Ludwig Schmidt (physician)

Georg Ludwig Schmidt , mostly listed as Ludwig Schmidt or Ludwig Schmidt-Kehl (* July 1, 1891 in Kehl ; † October 24, 1941 near Moscow ), was a German racial hygienist , doctor, party politician (NSDAP) and university professor during the Nazi era . He also headed the Racial Political Office of the Main Franconian Gauleitung .

Life

Ludwig Schmidt, who later named himself Schmidt-Kehl after his place of birth, was the son of pioneer lieutenant and later pulp manufacturer Georg Ludwig Schmidt. After completing his school career in Strasbourg with the final exam in 1908, he studied medicine at the universities of Strasbourg , Freiburg im Breisgau , Kiel and Munich until 1913 . While still a student, he joined the Freiburg Racial Hygiene Society in 1911 . After his medical internship at the Physiological Institute in Freiburg im Breisgau, he was awarded the title summa cum laude as a doctor in July 1914 with the dissertation quantitative investigations on the division of functions in the visual organ. med. PhD . During the First World War (1914-1918) he took part continuously as a volunteer as a battalion and company doctor on the western front and was u. a. In 1915 he was awarded the Iron Cross II. Class and the Order of the Zähringer Lion, II. Class. He was captured by the British on September 14, 1918, from which he was released in January 1919.

He then attended physical lectures at the University of Vienna in the summer semester of 1919 and then worked as a volunteer assistant at the Physiological Institute in Halle an der Saale (October 1919 to June 1920) and at the Hygiene Institutes in Tübingen (August 1920 to March 1921) and until 1924 Freiburg active. On January 1, 1925, he moved to the Hygiene Institute at the University of Würzburg , where he was employed as a scientific assistant under Karl Bernhard Lehmann . His habilitation followed in March 1927 with the writing Blood turnover in chronic lead poisoning . On December 3, 1930 Schmidt was appointed associate professor at the University of Würzburg. Up to this point he had dealt with physiological and hygienic examinations, now his research focus was on racial hygiene and in the winter semester of 1931/1932 he held lectures such as The Culture of the West and Human Biology in Their Mutual Relationships for the first time .

time of the nationalsocialism

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , Schmidt ended his work at the Würzburg Hygiene Institute at the beginning of September 1933 and was given a teaching position for "Race and Hereditary Care" at the University of Würzburg. Ludwig Schmidt, referred to as "Rassen-Schmidt" by the rector of the University of Würzburg, Seifert , was in charge of the NSDAP's office for race politics, created by him for the Main Franconia Gau, and was a medical assessor at the Würzburg Hereditary Health Court . On October 28, 1933, he had joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) , in which he held the rank of Rottenführer and from which he left in 1938. On September 1, 1934 he joined the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) , on 1 April 1936 the National Socialist Teachers' Federation (NSLB) and on 1 May 1937, the NSDAP in. At the National Socialist German Lecturer Association (NSDDB) he was administrator of the Gaukasse. He was also a member of the Reich Working Group for Spatial Research ( Hochschulararbeitsgemeinschaft ) at the Würzburg University and, from 1936, the working group for rural communities at the Reichsnährstand .

On April 1, 1937, Schmidt took over after the intercession of the Ministerial Director Arthur Gütt , who granted him recognition as a “Racial Hygienist of the University of Würzburg” as early as 1935 (at the “International Congress for Population Science” from August 26 to September 1 in Berlin) had recommended, as an associate professor representing the Chair and Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg. In this function he was appointed by the Medical Faculty on August 1, 1939, at the suggestion of the SA-Obersturmbann doctor Seifert , as a scheduled extraordinary professor and director of the institute. An appointment as a personal professor suggested by Schmidt was expressly not supported by the medical faculty under the dean Hermann Groll (professor for pathology) in May 1937. Schmidt, a member of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association , was at the University of Würzburg from 1939 in the Racial Political Office, which was founded on April 1, 1937 and from May 10, 1939 - until 1942 together with the Racial Politics Office previously located at Ludwigstrasse 8 - in Klinikgasse 6 (in the so-called Welzhaus , which Schmidt had moved into in November 1938) housed the Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research (this institute was renamed the Racial Biology Institute in 1940 ).

Schmidt, the military training in the army graduated, made in 1938 as a member of an artillery division in the wake of the "Anschluss" of Austria and the Munich agreement on the invasion of Austria and the Sudetenland part. After the beginning of the Second World War , he was drafted into the army of the Wehrmacht on August 25, 1939 . From the beginning of September 1939 to December 1942, Schmidt's party colleague, the anthropologist and racial biologist Friedrich Keiter , took over the management of the Racial Biology Institute in Würzburg, until Günther Just Schmidt officially succeeded him as a professor. After the attack on the Soviet Union , Schmidt fell in Russia on October 24, 1941 while trying to save war wounded. (He was shot near Kalinin).

From 1931 he published on genetic biology, racial hygiene and population policy. In his writings z. B. in connection with the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring, his move from social to racial hygienist and exemplarily reflects the change from the welfare principle to racial selection under National Socialism:

“Social policy, hygiene and social hygiene , indeed civilization and culture in general, have unconsciously largely switched off natural selection and thus enabled the birth victories of the undesirable. The dangers inherent in this have recognized the aristocratic judgmental racial hygiene. Social policy, hygiene and social hygiene will and must always exist in a cultured people. But this activity must not continue to threaten the existence of the people. It would be inexpedient to continue working in the old sense and entrust racial hygienists with the subsequent care of avoiding harm. Rather, all and therefore all social hygiene work in the new Germany [...] must breathe the spirit of National Socialism ; but this spirit is directed to race . If the German people are to live, then individualism must be overcome, the welfare of the individual must no longer be in the foreground [...]. The work of the doctor will also have a different attitude; the individualistic salus aegroti [of the Weimar system time ] will only remain a guide for the doctor to the extent that it does not detract from the welfare of the whole: salus populi suprema lex. "

- Ludwig Schmidt-Kehl in the NSDÄB magazine “Ziel und Weg”, issue 4/1934, pp. 251f.

According to Wolfgang U. Eckart, the race hygienist Schmidt-Kehl, who is "rather insignificant", led within the framework of the Dr. Hellmuth Plan (the "construction plan" of Gauleiter Otto Hellmuth ) together with his colleagues (such as Kurt Brost) and doctoral students (such as the "eradicating “Bernhard Helming from Ahlde or Emil Pfister with his work on the Rhöndörfer Volkers and Speicherz) carried out hereditary studies on the Rhön population, which were published in 1936. The proceedings against Schmidt, who died on the Eastern Front in 1948, were discontinued on the grounds "that the person concerned, despite his position as Gauamtsleiter, would have been a pure scientist, but not a convinced National Socialist" and the "Gauamtsleiter [...] only dedicated to science and [...] had nothing to do with the party or the Gauleiter ”.

In the Soviet occupation zone , his writings Practical Population Policy in the Rhön (Triltsch, Würzburg 1936) and Changes in the Hereditary and Racial Structure of Two Rhön towns, 1700-1936 (Triltsch, Würzburg 1937) were placed on the list of literature to be excluded . Posthumously, by order of May 7, 1948, the Bavarian State Ministry for Special Tasks initiated denazification proceedings against the dead by Spruchkammer III Würzburg-Stadt against Schmidt-Kehl in August 1948 on the grounds that “the person concerned, despite his position as district chief, was a pure scientist, but not a convinced national soc. was ", set. Ludwig Schmidt was married and the couple had six children.

One of Schmidt's doctoral students was the Nazi doctor Ewald Wortmann .

Publications (selection)

• Quantitative determinations of the functional performance in the organ of vision. Medical dissertation Freiburg 1914.
• with Emil Abderhalden : Further contributions to the knowledge of organic nutrients with specific effects. In: Archives for the entire physiology of humans and animals. Volume 185, 1920, pp. 141-146.
• For assessing water supplies from the vicinity of cemeteries. In: Journal of Hygiene and Infectious Diseases. Volume 95, 1922, pp. 347-357.
• For industrial hygiene of the cotton spinning profession. In: Archives for Hygiene. Volume 94, 1923, pp. 105-135.
• with Ludwig Schneider and Hermann Zwilling: The typhus epidemic in the Bad Emmendingen sanctuary and nursing home and how to combat it. In: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry. Volume 98, 1925, pp. 283-296.
• The German factory nurse. Berlin 1926 (= writings from the entire area of ​​industrial hyfias. New series, volume 15).
• The conditions for the limits of man's work performance. In: Archives for Hygiene. Volume 100, 1928, pp. 226-244.
• with Cecilie Waskwitsch: The respiratory function of the blood in chronic and acute aniline poisoning. In: Archives for Hygiene and Bacteriology. Volume 102, 1929, pp. 192-201.
• The change of form of the sarzines. First message: constant appearance of gram-negative rods. In: Archives for Hygiene and Bacteriology. Volume 103, 1930, pp. 235-248.
• About the effect of the profession on the broad development of strong and weak young people. In: Archives for Hygieene. Volume 105, 1931, pp. 245-261.
• Reproduction, inheritance, degeneration - questions about the future of the German people. In: REVETA, 1932, pp. 45-48.
• On the reproduction of the inferior. Conditions in the countryside in Franconia. In: Munich Medical Weekly. Volume 80, 1933, pp. 1936-1938.
• About the procreation of the inferior. Conditions in francs. 2nd part: Conditions in Franconian cities. In: Munich Medical Weekly. Volume 81, 1934, pp. 640-642.
• The integration of the hereditary biologist in an economic plan. In: Writings from the Race Political Office of the NSDAP at the Gauleitung Mainfranken to the Dr. Hellmuth plan. Konrad Triltsch publishing house, Würzburg-Aumühle 1936. - Introductory lecture at the 1935 International Congress for Population Science in Berlin.
• Resume. Würzburg, March 7, 1937. Printed in: Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945 . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995, p. 50 f.
• Change in the hereditary and racial structure of two Rhön places. 1700-1936. In: Archives for population science (folklore) and population policy. Volume 7, 1937 (= writings from the Race Political Office of the NSDAP at the Gauleitung Mainfranken on the Dr. Hellmuth Plan. Volume 5), pp. 176–199.
• The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg. In: Würzburgewr University Almanac. 1938, pp. 77-80.
• Balance of reproduction: selection and counter-selection in the German people. In: Archives for Racial and Social Biology. Volume 33, 1939, pp. 111-126.
• with Friedrich Keiter: Racial studies on French prisoners of war. In: Journal for Racial Studies and all human research. Volume 14, 1943, pp. 30-43.

literature

• Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3; also dissertation Würzburg 1995), ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , pp. 8 f., 29–92 (especially pp. 47–92), p. 102 f. and 201 f.
• Ute Felbor: The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 11, 1993, pp. 155-173, here: pp. 155-163.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ludwig Schmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rhön Lexicon

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Würzburg 1995, p. 47 f.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ute Felbor: racial biology and heredity Science in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Würzburg 1937-1945. Würzburg 1995, p. 48.
3. ↑ Ute Felbor (1993), p. 162.
4. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 547.
5. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Würzburg 1995, p. 39 and 56 f.
6. ↑ Ute Felbor: The Institute for Hereditary Science and Race Research at the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 11, 1993, pp. 155-173, here: pp. 155-160.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ute Felbor: Racial biology and hereditary science in the medical faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, pp. 8 f., 31, 33, 35-37, 42, 51 and 197.
8. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 40.
9. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 294, 303.
10. ↑ Quoted in: Wolfgang U. Eckart: “If necessary using immediate compulsion”. Sterilization and euthanasia in the National Socialist extermination policy (lecture version). (Lecture on May 22, 2001 at the Documentation and Culture Center of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg), p. 7, online
11. ^ Wolfgang Uwe Eckart: Illustrated history of medicine. From the French Revolution to the present . Springer, Berlin 2011, p. 222.
12. ↑ Kurt Brost: Anthropological study of the Rhön population , presented in 1935 in Berlin.
13. ^ Bernhard Helming: Wargolshausen, a Main Franconian inbred village. Medical dissertation Würzburg 1937 (= writings from the Racial Political Office of the NSDAP at the Gauleitung Mainfranken on the Dr. Hellmuth Plan. Volume 12). Konrad Triltsch, Würzburg 1937.
14. ^ Emil Pfister: Volkers and Speicherz, two Rhöndörfer, from a racial point of view. Medical dissertation Würzburg 1937 (= writings from the Racial Political Office of the NSDAP at the Gauleitung Mainfranken on the Dr. Hellmuth Plan. Volume 15).
15. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Würzburg 1995, pp. 33, 58 f., 63, 66 f. and 70-79.
16. ^ University of Würzburg: Archives of the Rectorate and Senate, Schmidt personal file. , No. 181.
17. ↑ Ute Felbor (1993), p. 162 (cited).
18. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html
19. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Würzburg 1995, p. 56.
20. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Würzburg 1995, pp. 87-89.
21. ↑ Ewald Wortmann: Population movement of a Schleswig-Holstein village ‹Eddelak in Dithmarschen›. Medical dissertation in Würzburg 1937.
22. ↑ Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. 1995, p. 58 f.