The following is a list of notable physicians in Nazi Germany. This list is primarily split up into those who performed euthanasia through the Aktion T4 campaign, to those who primarily performed experiments on Holocaust victims. While a majority consists of members of the Nazi Party, others who could not become members contributed in notable ways. After the war, the German Medical Association blamed Nazi atrocities on a small group of 350 criminal doctors. During the Doctors' trial, the defense argued that there was no international law to distinguish between legal and illegal human experimentation,"As Other Editors See it: The Nazi Doctors" Schenectady Gazette. November 27, 1946 which led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code (1947). Some doctors attempted to change names to escape capture and trial, such as Werner Heyde and Robert Ley,"Robert Ley is in hands of yankees" Lawrence Daily Journal World. May 17, 1945 Other doctors, such as Walter Schreiber, were covertly moved to the United States during "Operation Paperclip" in 1951.
Note: Some of those listed here were acquitted of the more serious charges, but were still found guilty for other crimes.
Background When the Nazi government came to power, they purged Germany of its 6,000 to 7,000 Jewish doctors. Non-Jewish physicians were early recruits to the Nazi Party, due both to social and economic circumstances and to widespread eugenic and Social Darwinist ideas in early-20th-century medicine. By 1942, more than half of all German physicians had become Nazi Party members. In comparison, only about 10% of the general population became Nazi Party members by 1945. In addition, over 7% of German doctors became members of the Nazi SS, compared to less than 1% of the general population. While most of these doctors were physicians, some held doctorates (PhDs) in biology, anthropology, or related fields. Doctors who were working for the state, and not for their patients, using a Mendelian type of logic chart, saw extermination of their patients as the correct solution to the problem of mental illness and the genetically defective."...carried out only by physicians." Book "Human Subjects Research after the Holocaust" authors Sheldon Rubenfeld, Susan Benedict. Year 2014. Page 10. "The participation in the ‘betrayal of Hippocrates’ had a broad basis within the German medical profession. Without the doctors' active help, the Holocaust could not have happened," wrote E Ernst in the International Journal of Epidemiology. Killing and experimentation"Nazi Sterilization Experiments" Author Genevieve Payzer. 2017 became medical procedures as they were performed by licensed doctors. A doctor was present at all the mass killings for legal reasons."History Vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church" Author David Cymet. Page 262. Told by Dr Hans Wilhelm Münch in 1981.
Euthanasia
Doctor Birth Death Position Erich Bauer T4-personnel T4-Gutachter August Becker T4-Chemist T4-Gutachter T4-Gassing doctor T4-Gutachter"Vienna buries last remains of victims of Nazi medical mistreatment" National Post. May 9, 2012. T4-Gassing doctor Viktor Brack T4-Organizer T4-Gassing doctor Werner Catel T4-Gutachter (Children) T4-Organizer Max de Crinis T4-Gutachter Irmfried Eberl T4-Director T4-personnel T4-Gutachter T4-Gassing doctor"Abusive Medical Practices on “Euthanasia” Victims in Austria during and after World War II" Author Herwig Czech. Page 112. DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-05702-6_9 T4-Gassing doctor Ernst-Robert Grawitz T4-personnel Heinrich Gross T4-personnel T4-Gutachter Hans Heinze T4-Gutachter (Children) T4-personnel Werner Heyde (Fritz Sawade) T4-Obergutachter Ernst Illing T4-Child euthanasia T4-Gutachter T4-Director T4-Obergutachter T4-Gutachter Friedrich Mauz T4-Gutachter T4-Gutachter Paul (Hermann) Nitsche T4-Obergutachter Friedrich Panse T4-Gutachter T4-Gutachter T4-Gutachter T4-Gutachter Carl-Heinz Rodenberg T4-Gutachter T4-Gutachter Carl Schneider T4-Gutachter T4-personnel Werner Villinger T4-Gutachter T4-Chief doctor Erich Wasicky T4-Gassing doctor T4-Gutachter (Children) Albert Widmann T4-personnel (Children) T4-Gutachter Euthanasia Euthanasia
Human experimentation
Doctor Birth Death Type(s) Sentence Reference(s) Karl Babor Injections None (suicide) Heinz Baumkötter 25 years Hermann Becker-Freyseng High-altitude experiments 20 years Maura Phillips Mackowski, Testing the Limits: Aviation Medicine and the Origins of Manned Space Flight, Texas A&M University Press, 2006, p. 64 Wilhelm Beiglböck Sea water experiments 15 years Alexander Mitscherlich / Fred Mielke: Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit – Dokumente des Nürnberger Ärzteprozesses, Lamberg und Schneider, Heidelberg 1949, . Otto Bickenbach Poison gas experiments Life Otto Bickenbach's Human Experiments with Chemical Warfare Agents at the Concentration Camp Natzweiler in the Context of the SS-Ahnenerbe and the Reichsforschungsrat Kurt Blome Multiple Acquitted Karl Brandt Injections Executed Carl Clauberg Sterilization experiments 25 years Leonardo Conti None (suicide) "The Murder of Unproductive Persons" Hans Delmotte Injections None (suicide) Erwin (Oskar) Ding-Schuler Injections None (suicide) Hans Eisele Surgical experiments Death Friedrich Entress Injections Executed The Dachau Trials:Mauthausen-Gusen Cases Hans Eppinger Sea water experiments None (suicide) Fritz Fischer Surgical experiments Life Karl (Franz) Gebhardt Injections & surgical ex. Executed Karl (August) Genzken Injections Life None directly None Injections 20 years Julius Hallervorden Post-mortem brain research None Siegfried Handloser None directly None Aribert (Ferdinand) Heim Injections Escaped Kurt HeissmeyerDecember 26, 1905August 29, 1967 Injections Life Injections Executed Erich Hippke None directly None Ernst Holzlöhner Freezing experiments None (suicide) Waldemar Hoven Injections Executed Emil Kaschub Injections None Hans Wilhelm König Injections Escaped Eduard Krebsbach Injections Executed Johann (Paul) Kremer Starvation experiments Death Josef Mengele Multiple Escaped Joachim Mrugowsky Injections Executed Heinrich Mückter Escaped Herta Oberheuser Sulfonamide experiments 20 years Helmut Poppendick None directly 10 years Sigmund Rascher Multiple None Hans (Conrad Julius) Reiter None directly Minimal None High-altitude experiments Acquitted Gerhard Rose Injections Life Injections & surgical ex. Executed Paul Rostock None directly Acquitted Poison gas experiments Death Siegfried Ruff High-altitude experiments Acquitted Konrad Schäfer Acquitted Injections & surgical ex. Executed Klaus Schilling Malaria experiments Executed Sea water experiments Life Horst Schumann X-ray sterilization ex. None Biochemical experiments 10 years Walter Sonntag Injections Executed None (suicide) Alfred Trzebinski Injections Executed Carl (Peter) Værnet Injections Escaped Helmuth Vetter Injections Executed Bruno (Nikolaus Maria) Weber None directly None High-altitude experiments Acquitted None directly Death Eduard Wirths None directly None (suicide)
Others Academics
Doctor Birth Death Short summary Kurt Albrecht Albrecht was a professor at the University of Berlin, and Karl-Ferdinands-Universität in Prague. Eugen Fischer Fischer developed the physiological specifications, such as skull dimensions, which were used to determine racial origins, and he also developed the so-called Fischer–Saller scale for hair colour. He and the members of his team experimented on Gypsies and African-Germans, drawing their blood and measuring their skulls (see Craniometry) to attempt to scientifically validate his theories. Wilhelm Frick He achieved a doctorate of law and began working for the police in 1903. Later became a politician of the Nazi Party, joining September 1, 1925. He was a contributing creator and writer of the Nuremberg Laws. He was tried and executed after the war. Rudolf Hippius Hippius is best known for his work in "racial psychology" carried out under the auspices of the Nazi regime, and specifically his study of the "suitability" of people of mixed German and Slavonic descent. Alfred Ploetz Ploetz was a eugenicist known for coining the term racial hygiene (Rassenhygiene), a form of eugenics, and for promoting the concept in Germany. Robert Ritter Ritter was appointed head of the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit of Nazi Germany's Criminal Police. He was the "architect of the experiments, the Roma and Sinti were subjected to." His pseudo-scientific "research" in classifying these populations of Germany aided the Nazi government in their systematic persecution toward a goal of "racial purity". Ernst Rüdin While Rüdin has been credited as a pioneer of psychiatric inheritance studies, he also argued for, designed, justified, and funded the mass sterilization and clinical killing of adults and children. Wilhelm Stuckart He achieved a doctorate of law in 1930. He worked as a lawyer for the Nazi Party and helped to create and write the Nuremberg Laws. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer Verschuer was a Nazi-affiliated eugenicist with an interest in racial hygiene. He was an advocate of compulsory sterilization programs in the first half of the 20th century.Nicholas Wade, "IQ and Heredity: Suspicion of Fraud Beclouds Classic Experiment", Science November 26, 1976: 916–919.D. D. Dorfman, "The Cyril Burt Question: New Findings", Science September 29, 1978: Vol. 201 no. 4362 pp. 1177–1186
Camp doctors