Paul Wulf

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Silke Wagner's sculpture project "Münster's story from below", on Servatiiplatz in Münster, depicts Paul Wulf.

Paul Wulf (born May 2, 1921 in Essen-Altenessen ; † July 3, 1999 in Münster ) was a victim of the Nazi regime , who processed his case in court and gained regional fame by organizing anti-fascist exhibitions in and around Münster.

Live and act

Paul Wulf grew up under proletarian conditions in the Ruhr area . His father worked at the Ernestine colliery from 1921 to 1928 . For financial reasons, his parents sent Paul Wulf to the children's home at the Catholic St. Vincent Home in Cloppenburg in 1928 . In 1932 he came to the adolescent psychiatric institution in Marsberg . Due to the lack of home places, “healthy” and “sick” children lived here. Here Wulf was confronted with racial hygiene measures for the first time . In 1937, the parents submitted an application for release, which the director of the institution only wanted to agree to under the condition of forced sterilization . The director diagnosed his patient with “congenital dementia of the first degree”. The parents gave the required consent to the forced sterilization. On March 12, 1938, Paul Wulf was forcibly sterilized in the Paderborn regional hospital .

After his release, Paul Wulf resisted National Socialism :

"He conspired with prisoners of war, passed on information to them and carried out minor acts of sabotage."

- Bernd Drücke : Paul Wulf. The life story and socio-political work of an anti-fascist from Münster

After 1945 Paul Wulf was involved in the investigation of the crimes of the Nazi era and personal continuities between the Nazi and the post-war period.

Paul Wulf sued the Hagen District Court for damages. In 1950 the court held:

"The applicant evidently developed late and the development went well for him, so that the diagnosis of 'congenital idiocy' can no longer be maintained."

It rejected a claim for damages on the following grounds:

“Experience has shown that those affected claim to have suffered physical damage as a result of the sterility, which is said to have led to the inability to work or work handicap. The experience of the retrial teaches that this physical damage is simulated throughout. "

In 1979, as a forcibly sterilized victim of the Nazi regime, he received a disability pension.

The demand for compensation for the forced sterilized and the information work about the political circumstances of the non-compensation was the focus of his anti-fascist activities. This included research into the Nazi past of Münster's doctors. Paul Wulf made the writings and activities of Munster's twin researcher Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer public. Wulf was able to document that Verschuer was the head of "twin research" and was supported by his student, the concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele . Mengele infected people in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and forwarded samples of his "research" to the professor from Münster. Paul Wulf's research remained without consequences: Until his death in 1969, the temporary dean of the Medical Faculty Verschuer held the chair of the newly founded Institute for Human Genetics at the Westphalian Wilhelms University (WWU) in Münster.

Paul Wulf was best known for his anti-fascist exhibitions. Inspired by the work of John Heartfield and Ernst Friedrich , he provided information about research and political connections in the form of collages. Central topics were the National Socialist euthanasia, the T4 campaign and forced sterilization, "the situation of women, young people and the Sinti and Roma in the Nazi state" . Paul Wulf saw himself as an anarchist and communist, and was a temporary member of the KPD and the VVN . He was regularly involved in extra-parliamentary and anti-militarist activities such as anti-nuclear, anti-war and anti- fascist demonstrations in Münster.

The friend and documentary filmmaker Robert Krieg points out that Paul Wulf did not shy away from publicly announcing his personal experiences from the Nazi era:

“Paul was one of the very few who did not shy away from making the injustice committed against him public. He exposed himself to the public as having been forcibly sterilized and thereby allowed himself to be stigmatized again. He managed to overcome shame, the commandment of silence, and thereby became one of the most important spokesmen for the approximately 400,000 people who were made sterile in the German Reich in order to keep the race clean and to separate out the different. More than 100,000 of them were later murdered as part of the euthanasia program. "

- Robert Krieg : "I teach you: memory!"

Honors

In 1991 he received the Federal Cross of Merit for his educational work , which he only accepted under criticism of the award practice, which also honored former National Socialists .

As part of a permanent exhibition on the role of the Ordnungspolizei under National Socialism, an exhibition room is dedicated to Paul Wulf's work in the Villa ten Hompel educational facility .

The artist Silke Wagner designed a Paul Wulf sculpture for the Skulptur.Projekte 2007 together with the Münster Environment Center Archive Association as part of the project “Münster's story from below”. The sculpture was voted the most popular of the “Sculpture.Projects” in 2007 by the readers of the Münsterschen Zeitung . In November 2007 there was a "sculpture dispute" and the sculpture was initially dismantled. The Freundeskreis Paul Wulf, founded in 1999, and many Münster residents collected money for the preservation and restoration of the sculpture. In 2010 it was bought and set up on Servatiiplatz in Münster. ( Location ) A documentary film produced in 2011 by Anne-Katrin Mey and Anabell Schuchhardt deals with the conflict over the Paul Wulf sculpture. In June 2020, the Münster-Mitte district council decided to keep the Paul Wulf memorial permanently.

After it became known in May 2007 that Karl Wilhelm Jötten was a Nazi eugenicist, Bernd Drücke from the Paul Wulf Circle of Friends demanded, among other things, the renaming of Jöttenweg to Paul-Wulf-Weg in the Münsterschen Zeitung and submitted a corresponding application by citizens. As a result, the former Jöttenweg in Münster was renamed Paul-Wulf-Weg in 2012 . In the summer of 2013, a sign was put up on Paul-Wulf-Weg informing about the life of the Nazi perpetrator Karl Wilhelm Jötten as well as that of the Nazi victim Paul Wulf.

literature

  • Freundeskreis Paul Wulf (Ed.): Unworthy of life? Paul Wulf and Paul Brune. Nazi psychiatry, forced sterilization and resistance . Verlag Graswurzelrevolution , Nettersheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-939045-05-2 ( publisher information ).
  • Freundeskreis Paul Wulf (Ed.): Paul Wulf. An anti-fascist and free thinker . Verlag Graswurzelrevolution , Münster 1999 ( as PDF brochure, out of print).
  • Robert Krieg: The unpredictable late development of Paul W. Compensation for a forced sterilized person in post-war Germany . In: Karl Heinz Roth (Hrsg.): Registration for destruction. From social hygiene to the "assisted suicide law" . Verlagsgesellschaft Gesundheit, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-922866-16-6 .

Movies

  • Robert Krieg, Dagmar Wünneberg, Paul Wulf: The unpredictable late development of Paul W. A film about the consequences of race laws and compulsory sterilization in the Third Reich, FRG 1979, video film half-inch b / w, length approx. 45 min.
  • WN-TV interview with Bernd Drücke from the Paul Wulf Circle of Friends about Paul Wulf and the project “Munster's story from below”, Westfälische Nachrichten , January 5th, 2009.
  • Gerhard Kock (WN-TV / Westfälische Nachrichten) on the tenth anniversary of Paul Wulf's death: Available online
  • Anne-Katrin Mey, Anabell Schuchhardt: Documentary Paul Wulf and the Sculpture Controversy in Münster. Interview partner: Dr. Bernd Drücke (Friends of Paul Wulf), Christoph Spieker (Villa ten Hompel) and Dr. Dietmar Erber (CDU Münster), University of Duisburg / Essen 2011, length approx. 12 min. [1]
  • Beate Vilhjalmsson on the occasion of Paul Wulf's 95th birthday, speech at the "Paul remains!" Event, Münster, May 7, 2016. [2]
  • Bernd Drücke: "Paul stays!", Speech for the permanent preservation of the Paul Wulf sculpture, Münster, May 7, 2016 [3]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Bernd Drücke: Paul Wulf. The life story and socio-political work of an anti-fascist from Münster
  2. ↑ a b Decision of the Hagen District Court, quoted by: Bernd Drücke: Paul Wulf. The life story and socio-political work of an anti-fascist from Münster
  3. ↑ Bernd Drücke: Life story of a libertarian anti-fascist from Münster; on NRhZ-Online of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (online)
  4. ↑ Robert Krieg: "I teach you: Memory!" Eugenics, forced sterilization in the 3rd Reich and the current genetic engineering debate ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ on Youtube
  6. ↑ Münster retains memorial for Paul Wulf , Neues Deutschland , July 8, 2020
  7. ↑ Street names currently under discussion . Munster . Retrieved August 24, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Wulf, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anti-fascist and victim of the Nazi regime
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Eating old people
DATE OF DEATH July 3, 1999
Place of death Muenster