Max Eyrich

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Max Theodor Eyrich (born March 22, 1897 in Stetten am kalten Markt , † November 5, 1962 in Stuttgart ) was a German doctor , psychiatrist and racial theorist . During the Nazi era , he served as Regional Youth physician at State Youth Welfare Office Württemberg-Hohenzollern to the euthanasia murders and the deportation württembergischer Sinti children involved.

biography

After graduating from high school in 1915, the doctor's son Eyrich began studying medicine at the University of Tübingen . However, he had to interrupt his studies after two semesters, since he was drafted into military service during the First World War . After the end of the war he continued his studies in Tübingen in 1919 and then in Munich , where he finally passed the medical state examination in 1922.

After his promotion to Doctor of Medicine in 1923, he graduated from the Medizinalpraktikum, partly due to the Department of mentals and nervous diseases in Tübingen , where he then until 1929 under Robert Gaupp worked as a medical assistant. He completed specialist training in psychiatry and during this time also treated children several times.

In 1924 he married the doctor Hedwig Eyrich , who brought him to child and adolescent psychiatry . As an employee of the municipal health department in Stuttgart, she was also actively involved in the euthanasia murders.

Until 1933 Max Eyrich worked as a senior physician in the Bonn Provincial Children's Institution for Mentally Abnormalities , and from April 1, 1933 as a "neurologist advisor for welfare education" and state youth doctor in Stuttgart . In this function he was promoted to the Upper Government Medical Council. His wife, however, had to due to the staff reduction regulation to leave their jobs temporarily.

The Eyrich family was close to National Socialism . From the beginning of 1940 Eyrich was inaugurated in " Aktion T4 " and, together with Otto Mauthe, had the task of recording and selecting the patients for Aktion T4.

Eyrich was a member of the Gau Health Council and had been a member of the NSDAP since 1940 . He joined the National Socialist Medical Association in 1941.

Eyrich as a state youth doctor

As a state youth doctor at the State Welfare Association - State Youth Welfare Office - Württemberg-Hohenzollern, Eyrich orientated himself largely on the views of the racial scientist Robert Ritter and continued the "research work" started by him in southern Germany. Eyrich saw his job as a state youth doctor in being the "genetic sieve of this youth" ( Eyrich ).

At the "Württemberg Institute Conference" on November 8, 1938, Dr. Eyrich gave a lecture entitled "Welfare Children - Hereditary Biology" . The conference served to announce the so-called home decree . It says, among other things:

"The allocation of each pupil to the individual groups takes place here on the basis of an opinion from the state youth doctor who works full-time in the state youth welfare office."

- Decree of the Württemberg Minister of the Interior of November 7, 1938 (file number IX 1418)

Because of the home adoption of Württemberg "were Gypsy children " and "gypsy-like children" separated from their parents and first in Catholic children's home St. Joseph Care in Mulfingen contracted, where in 1943 the race Kund activist Eva Justin served as "research subjects" for her doctoral thesis. The Sinti children from Mulfingen were then deported to the Auschwitz gypsy camp and gassed on August 3, 1944 .

Post-war period and "Grafeneck trial"

After the end of the Second World War , Eyrich was interned by the American occupation forces for a year .

In the so-called Grafeneck trial , which began as part of the euthanasia trials on June 8, 1949 at Hohentübingen Castle , Eyrich was charged with participating in the murder of 10,654 “mentally ill” patients in the course of Operation T4. Otto Mauthe, Alfons Stegmann , Martha Fauser as well as two detectives and two former nurses were on trial with him . All other participants could not be found. On July 5, 1949, the Tübingen jury court sentenced Mauthe to five years' imprisonment and the two prison doctors Stegmann and Fauser to 24 and 18 months, respectively. The other defendants, among them Eyrich, were acquitted.

After advocacy, among others, by the psychiatrist and Tübingen university professor Ernst Kretschmer , Eyrich was able to resume his work as a state youth doctor in 1950. In 1950 he took part in the founding assembly of the German Association for Youth Psychiatry (DVJ).

See also

Fonts

  • School failure: vital causes of intellectual performance and Educational weaknesses . Curative educational series. Neckar-Verlag, Villingen / Black Forest, 1963.

literature

  • R. Castell, J. Nedoschill, M. Rupps, D. Bussiek: History of child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-525-46174-7 .
  • Johannes Meister: The "gypsy children" from St. Josefspflege in Mulfingen. In: 1999. Journal for Social History of the 20th and 21st Century. No. 2, 1987, pp. 195ff. ( Digitized version ( memento of February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); PDF; 677 kB).
  • LG Tübingen, July 5, 1949 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966. Vol. V, No. 155, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . University Press, Amsterdam 1970, pp. 87-123 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg , module "Euthanasia"
  2. ^ Karl-Horst Marquart, Elke Martin: Erich Ruthardt - assigned to the Eichberg sanatorium for the murder by the Stuttgart health department.
  3. ↑ Frank Köhnlein: Between therapeutic innovation and social selection. The establishment of the “Children's Department of the Mental Clinic” in Tübingen under Robert Gaupp and its development up to 1930 as a contribution to the early history of university child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany . Neuried 2001.
  4. ^ A b Rolf Castell et al .: History of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Germany from 1937 to 1961 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 143.
  6. ↑ Hans-Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, Matthias Schwerendt: Racial hygiene as an educational ideology of the Third Reich. Bio-bibliographical manual , Berlin 2006, p. 372.
  7. ↑ Decree on the reorganization of the welfare system, in particular the home education of November 7, 1938, file number IX 1418. Main State Archives Stuttgart, E 151/09 Bü 442 ( digitized ).
  8. ↑ quoted from Meister: The “Gypsy Children” from St. Josefspflege in Mulfingen. P. 197
  9. ↑ “Grafeneck Trial” on “Euthanasia” digitized at the Sigmaringen State Archives
personal data
SURNAME Eyrich, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eyrich, Max Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Stetten am kalten Markt
DATE OF DEATH 5th November 1962
Place of death Stuttgart