Richard von Hegener

Alexander Richard Helmut von Hegener (born September 2, 1905 in Sensburg , East Prussia , † September 18, 1981 in Hamburg ) was the main branch manager in the Führer’s office in the Nazi German Reich and was jointly responsible for organizing the National Socialist “euthanasia” program .

Life

After graduating from school, Hegener completed an apprenticeship in a bank, worked as an employee and founded a dye works that went bankrupt. He joined the NSDAP in 1931 . He was related by marriage to the President of the Reich Health Office, Hans Reiter .

Hegener was unemployed when, through an acquaintance's mediation, he found a job in the Fuehrer's office in 1937 . Here he initially had to sort mail sent to Adolf Hitler as an assistant officer in the complaints office and to process marriage requests from " Jewish-Aryan mongrels ". In 1939 he had already moved up to become the permanent representative of Head of Office Hans Hefelmann as Head of Office IIb. In this office, matters related to the Reich ministries and their subordinate business areas as well as requests for clemency were processed.

With the beginning of the so-called child “euthanasia” and the subsequent adult “euthanasia” ( known as “ Aktion T4 ” in post-war parlance), several bogus companies were founded for camouflage purposes in order to prevent the Führer Chancellery and the Reich Ministry of the Interior from being involved could be associated with these confidentiality measures. For the organization of child “euthanasia” a “Reich Committee for the Scientific Recording of Hereditary and Constitutional Serious Ailments” was founded. Behind it stood the Amt IIb of the Fuehrer's office under the direction of Hans Hefelmann. To transport the sick to the killing centers, the “ Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH (Gekrat)” was created, which was headed by Reinhold Vorberg from Amt IIc of the Führer’s office. Hegener, who was responsible for the procurement of materials, got buses from the Reichspost for this organization , so that the Gekrat was initially called “Hegener's special squadron” internally. Before the examining magistrate of the Frankfurt am Main regional court , Hegener testified on September 2, 1965:

“At first we almost exclusively had vehicles from the Reichspost. The Reichspostminister had issued a certificate stating that the precisely designated vehicles could be repaired preferentially in every repair workshop of the Deutsche Reichspost. Difficulties could have arisen because these vehicles were not driven by post officials, but by civilians while they were being used at T4. In this certificate, the designation 'Hegener's special relay' was coined. The vehicles were subject to the Gekrat. This did not appear to the outside world, as a result of which the vehicles were referred to as the Hegener squadron. "

In an interrogation on June 23, 1961, he continued:

“Initially, the exterior of the buses was not given a camouflage finish. Rather, they were used with the red paint on the outside and the RP number; only about halfway through the action were they - like the Reichspostomnibuses - provided with the gray camouflage ( air raid protection ). It would not have been in our interest to make these buses particularly recognizable and highlight them for the public to see. "

There is a report by Hegener on the question of how the victims of the “euthanasia” program should ultimately be killed.

“Originally one had considered killing individual incurable persons [...] by injections or overdoses of sleeping pills . However, from a technical point of view, these considerations proved to be impracticable [...], according to the majority of the doctors consulted. It was therefore suggested […] that the people in question should somehow be killed in greater numbers at the same time. After numerous discussions [...] with the chemists of the Reich Criminal Police Office , it was heard that it was decided to set up a room in a conveniently located sanatorium. This space should finally be filled with carbon monoxide gas [...] "

For this purpose, in January 1940 a "test gassing" was carried out in the old prison in Brandenburg , in which Hegener also took part. On the recommendation of the Forensic Institute (for details see under Walter Heeß ) the sick were killed by carbon monoxide gas in a gas chamber (for details see under Albert Widmann ). As Hefelmann's representative, Hegener was responsible for procuring the materials required in the killing centers for the installation of gas chambers and crematorium ovens and for the delivery of the carbon monoxide gas. Hegener also had to take care of the procurement of the killing of the children in the designated sanatoriums and nursing homes as part of the children's “euthanasia” as well as the large quantities of drugs such as Luminal needed for the second phase of the adult “euthanasia” .

After the war, Hegener hired himself as a farm worker and later as a worker in a wood processing company. Under his slightly modified name, he found a job as "Richard Wegener" at the Ministry of Trade and Supply in Mecklenburg and quickly made it into a managerial position.

In 1951 Hegener was arrested for crimes against humanity and finally sentenced to life imprisonment by the Magdeburg Regional Court on February 20, 1952 . By a so-called ministerial decision he was released in July 1956 after four years in prison. Hegener immediately contacted his former superior Hefelmann and found as a clerk through the mediation of there as legal adviser working Dietrich Allers (formerly CEO of Zentraldienststelle- T4 ) employment with the German shipyard . Hegener kept in contact with Hefelmann.

In the trial of Franz Hofer , the former Gauleiter of Tirol-Vorarlberg , in the early 1960s, Hegener appeared as a witness as well as in the trial against Hans Hefelmann in 1964 and against Dietrich Allers in 1968, which was later discontinued.

Richard von Hegener died on September 18, 1981 in Hamburg.

literature

• Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state . 11th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 .
• Ernst Klee: What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews . 12th edition. Fischer-TB, Frankfurt / M. 2004, ISBN 3-596-24364-5 .
• Ernst Klee: Richard von Hegener entry in ders .: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 12.
• Henry Friedlander : The Road to Nazi Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 .
• Nina Grunenberg : Sometimes we had to get massive . In: Die Zeit , No. 18/1964, on the “euthanasia” process in Limburg
• Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of noble houses, part 2, p. 352

Web links

• Letter from Hegener with the letterhead of the Reich Committee (PDF; 107 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ General Public Prosecutor's Office Frankfurt Az .: Js 16 a / 63, quoted. according to Klee "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state , p. 124.
2. ↑ GStA Frankfurt / M. against Werner Heyde u. a., Ks 2/63, cit. according to Klee "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state , p. 124.
3. ^ Ludwigsburg Archive, Hea-Hep folder, at deathcamps.org
4. ↑ LG Magdeburg Az .: Js 16 a / 63 on justice and Nazi crimes ( Memento of the original from September 9, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ^ Judgment of the Regional Court Frankfurt / M. from December 20, 1968, GStA Ks 2/66 on justice and Nazi crimes. ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.