![Hadamar May 4 1945](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Hadamar_May_4_1945.jpg)
Irmgard Huber (1901–1983)
was the head nurse at the
Hadamar Killing Facility
The Hadamar killing centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hadamar) was a killing facility involved in the Nazi "involuntary euthanasia" programme known as ''Aktion T4''. It was housed within a psychiatric hospital located in the German town of Had ...
. Beginning in late 1939, it was operated as one of six major centers for
Action T4
(German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of ...
, a secret sterilization and "
involuntary euthanasia
Involuntary euthanasia occurs when euthanasia is performed on a person who would be able to provide informed consent, but does not, either because they do not want to die, or because they were not asked.
Involuntary euthanasia is contrasted with ...
" program in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. Nearly 15,000 German citizens were murdered there, including thousands of children.
After the war and the defeat of Germany, in 1945 this area was within the
American Zone of Occupation
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...
. Huber was prosecuted and convicted by the United States military for murders of forced laborers from Poland and other allied countries, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. In 1946, she was prosecuted and convicted by newly reconstructed German courts for the murders of German citizens. Her sentence was lengthened by eight years.
Early life and career
Irmgard Huber was born and grew up in
Hadamar
Hadamar is a small town in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.
Hadamar is known for its Clinic for Forensic Psychiatry/Centre for Social Psychiatry, lying at the edge of town, in whose outlying buildings is also found the Hadamar Memo ...
in present-day
Hessen
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are Darm ...
. She went to local schools and to nursing school, entering the profession in 1932. Before the end of that decade, she had become head nurse at Hadamar Clinic, a major psychiatric facility.
Background
Hadamar Killing Facility
The Hadamar killing centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hadamar) was a killing facility involved in the Nazi "involuntary euthanasia" programme known as ''Aktion T4''. It was housed within a psychiatric hospital located in the German town of Had ...
was one of six major sites in Nazi Germany that killed thousands of Germans deemed to have incurable illness under the disguise of "
euthanasia
Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Different countries have different eut ...
".
Most of them had physical and mental disabilities. German supreme leader
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
determined that he did not want to use state funds to maintain them in wartime and that they should have "mercy deaths". Death certificates were falsified.
After German unification in 1990, new records were found that enabled historians to establish that a total of 200,000 Germans were killed nationally in this programme. At Hadamar, nearly 15,000 mentally or physically disabled people: children first and then adults, were killed, first the patients of the facility, then others bussed in from such institutions as nursing homes, old age homes, and state childcare institutions.
The Americans who controlled this area after the downfall of the Nazi regime, wanted to prosecute the murders, but were limited by international law to crimes against their own military personnel, or military or civilians of their
allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
. Hospital records revealed that 476 forced laborers from
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
Allied countrieshad also died at Hadamar. Their murders were within
American jurisdiction.
Irmgard Huber, head nurse of the hospital, was among the staff members who were arrested by the Americans. Her claims that she never killed patients were corroborated by co-workers and witnesses. She was released.
Later, the court ruled that Huber played a role in selecting patients for murder and in falsifying death certificates. She also controlled the supply of drugs used to lethally overdose patients, the preferred method of "euthanasia" from 1941 through 1945. Huber was rearrested, tried with six others and convicted.
Leon Jaworski
Leonidas "Leon" Jaworski (September 19, 1905 – December 9, 1982) was an American attorney and law professor who served as the second special prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal. He was appointed to that position on November 1, 1973, soon af ...
, prominent later in the United States during the
Watergate hearings
The Senate Watergate Committee, known officially as the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, was a special committee established by the United States Senate, , in 1973, to investigate the Watergate scandal, with the power to inve ...
, was the chief prosecuting official. Huber was sentenced to 25 years in prison for serving as an accomplice to murder.
As the only female defendant, she received the lightest sentence at the trial. Chief administrator,
Alfons Klein
Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. ...
, and two male nurses, Heinrich Ruoff and Karl Willig, were sentenced to death and executed in 1946. The chief physician, Adolf Wahlmann, received a life sentence. Two other members of the administrative staff received sentences of 20 to 35 years.
In 1946, after reconstruction of German courts under the occupation, Huber was among twenty-five members of the Hadamar staff, including Wahlmann, tried for murders of thousands of German citizens at Hadamar. Convicted as an accomplice to murder in at least 120 cases, Huber was sentenced to eight additional years in prison. Wahlmann was also convicted in the second trial, and sentenced to death. This was commuted to life in prison due to his old age and poor health.
Later life
Huber's sentence was reduced to 12 years, and she was released from prison in July 1953, as the US warmed to ex-Nazis in the shadow of an escalating Cold War. Her sentence imposed by West Germany was not enforced. Huber lived in Hadamar until her death there in 1983.
Notes and references
''This article incorporates text from the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
, released under the
GFDL
The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the r ...
.''
External links
*United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Irmgard Huber
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huber, Irmgard
1901 births
1983 deaths
Aktion T4 personnel
German women nurses
German nurses
20th-century German women
Holocaust perpetrators in Germany
Nazis convicted of war crimes
Prisoners and detainees of the United States military