Karl Astel

Karl Astel ( born February 26, 1898 in Schweinfurt, † April 3, 1945 in Jena ) was a German "race scientists " and Nazi eugenicists.

Biography

In his youth Astel was coined by his father, a " safety inspector " and head of the Metropolitan Police Schweinfurt. Early on, he came up with the Nazi movement in contact. During his medical studies he was involved as a fanatical Nazi to frequent street fights. He was since 1919 a member of the Freikorps Epp and 1920 in the covenant Oberland; he took part in operations against the Bavarian Soviet Republic, and took part in the Kapp Putsch in 1923 and the Hitler - Ludendorff - Putsch. He was a member of the Young National Confederation in Schweinfurt, the German Nationalists protection and Trutzbund and the League of Struggle for German Culture. In 1930 he joined the NSDAP ( NSDAP-Nr. 264 619 ); 1934 was followed by membership in the SS ( SS-Nr. 132 245 ).

After graduating, he worked in Munich as a sports doctor. In 1932 he took over the management of the " Erbgesundheitlichen counseling center " in the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS ( RuSHA ). At the same time he was also head of the Racial Hygiene Office of the Reich Leader of the SA school in Munich. In July 1933 he was President of the Thuringian State Office for the race being in Weimar and has to answer for thousands of forced sterilizations 1933-1945. In addition to office, he was a judge at the Hereditary Health Court in Jena.

Astel was appointed on 1 June 1934 by Fritz Sauckel without Habilitation and without a regular appeal to full professor at the Medical Faculty of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Here Astel received its own institute, first " Institute for Human Genetic Research and Breeding doctrine " and since 1935 called the "Institute for Human Genetic Research and racial politics." The inaugural lecture of now the SS Hauptscharführer those promoted race was dusk and their mastery of mind and act as vital question of the white nations. In 1936 he was also director of the " health and welfare system Thuringia ".

From 1939 to 1945 Astel rector of his university, in 1940, he was counsel at the Thuringian state government, which served according to the Nazi centralization only for decorative purposes. From 1942 to 1945 he also served as Gaudozentenbundführer of Thuringia. 1942 Astel was appointed to SS- Standartenführer. His work now served directly to perpetrate crimes against humanity. With the support of SS Astel developed the University of Jena as an influential, " racial and live legally " aligned NS Research Network. It supported him Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler. He was Associate Editor of people and race. Illustrated Monthly Journal of the German folk, race theory, racial hygiene. Journal of the " Reich Committee for Public Health Services " and the " German Society for Racial Hygiene ". in Lehmann's Verlag, Munich.

On 3 April 1945, Karl Astel shot in the mental hospital by Wolfgang Veil.

Work

Astel was a leading Nazi race researcher. Following his appointment in Jena his work was aimed to support the so-called " race question " as an extermination program scientifically. For this purpose he used the work of Ernst Haeckel. Astel and his colleagues in Jena, including Heinz Brücher, Gerhard Heberer, Victor Julius Franz, Johann von Leers and Lothar Stengel - Rutkowski by, saw in Haeckel the champion of a biologistic conception of the state. So Astel called The task which he held for the opening of the winter term 1936/37, this tradition in a keynote speech. He called for building a SS Pattern University in Jena.

For Astel the " racial quality" of the Germans is about to collapse because " laws of nature " be misunderstood, which are absolutely " not only for plants and animals, but for all living beings, including humans ." The so -conceived laws of nature are to design principles of state and society. Astel said:

"While many generations chasing mirages, and sought the weak, the sick, Untüchtige, infirm, Crimes, Strange by external measures to improve vain, they contributed to the sensitive racial decay, though largely unintended. People with tension accumulated almost all of life forces of the healthy and Powerful considerable masses of life unfit and inadequacy of all kinds. This loaded and burden the people living unheard of in cultural and economic terms. "

He called Edel -bred of all countries to

" The unhappy life unworthy of life that has accumulated during the rule of the inferior in their people together again ( to ) remove (...) for the salvation of all. That is the good news that has to announce that National Socialism of the suffering and hopeful humanity. "

Astel was more influential than race theorist Hans FK Günther as in the SS area. An example of the active participation and implementation of Nazi policies by these eugenicist it that the Sippschaftstafel Karl Astel of 1933 that was, which was later adopted by the Reichsführer School of SA and the RuSHA for demographic statistics is. This later known as pedigrees pedigrees were used in Nazi Germany as so-called proof of Aryan descent.

Publications

• Twilight race and their mastery by spirit and act as vital question of the white peoples. From: Series of NS Monatshefte, Issue 1, Central Publishing House of the NSDAP Rather, Munich 1935 as Doc again. Walter Wuttke - Groneberg, medicine under National Socialism. A workbook. Swabian Verlagsges., Tübingen 1980, 1982 ISBN 3884660063 Doc. 156
• Race course in Egendorf. A racial hygiene course the Thuringian State Office for racial beings. Edit and Hg Karl Astel, Lehmann, Munich 1935.
• With Erna Weber: The difference in propagation. Study on the Reproduction of 12,000 officials and employees of the Thuringian State administration., Ibid, 1939.
• " Out of the bottleneck! " Speeches of the Reich Defense Commissioner of the Military District IV, Empire and Gauleiter Sauckel F. and the Rector of the University of Jena, State Councillor Prof. Dr. K. Astel. German Federal Government to combat tobacco dangers, Berlin, 1941.
• With Erna Weber: The Number of Children 29000 political head of the Gau Thuringia the NSDAP and the causes of the detected reproducing. 4 study of the different propagation in Thuringia. A. Metzner, Berlin, 1943.
• The practice of eugenics in Germany. Speaking at the 1st Scientific Meeting of the German Society for Hygiene, Berlin, October 5 to 6, 1938 in: Supplement to the Reich Health Journal, 4, Berlin 1938, pp. 65-70. .