Otto Martin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Martin (born November 2, 1911 in Tuttlingen , † March 20, 1985 ) was a German biologist, SS leader and criminal adviser. During the Nazi era he was chief biologist at the Forensic Institute of the Security Police (KTI) in the Reich Criminal Police Office and in the Federal Republic of Germany in the same position as a forensic scientist at the Federal Criminal Police Office .

Study and job

After finishing his school career, Martin completed a degree in biology, which he obtained in the spring of 1937 with a doctorate from the University of Tübingen as a Dr. rer. nat graduated. He then took on an assistant position at the Botanical Institute of the University of Tübingen. He worked for the journal Der Biologe . When the editorial staff of this trade journal moved to Berlin , he also moved his residence there.

National Socialist activity, participation in the KTI and World War II

Even before power was handed over to the National Socialists , he joined the NS Student Union and the SA in December 1930 . In June 1931 he switched from the SA to the SS (SS no. 14.315). At the beginning of January 1931 he was accepted into the NSDAP ( membership number 410.152). In the first quarter of 1939 he was a research associate at the biological research institute of the SS Ahnenerbes . At the beginning of April 1939 he found a job in the Forensic Institute of the Security Police (KTI), which was subordinate to the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA) and which was incorporated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) at the end of September 1939 . There he was certified as having a National Socialist attitude.

After the beginning of the Second World War he did military service in the Wehrmacht from April 1940 to April 1943 and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class. Due to a war injury, he returned to work at the CTI and became head of the biological department (VD 2). Martin rose to SS-Sturmbannführer and government detective in 1943 .

Post-war period and participation in the Federal Criminal Police Office

After the end of the war, he was held in the Neuengamme internment camp from mid-September 1946 to mid-March 1948 . This was followed by some freelance activities, employment at a seed company and in the pharmaceutical sector. Eventually Martin managed to re-enter the police force. From the spring of 1952 he was chief biologist and head of the department for biological, pedological and medical examinations at the Federal Criminal Police Office . In 1954, as head of the biological department of the Federal Criminal Police Office, he was involved in investigations into the unresolved murder case of Anna Mutzenbach (he reconstructed the clothes worn by the dead in September 1953 using pieces of fabric found) and in 1956 cleared up a forensic medical diagnosis in the Wassing-Falkenberg murder case . The manslaughter of Jutta Holz in May 1963, who was found dead on an Opel racetrack near Rüsselsheim that was overgrown by plants, was discovered by Martin through a comparative investigation carried out in Wiesbaden on the pine needles he found at the crime scene and on the victim's clothing Clarify fungal colonization. The Federal Ministry of the Interior refused to promote Martin in 1964 with reference to his former membership of the NSDAP and SS. Instead, he was seconded to the Federal Statistical Office in April 1964 and officially transferred there in the course of his appointment to the Scientific Council in May 1966. He was only able to return to the BKA in August 1973 and was employed in Section 7 (“Forensic Research, Documentation”) of the Forensic Institute. In May 1974 he was promoted to Scientific Director. When he reached retirement age, he retired at the end of November 1976. He died on March 20, 1985.

Martin was questioned about his work at the CTI in 1959 and 1965. He stated that although he had cooperated with the chemical department of the CTI under Albert Widmann , he did not participate in the experiments with poisonous ammunition, research into gas vans or the production of cyanide vials. During the interrogations, for example, it was not asked whether he had received and carried out orders from special courts , Gestapo or SD .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Imanuel Baumann, Herbert Reinke, Andrej Stephan, Patrick Wagner: Shadows of the past. The BKA and its founding generation in the early Federal Republic , Cologne 2011, p. 115 f.
  2. ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office , Hamburg 2003, p. 326f.
  3. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA , Cologne 2001, p. 342.
  4. ↑ a b c d Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA , Cologne 2001, p. 221f.
  5. ↑ Jürgen Thorwald : Bloody error . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1966, pp. 77/78 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Jürgen Thorwald: The hour of the detectives. Becomes and worlds of criminology. Droemer Knaur, Zurich and Munich 1966, p. 368 f.
  7. ↑ Jürgen Thorwald (1966), p. 400 f.
  8. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 392.
personal data
SURNAME Martin, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist, criminal police officer and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Tuttlingen
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1985