Theodor Viernstein

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Theodor Viernstein (born November 2, 1878 in Munich ; † May 28, 1949 there ) was a German prison doctor and criminal biologist who founded the criminal biological investigation in Germany.

Life

Theodor Vierstein was the son of Lorenz Ritter von Viernstein, a Ministerialrat in the Ministry of Finance of the Kingdom of Bavaria . After completing his school career, he completed a medical degree at the universities of Tübingen and Munich , where he was awarded a doctorate in 1903. med. received his doctorate . He spent his time as a trainee doctor in his hometown. He then worked in Frontenhausen as a general practitioner . On July 1, 1907, he entered the civil service and was initially a prison doctor at the Kaisheim prison in Donauwörth . In 1916 he moved to Straubing prison , where he took over medical management.

Concept of forensic investigations

Viernstein had started with criminal biological investigations of prison inmates in the prison in Kaisheim and continued them in Straubing with the aim of dividing prisoners according to the degree of “racial, legal and cultural damage” into those who could improve and those who could not be improved. For this purpose, he developed a standardized questionnaire in which the physique , biographical data as well as family relationships and social environment were to be determined. Vierstein's research was largely based on hereditary biology; environmental aspects only played a minor role. This research served not only purely statistical purposes, but should also form the basis for later state reform plans in the penal system, such as As preventive detention or eugenic his actions.

Forensic biology collection point, forensic biology service, forensic biology society

Viernstein's research approach was sponsored by the State of Bavaria, so in 1922 he received the permission to have anthropometric research carried out on prisoners of the Straubing prison by a Munich anthropology professor. In 1923, at his instigation and with the support of Ernst Rüdin and Fritz Lenz, the Bavarian Justice Minister Franz Gürtner made the usual Straubing access examination for newly admitted prisoners compulsory for all Bavarian prisons. In February 1924, on his initiative, a central forensic biological collection point was set up at his place of work in Straubing, where the examination results of all initial examinations in Bavarian prisons were bundled. The examination forms recorded at the collection point were used to create criminal biological reports, which were prepared at the request of government agencies. The forensic biological examinations in the Bavarian prisons were carried out by the criminal biological service from 1925. Together with Adolf Lenz and Ferdinand von Neureiter , he was a founding member of the Forensic Biological Society in 1927 and was a member of the board of this organization.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the National Socialists came to power , Viernstein was transferred to the medical department of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior at the beginning of April 1933 and was appointed Ministerialrat . In Munich he was also a lecturer in forensic biology at the law faculty of the University of Munich from 1933 and there in April 1936 honorary professor. From 1934 he worked as an SA doctor as well as a HJ doctor. He joined the NSDAP in early July 1937 ; during the Weimar Republic he was a member of the Bavarian People's Party . He was also a member of the Reich Air Protection Association , the Reich Association of the Rich and the Reich Association of German Officials . In 1938 he was awarded the NSDAP's silver loyalty badge.

Forensic biological examinations and collection points were increasingly introduced by German states from the 1930s onwards and were established throughout the Reich from 1933 onwards. The Reich Minister of Justice Gürtner standardized this system across the empire based on the Bavarian model; the forensic biology service was separated into examination and collection points. There were a total of 73 investigation centers in the penal system and nine assembly points across the country. Viernstein's concept had both supporters and critics since the 1920s. Advocates were found above all in the administration of justice, where it was hoped that effective means of differentiating between improvable or rehabilitation offenders and non-rehabilitation prisoners would be found. Criticism of Viernstein came partly from the ranks of science, which not only questioned the concept of improvable / incorrigible, but also the application of forensic biological approaches due to the still limited scientific substance of this young discipline and the inadequate competence of prison doctors in this area. Within the medical profession in the penal institutions, not only the type of examination was criticized, but also the additional work involved.

Viernstein retired at the beginning of April 1942, but remained head of the forensic biological collection point with an annual salary of RM 4,800 . The forensic biology collection point, which has been part of the Munich Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry since 1930 , was relocated to the Munich District Court in early 1943 and in 1944 to the Kaisheim prison due to the war after air raids . A year after his retirement, Viernstein said he left the NSDAP. Even at the time of National Socialism , he prepared criminal biology reports, including a. for special and military courts . The report was drawn up according to the files without personally questioning or examining the person to be assessed.

"The eugenic orientation of his research not only made it easier for him to approach the radical positions of the Nazi regime on the fight against crime, the latter also appeared to him to be the implementation of demands that he had already represented in the Weimar Republic."

- Günter Grau about Theodor Viernstein

post war period

After the end of the war, Viernstein was relieved of his teaching activities in September 1946 due to his membership in the NSDAP and was no longer allowed to bear the title of honorary professor . He was also denazified in 1946 . Under the American military administration, however, he was allowed to continue his forensic biology research until 1947. He died in his hometown on May 28, 1949.

Part of his bequests are in the Bavarian Main State Archives and in the historical archive of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry .

Fonts (selection)

  • Investigations on incest , Carl Winter Verlag, Heidelberg 1925. In: Works from the Bavarian criminal-biological collection point , Volume 1. (with Hans von Hentig )
  • The fight against crime from the demographic, racial anthropological and hereditary biological point of view: Lectures on d. scientific Sitting on September 1, 1933 in Bad Pyrmont on the occasion of the 50th anniversary conference (42nd annual vers.) D. Preuss. Medizinalbeamtenverein in connection with d. 20 General Assembly d. German Medizinalbeamtenvereins , Fischers med. Buchh., Leipzig 1933. In: Zeitschrift f. Medical officer. 1933, No. 10. (together with Eduard Schütt , was placed on the list of literature to be segregated after the end of the war in the Soviet occupation zone .)
  • The biological-hereditary biological examination of the hereditary farm farmers: From d. Health dept. d. Bayer. Ministry of State d. Inner , Oldenbourg, Munich / Berlin 1935. Was placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone after the end of the war.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Christian Müller: Fight against crime in the institutional state. Psychiatry, criminology and criminal law reform in Germany 1871–1933 , Göttingen 2004, p. 241.
  2. ↑ a b c Thomas Kailer: Measurement of the criminal. The criminal biological investigation in Bavaria 1923–1945 , Bielefeld 2011, p. 165.
  3. ^ A b Günter Grau: Lexicon on the persecution of homosexuals 1933-1945: Institutions - Competencies - Fields of activity . Lit-Verlag, Münster and Berlin 2010, p. 309f.
  4. ↑ Imanuel Baumann: The crime on the track, A history of criminology and criminal policy in Germany 1880-1980. Göttingen 2006, p. 57.
  5. ^ Christian Müller: Fight against crime in the institutional state. Psychiatry, criminology and criminal law reform in Germany 1871-1933 , Göttingen 2004, p. 242.
  6. ^ Christian Müller: Fight against crime in the institutional state. Psychiatry, criminology and criminal law reform in Germany 1871–1933 , Göttingen 2004, pp. 242, 244f.
  7. ↑ a b c Thomas Kailer: Measurement of the criminal. The criminal biological investigation in Bavaria 1923-1945 , Bielefeld 2011, p. 166.
  8. ^ Thomas Vormbaum : Introduction to the modern history of criminal law , Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, p. 162.
  9. ^ Christian Müller: Fight against crime in the institutional state. Psychiatry, criminology and criminal law reform in Germany 1871-1933 , Göttingen 2004, p. 269.
  10. ^ Christian Müller: Fight against crime in the institutional state. Psychiatry, criminology and criminal law reform in Germany 1871–1933 , Göttingen 2004, p. 274.
  11. ↑ Jürgen Simon: Forensic biology and forced sterilization. Eugenic racism 1920–1945. , Münster 2001, p. 108.
  12. ↑ a b c Thomas Kailer: Measurement of the criminal. The criminal biological investigation in Bavaria 1923–1945 , Bielefeld 2011, p. 237.
  13. ↑ Thomas Kailer: Measurement of the criminal. The criminal biological investigation in Bavaria 1923–1945 , Bielefeld 2011, p. 235.
  14. ↑ Quoted in: Günter Grau: Lexicon on Homosexual Persecution 1933–1945: Institutions - Competencies - Fields of Activity . Lit-Verlag, Münster and Berlin 2010, p. 310.
  15. ^ Historical archive of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry ( Memento from June 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ Federal Archives: Legacy Database
  17. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-s.html
  18. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1948-nslit-v.html
personal data
SURNAME Viernstein, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prison doctor and criminal biologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1949
Place of death Munich