Walter Schultze (politician)

Walter Schultze

Walter August Ludwig Schultze (born January 1, 1894 in Hersbruck , † August 16, 1979 in Krailling ) was a German surgeon , medical officer, politician ( NSDAP ) and National Socialist multifunctional. He was occasionally referred to by the nickname "Bubi".

Life

Training and First World War

Walter Schultze was born the son of a councilor and was baptized as a Protestant. He went to the elementary school a human High School and received 1912 in Landshut , the High School . After finishing school, he began studying medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich (LMU) in 1912 . In 1913 he joined the Isaria Corps .

At the First World War he took as since 1914 volunteer part. First he served in the 2nd Royal Bavarian Heavy Rider Regiment "Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este" , later as an aircraft observer. In 1917 he resigned as a first lieutenant who was seriously injured in the war .

After the war he joined the Epp Freikorps . He finished his studies at LMU and earned his doctorate in 1919 for Dr. med.

National Socialist in the Weimar Republic

As a member of a right-wing student organization, Schultze joined the German Workers 'Party in 1919 , which was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1920 . In 1923 he took part in the Hitler putsch . Schultze was standing next to Adolf Hitler when the Bavarian State Police opened fire on the putschists. He helped the wounded Hitler escape and took care of him medically in Ernst Hanfstaengl's house . In the same year Schultze was appointed deputy Reichsarzt of the Sturmabteilung .

In 1925 Schultze became a specialist in surgery . From 1926 to 1931 he worked as a medical officer for the Palatinate Agricultural Trade Association in Speyer . There he also acted as a city ​​councilor . Presumably his party membership in the NSDAP was suspended until 1929 after the Hitler putsch ; because after 1929 he rejoined the party ( membership number 99.822). In Speyer he quickly advanced to the local group leader. In 1929 Schultze was a founding member of the National Socialist German Medical Association . In 1931 he moved back to Munich as a medical officer for the agricultural trade association Upper Bavaria. In 1932/33 he became a member of the Bavarian State Parliament as a member of the NSDAP .

time of the nationalsocialism

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 Schultze was initially Head of Department in the Bavarian Ministry of Justice and in November of the same year as the state commissioner for health care Head of "Public Health" in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior . In 1934 he was appointed honorary professor for “Public Health Studies” at the LMU.

In 1936 Schultze left the church and from then on referred to himself as " believers in God ". Probably only then did he transfer from the SA to the SS (membership no. 276.831). On September 13, 1936 he became SS-Oberführer , on September 12, 1937, SS-Brigadführer and on January 30, 1943, SS-Gruppenführer . From 1938 to 1945 Walter Schultze was a member of the Reichstag, which was insignificant during the Nazi era .

Schultze headed the Reichsdozentenwerk in 1936/37 , was a department head in the Nazi teachers' association and regional group leader VII in the German Red Cross . From 1935 to 1944, Schultze was the "Reichsdozentenführer" head of the National Socialist German Lecturer Association (NSDDB), a party structure organized according to the Führer principle , whose task was the political control and ideological influence of the university lecturers and thus the control of institutionalized science. Because of abuse of office to the detriment of a party member, Walter Schultze was removed from his office in June 1944 by the supreme party court of the NSDAP .

In his capacity as Reichsdozentenführer Schultze held the opening speech for the "NS-Kampfuniversität" in Strasbourg on November 23, 1941 . As the goal of the institution, he named the “ eradication ” of everything “ un-German ” from the “world of thought of our people ”.

Co-organizer of the National Socialist murders

As State Commissioner in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, Schultze was involved in the organization of Aktion T4 , the murder of around 70,000 mentally ill and disabled people. According to Schultze's own statements, he and the Gauleiter of Upper Bavaria, Adolf Wagner , were informed by Philipp Bouhler about the T4 campaign in late 1939 or early 1940 . Schultze was also close friends with Viktor Brack , Bouhler's deputy and one of the main organizers of the T4 campaign. Departments such as that headed by Schultze in the Munich Ministry of the Interior had the role of a "regional central office for the" T4 "campaign" ; those responsible for the region were involved to varying degrees in the murders of the sick; Schultze is included in the group of "unreserved supporters of the murder campaign" . Schultze ordered the transfer of sick people from the sanatoriums and nursing homes in Erlangen and Kutzenberg to the Hartheim killing center . In addition, he was involved in the expansion of the “children's department” in the Eglfing-Haar institution , where disabled children were mainly murdered by overdosing on medication. Schultze participated in the efforts of functionaries of Aktion T4 to create a legal basis for Nazi euthanasia. However, for reasons of foreign policy, Hitler refused to enact such a law before the end of the war. On November 30, 1942, Schultze signed the so-called Hunger Food Decree , which officially stipulated better nutrition for patients who were able to work at the expense of those who were unable to work. The systematic malnutrition of patients became one of the killing methods in the second phase of the National Socialist euthanasia, Aktion Brandt .

Legal proceedings after the end of the war

Walter Schultze was automatically arrested in 1945 by the American military government in main camp VII A near Moosburg . On November 16, 1948 from Schultze was Landgericht München I for aid to manslaughter sentenced to three years in prison. The instruction to transfer the sick to the Hartheim killing center was rated as “assisted manslaughter”. The judges cited as mitigating the penalty that he “ did not act out of base motives ”, but “ as a devout National Socialist, fell victim to the pernicious teachings of Adolf Hitler ”. On the other hand, he was acquitted of the charge that the instructions he issued in 1942 to put the sick on starvation diets had purposefully brought about their death. It can no longer be proven that the deaths actually occurred as a result of following this instruction. Schultze was also acquitted of the charge of involvement in child murders, although he admitted that he had set up a “children's department” on behalf of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, fully aware of the function and scope of the institution, the purpose of which was to “put children to sleep”. The Munich district court, which attested the National Socialist from the very beginning "had a previous impeccable past ", justified this acquittal by stating that Schultze was neither directly involved in the selection of the children to be transferred to the killing center, nor was he directly involved in the execution . The 1948 verdict was ultimately not final because the prosecutor and the defendant appealed.

After twelve years ending process carryover , officially justified "unfitness" came in 1960 to a renewed conviction by a Munich court of assizes, this time to four years in prison for their involvement in the "euthanasia" of more than 380 adults and children. The verdict was challenged again by Schultze, who showed no remorse or awareness of wrongdoing, arguing with a mistake in the prohibition . The appeal for appeal was granted by the Federal Court of Justice on December 6, 1960 , and the proceedings were referred back to the Munich jury court for retrial. However, the existence of a mistake in the prohibition was denied. Because the defendant was unable to stand trial, the proceedings were discontinued so that a final conviction did not result.

Fonts

• Science and People Becoming. Speech of the Reichsdozentenführer . In: Robert Wetzel / Hermann Hoffmann ( eds .): Wissenschaftliche Akademie Tübingen des NSD.-Dozentbundes, Volume 1: 1937, 1938, 1939 , Tübingen: Mohr 1940, pp. 5-16.

literature

• Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml and Hermann Weiß (eds.): Encyclopedia of National Socialism , 3rd edition, DTV, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-608-91805-1 .
• Heinz Bergschicker: German Chronicle 1933-1945. A picture of the times of the fascist dictatorship / Wiss. Advice: Olaf Groehler . Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1981, 2nd dgs. 1982 edition (ill. P. 162)
• Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon on National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 156.
• Ernst Klee : The personal dictionary on the Third Reich : who was what before and after 1945? , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 (updated edition, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., 2005 (Fischer Tb .; 16048), ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 or . 3-596-16048-0)
• Ernst Klee: What they did - what they became. Doctors, lawyers and others involved in the murder of the sick or Jews . Fischer p.vlg., Frankfurt a. M. 1986 (Fischer Tb .; 4364), ISBN 3-596-24364-5 .
• Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 .
• Hermann Weiß (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for the Third Reich . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-10-091052-4 (revised new edition, Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., 2002, ISBN 3-596-13086-7 )
• Robert Wistrich : Who was who in the Third Reich. A biographical lexicon . / Revised u. exp. by Hermann Weiß. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1987, 23-24. Tsd. 1992 (Fischer Tb .; 4373), ISBN 3-596-24373-4 .

Web links

• Walter Schultze in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Joachim Lilla: Schultze, Walter , in: ders .: Minister of State, senior administrative officials and (NS) officials in Bavaria from 1918 to 1945 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1930, 111 , 975. - Schultze is not listed in the KCL 1960 and 1996.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Membership numbers and promotion data in the SS at Axis Biographical Research ( Memento from January 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Quoting from Klee, Personenlexikon , page 567f.
4. ↑ Affidavit by Walter Schultze ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2015 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. of April 11, 1947 for the defense of Viktor Brack in the Nuremberg Doctors Trial (English translation). See also: Peter Sandner: Management of the murder of the sick. The Nassau District Association under National Socialism. (= Historical series of publications by the State Welfare Association of Hesse, University publications, Volume 2. ) Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen, 2003. ISBN 3-89806-320-8 . Page 385. 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Affidavit by Walter Schultze ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2012 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. of April 28, 1947 for the defense of Viktor Brack in the Nuremberg Doctors Trial (English translation). 
6. ^ Sandner, Verwaltung , page 385.
7. ↑ Summary of the legal proceedings against Schultze in the case of justice and Nazi crimes ( memento of the original from December 1, 2007 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. 
8. ^ Statement by Hans Hefelmann from September 6 to 15, 1960, quoted in: Thomas Vormbaum (Ed.): "Euthanasia" in front of the court. The indictment of the public prosecutor at the Higher Regional Court Frankfurt / M. against Dr. Werner Heyde u. a. from May 22, 1962. (Heyde indictment) Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin, 2005. ISBN 3-8305-1047-0 . Page 250.See also: Sandner, Verwaltung , Page 385.
9. ↑ The "Hunger Decree" (No. 5236) printed by: Hans Faulstich: Hungersterben in der Psychiatrie 1914-1949. With a topography of Nazi psychiatry. Lambertus-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1998. ISBN 3-7841-0987-X . Page 321.