Memory, responsibility, change: the story of a name change

At the beginning of 2025, the student hall of residence, which originally bore the name "Prof.-Hallermann-Haus", was renamed "Dr.-Aenne-Liebreich-Haus". With this decision, the Studentenwerk SH expressly distances itself from the involvement of Prof. Dr Wilhelm Hallermann (1901-1975) in the National Socialist regime.

Reasons for the original naming

The hall of residence, which opened in 1983, is located at Johann-Fleck-Straße 6-14 in Kiel and offers space for over 300 students, was originally named after Prof Dr Wilhelm Hallermann. The "selfless and successful advocacy of Prof Dr Hallermann for the social interests of students over more than two decades at state level and for many years at federal level in his capacity as chairman of the board of the Deutsches Studentenwerk e.V. "¹ was cited by the board of the Studentenwerk SH at the time as the reason for naming the new hall of residence. In addition, Hallermann would have turned 80 on 17 March 1981, which the board at the time regarded as a further reason for the naming.

For decades, Prof Hallermann had played a key role in promoting the interests of students. As a university lecturer at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) (from 1941), Chairman of the Studentenwerk SH (1946-1969) and President of the Deutsches Studentenwerk (1956-1967), he provided important impetus in the post-war period.

On the occasion of his retirement, the so-called "father of the students "² was honoured with a torchlight procession.

Demonstrable actions and involvement in the Nazi context

The expert report paints an ambivalent picture of the former Kiel university lecturer. It recognises his services to forensic medicine and Kiel University, but critically contrasts his verifiable actions and involvement in the Nazi context.

The verifiable actions and involvement include

1. Memberships in Nazi organisations: Although predominantly passive, but in line with his career orientation, Hallermann was a member of several Nazi organisations: SA (1933), NS-Dozentenbund (1937), NSDAP (1937) and NS-Ärztebund (1940). According to his own statements in his ^{denazification} file3, he was also a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare Organisation (NSV, from 1936) and the Reichsluftschutzbund (no year).
2. Acting as an expert witness for the Nazi Special Court in Kiel: Hallermann voluntarily took on the task of preparing psychological expert reports for the Nazi Special Court in Kiel, in which he went beyond his medical specialism and provided indirect justifications for harsh sentences, including death sentences, by adopting Nazi ideological arguments.
3. Expert witness work for the Hereditary Health Court in Kiel: As a voluntary assessor at the Hereditary Health Court, Hallermann was actively involved in decisions on forced sterilisation. He confirmed the decisions of the Hereditary Health Court even after 1945.
4. Network activities and the Heyde/Sawade affair: Hallermann was part of an extensive, well-established network that continued to exist after the end of the war. His complicity in the Heyde/Sawade affair is considered certain, even though he always denied it. He covered up for the former SS doctor Werner Heyde (1902-1964), who was responsible for the murders of over 80,000 people as part of the "Nazi euthanasia programme".
5. Trivialisation of suspicious deaths: Hallermann was called in as an expert witness in 1961 to investigate suspicious deaths in the "paediatric ward" of the Schleswig psychiatric clinic as part of "euthanasia investigations". Although the patient files showed some anomalies, Hallermann, as an expert witness, found no evidence of "active euthanasia measures".