Werner Catel

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Werner Julius Eduard Catel (* 27. June 1894 in Mannheim , † the 30th April 1981 in Kiel ) was a German pediatrician , who at the children's "euthanasia" in the Nazi era was instrumental.

Life

Werner Catel attended the König-Albert-Gymnasium in Leipzig from Easter 1904 . After 1913 passed High School Catel completed until 1920 at the Universities of Freiburg and Halle , a study of medicine , interrupted by his participation in the First World War . In 1920 he was promoted to Dr. med. PhD . He then worked as an assistant at the local anatomical and pharmacological institute. In 1922 he became an assistant under Georg Bessau at the University Children's Hospital in Leipzig, where he completed his habilitation in 1926 . In 1924 he was Alfred Hoche inInnsbruck personally met a psychiatrist who, together with the lawyer Karl Binding Scripture "The release of the destruction of life unworthy of life. Your measure and shape ” , which Catel probably influenced significantly. Bessau went to the Charité in 1932 and took Catel, whom he valued and who had meanwhile become senior physician, with him to Berlin.

time of the nationalsocialism

When Siegfried Rosenbaum , the director of the Leipzig Children's Clinic, who was appointed provisionally after Bessau's departure and who was increasingly hostile to his Jewish origins , was forced out of service in April 1933, Catel was appointed to Leipzig. Now he was professor of paediatrics at the University of Leipzig and until 1946 director of the University Children's Hospital in Leipzig.

The NSDAP he joined on May 1, 1937th This "late" entry was sometimes used as an excuse that he was not a National Socialist. In fact, this was the first opportunity for Catel to become a member of the NSDAP after a ban on membership in 1933 . Before that, he had become a member of other National Socialist organizations such as the NS-Dozentbund , the NS-Ärztebund and the NS-Volkswohlfahrt . Also in 1937 Catel was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

In 1939 a father from Pomßen , who is referred to in literature as "Kressler" or "Knauer", asked Catel to grant one of his children a "death by grace". The child was born blind, with no left forearm and a misshapen leg, and was presented to the university hospital. Catel diagnosed that the child "never becomes normal". A brother of the father advised to write directly to Adolf Hitler . According to a senior physician from Catel, Erich Häßler , this “advice” was given by Catel himself. Hitler sent Karl Brandt to Leipzig. Catel was assigned to decide what to do; he was assured of impunity. The child was "put to sleep" by Catel on July 25, 1939, the beginning of child "euthanasia" in Germany.

Due to a lack of beds at the children's clinic in Leipziger Oststrasse, he set up a “ children's department ” in Leipzig-Dosen in 1940 as part of the child euthanasia program commissioned by the “ Chancellery of the Führer ” and controlled by the “ Reich Committee for the Scientific Assessment of Hereditary and Congenital Serious Ailments ” under the direction of Arthur Mittag , and later also at the Children's Clinic in Leipzig. There he killed children whom he considered hopelessly disabled ("life unworthy of life"), according to Hermann Paul Nitsche's " Luminal scheme " or with scopolamine . He was one of the three T4 assessors who decided on the life or death of the disabled children reported by the health authorities of the Reich. After the destruction of the Oststraße children's clinic on December 4, 1943, Catel occupied a building in Klinga near Leipzig, among other things . "Special grants" from the Reich Committee, which were paid for the killing of children - also to his sister Isolde Heinzel, his later second wife, prove for 1944 that the children's department - and thus the "euthanasia" - in the Leipzig-Dosen alternative point was continued.

In 1945 all files were destroyed, so the figures are difficult to reconstruct. Catel was aware that his "work" was part of the racist concept of the National Socialists: in 1945 he gave instructions to extract the racist and partly directly anti-Semitic chapters from all copies of the standard work he published for training as infant nurses and pediatric nurses, “Caring for the healthy and sick child” . It can be proven that he even intended to clean up the copies in the holdings of the Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig.

Evidence of "special allowances" from the Reich Committee as well as statements by contemporary witnesses prove his guilt. At present, at least 500 children have been killed in Leipzig.

In addition to Erich Häßler, Catel's employees at his clinic also included the pediatricians Friedrich Hartmut Dost , Johannes Oehme (1954 lecturer in Leipzig, 1956 senior physician in Marburg and 1961 professor in Braunschweig), Lothar Weingärtner (1958 professor in Halle), Hans Christoph Hempel (1960 Habilitation in Leipzig, then chief physician in Chemnitz) and Siegfried Liebe (1954 professor in Erfurt, then director of the University Children's Clinic in Leipzig).

post war period

1946 left Catel Leipzig, was founded in 1947 in Wiesbaden in denazification procedures classified as "unencumbered" and in 1949 in Hamburg by the denazification acquitted -Tribunal. Until 1954 he headed the tuberculosis children's sanatorium Mammolshöhe near Königstein im Taunus . Here he carried out an experiment on children and young adults suffering from tuberculosis with the unapproved preparation TB I 689 ( thiosemicarbazone ) and a diet experiment with low vitamin C doses. There were at least four deaths.

1954 Catel became professor for pediatrics at the University of Kiel . He justified the killing of incurably disabled children and denied any guilt. In the meantime, letters from Catel have been found in the Stasi archives, proving his work in the euthanasia.

In 1964 he claimed that there are almost 2,000 “idiotic” children every year who should be killed because of their deformities or disabilities , and he also called them “monsters”. Due to public pressure, he was ahead of schedule in 1960 emeritus .

After his death he bequeathed his fortune to the University of Kiel on condition that he set up a "Werner Catel Foundation" for experimental and scientific research. Only after massive protests from students and public pressure did the university reject this request three years after his death. Until 2006 there were repeated protests over his portrait, which is still hanging in the children's clinic in Kiel. Since then, an explanatory critical text has been added to the picture.

The University of Kiel wrote in its obituary in 1981 that Catel had "contributed in many ways to the welfare of sick children".

The Catel-Manzke syndrome is named after him.

In the novel Frohburg by Guntram Vesper , the narrator is treated by Catel.

Fonts (selection)

  • Normal and pathological physiology of the movement processes throughout the alimentary canal. 2 volumes. Thieme, Leipzig 1936/1937.
  • (Ed.) The care of the healthy and sick child. At the same time, a textbook on training to become an infant carer and pediatric nurse. Thieme, Leipzig 1939; 9th edition: Thieme, Stuttgart 1967; 10th edition: The healthy and the sick child. A textbook for the pediatric nurse. Thieme, Stuttgart 1972; 11th edition 1977.
  • (Mithrsg.) Diagnostic-therapeutic Vademecum for students and doctors. From 30th edition. Bart, Leipzig 1940.
  • Differential diagnostic symptomatology of diseases of childhood. Clinical Lectures. Thieme, Leipzig 1944; 2nd edition: Thieme, Stuttgart 1951; 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition: Differential diagnosis of disease symptoms in children and adolescents. 3 volumes. Thieme, Stuttgart 1961–1964.
  • Basics and limits of the scientific worldview. Enke, Stuttgart 1948.
  • Lectures on tuberculosis in children and adolescents. Thieme, Stuttgart 1950; 2nd, completely revised edition: Textbook on tuberculosis in children and adolescents. 1954.
  • Borderline situations in life. Contribution to the problem of limited euthanasia. Glock and Lutz, Nuremberg 1962.
  • Correctly understood alleviation of suffering. Glock and Lutz, Nuremberg 1966.
  • Life in conflict. Confessions of a Doctor. Glock and Lutz, Nuremberg 1974.
  • Medicine and intuition. Attempt an analysis. Thieme, Stuttgart 1979.

literature

  • Udo Benzenhöfer : Nazi “Child Euthanasia”: “Without any moral scruples”. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . Vol. 97, H. 42, October 20, 2000, pp. A-2766-A-2772.
  • Joachim Karl Dittrich: Justifications? Reflections on three book publications by Werner Catel. In: Wieland Kiess et al. (Ed.): 110 years of university clinic and polyclinic for children and adolescents in Leipzig. Karger, Basel 2003, p. 27 ff.
  • Ernst Klee : German Medicine in the Third Reich. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001 (review on graswurzel.net )
  • Berit Lahm, Thomas Seyde, Eberhard Ulm: Child euthanasia crime in Leipzig. Responsibility and reception. Plöttner, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-938442-48-7 .
  • Hans-Christian Petersen , Sönke Zankel . Werner Catel - a protagonist of Nazi "child euthanasia" and his post-war career. In: Medical History Journal. Vol. 38 (2003), pp. 139-173.
  • Hans-Christian Petersen, Sönke Zankel: “An excellent pediatrician, if you disregard the euthanasia thing.” - Werner Catel and the politics of the past at Kiel University. In: Hans-Werner Prahl et al. (Ed.): Uni-Formierung des Geistes. University of Kiel and National Socialism. Kiel 2007, Vol. 2, pp. 133-179.
  • Ortrun Riha : The severely disabled child as an ethical responsibility. The burden of the past as responsibility for the future. In: Wieland Kiess et al. (Ed.): 110 years of university clinic and polyclinic for children and adolescents in Leipzig. Karger, Basel 2003, p. 17 ff.
  • Fabian von Schlabrendorff : Encounters in five decades . Wunderlich, Tübingen 1979, ISBN 3-8052-0323-3 , p. 356 f .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ King Albert Gymnasium (Royal Gymnasium until 1900) in Leipzig: Student album 1880–1904 / 05 , Friedrich Gröber, Leipzig 1905
  2. ↑ cf. Christoph Buhl, From Eugenics to Euthanasia. A search for traces in Leipzig, diploma thesis in the social affairs department of the HTWK Leipzig 2001, p. 41.
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : German Medicine in the Third Reich. Careers before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-10-039310-4 , p. 107.
  4. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: Doctor killed children in drug tests. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . February 21, 2018, p. D1.
  5. ↑ Pitt von Bebenburg: Nutrition experiments with children. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. February 23, 2018, p. D8.
  6. ↑ Hermann Renner: " To kill for humanity?" In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1964 ( online ).
  7. ↑ quoted in Ernst Klee : Whoever honors perpetrators murders their victims again . at www.irren-offensive.de. Print: NS-Disabled Murder: Mocking the victims and honoring the perpetrators. in Zs. Disabled people in family, school and society. Ed. Association "Initiative for disabled children and young people", Graz . No. 6, 1999. ISSN  1561-2791
  8. ↑ Frohburg. Frankfurt a. M. 2016. pp. 132-139.
personal data
SURNAME Catel, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Catel, Werner Julius Eduard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pediatrician, involved in children's “euthanasia” during the National Socialist era
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1981
Place of death Kiel