Georg Groscurth
Encyclopedia
Georg Groscurth was a German
doctor
and Nazi resistance fighter in the time of the Third Reich.
's son in the village of Unterhaun in the Province of Hesse-Nassau, now part of Hauneck
in the Bundesland
of Hesse
. He studied medicine
at the University of Marburg, the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, the University of Graz
, and the University of Vienna
. He finished his studies in Berlin
with a doctorate
in medicine. Thereafter, Groscurth worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry. There he got to know Robert Havemann
, with whom he founded a resistance group some years later.
From 1933 Groscurth worked as an internist
at the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin, and later at the Moabit
Hospital, also in Berlin. In 1940, Groscurth was appointed as a lecturer
at the Friedrich Wilhelm University
, where he came to Rudolf Hess
's attention when he became Groscurth's patient.
Since Groscurth witnessed not only his Jewish colleagues being removed from their positions when Hitler came to power
beginning in 1933, he knowingly broke his professional discretion
and tried to communicate to resistance groups everything that Hess had told him during medical consultations. This included, for example, plans for new concentration camps and for an attack on the Soviet Union
. Together with the chemist
Robert Havemann, the architect
Herbert Richter-Lukian and the dentist
Paul Rentsch, Groscurth then founded the resistance group Europäische Union
("European Union"). They hid Jews and fugitives. Whenever he could, Groscurth certified soldier
s unfit for combat
duty. In 1943, he got to know Galina Romanova
, a Soviet doctor from Dnepropetrovsk who had been forcibly brought to Germany as a slave labourer. He treated her with medication
s, gave her professional advice, and supported her in organizing the resistance.
The European Union resistance group was betrayed in 1943 and Groscurth was seized on 4 September 1943. Afterwards, he was sentenced to death at the Volksgerichtshof. The death sentence was signed by the judges, Roland Freisler
and Hans-Joachim Rehse. Groscurth was hanged
at the Brandenburg-Görden Prison
on 8 May 1944.
, lived in Wehrda
in Hesse
, and later in West Berlin
together with the couple's two sons. Friedrich Christian Delius, who later became a writer
, grew up with the two Groscurth boys and later wrote the book Mein Jahr als Mörder ("My Year as a Murderer"), a novel with both autobiographical and historical elements, based on the lives of Georg and Anneliese Groscurth. His book played a major role in bringing recognition to the Groscurth's story.
A memorial plaque
which recalls Georg Groscurth's activities can be found at the former Moabit
Hospital, Turmstraße 21 in Berlin. Furthermore, a street in the Pankow
section of Berlin was named Groscurthstraße in his honour on 31 August 1977. In 1980 a memorial to Groscurth with the inscription "I die for a world without hate" was erected within the cemetery of Unterhaun. In 2005, Israel awarded Groscurth with the designation, Righteous among the Nations
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and Nazi resistance fighter in the time of the Third Reich.
Life
Georg Groscurth was born a farmerFarmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
's son in the village of Unterhaun in the Province of Hesse-Nassau, now part of Hauneck
Hauneck
Hauneck is a community in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany.-Location:The town of Bad Hersfeld lies right nearby to the north. Some 35 km away lie Fulda to the south and Alsfeld to the west.The community stretches along the Haune...
in the Bundesland
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
of Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
. He studied medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the University of Marburg, the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, the University of Graz
University of Graz
The University of Graz , a university located in Graz, Austria, is the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria....
, and the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. He finished his studies in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
with a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in medicine. Thereafter, Groscurth worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry. There he got to know Robert Havemann
Robert Havemann
Robert Havemann was a chemist, and an East German dissident.He studied chemistry in Berlin and Munich from 1929 to 1933, and then later received a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute....
, with whom he founded a resistance group some years later.
From 1933 Groscurth worked as an internist
Internal medicine
Internal medicine is the medical specialty dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of adult diseases. Physicians specializing in internal medicine are called internists. They are especially skilled in the management of patients who have undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes...
at the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin, and later at the Moabit
Moabit
Moabit is an inner city locality of Berlin. Since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it belongs to the newly regrouped governmental borough of Mitte. Previously, from 1920 to 2001, it belonged to the borough of Tiergarten. Moabit's borders are defined by three watercourses, the Spree, the...
Hospital, also in Berlin. In 1940, Groscurth was appointed as a lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
at the Friedrich Wilhelm University
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
, where he came to Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
's attention when he became Groscurth's patient.
Since Groscurth witnessed not only his Jewish colleagues being removed from their positions when Hitler came to power
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
beginning in 1933, he knowingly broke his professional discretion
Physician-patient privilege
Physician–patient privilege is a legal concept, related to medical confidentiality, that protects communications between a patient and his or her doctor from being used against the patient in court. It is a part of the rules of evidence in many common law jurisdictions...
and tried to communicate to resistance groups everything that Hess had told him during medical consultations. This included, for example, plans for new concentration camps and for an attack on the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Together with the chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
Robert Havemann, the architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Herbert Richter-Lukian and the dentist
Dentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
Paul Rentsch, Groscurth then founded the resistance group Europäische Union
European Union (resistance group)
The original European Union was an antifascist resistance group during Germany's Nazi era, which formed around Anneliese and Georg Groscurth and Robert Havemann. Other important members were Herbert Richter and Paul Rentsch....
("European Union"). They hid Jews and fugitives. Whenever he could, Groscurth certified soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s unfit for combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
duty. In 1943, he got to know Galina Romanova
Galina Romanova
Galina Romanova was a Ukrainian doctor who was deported to Germany during World War II to provide medical care for forced laborers. She became involved with the German resistance against Nazism and was executed at Berlin-Plötzensee prison.- Biography :Romanova was born in Romankowo,...
, a Soviet doctor from Dnepropetrovsk who had been forcibly brought to Germany as a slave labourer. He treated her with medication
Medication
A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...
s, gave her professional advice, and supported her in organizing the resistance.
The European Union resistance group was betrayed in 1943 and Groscurth was seized on 4 September 1943. Afterwards, he was sentenced to death at the Volksgerichtshof. The death sentence was signed by the judges, Roland Freisler
Roland Freisler
Roland Freisler was a prominent and notorious Nazi lawyer and judge. He was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the People's Court , which was set up outside constitutional authority...
and Hans-Joachim Rehse. Groscurth was hanged
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
at the Brandenburg-Görden Prison
Brandenburg-Görden Prison
Brandenburg-Görden Prison is located on Anton-Saefkow-Allee in the Görden section of Brandenburg an der Havel. Erected between 1927 and 1935, it was built to be the most secure and modern prison in Europe. It was a Zuchthaus for inmates with lengthy or life sentences at hard labor, as well as...
on 8 May 1944.
Posthumous recognition
After the war ended, his widow, Dr. Anneliese GroscurthAnneliese Groscurth
Dr. Anneliese Groscurth was the wife of Georg Groscurth and a member of the European Union, an antifascist German resistance group in Berlin, during the Nazi era...
, lived in Wehrda
Haunetal
Haunetal is a community in Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in eastern Hesse, Germany. Haunetal is the district’s southernmost municipality.-Location:...
in Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, and later in West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
together with the couple's two sons. Friedrich Christian Delius, who later became a writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, grew up with the two Groscurth boys and later wrote the book Mein Jahr als Mörder ("My Year as a Murderer"), a novel with both autobiographical and historical elements, based on the lives of Georg and Anneliese Groscurth. His book played a major role in bringing recognition to the Groscurth's story.
A memorial plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
which recalls Georg Groscurth's activities can be found at the former Moabit
Moabit
Moabit is an inner city locality of Berlin. Since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it belongs to the newly regrouped governmental borough of Mitte. Previously, from 1920 to 2001, it belonged to the borough of Tiergarten. Moabit's borders are defined by three watercourses, the Spree, the...
Hospital, Turmstraße 21 in Berlin. Furthermore, a street in the Pankow
Pankow
Pankow is the third borough of Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee; the resulting borough retained the name Pankow.- Overview :...
section of Berlin was named Groscurthstraße in his honour on 31 August 1977. In 1980 a memorial to Groscurth with the inscription "I die for a world without hate" was erected within the cemetery of Unterhaun. In 2005, Israel awarded Groscurth with the designation, Righteous among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
.
Literature
- Friedrich C. Delius: Mein Jahr als Mörder. Rowohlt, Berlin 1999 ISBN 3-87134-458-3