Oskar Martini

Karl Oskar Ludwig Wilhelm Martini (born February 4, 1884 in Schwerin ; † March 27, 1980 in Hamburg ) was a German lawyer and from 1920 to 1945 head of Hamburg's public welfare system .

biography

Martini, son of a lawyer, began studying law and political science at the University of Marburg and graduated from the University of Rostock . He joined the Hamburg civil service in April 1910. At first he was an assessor at the public prosecutor's office and from 1911 at the finance deputation, where he was promoted to the government council in 1913 . During the First World War he took on other functions in personal union, so he also headed a department of the War Supply Office.

After the war, Martini worked for the Hamburg Senate from March 1919 . With the title of President from 1920 he headed the newly created welfare office in Hamburg. Martini played a key role in the development of the Hamburg welfare system and during the Weimar Republic was a leader in the German Association of Cities and the German Association of Municipalities . At the German Association for Public and Private Welfare , he was a member of the board from 1930 to 1933.

Although Martini was heavily attacked by the National Socialists during the Great Depression, he remained in office as a recognized expert in welfare after the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933. In autumn 1933 he became Vice President of the Hamburg Authority for Health and Welfare under Friedrich Ofterdinger , where he was given responsibility for the welfare sector . In the fall of 1936 he became president of the welfare agency after the health and welfare departments had become independent again. In March 1938 he became a councilor for social administration and from December 1939 he held the title of Senator.

Martini, who was a member of the DVP during the Weimar Republic , became a member of the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 . He served the Nazi regime in Hamburg as a welfare expert and also publicly committed to the Nazi welfare policy. His differences with the Nazi governing bodies only existed when his area of ​​competence was threatened.

In his position as commissioner for the welfare system , he was one of the people responsible for the exclusion of so-called “ community aliens ” and “racial aliens” ( Jews ) in the institutions supervised by the welfare organization. In accordance with the National Socialist Racial Hygiene, he also arranged for the handicapped to be recorded according to so-called “value” for the “ national community ”, whereby he had forced sterilizations carried out. During the Second World War he organized the transports of mentally handicapped people to “psychiatric institutions” outside of Germany.

After the end of the Second World War , Martini was initially a member of the Senate Petersen until the Allied occupying powers released him at the end of October 1945. Martini was finally denazified as exonerated in 1950 . He then worked for the Evangelical Relief Organization and the Rotary Foundation in Hamburg. He was also a managing board member of the Senator Erich Soltow Foundation. A new building he planned was named after him for this Hamburg apartment building.

Martini had four daughters with his wife.

literature

• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 2: Social politicians in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism 1919 to 1945. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7376-0474-1 , p. 126 f. ( Online , PDF; 3.9 MB).
• Uwe Lohalm: Care and persecution. Public welfare administration and National Socialist Jewish policy in Hamburg 1933 to 1942, (= publication by the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg), Results Verlag, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-87916-045-7 .
• Uwe Lohalm: Martini, Oskar . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 228-230 .
• Uwe Lohalm: For a motivated and “genetically healthy” national community. Selective unemployment and family policy . In: Research Center for Contemporary History Hamburg (Ed.): Hamburg in the Third Reich. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-903-1 , pp. 379-431.
• Uwe Lohalm: Völkische welfare dictatorship. Public welfare policy in National Socialist Hamburg. (= Forum Contemporary History 21), Dölling u. Galitz, Munich / Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-937904-95-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Registration of Oskar Martini in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Uwe Lohalm: For a motivated and "genetically healthy" national community. Selective unemployment and family policy . In: Research Center for Contemporary History Hamburg (Ed.): Hamburg in the Third Reich. , Göttingen 2005, p. 421f.
3. ↑ Wolf Gruner: Public welfare and the persecution of the Jews. Interaction between local and central politics in the Nazi state (1933–1942) . Munich 2002, p. 35
4. ↑ Herbert Diercks: "Euthanasia". The murders of people with disabilities and mental illnesses in Hamburg under National Socialism . Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg 2014, p. 14, DNB 104702957X .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Michaela Freund-Widder: Women under control , Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-5173-7 , p. 291