Ottilie Schellander

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Ottilie Maria Schellander , née Zanella , also known as Sister Otti (born October 30, 1897 in St. Veit an der Glan , † June 7, 1967 in Klagenfurt ) was an Austrian head nurse in the infirmary and insane asylum of the Carinthian State Hospital in Klagenfurt and involved in euthanasia .

Life

Schellander was married, a Roman Catholic and a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare . She had an unfortunate biographical background: her father committed suicide , her brother became a serious alcoholic through a traumatic experience in the First World War and was sent to psychiatry. There he was deported to the Nazi killing center in Hartheim as part of Operation T4 and gassed , although war participants were excluded from this operation. Since March 24, 1925, she worked as a qualified nurse at the Klagenfurt Regional Hospital. In October 1939, at the same time as Antonie Pachner , she was transferred to the back wing of the infirmary, where she participated in the killing of a large number of patients on her own initiative.

"I was just doing my job."

- Ottilie Schellander

Participation in euthanasia

From 1939 onwards, large-scale euthanasia was carried out in the Klagenfurt “Gau Heil- und Pflegeanstalt für der mentally ill” as well as the “Gausiechenhaus”. First of all, from 1939, active euthanasia was carried out on the dying and seriously ill in the "Gausiechenhaus". Between 1940 and 1941, about 750 patients were delivered to the Nazi killing center in Hartheim in four transports ; there were children among them. Between 1942 and 1945 there were regular murders in the Gau hospital (so-called “wild euthanasia”).

The primary physician in psychiatry, Franz Niedermoser , initially had the patients killed with injections in the psychiatric rooms. Since these deaths led to noticeable concern among the remaining patients, the primary physician switched to first transferring individual cases, and later entire groups, to the rear building of the "infirmary" located at the far edge of the hospital grounds. There in the "Secret Annex" the sick could be killed much less conspicuously. In addition, the primary physician found the head nurse Antonie Pachner and head nurse Ottilie Schellander to be particularly willing employees. She stated in front of the criminal police in 1945: “If I am asked how many killings I have carried out in total […], I declare that I am not in a position to say this. There were many killings. "After thorough questioning by the police, however, the serial killer risked an estimate and assumed that in the infirmary the number of psychiatric and geriatric patients murdered in the" Secret Annex "had" an average of three to four foster patients in the years 1941 to 1945 " per week.

Judicial processing after 1945

Schellander deliberately killed at least 200 patients between 1942 and April 1945 after the court verdict passed on them.

She mistreated other patients to such an extent that they died. In the early autumn of 1944, for example, she deliberately killed a patient who had been brought back alive from the morgue with an injection of morphine. In other cases she had carried out killings by administering poison (sleeping pill somnifen ) or commissioned other nurses to kill patients.

The criminal proceedings against Schellander took place from March 20 to April 3, 1946 in Klagenfurt before an external senate of the People's Court in Graz. On April 4, 1946, the death sentence with financial collapse was pronounced against her . However, on October 19, 1946, by resolution of the Federal President, this was converted into a heavy prison sentence of twenty years. As part of a new pardon, Schellander was conditionally released from prison on April 1, 1955. After that, their track is lost.

Web links

literature

  • Gerhard Fürstler & Peter Malina: "I was only doing my job ": On the history of nursing in Austria. 2004, Vienna: Facultas Verlag, ISBN 3-850766-195 .
  • Helge Stromberger: The doctors, the nurses, the SS and death. Carinthia and the produced death in the Nazi state. 2002, Klagenfurt: Drava Verlag, ISBN 3-85435-106-2 .
  • Herwig Oberlechner & Helge Stromberger: The Klagenfurt Psychiatry During National Socialism. Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, 2011, pp. 7-10.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marriage register of the Roman Catholic parishes of St. Georgen am Sandhof in Klagenfurt Volume 28, Folio 70.
  2. ^ List of Nazi doctors and those involved in Nazi medical crimes
  3. ↑ Helge Stromberger: The doctors, the sisters, the SS and death. Carinthia and the produced death in the Nazi state. 2002, Klagenfurt: Drava Verlag, ISBN 3-85435-106-2 , p. 46.
  4. ↑ a b Gerhard Fürstler & Peter Malina: "I only did my service": On the history of nursing in Austria. 2004, Vienna: Facultas Verlag.
  5. ↑ Ottilie Schellander on Nachkriegsjustiz.at, accessed on May 23, 2017.
  6. ↑ Punishment of euthanasia crimes on DÖW.at, accessed on May 23, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Schellander, Ottilie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schellander, Ottilie Maria; Zanella, Ottilie Maria (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian head nurse
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Veit an der Glan
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1967
Place of death Klagenfurt