Werner Catel was a paediatrician and professor of paediatrics at the universities of Leipzig (1931 – 1945) and Kiel (1954 – 1960). He set up both Leipzig »Paediatric departments« and was one of the three experts of the so-called »Reichsausschuss zur Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden« (Reich Committee for the Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Diseases). As such, he made thousands of decisions on the life and death of children and adolescents. When the Leipzig paediatric clinic was hit by bombs in 1943, he continued to murder in Leipzig-Dösen. In total, there were around 500 murders in the Leipzig »Paediatric wards«. His later second wife, Isolde Heinzel, was also involved in these murders. He was never brought to justice for his role in the »Child euthanasia« programme. In 1949, he was denazified in Hamburg as »Untainted«. As early as 1947, he was chief physician at the Mammolshöhe tuberculosis paediatric sanatorium (Königstein im Taunus). Following public pressure, he had to leave Kiel University Hospital prematurely in 1960. It was not until 2006 that the university criticised his actions.
