Max de Crinis

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Maximinian Friedrich Alexander de Crinis , called Max de Crinis (born May 29, 1889 in Ehrenhausen near Graz , † May 2, 1945 in Stahnsdorf near Berlin ) was an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist . In the National Socialist German Reich he was full professor and director of the Cologne University Neurological Clinic and the Charité Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic in Berlin. He was SS-Standartenführer and as a ministerial advisor for medical issues in the Office of Science of the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Public Education involved in the preparation and implementation of the Nazi murders .

Live and act

Origin and studies

Maximinian de Crinis was born on May 29, 1889 in Ehrenhausen near Graz, the son of a doctor. From 1895 to 1899 he attended elementary school in his place of birth and from 1899 to 1907 the kk II. Staatsgymnasium in Graz. De Crinis, described as ambitious and hardworking, converted from the Catholic to the Evangelical Church in 1907. His mother Marie b. Bullmann died on January 13, 1929.

De Crinis also studied medicine like his father . Study locations were Graz and Innsbruck . In 1908 he became a member of the Corps Joannea . In 1912 he was promoted to Dr. med. PhD . For a neurological-psychiatric training he stayed as an assistant at the local university neurological clinic. During the First World War , on January 29, 1916, he became a Landsturm assistant doctor and psychiatric expert at the military court in Graz. In particular, he devoted himself to research into war neuroses . In 1916 de Crinis married the one year younger actress Lili Anna Szikora.

Professional background

On May 1, 1918, de Crinis was appointed senior physician. In 1920 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on the involvement of the humoral life processes of the human organism in epileptic seizures. At the end of October he received his habilitation certificate. He was appointed associate professor for psychiatry and neuropathology in Graz on July 30, 1924, and was appointed full professor in 1927.

Political orientation

Grew up in the area of ​​the south-eastern German language border of the Austro-Hungarian multi-ethnic state , de Crinis had a pronounced German national attitude. He had already joined a German nationalist corporation during his student days. After the end of the First World War he was active in the Greater German People's Party , which was committed to the formation of a Greater German Empire. In 1918 he was in a volunteer corps and also belonged to the Styrian Homeland Security , which fought against the separation of Lower Styria from post-war Austria . In 1927 this movement formed its first combat community with the Austrian NSDAP .

Already in 1931 the anti-Semitic de Crinis joined the NSDAP ( membership number 688.247). His political activities led to his arrest on May 22, 1934. After the National Socialist coup in Austria and the murder of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss on July 25, 1934, de Crinis fled to Germany.

Director of the University Psychiatric Clinic in Cologne

In Cologne he was appointed full professor of psychiatry and neurology as the successor to Gustav Aschaffenburg , who had been dismissed as a Jew, and with a certificate of appointment dated October 9, 1934, he was retrospectively appointed director of the University Psychiatric Clinic . Associated with his appointment as a Prussian civil servant was the acquisition of Prussian citizenship and thus also German citizenship. His appointment to Cologne was enforced by the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education against the vote of the faculty. This had asserted deficits in the scientific practice of de Crinis in the field of psychiatry, which was the focus of the vacant position. Ministerialrat Daniel Achelis disregarded this in a letter dated July 6, 1937 with the following argument and proposed him for the replacement:

“De Crienies [sic] was a National Socialist and for this reason lost his chair in Graz. His importance as a scientist is sufficient for a psychiatric chair. "

Scientific activities

In his role as clinic director and full professor, de Crinis was able to distinguish himself for the first time in Germany through his racial hygiene and eugenic activities. From November 1934 until he moved to Berlin in 1938, he headed the Nazi lecturers' association at Cologne University. He served as an advisory board to the Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists , which was founded in 1935 . He was an expert at the Cologne Hereditary Health Court .

De Crinis continued his scientific career through histopathological and histochemical work. He published a treatise on the anatomy of the auditory cortex in 1934. He also became known for the development of a special form of brain cell fixation. Brain punctures, which he later carried out in connection with his research on brain tumors , can be seen as "questionable human experiments". De Crinis was also involved in a project of the German Research Foundation for the biological detection of internal secretory disorders in schizophrenia . According to his thesis, he attributed mental illness to protein decay toxicoses. From 1940 de Crinis also dealt with human facial expression. The number of his published scientific papers in the field of neuropathology, neurophysiology, neurology and psychiatry finally reached 60.

Membership in the SS

De Crinis joined the SS (SS-No. 276.171) in 1936. On February 18 of the same year he was appointed SS-Untersturmführer and on April 20, 1937 promoted to SS-Obersturmführer and on September 11, 1938 to SS-Hauptsturmführer. He became an SS Standartenführer in 1942.

De Crinis had close contacts with the security service of the SS (SD) and was friends with Reinhard Heydrich , the boss, and Walter Schellenberg as the head of Office IV E (Defense) of the Reich Security Main Office . The latter describes him in his memoirs as a “fatherly friend”, in whose house he “frequented like a son”. He was "a tall, elegant figure, politically versed and of considerable general education". As a person he trusted, Schellenberg included de Crinis in the company known as the Venlo Incident , where he accompanied Schellenberg to Holland on October 29, 1939.

In the service of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS

As a consulting psychiatrist, de Crinis was active as early as 1937 at Military District Doctor III. In the mob case , the dealings with the expected victims such as war tremors , hysterics, neurotics but also with conscientious objectors and homosexuals were discussed. In 1939 he worked as an advisory army psychiatrist in Berlin.

For his outstanding service for the Wehrmacht de Crinis was on 1 February 1941 Oberfeldarzt and 1 December 1942, "according to Decree of the Chief of the Army" to Colonel doctor appointed. In 1939 he received the Iron Cross II. And I. Class and in 1941 the medal for German people care . In 1943 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Scholar Academy .

From October 1944, de Crinis was appointed supreme advisory army psychiatrist and headed the Institute for General Psychiatry and Defense Psychology of the Military Medical Academy . As a consulting psychiatrist, he also worked for the Army Medical Inspector (as the successor to Colonel Doctor Otto Wuth ) and for the Waffen SS from 1942.

Full professor and director of the Charité Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic in Berlin

With the retirement of Karl Bonhoeffer in 1938, the ordinariate and the management of the Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic of the Charité in Berlin became free. Bonhoeffer had not succeeded in arranging his successor in good time by presenting a candidate capable of consensus. The faculty and ministry had different ideas about this. Just like Bonhoeffer, the faculty was negative about de Crinis' candidacy. The Dean and Director of the First Medical University Clinic of the Charité, Richard Siebeck , spoke to the Ministry as follows:

“His achievements in the field of psychiatry obviously do not match his exemplary personality and his political commitment. He mainly dealt with physiological-chemical and purely brain-anatomical studies, but hardly worked in the actual field of psychiatry. His work on the structure and breakdown of the cerebral functions and their anatomical basis are strongly contested. [...] As much as I value de Crinis personally, after extensive inquiries I cannot convince myself that as a psychiatrist he would be up to the demands of the local clinic. "

The inquiries addressed by Siebeck consisted of a survey of all specialist colleagues at German universities. This resulted in de Crinis' name being mentioned only twice. The only specialist representative who spoke out in favor of him was Carl Schneider from Heidelberg , who later played a key role in the National Socialist murders as a T4 expert .

But just as before in Cologne, the Ministry, not least encouraged by the strong support from the Nazi lecturers, prevailed against the faculty and appointed de Crinis as Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology and Director of the on November 1, 1938 Charité mental hospital.

Consultant at the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education

In 1939 de Crinis became a member of the board of trustees of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research . In the following year, Minister Bernhard Rust appointed him on January 1, 1940, to succeed Ernst Bach , who took over an ordinariate in Marburg and had made a decisive contribution to the appointment of de Crini to Berlin. While retaining his posts as university professor and clinic director, de Crinis was appointed to the ministry as a consultant for medical issues. In this function, he was also able to express himself as subject-specific, with appropriate weight, on problems relating to medical training and the related questions of appointment. Close technical cooperation took place with the Reich Health Leader of the NSDAP and State Secretary for Health in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Leonardo Conti . There were also contacts with the Reich doctor Ernst-Robert Grawitz . In 1944 he also served on the advisory board of the authorized representative for health care Karl Brandt .

For his services to the National Socialist movement, de Crinis was awarded the Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP .

After the controversial "England flight" of the Führer deputy Rudolf Hess on May 10, 1941, de Crinis was commissioned with the preparation of a psychiatric report to support the politically opportune diagnosis of "mental illness". On behalf of Walter Schellenberg, shortly before the end of the war, he is said to have also assessed the state of health of Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler - certainly without examining those named. He had diagnosed Hitler with Parkinson's disease , as he explained in a conversation with Count Folke Bernadotte in early 1945 ; however, a medical opinion for impeachment in favor of Himmler was rejected.

Participation in the planning of the National Socialist murders of the sick and handicapped

As the most influential National Socialist in the structure of German psychiatry, Max de Crinis was one of the protagonists of the National Socialist murders of the sick and handicapped, as they were realized in the child “euthanasia” , the T4 campaign and the subsequent decentralized “ Aktion Brandt ”. Although he did not have an official position in the planning and organization of the murders of the sick and the handicapped, his decisive role can be proven due to his position and also from the correspondence still preserved on "Aktion Brandt". The Charité files in this regard were partially destroyed by the then Medical Director Friedrich Hall after the end of the war.

For the organizational and technical preparation of the first phase of adult “euthanasia” (Action T4), a group of selected psychiatrists was established who met on August 10, 1939 in Berlin, alongside the other main actors such as Philipp Bouhler , Viktor Brack and Hans Hefelmann , Herbert Linden , Karl Brandt , Werner Heyde , Carl Schneider , Hans Heinze also belonged to de Crinis. The tasks of this group also included the recruitment of suitable “specialist staff”. At a meeting in Berlin at the beginning of February 1940, invited doctors were to be won over as experts for Aktion T4. According to the later T4 expert Friedrich Mennecke , de Crinis was also part of this recruiting committee:

"[...] Then we were asked whether we were willing to participate as sub-reviewers [...]. The individual was not asked, but in the circle as we sat, more in the open colloquium, this whole topic was dealt with. Mainly the older gentlemen took part in this colloquium, Professor Nietzsche [Nitsche dV] and Faltlhauser, then a gentleman whose name I no longer remember, but who may have been Professor Dekrinis [de Crinis dV] from Berlin. I don't know him personally, and the résumé of this colloquium was that, under these circumstances, one could participate and support these measures. No one has raised concerns about the measures. [...] "

There is written evidence of de Crinis' involvement in the second phase of the “euthanasia” murders. On August 25, 1943, the medical director of the T4 organization, Hermann Paul Nitsche, contacted de Crinis as follows:

"As far as our action with Prof. Br. [Brandt dV] is concerned, [...] he gave me, through Mr. Blankenburg, the authorization to proceed in the sense of the E. [euthanasia dV] proposal I made to him."

On October 30, 1943, Nitsche wrote again to de Crinis:

"You remember that when we were both with him at the end of June, I made a very specific suggestion on the E question to Prof. Br."

With Brandt's approval, Nitsche set up a meeting with selected psychiatrists on August 17, 1943, at which the decentralized killing of the sick by injecting overdosed drugs was determined. The number of killings was left to the discretion of the local prison doctors.

De Crinis' important role in planning and carrying out the murders is believed to have been assured. He is known as the “gray eminence” of the “euthanasia” organization. and as a contact person to the other Reich authorities. De Crinis is also said to have been involved in the draft of Hitler's authorization letter of September 1, 1939 and the deliberations on a (failed) “euthanasia law”. The ongoing killings as part of child “euthanasia” were certainly also known to him.

Thomas Beddies from the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Center for Human and Health Sciences at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin comes to the following conclusion:

"Ultimately, it cannot be doubted that de Crinis, through his numerous functions and offices and also through personal contacts, was comprehensively informed about the killing of the sick and also about the medical crimes in the concentration camps and was also involved."

According to the compulsory Alsatian surgeon Adolphe Jung , who was Ferdinand Sauerbruch's private assistant between 1942 and 1945 , de Crinis told Sauerbruch on February 15, 1945 that the SS had killed a total of 8,000 prisoners in a concentration camp near Berlin.

End of war and death

On April 21, 1945, De Crinis went one last time to his clinic, which had been relocated to Berlin-Buch, and then awaited the invasion of the Red Army in his villa on Wannsee. On May 1, 1945, he and his wife tried to break through the west front in his car. However, the attempt failed on the Teltow Canal . De Crinis and his wife then committed suicide together on May 2, 1945 by carrying cyanide with them.

De Crinis was buried on August 18, 1945 in the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf near Berlin. Together with 1,112 victims of tyranny, he was reburied in 1995 for unknown reasons at the Stahnsdorf facility for the "victims of war and tyranny". In the meantime, however, following protests, the state of Berlin decided to reverse de Crinis' relocation.

Awards

Publications

  • (with Hermann Pfeiffer): On the etiology and pathogenesis of certain psychoneuroses . 1913.

literature

  • Götz Aly (ed.): Aktion T4 1939–1945. The “euthanasia” center at Tiergartenstrasse 4. Hentrich, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-926175-66-4 .
  • Hinrich Jasper: Maximinian de Crinis (1889-1945). A study on psychiatry under National Socialism (= treatises on the history of medicine and the natural sciences. Vol. 63). Matthiesen, Husum 1991, ISBN 3-7868-4063-6 (with references).
  • Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 .
  • Ernst Klee: Max de Crinis. In: Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
  • Volker Klimpel: Doctors' deaths. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-2769-8 .
  • Alexander Mitscherlich , Fred Mielke: Medicine without humanity. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-596-22003-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary. In:  Grazer Tagblatt / Grazer Tagblatt. Organ of the German People's Party for the Alpine countries / Neues Grazer Tagblatt / Neues Grazer Morgenblatt. Morning edition of the Neues Grazer Tagblatt / Neues Grazer Abendblatt. Evening edition of the Neue Grazer Tagblatt / (Süddeutsches) Tagblatt with the illustrated monthly “Bergland” , January 15, 1929, p. 13 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / gtb
  2. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 50 , 144
  3. ^ Ordinance sheet for the k. k. Landwehr No. 1 [5 . ] In:  foreigners sheet of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet and tag news of the imperial and royal capital Vienna / foreigner sheet / foreigner sheet with vedette / foreigner sheet with military supplement Die Vedette , 29. January 1916, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / fdb
  4. ↑ Monographs from the entire field of neurology and psychiatry, Issue 22, Springer, Berlin 1920.
  5. ↑ Official part. In:  Wiener Zeitung , August 26, 1924, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz
  6. ^ Archives of the Humboldt University: Personal files Max de Crinis, Volume 110, quoted from Thomas Beddies: University Psychiatry in the Third Reich. The Charité Mental Clinic under Karl Bonhoeffer and Maximinian de Crinis  ( 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. .@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.charite.de  
  7. ↑ Jasper, pp. 68f.
  8. ↑ Maximinian de Crinis: The human facial expression and its diagnostic meaning. Leipzig 1942.
  9. ↑ See Klimpel, p. 56.
  10. ^ Walter Schellenberg: Notes: The memoirs of the last chief of the secret service under Hitler. Limes, 1979, ISBN 3-8090-2138-5 , p. 79 ff.
  11. ^ Walter Schellenberg: The Venlo incident.
  12. ↑ Peter Koblank: The Venlo incident , online edition Mythos Elser 2006.
  13. ^ Archives of the Humboldt University: Personal files Karl Bonhoeffer, Volume 2, Sheet 15, quoted from Thomas Beddies: University Psychiatry in the Third Reich. The Charité Mental Clinic under Karl Bonhoeffer and Maximinian de Crinis  ( 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. .@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.charite.de  
  14. ^ Maximinian de Crinis (1889-1945).  ( 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. Exposé by Klaus-Jürgen Neumärker@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.langenacht-suedwestkirchhof.de  
  15. ↑ The last days of the Third Reich . In: Neue Steierische Zeitung . No. 110 , October 3, 1945, p. 1 ( ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online [accessed June 2, 2020]).
  16. ↑ The last days of the Third Reich . In: Neue Steierische Zeitung . No. 111 , October 4, 1945, p. 3 ( ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online [accessed June 2, 2020]).
  17. ^ Ernst Günther Schenck : Patient Hitler. A medical biography. Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-7700-0776-X , pp. 414f., 436.
  18. ↑ Uwe Gerrens: Medical Ethos and Theological Ethics: Karl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the dispute over forced sterilization and "euthanasia" under National Socialism. Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag 1996, ISBN 3-486-64573-0 , p. 18, note 62.
  19. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl: Racial hygiene, National Socialism, euthanasia. From prevention to the destruction of “life unworthy of life” 1890–1945. Göttingen 1987/1992, p. 191.
  20. ^ Statement by Friedrich Mennecke in the public session in the so-called "Eichberg Trial" on December 2, 1946, quoted from Klee: "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state. P. 119.
  21. ↑ Federal Archives Koblenz, de Crinis and Nitsche personnel files, quoted from Aly Aktion T4. P. 172.
  22. ↑ Dörner, Ebbinghaus, Linne (ed.): The Nürnberger Ärzteprocess 1946/47. Verbal transcripts, prosecution and defense material, sources on the environment. Munich 2000, volume p. 87.
  23. ↑ Winfried Suss: The "people's body" in war. Health policy, health conditions and the murder of the sick in National Socialist Germany 1939–1945. Munich 1998/99, ISBN 3-486-56719-5 , p. 356, note 213.
  24. ↑ Charité - Max de Crinis Director 1938–1945 ( Memento of the original from May 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / neurologie.med-network.de
  25. ^ Karl Heinz Roth (Ed.): Registration for destruction. From social hygiene to the "assisted suicide law". Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-922866-16-6 , p. 138.
  26. ^ Rüdiger vom Bruch , Christoph Jahr, Rebecca Schaarschmidt (eds.): The Berlin University in the Nazi era. Volume II: Departments and Faculties. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-515-08658-7 , p. 70.
  27. ^ Christian Hardinghaus: Ferdinand Sauerbruch and the Charité. Operations against Hitler. Europa Verlag, Berlin / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-95890-236-7 , pp. 180 .
  28. ↑ As a psychiatrist involved in the killing of the disabled and the mentally ill  ( 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. , Märkische Allgemeine, May 3, 2005@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.maerkischeallgemeine.de  
  29. ↑ Awards from the Red Cross. In:  Grazer Tagblatt / Grazer Tagblatt. Organ of the German People's Party for the Alpine countries / Neues Grazer Tagblatt / Neues Grazer Morgenblatt. Morning edition of the Neues Grazer Tagblatt / Neues Grazer Abendblatt. Evening edition of the Neue Grazer Tagblatt / (Süddeutsches) Tagblatt with the illustrated monthly “Bergland” , October 20, 1916, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / gtb
  30. ^ Festive meeting of the Medical Society. In:  Völkischer Beobachter. Battle sheet of the national (-) socialist movement of Greater Germany. Vienna edition / Vienna observer. Daily supplement to the “Völkischer Beobachter” , October 10, 1942, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / vob
  31. ^ Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. In:  Wiener Zeitung , April 29, 1913, p. 12 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Crinis, Max de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crinis, Maximinus Friedrich Alexander de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-German psychiatrist and neurologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Ehrenhausen
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1945
Place of death Stahnsdorf