German-language literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019338-1 , p. 1246-1247 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Schaul Baumann: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-927165-91-3 , p. 173.
2. ↑ Stefan Breuer: The Völkische in Germany . Darmstadt 2008, p. 212.
3. ↑ Primary source: Bundesnachrichtenblatt der DAG, WS 1928/29, No. 3, incorporated in the secondary source Helmut Kellershohn: In “Service to the National Socialist Revolution” - The German Guild and its relationship to National Socialism. In: Yearbook of the Archives of the German Youth Movement , Volume 19 (1999–2004), Wochenschau Verlag 2004, DISS Internet version, p. 17.
4. ↑ Uwe Hoßfeld: Racial studies and racial hygiene at the University of Jena in the Third Reich. In: Karen Bayer, Frank Sparing, Wolfgang Woelk (Hrsg.): Universities and colleges during National Socialism and in the early post-war period. Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 212.
5. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt a. M. 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 , p. 601 f.
6. ^ Klee: Personenlexikon , p. 602.
7. ^ Paul Weindling : Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945. Cambridge University Press, New York 1993, ISBN 052142397X , p. 498.
8. ↑ Uwe Hoßfeld: Racial studies and racial hygiene at the University of Jena in the Third Reich. In: Karen Bayer, Frank Sparing Wolfgang Woelk (ed.): Universities and colleges during National Socialism and in the early post-war period. Steiner Verlag, 2004, p. 213.
9. ↑ Gerd Simon: "Art, Auslese, Ausmerze ..." etc. A previously unknown dictionary company from the SS main office in the context of the Weltanschauungslexika of the 3rd Reich. Society for Interdisciplinary Research, Tübingen 2000, p. 47.
10. ↑ Ulrich Nanko: The German Faith Movement . Marburg 1993, p. 147.
11. ↑ Detlef Brandes : "Umvolkung, Umsiedlung, racial inventory" - Nazi "Volkstumsppolitik" in the Bohemian countries . Oldenbourg, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-71242-1 , pp. 232-234, 305.
12. ↑ Klaus-Michael Kodalle: Homo perfectus? Disability and human existence. Königshausen & Neumann, 2004, p. 89.
13. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-w.html ; http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html
14. ↑ Berlin Document Center (BDC), files from Lothar Stengel-von Rutkowski in the Federal Archives, cited in Rasse, Siedlung, Deutsches Blut. Isabel Heinemann, Wallstein Verlag 2003, p. 638. Also in Hubert Cancik and Uwe Puschner: Anti-Semitism, Paganism, Voelkish Religion. Saur, 2004, p. 155.
15. ↑ HR2 radio feature Die Vergessenen von Hadamar , August 30, 2013 (see also link to manuscript 13-105) ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.