Aktion T4

[Grisu]

On Pfannmüller, see also Ernst Klee, Was sie taten - Was sie wurden. Ärzte, Juristen und andere Beteiligte am Kranken- oder Judenmord, Frankfurt/M. 1986 (my reprint 1992):

On p. 130 Klee writes briefly on children's departments, with an endnote on p. 310. There Klee gives a brief summary of Pfannmüller's story up to 1951: According to this, Pfannmüller was one of the strictest evaluators of ill children, did refer to patients as "Fleischklumpen" '(chunks of flesh'), and - contrary to what Michael's earlier source says - was sentenced to 5 yrs. imprisonment on 15 March 1951 (although it is not certain whether he served this sentence or not). The sources for Klee are testimonies (including Pfannmüller's own) in files of several post-war lawsuits. More references to Pfannberger on pp. 192 (text) and 327 (endnote).

[goofy]

Dr. Erwin Jekelius was until the end of 1941 director of the Spiegelgrund clinic and coordinator of Operation T4 in Vienna.
Michal

[goofy]

Dr. Jekelius post war photo - died in a Soviet prison in 1952.

[goofy]

Professor of anatomy Eduard Pernkopf, new provisional dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna, opens his lecture in SA uniform.
Michal

[goofy]

Deportation buses

[goofy]

NSDAP-Parteikarte von Hackenholt

[Jonathan Harrison]

Jekelius' Soviet interrogation was found in 2005. Here are some German links:

http://www.bizeps.or.at/news.php?nr=11237

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Jekelius

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Gross

http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article17 ... iater.html

He is also supposed to have romanced Hitler's sister Paula:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Hitler

[David Thompson]

Thanks, Jonathan.

[michael mills]

With regard to Jekelius, it should be pointed out that "denial-fighters" used to claim that Dr Jekelius was on the transport of Jewish deportees from Berlin that arrived at Riga on 29 November 1941 and was immediately massacred at Rumbula along with the Jews from the Riga Ghetto.

They claimed that the presence of Dr Jekelius on that transport, and his allegedly being the son of Molotov, was the reason for Himmler's telephone call to Heydrich on 30 November, ordering "no destruction" of the transport.

Now that the identity and role of Dr Jekelius has become better known, the above claim by the "denial fighters" has apparently been quietly dropped.

Indeed there was a reference to a Dr Jekelius in Himmler's diary of telephone calls, immediately below the record of his order "Judentransport aus Berlin, keine Vernichtung", but it is obvious that the reference was to a different matter, entirely unrelated to the instruction to Heydrich concerning the transport of Jewish deportees.

Nevertheless, for quite some time, the "denial fighters" tried to make a connection between the notations "Judentransport aus Berlin" and "Dr Jekelius", in an effort to prove that Himmler's order to Heydrich had been an exception, based on the presence of a particular person on the transport that Himmler wanted preserved because he was allegedly the son of Molotov.

[David Thompson]

For interested readers -- Earlier discussions of Dr. Jekelius in two other threads can be seen beginning at:

viewtopic.php?p=723919#p723919 and viewtopic.php?p=773364#p773364

As for "denial fighters," and how, if at all, they differ from intelligent and informed persons, stayed tuned. Michael may yet explain the term. Judging from a Google search, the expression appears to have originated last year (Mar 2009) as a description of contemporary Russian combat aircraft, though it is possible that the Google engine may not have picked up earlier references to the phrase:

http://acecombatskies.com/index.php?sho ... ded&start=

[little grey rabbit]

Claims of euthanasia of wounded soldiers in Bishop von Galen's sermons.

In PS-3701 there is correspondence by Gestapo (someone called Tiessler)
This also appears in Inside Hitler's Germany edited by Sax and Kuntz, pages 486-490.

In particular I refer to the letter of 12 August 1941 that includes:

After such attacks against offficial organs of the state, stronger in form and tenor than the earlier mentioned, more hidden accusations, the Bishop of Muenster on 3 August in a sermon to his diocesans came out with the most severe attack against the leadership of the German government ever made during the past decades. After first dealing again with the closing with those religious houses and convents he turns against the execution of measures concerning Euthanasia for incurable cases of feeblemindedness. He first sets for the argument against Euthanasia and then goes so far as to claim the following:
"Yes, citizens of Muenster, wounded soliders are being killed recklessly, since they are, productively, of no more use to the state. Mother, your boy will be killed too, if he comes back home from the front wounded." He closes with the remark that the inhabitants of Muenster had not understood God's vengence which came in the form of English air attacks and he incites the faithful to open opposition, even if they should have to die for it.
For your information I enclose the original text of the sermon.
The allegation of Bishop of Muenster that wounded soldiers are threatened by measures of Euthanasia was spread by several broadcasts of the London radio.

For obvious reasons I don't have access to London radio of 4- 11 August 1941. I have seen references in newspapers to euthanasia of wounded soldiers in American newspapers around about October 1941 - obviously I can't rule out they appeared earlier or first on radio. In Goebbels' diary there is also an angry entry regarding Galen and gassing wounded soldiers (denying it is taking place obviously).

Did such an accusation appear in Galen's sermons? Was it a practice?

[uberjude]

Rabbit, continuing with the discussion from the other thread, in his August 3rd speech, Cardinal Galen made reference to the comments he added to the July 6 pastoral letter, the relevant passage is in the first paragraph.

http://semsforlife.blogspot.com/2008/09/cardinal-von-galen.html

[David Thompson]

little grey rabbit -- You asked:

I have seen references in newspapers to euthanasia of wounded soldiers in American newspapers around about October 1941 - obviously I can't rule out they appeared earlier or first on radio. In Goebbels' diary there is also an angry entry regarding Galen and gassing wounded soldiers (denying it is taking place obviously).

Did such an accusation appear in Galen's sermons? Was it a practice?

This was apparently a widespread rumor among the German population. The earliest reference to it that I found is a letter dated 6 Sept 1940 from the supervisor of the sanatorium for mental patients and epileptics at Stehn, Germany (now a part of Poland), to the Reich Minister of Justice, Dr. Franz Guertner:

Because of the absolute secrecy and impenetrability in which measures are carried out; not only the wildest rumours arise among the people (for instance, that people who cannot work because of age or wounds received in the Great War, have been done away with or are also to be done away with), but also they get the impression that the selection of the persons affected by this measure is done in a completely arbitrary manner.

It appears that some WWI veterans were in fact killed in the euthanasia action; Goetz Aly gives an example in Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene, Johns Hopkins (1994), p. 61. The idea of killing those who were incapable of taking care of themselves also grew into a much broader category which included persons "alien to the community" -- asocial elements, criminals, drunkards, shirkers, "degenerates" and "trouble-makers."

There is also this passage from the "Medical Case," NMT proceedings vol. 1, p. 799, suggesting how widespread the rumors had become:

Hugo Suchomel, LL. D., the highest official after the Minister in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice, says in his affidavit that when Brack, as representative of the defendant Brandt, gave a lecture on euthanasia in the Ministry of Justice in 1942, he enumerated, as the classes of persons who were exempted from the program, the war- wounded and persons who had become insane as a result of air attacks.

Nothwithstanding Brack's denial, Goetz Aly produced evidence that insane air-raid victims and members of the WWII armed forces were transferred to sanatoriums and then killed in various euthanasia operations. Aly's brief treatment of the subject is in his essay "Medicine Against the Useless," in Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene, Johns Hopkins (1994), pp. 57, 86-91.

I have not seen any information showing that physically mutilated but mentally healthy WWII veterans were killed.

[goofy]

Good photo of Werner Catel.
Michal