Otto Mauthe

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Otto Mauthe (born November 9, 1892 in Derdingen ; † May 22, 1974 in Stuttgart ) was a German gynecologist and civil servant . As senior medical advisor in the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior during the Nazi era , he was involved in a responsible position in the murders of the sick (" Action T4 ") and the systematic murder of Sinti and Roma . Mauthe processed or even made orders in the context of the Nazi murders and was largely responsible for the registration and transfer of the mentally ill and children.

Live and act

Otto Mauthe was born in Derdingen (today Oberderdingen ) as the son of a forester . At first he was a medical officer in Herrenberg . In 1934 he joined the NSDAP .

Mauthe was senior medical advisor in the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior and since 1936 “ reporter for the insane as well as marriage and hereditary health issues ”. He was the deputy of Ministerialrat Eugen Stähle in Business Section X Medical Department and reported directly to it. The "euthanasia" campaign was directly in his area of ​​responsibility, he was "involved in its organization and implementation to a large extent [...]".

Mauthe and Karl Mailänder , the head of the Württemberg State Welfare Authority, examined the Grafeneck killing center together with a Baden official on May 24, 1939 . Grafeneck was later confiscated to carry out the "euthanasia" murders. On March 7, 1940 "begaffte" Mauthe along with steel and others in the grafeneck the gasification of a group of female victims.

After several denominational and privately run institutions initially refused to fill out registration forms, which were used by the T4 experts at the T4 central office to "select those to be killed" ( Werner Kirchert ), Mauthe and the state youth doctor Max Eyrich campaigned on site with particular persistence, partially filled out registration forms by hand and undertook “real patient selections”.

"In the list of state nurses I have marked all those with a blue triangle who do not work or work very little, have mostly been in the institution for a long time and do not come from the area [...]"

- Otto Mauthe on March 19, 1940

In cooperation with the Reich Committee for the Scientific Assessment of Hereditary and Conventional Severe Ailments , Stahl und Mauthe also set up a - euphemistically named - " Children's Department " at the municipal children's homes and children's hospitals in Stuttgart . There, under the direction of Karl Lempp, children and newborns were murdered (“ child euthanasia ”).

Post-war period and Grafeneck trial

In the so-called Grafeneck trial , which began on June 8, 1949 at Hohentübingen Castle , Mauthe was charged with participating in the murder of 10,654 “mentally ill” patients as part of the “euthanasia” campaign. Max Eyrich , Alfons Stegmann , Martha Fauser as well as two detectives and two former carers stood with him in court . All other participants could not be found. Except for Fauser, the accused were not charged with the perpetrators, but only with aiding and abetting.

Mauthe claimed at the hearing that he had resolutely rejected the “euthanasia” and tried to sabotage it, and that he mainly burdened the steels that had died before the start of the trial.

On July 5, 1949, the Tübingen jury court sentenced Mauthe to five years imprisonment for crimes against humanity in the form of aiding and abetting. The court followed “in numerous cases the perspectives of the accused perpetrators.” None of the accused were denied their civil rights . The reasoning for the judgment stated that Mauthe was responsible in particular for the so-called blocking decree of September 9, 1940, "which only allowed sick people to be released from sanatoriums with the approval of the Ministry of the Interior"; He had rejected corresponding applications for dismissal. The court also found that Mauthe had fraudulently deceived relatives who asked for information about those murdered in Grafeneck and had instructed the transfer of some children to “ children's departments ”.

Mauthe and Stegmann appealed against the judgment in 1950, as did the public prosecutor's office, which demanded tougher sentences under the new German criminal law . However, the appeal before the Higher Regional Court of Tübingen was rejected.

Otto Mauthe never went to prison; for “health reasons” the judiciary finally refrained from further prosecution in 1958. He died on May 22, 1974 in Stuttgart .

Fonts (selection)

  • Otto Mauthe: Contribution to the facial situation from the University Women's Clinic in Tübingen. (= Dissertation, University of Tübingen, 1920). Tübingen 1920, OCLC 313991679 .
  • Families in Neuenstadt am Kocher 1558–1860. Stuttgart-Degerloch 1959, OCLC 866786376 .

literature

  • Thomas Stöckle: Eugen Stähle and Otto Mauthe: the mass murder in Grafeneck and the officials of the interior ministry. In: Hermann Abmayr (ed.): Stuttgart Nazi perpetrators. Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-89657-136-6 , pp. 58-67.
  • LG Tübingen, July 5, 1949 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966, Vol. V, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1970, No. 155, pp. 87-123 Grafeneck trial

Web links

Otto Mauthe
Link to the picture

(Please note copyrights )

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Henry Friedlander : The Origins of Nazi Genocide. From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1995, ISBN 0-8078-2208-6 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945? 3. Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , entry: Mauthe, Otto.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Stefanie Westermann, Richard Kühl, Tim Ohnhäuser (eds.): Nazi “euthanasia” and memory. Coming to terms with the past - forms of remembrance - perspectives of those affected. Medicine and National Socialism 3. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-643-10608-7 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Thomas Stöckle: Eugen Stähle and Otto Mauthe.
  5. ↑ a b c d Thomas Stoeckle: Grafeneck 1940. The euthanasia crimes in southwest Germany. Silberburg-Verlag, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-87407-507-9 .
  6. ↑ Thomas Stöckle: The historical significance of the Ministry of the Interior for the implementation of the "euthanasia" murders in Württemberg and Baden. ( Digitized version )
  7. ↑ Hermann Pretsch (Ed.): Euthanasia. Sick murders in southwest Germany. The National Socialist 'Action T4' in Württemberg 1940 to 1945. Psychiatry and History of the Münsterklinik publishing house, Zwiefalten 1996, ISBN 3-931200-01-9 .
  8. ↑ Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia" in the Third Reich: The "Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living". Fischer, Frankfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18674-7 , p. 141.
  9. ↑ Thomas Stöckle: The "Destruction of life unworthy of life" in 1940/41 and the Christophsbad sanatorium in Göppingen. ( Digitized version )
  10. ↑ Federal Archives - Ludwigsburg branch, "Euthanasia" folder. Quoted from: Thomas Stöckle: Grafeneck 1940. P. 53 f.
  11. ↑ Main State Archives Stuttgart , E 151/53 Bü 626.
  12. ^ Lutz Kaelber: Stuttgart (municipal children's hospitals and children's homes Stuttgart). On: and much more .edu
  13. ^ Karl-Horst Marquart: Karl Lempp. Responsible for forced sterilization and "child euthanasia" . In: Hermann Abmayr (ed.): Stuttgart Nazi perpetrators. Butterfly Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-89657-136-6 , pp. 100-107.
  14. ↑ Digitized “Grafeneck Process” on “Euthanasia”. Sigmaringen State Archives.
  15. ^ Judgment of the Higher Regional Court of Tübingen of March 14, 1950, Sigmaringen State Archives , Wü 29/3, No. 1752.
  16. ↑ Jörg Kinzig: The Grafeneck trial before the Tübingen regional court - remarks from a criminal perspective. Contribution to the 51st nationwide memorial seminar, June 2009, Bad Urach. ( Digitized version )
personal data
SURNAME Mauthe, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gynecologist and participant in the T4 campaign
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberderdingen
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1974
Place of death Stuttgart