Marianne Turk

Marianne Türk (born May 31, 1914 in Vienna ; † January 11, 2003 there ) was an Austrian pediatrician who was involved in crimes involving child euthanasia .

Life

In 1939, after studying medicine, Türk began her service at the Am Steinhof institution in Vienna. She first worked in the drinking sanctuary from July 1939, but wanted to work as a pediatrician and therefore moved to the newly founded, notorious Viennese children's department " Am Spiegelgrund " in early 1941 . During her interrogation at the Vienna People's Court on October 16, 1945, the doctor stated that she was neither interested in politics nor belonged to a political organization.

Preparations for the systematic registration and extermination of disabled children had been in progress since the spring of 1939. For this purpose, the “ Chancellery of the Führer ” in Berlin set up a separate front organization, the Reich Committee for the scientific recording of serious genetic and genetic diseases . On August 18, 1939, a secret circular ordered doctors and midwives to report all cases of “idiocy” and various “deformities” to the health authorities. This initiated the referral of those affected to camouflaged killing centers, so-called “children's departments”, of which at least 30 existed throughout the Reich.

The Viennese children's department was established in July 1940 on the site of the Am Steinhof sanatorium and from 1942 it became an independent institution as the Viennese municipal mental hospital for children Am Spiegelgrund . The prison doctors (director Erwin Jekelius , his successor Ernst Illing , Heinrich Gross , Marianne Türk, Margarethe Hübsch ) examined the children with sometimes excruciating methods and reported them to Berlin if they were likely to be killed. There three T4 experts decided on their fate. Once the authorization to kill had been received in Vienna, the children were poisoned with high-dose sleeping pills until they died of pneumonia or another infectious disease. Some of the children were also used for deadly experiments. Of the children registered, those judged to be “fit for work”, those who were picked up by their parents and those who had fled on vacation survived. The murder of the "unworthy of life" children often took place before an answer had arrived from Berlin. According to Türk, she herself burned parts of the correspondence, “namely the notices from Berlin and copies of reports relating to the Berlin order.” Unsuspecting documents remained in the files.

Between August 25, 1940 and June 3, 1945, at least 789 children and young people died at Spiegelgrund. According to Ernst Illing, between 33 and 50% of these were deliberately killed by the medical staff. Türk put the number of children killed at seven to ten per month. Mostly Illing only gave the instructions to Marianne Türk, who then informed the nurses. They then administered the medication.

“I would like to note that […] there is nothing about euthanasia in any of the medical records, nowhere is there any hint in this direction, as we were not allowed to do this for easily understandable reasons. In this respect, where euthanasia has actually occurred, the medical history appears to be falsified. In very many cases, the immediate cause of death was pneumonia, which occurred as a result of intoxication. In the case histories, of course, only pneumonia appears. The correspondence with the Reich Committee in Berlin resulted in euthanasia in every single case, but this correspondence was destroyed by order of Berlin when the Russians marched in. "

- Interrogation of the accused Türk on March 12, 1946 (DÖW E 18282).

The stereotypical comments in the medical records are striking: after the child has been reported to the Reich Committee, the comment is usually that there has been no developmental progress, a few days later the occurrence of an infection, the deterioration in health and then death are recorded. Shortly before the death, so-called "bad reports" were sent to the parents, according to which the child's condition was "worrying". Then the parents received a death report stating the cause of death (mostly pneumonia) and the comforting suffix that the child had been “redeemed by a gentle death”.

Judicial processing after 1945

At the Vienna People's Court trial in 1945/1946, the doctor Marianne Türk confessed: “I also gave injections sometimes. I don't know how many children I have personally done it to. ”However, the court assessed Marianne Türk's certain dependence on her superior Illing as mitigating the penalty. Therefore, Ms. Türk received only a ten-year prison sentence, which should be tightened by a "hard camp quarterly". During her detention, she made several requests for clemency. After she was declared incapable of imprisonment because of her poor health, there was a temporary suspension of execution on parole on December 23, 1948. She was finally released from serving the remainder of the sentence in July 1952 by the Federal President Theodor Körner . After her release from prison, Türk did not return to the medical profession because, in her own words, she “no longer dared to do so”. In 1957, following a resolution by a professorship at the University of Vienna, her title of "Doctor of Medicine", which had been revoked in the process, was restored; she worked as a saleswoman in a herbalist until she retired.

Remembering victims

Stumbling block for Rosemarie Daxer in Salzburg

In Salzburg, there is a stumbling block at Griesgasse 8 that reminds us of Rosemarie Daxer. She was born out of wedlock to a domestic servant on February 1, 1942, and was housed in the Marianum when she was two weeks old . At the request of the Salzburg Governor Gustav Adolf Scheel , she was admitted to the Am Spiegelgrund institution. After the admission examinations by Ernst Illing , she was reported by Marianne Türk to the Reich Committee for the Scientific Assessment of Hereditary and Constitutional Diseases on August 10, 1943 , and died two days later (the official cause of death was "pneumonia").

literature

• Gerhard Fürstler, Peter Malina: "I was only doing my job ": On the history of nursing in Austria. Facultas Verlag, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85076-619-5 .
• Lukas Vörös: Child and youth euthanasia at the time of National Socialism at Spiegelgrund in Vienna. Vienna 2004, diploma thesis.

Web links

• City and State Archives Vienna: Systematic murder - child murder on Spiegelgrund

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Child euthanasia and forced upbringing on de.doew.braintrust.at
2. ↑ City and State Archives Vienna: Systematic Murder - Kindermord am Spiegelgrund ( Memento of the original from December 5, 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. 
3. ↑ Walter Meyr: From the swastika to the honor cross . In: Der Spiegel , edition 12/2000 of March 20, 2000, pp. 181f.
4. ^ Judgment with justification against Illing u. a .; DÖW 4974.
5. ↑ Act against Illing u. a., part 3; DÖW 4974.
6. ↑ Gerhard Fürstler, Peter Malina: "I only did my service": On the history of nursing in Austria. , Vienna 2004, p. 326.
7. ↑ Stolpersteine ​​Salzburg [1]