Max Bräuner

Max Bräuner (born September 6, 1882 in Karlsruhe , † December 9, 1966 in Lüneburg ) was a German psychiatrist who was involved in euthanasia crimes as the director of the state sanatorium and nursing home in Lüneburg during the Nazi era .

Life

Bräuner, son of a postal director, grew up in Göttingen . He completed his secondary school education to a medical school and received in 1908 his license to practice medicine and doctorate Dr. med. From 1909, after his medical internship at the state sanatorium and nursing home in Lüneburg, he worked as an assistant doctor and from April 1911 as a department doctor. He took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 as a military doctor. After the end of the war, he returned to the state sanatorium and nursing home in Lüneburg, where he was promoted to senior physician in 1921 and deputy director in April 1927.

After the National Socialists came to power , he joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 . He was also a member of the Nazi Medical Association and the NSV . Bräuner was promoted to senior medical officer and was director of the state sanatorium and nursing home in Lüneburg from January 1935 to September 1945. From 1938 to 1944 he was the district commissioner for the race policy office of the NSDAP in Lüneburg city. He was also a judge at the Hereditary Health Court . During the Second World War he did not have to do military service due to an indispensable position. In October 1941 he had a children's department (euphemistic for murder department) set up in the state sanatorium and nursing home in Lüneburg , which was headed by Willi Baumert . After Baumert was drafted into the Waffen-SS in September 1944 , Bräuner took over the management of the department in personal union until April 1945. Between 1941 and 1945, Bräuner and Baumert had over 300 mentally ill and physically handicapped children murdered using luminal and morphine doses as part of child euthanasia .

Before the occupation of Lüneburg by British troops, Bräuner destroyed all incriminating documents. In September 1945 he was released from his medical functions and finally retired in 1949. From 1946 to 1949 he had to answer for “ crimes against humanity ” in a trial in Hanover , which was discontinued for lack of evidence. In the trial of Hans Hefelmann on November 30, 1961, Bräuner admitted his involvement in the infanticide.

On March 3, 1966, Bräuner was released from prosecution by the Lüneburg district court because he was unable to stand trial .

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Dr. Max Bräuner  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 69.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Nazi euthanasia using the example of the children's department of the State Medical and Nursing Institution Lüneburg  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on archived copy ( memento of the original from March 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
4. ↑ Step21 (ed.): The Unprinted. Nazi doctors murdered children in Lüneburg - everyone knew it, but the public voice was silent  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: [Weisse Flecken], January 2006 edition, p. 10.  
5. ↑ Train of Memory: The murderers were among us. "A good comrade: Professionally capable and impeccable in his lifestyle"