Stefan Budziaszek

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Stefan Budziaszek , who changed his name to Buthner in the 1950s (born April 24, 1913 in Andrychów ; † November 23, 1994 ) was a Polish physician and prisoner doctor in the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp , where he became the elder of the prisoner infirmary .

Life

Budziaszek was the son of Florian Budziaszek and his wife Antonie, née Zielinski. Since his father was transferred to Oświęcim as a director of the Polish Railway , he also grew up in the city of Auschwitz (German place name). After completing his school career, he completed a degree in medicine at the University of Krakow and then, according to his own statements, worked as an assistant doctor in Krakow. During the German occupation of Poland he was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo , probably he had belonged to the Polish resistance.

Prisoner in Auschwitz concentration camp

On February 10, 1942, he was transferred from the Montelupich prison by the Gestapo to the Auschwitz concentration camp , where he was given prisoner number 20,526. He was so badly mistreated by members of the camp SS that he broke his forearm. Initially, he was deployed in various work units a. a. as a cement mixer in the Buna-Monowitz external unit. In September 1942 he was transferred to the Jawischowitz satellite camp, where he and other inmate doctors set up the camp's infirmary. From there he was transferred to the Monowitz concentration camp on June 20, 1943, where he was an inmate doctor until the camp was evacuated in January 1945 and, as a camp elder, was in charge of the inmate infirmary.

Camp elder in the prisoner infirmary of the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp

Budziaszek had received the post of camp elder (also district elder) in the prisoner infirmary of the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp, despite his unfinished specialist training and modest medical practice, as he was considered an assertive organizational talent by senior members of the camp SS since his activity in the Jawischowitz subcamp. Since the death rate in the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp was very high at that time, the “economic potential of the prisoner labor force” should be better exploited through its use. He fulfilled these expectations towards the SS camp doctor who was in charge of him, Horst Fischer , because under his leadership the prisoner infirmary was expanded, better equipped, staffed with professionally experienced prisoner doctors and provided with an operating theater. Through his work, the medical situation in the prisoner infirmary improved considerably. Because of this development, Budziaszek was given certain leeway by Fischer and the medically not particularly well-versed SS medical officer Gerhard Neubert, and in 1944 he was made an honorary prisoner in Monowitz. In contrast to the other prisoners, he was allowed to wear his hair long because of his privileged position.

On the instructions of the SS camp doctors, he carried out several pre-selections on prisoners who were unable to work. According to some Auschwitz survivors, he is said to have selected more prisoners than necessary and exclusively selected Jews. In addition, he is said to have performed medically unnecessary demonstration operations on exhausted prisoners. He is said to have given preferential treatment to young prisoners and intellectuals from the sick prisoners. Some Auschwitz survivors characterized him as a Polish nationalist and anti-Semite. From the prisoner's point of view, Budziaszek collaborated very closely with the camp SS. In particular, the prisoners of the communist camp resistance, who mostly occupied the functional posts in Auschwitz, reacted negatively to him and had him spied on. However, they did not succeed in removing Budziaszek from his post, as Fischer protected him. The communist camp resistance warned him against further anti-Semitic activity.

Bernd C. Wagner derives the following theses from the statements made by Auschwitz survivors about Budziaszek, who later renamed himself Buthner:

“Buthner showed great compliance with the SS, which on the other hand gave him a certain amount of leeway. Apparently he had a particular need to be able to present himself positively in the eyes of the SS doctors. It is only for this reason that the [...] show operations seem to be explainable. His assistance in selections was therefore sometimes characterized by premature obedience [...] A certain anti-Semitic attitude does indeed seem to have shaped Buthner's work; However, it was not decisive for the almost exclusive selection and murder of Jewish prisoners. Rather, all the indications suggest that, as a rule, a predetermined quota was selected. [...] "

Prisoner in Buchenwald concentration camp and after the war

In January 1945 he was evacuated to the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was a prisoner until the camp was liberated by US Army troops in April 1945. All his teeth had fallen out due to his imprisonment and he had pulmonary tuberculosis . After his liberation and his stay in a camp for displaced persons in West Germany. He made his living u. a. as a ship's doctor and as a substitute in a private clinic. The Auschwitz survivor Józef Cyrankiewicz from the Polish Socialist Party certified him in May 1946 that “he had saved the lives of many people from gas transports and had contact with the secret prisoner organization”. Since Cyrankiewicz belonged to the communist camp resistance, the issuance of this certificate is amazing.

Plastic surgeon career

From around 1947 he worked at the surgical university clinic in Göttingen, where he specialized in plastic and aesthetic surgery. At the medical faculty of the University of Göttingen he was awarded a Dr. med. doctorate and worked at the university clinic there until 1951. Then he settled in Hanover as a doctor and ran a private clinic. He had his surname German in Buthner in the 1950s. He was married and had a son.

In December 1959, Buthner acquired land on heritable building right from the city of Langenhagen for the construction of a hospital ; A doctor colleague joined the leasehold contract in 1961. Under the name "Krankenhaus am Silbersee GmbH" (today Paracelsus-Klinik am Silbersee Langenhagen), Buthner and his partner ran the facility from 1962 until the hospital was sold in early October 1982. From 1985 to 1987 he was President of the German Society for Aesthetic Plastic surgery.

Aftermath and investigation

As early as 1946 Budziaszek was reported by three Auschwitz survivors in France, the allegations brought against him were probably not investigated further. In the first edition of the book The SS State by Eugen Kogon , Budziaszek cited Budziaszek as a single negative example of the criminal cooperation between prison functionaries and SS camp doctors. In this passage, Kogon referred to statements from Stephan Heymann, who was a prisoner clerk in Monowitz and had belonged to the communist camp resistance. Budziaszek intervened with Kogon in 1947 against this negative portrayal of himself and denied involvement in concentration camp crimes. After a conversation with Budziaszek and after becoming aware of reports to the contrary, Kogon deleted the relevant passage because Heymann was possibly active as a communist prisoner against Budziaszek for political reasons. In later editions of the book there is only the indication that Budziaszek protested against this negative representation, but Heymann stuck to his statements.

In the course of the investigation into the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt , Buthner was incriminated in witness statements in 1959. However, an arrest warrant issued against him in 1960 was not carried out. Buthner was displayed again in 1964. As a result, the investigation against Buthner was resumed and the information from the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes and the public prosecutor's office at the Frankfurt am Main regional court were processed. In May 1966, the preliminary investigations into the Buthner case were attached to the "Ontl and others" proceedings. Buthner was severely incriminated by Jewish Auschwitz survivors and members of the communist camp resistance, while former Polish prisoners exonerated him in their statements. The statements against Buthner initiated by Heymann could not be corroborated in the course of the extensive investigation, as witness statements partly contradicted each other or were based on hearsay and he had advocates for numerous Auschwitz survivors. Therefore, Buthner was put out of prosecution on September 12, 1975 by the Frankfurt am Main regional court. His participation in selections in the prisoner infirmary of the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp, which he can prove, was not denied. Buthner would have assisted the murder, but this circumstance was excused by a state of emergency under Section 54 of the Criminal Code .

The former prisoner doctor and Auschwitz survivor Adélaïde Hautval , who was honored as Righteous Among the Nations , gave the following verdict during a testimony in June 1971: "I would like to say emphatically that Budziszek was a prisoner and was therefore in an exceptional situation".

literature

  • Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz ; Ullstein; Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1980; ISBN 3-548-33014-2
  • Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 .
  • Jan Oswald: The investigation in the case '4 Js 798/64' Scope for action of prison functionaries in National Socialist concentration camps using the example of the Monowitz district elder Stefan Budziaszek alias Dr. Stefan Buthner , Academic Series V167959, Grin-Verlag, Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-640-84484-5 .
  • Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. (Volume 3 of the presentations and sources on the history of Auschwitz from the Institute for Contemporary History ). Saur, Munich 2000, 378 pages, ISBN 3-598-24032-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Who's who in Germany, Intercontinental Book and Publishing Company, 1974, p. 236
  2. ↑ Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. Munich 2000, p. 192
  3. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 71
  4. ↑ a b Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. Munich 2000, p. 192ff.
  5. ↑ a b Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. Munich 2000, p. 194ff.
  6. ↑ Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. Munich 2000, p. 198
  7. ^ A b Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 432
  8. ↑ http://www.paracelsus-kliniken.de/langenhagen/unser-krankenhaus/geschichte.html
  9. ↑ http://www.dgaepc.de/medien/newsletter-magazine/DGAEPC_Newsletter_September_2012.pdf
  10. ↑ a b Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. Munich 2000, p. 321f.
  11. ↑ a b Eugen Kogon: The SS State. The system of the German concentration camps , 1974, p. 258
  12. ↑ Katharina Stengel: Hermann Langbein: an Auschwitz survivor in the memory-political conflicts of the post-war period . Scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt a. a. 2012, p. 371
  13. ↑ Bernd C. Wagner: IG Auschwitz. Forced labor and extermination of prisoners from the Monowitz camp 1941–1945. Munich 2000, p. 322f.
  14. ^ With Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. An encyclopedia of persons , Frankfurt am Main 2013, is given on p. 71 as the date December 30, 1974 for the decision to suspend Buthner's prosecution
  15. ↑ Quoted in: Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, the Nazi medicine and its victims. Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 432
personal data
SURNAME Budziaszek, Stefan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Buthner, Stefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish surgeon and inmate doctor in Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Andrychów
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 1994