Werner Fischer-Defoy

Werner August Otto Fischer-Defoy (born April 12, 1880 in Magdeburg ; † October 14, 1955 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German doctor and medical officer for the city of Frankfurt am Main. As head of the Frankfurt health department , he was one of the driving forces behind social racist and anti-Semitic measures at the local level during the Nazi era .

Live and act

Education and career

Fischer-Defoy's father was the general practitioner Eduard Fischer; his mother's maiden name was Defoy. Still under the name Werner Fischer , he passed the matriculation examination at the pedagogy for the monastery of Our Dear Women in Magdeburg in March 1898 and then studied medicine in Heidelberg , Jena , Munich and Rostock . In Rostock he passed the state examination in December 1902 and received his doctorate immediately afterwards . In 1903 he first became a ship's doctor on the Hamburg-America Line and then specialized in pathology as an assistant doctor at various institutes . In 1908 he settled in Quedlinburg as a general practitioner, where he passed the exam to become a district doctor in 1913 . With his work The Clinical Early Diagnosis of Cancer , he won the first prize, endowed with 1,000 marks, in 1912 in a competition of the German Central Committee for the research and control of cancer . The price brochure was printed in an edition of 35,000 copies in order to be sent free of charge to all German doctors as an educational brochure. From 1913 to 1919, Fischer-Defoy was assistant director at the Hygiene Museum Dresden and was involved in building up the collection there. His activity was interrupted by his participation as a medical officer in the First World War . Here he was employed as a bacteriologist in the eastern theater of war.

In April 1919 Fischer-Defoy went to Frankfurt as a city ​​school doctor . Here he was promoted to the City Medical Council in 1921 and was employed in the new health department as head of Section C for welfare doctors, the venereal diseases department , care for psychopaths, hygiene education and advanced training for doctors. During this time, his research interests shifted more and more towards social and racial hygiene .

time of the nationalsocialism

Fischer-Defoy, who had been a member of the NSDAP (membership number 150.641) and the SA since 1929 , profited from the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”. In 1933, as a salaried city ​​councilor and head of the city health department, he succeeded Karl Schlosser , who had been given forced leave as a member of the SPD . In the following years, Fischer-Defoy was involved as a consultant for welfare issues in the Gauamt for local politics and in the specialist committee for welfare of the German Municipal Association . He was chairman of the Frankfurt local group of the " German Society for Racial Hygiene ". The historian Wolf Gruner characterizes him as an anti-Jewish activist who explicitly represented National Socialist positions and, alongside Oskar Martini, set the tone at the local level in the policy of persecution against the Jews and was a spokesman for social racial exclusion measures. In the mid-1930s, Fischer-Defoy formulated: “We have to render the hereditary, racially inferior components harmless, we have to prevent racial foreign infiltration. [...] Only in tough struggles and unshaken belief in German blood will we be able to save our people, whose existence is threatened. "

In the city health department, Fischer-Defoy took care of the establishment of a genetic health assessment center from the end of 1933/1934 in the wake of the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring and at the same time built a department for genetic and racial care into a central information department. This is where material was gathered about people who might need to be sterilized . Fischer-Defoy was responsible for ensuring that, in addition to the medical records of mental hospitals, the 20,000 files of the welfare office and the 30,000 health records of former students were hereditarily evaluated. Together with the University Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene Frankfurt the University of Frankfurt under Otmar von Verschuer the health department created a "Erbarchiv" and a "Erbkartei" in which 250,000 files and 280,000 cards had been collected in March 1938th Fischer-Defoy described himself as an opponent of Nazi euthanasia . However, this information cannot be proven otherwise.

After the November pogrom in 1938, Fischer-Defoy used the opportunities offered by the anti-Jewish ordinance on public welfare for Jews of November 1938 to use a pseudo-legal argumentation to appoint a city commissioner “for the monitoring and re-establishment of all Jewish welfare institutions in Frankfurt am Main” to form the "Jüdische Wohlfahrtspflege eV" under the supervision of the city administration of Frankfurt aM ". With this, the city took over all accounts of the Frankfurt welfare institutions and the Provincial Association of Hessen-Nassau. The Frankfurt regulation with a "representative for Jewish questions of the city administration" served to relieve the city welfare budget and achieved model character for other cities at the municipal level by 1939, but led to disputes over competence with the Frankfurt Gestapo by the end of 1939 due to the intensification of plundering .

After the Second World War

After the end of the Second World War , Fischer-Defoy surrendered to the city's main investigation committee in May 1945. He did not consider it a problem to continue working, but recommended a transfer because of Fischer-Defoy's early party membership, or it was suggested that Fischer-Defoy retire. Fischer-Defoy wanted to be reinstated in August 1945. The Lord Mayor Kurt Blaum refused this in September 1945 and insisted on dismissal instead of retirement, since Fischer-Defoy only came into office because of his party membership. Fischer-Defoy also lost its pension entitlements as a result. It is true that in the Spruchkammer proceedings at the beginning of 1948 he was characterized as "non-political by nature", who had come to National Socialism through "chance acquaintance". On the basis of testimony from witnesses, he was even classified as a borderline case between fellow travelers and exonerated, whose behavior approached the resistance . Even so, he was unable to regain his retirement pension as the city stuck to its position.

Fonts

• as Werner Fischer: About Encyme Invertebrates. C. Hinstorff, Rostock 1903.
• The early clinical diagnosis of cancer. Winning award work, dedicated to the German doctors by the German Central Committee for Research and Control of Cancer Disease. Hirschwald, Berlin 1911.
• Sleep and dream. Kosmos, Stuttgart 1918.
• School and Population Hygiene. Beyer, Langensalza 1918.
• Sexual teaching of youth in school and at home. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1919.
• The hygiene education and its means. Schoetz, Berlin 1919.
• Danger to life in the house and yard. Franckh, Stuttgart 1920.
• Our loss of national strength and the means to remedy it. Beyer, Langensalza 1920.
• How do I protect myself from diseases? Publishing house "Das Wissen dem Volke", Siegmar-Chemnitz 1921.
• The doctor and the consideration of physical suitability when choosing a career. Schoetz, Berlin 1923.
• Are you allowed to marry Hachmeister & Thal, Leipzig 1924.
• Guide to social health care and its facilities. Health Watch, Munich 1925.
• with Edmund Hofmann and Julius Raecke: The social fight against venereal diseases. (Report on the course organized by the City Health Office, Welfare Office and Youth Welfare Office on April 3 and 4, 1925 in Frankfurt am Main). Union, Frankfurt am Main 1925.
• Clothing hygiene. E. Deleiter Publishing House, Dresden 1926.
• Infectious diseases. E. Deleiter Publishing House, Dresden 1926.
• Racial hygiene. E. Deleiter Publishing House, Dresden 1926.
• The hygiene in the closed institutions for young people. Schoetz, Berlin 1927.
• The physical and mental hygiene of the working woman. German Publisher f. People's Welfare, Dresden 1927.
• The school doctor. Braun, Karlsruhe 1928.
• Health and education. Braun, Karlsruhe 1928.
• The dangers of sexual life. Serious words f. young people stepping out into life. 3. Edition. Hachmeister & Thal, Leipzig 1931.
• with Arno Steinert: Ahnenerbe. A collection of results and Evaluation d. Ancestors, clans and Hereditary Health Research Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1934, 1934 [Ed. 1936].
• as publisher: The house and air raid pharmacy. Hachmeister & Thal, Leipzig 1940.
• with Berthold Kemkes: Basic features of social health care. Enke, Stuttgart 1952.

literature

• Thomas Bauer, Heike Drummer, Leoni Krämer: From "stede arzt" to the city health department. The history of public health in Frankfurt am Main . ed. from the City Health Office Frankfurt am Main. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1992.
• Monika Daum, Hans-Ulrich Deppe: Forced sterilization in Frankfurt am Main 1933–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1991.
• Wolf Gruner: Public welfare and persecution of the Jews. Interactions between local and central politics in the Nazi state (1933–1942) . (= Studies on Contemporary History. 62). Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-56613-X .
• Bettina Tüffer: The brown magistrate. Personnel structure and power relations in the Frankfurt city government 1933–1945 . (= Studies on Frankfurt History 54), Frankfurt am Main 2004.

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner Fischer-Defoy in the catalog of the German National Library
• Bettina Tüffers: The brown magistrate. Werner Fischer-Defoy . In: Frankfurt am Main 1933–1945. Internet presentation of the city of Frankfurt.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolf Gruner: Public welfare and the persecution of the Jews. Interactions between local and central politics in the Nazi state (1933–1942) . (= Studies on Contemporary History 62). Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59482-9 (accessed from De Gruyter online), pp. 40, 61, 312.
2. ^ Peter Sandner: Administration of the murder of the sick. The district association Nassau under National Socialism (= historical series of publications of the State Welfare Association of Hesse, university publications. Volume 2). Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-320-8 , p. 241.
3. ^ Monika Daum and Hans-Ulrich Deppe: Forced sterilization in Frankfurt am Main 1933–1945 . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 46 f.
4. ^ Peter Sandner: Administration of the murder of the sick. The district association Nassau under National Socialism (= historical series of publications of the State Welfare Association of Hesse, university publications Volume 2), Psychosozial-Verlag, Gießen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-320-8 , p. 320.
5. ↑ Monica Kingreen: Systematic Politics of Looting. The appropriation of “Jewish property” by the city of Frankfurt am Main. In: Katharina Stengl (Ed.): Before the destruction. The state expropriation of the Jews under National Socialism . (= Scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 15). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 232–234.