Horst Schumann
Encyclopedia
Horst Schumann SS-Sturmbannführer
(Major) and medical doctor, conducted cruel sterilization and castration
experiments at Auschwitz and was particularly interested in the mass sterilization of Jews by means of X-ray
s.
in 1932. In 1933, he received his medical degree after producing a thesis entitled "Frage der Jodresorption und der therapeutischen Wirkung sog. Jodbäder" ("The Question of Iodine Absorption and the Therapeutic Effects of so-called Iodine Baths"). He started his career as an assistant doctor in the Surgical Clinic of the clinic of Halle University.
. He was recruited to the air force as a physician in 1939. He joined the Aktion T4
Euthanasia program in early October 1939, after a meeting with Dr. Viktor Brack
in Hitler's chancellery. In January 1940, Schumann became head of the Grafeneck
euthanasia centre in Wurttemberg, where mentally ill people were gassed with carbon monoxide
in the first gas chamber. In the early summer of 1940, he was ordered to the Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre. Schumann also belonged to a commission of doctors, the famous "Action 14f13
", who transferred weak and sick prisoners from Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg
, Gross-Rosen
, Mauthausen
, Neuengamme and Niederhangen concentration camps to the euthanasia killing centers.
On 28 July 1941, Schumann arrived in Auschwitz. He worked at Block 30 in the women's hospital, where he set up an x-ray station in 1942. Here men and women were forcibly sterilized by being positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two x-ray machines, the rays aiming at their sexual organs. Most subjects died after great suffering, or were gassed immediately because the radiation burns from which they suffered rendered them unfit for work. Men's testicles were removed and sent to Breslau for histopathological examination. Schumann "...chose his test persons himself. They were always young, healthy, good-looking Jewish men, women and girls who looked like old people afterwards. The parts of the body that were treated with the rays were burnt, suppurating. Often the intestines were also affected. Many died. Part of Schumann's control tests, to check whether the radiation had worked, was the so-called semen check: a stick covered with a rubber hose was inserted into the rectum of the victim and the glands stimulated until ejaculation occurred so that the ejaculate could be tested for sperm..." (Klee, 53) Both kinds of samples were sent to the University of Breslau (today Wrocław) for examination.
Schumann also performed typhus
experiments by injecting people with blood from typhus patients and then attempting to cure the newly infected subjects. Schumann left Auschwitz in September 1944 and was appointed to the Sonnenstein Clinic in Saxony
which had earlier been converted into a military hospital.
. An application for a license for a hunting gun led to his being identified in 1951 so the GDR issued an arrest warrant. According to his own statement, Schumann served as a ship’s doctor for three years and because he did not have a German passport, he applied for one in Japan in 1954 and received it under his own name. Schumann then fled, first to Egypt
and eventually settled in Khartoum
in the Sudan
as head of a hospital. He was forced to flee from Sudan in 1962 after being recognised by an Auschwitz survivor. Then he went to Ghana, where he received the protection of the head of state, Kwame Nkrumah
.
In 1966, he was extradited from Ghana
to West Germany
where the trial against him was opened in Frankfurt
on 23 September 1970. However, Schumann was released from prison on 29 July 1972 due to his heart condition and generally deteriorating health. However, he did not die until 5 May 1983, 11 years after he had been released. As Robert Jay Lifton
has observed "...Schumann has great importance for us because of what he did – intense involvement in both direct medical killing and unusually brutal Auschwitz experiments – and what he was – an ordinary, but highly Nazified man and doctor..." (p. 284).
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...
(Major) and medical doctor, conducted cruel sterilization and castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
experiments at Auschwitz and was particularly interested in the mass sterilization of Jews by means of X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
s.
Early life
Schumann was born on 1 May 1906 in Halle an der Saale. His father—Paul Schumann was also a doctor. Schumann entered the NSDAP in 1930 and joined the SASturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
in 1932. In 1933, he received his medical degree after producing a thesis entitled "Frage der Jodresorption und der therapeutischen Wirkung sog. Jodbäder" ("The Question of Iodine Absorption and the Therapeutic Effects of so-called Iodine Baths"). He started his career as an assistant doctor in the Surgical Clinic of the clinic of Halle University.
Nazi doctor
From 1934, Schumann was employed in the Public Health Office in HalleHalle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
. He was recruited to the air force as a physician in 1939. He joined the Aktion T4
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
Euthanasia program in early October 1939, after a meeting with Dr. Viktor Brack
Viktor Brack
Viktor Brack , was a Nazi war criminal, the organiser of the Euthanasia Programme, Action T4, where the Nazi state systematically murdered disabled German people...
in Hitler's chancellery. In January 1940, Schumann became head of the Grafeneck
Grafeneck
Grafeneck is a small rural village in Germany, near the town of Münsingen, south-west of Stuttgart. Grafeneck Castle, which had previously been an asylum for crippled people, was turned by the Nazis into an extermination facility....
euthanasia centre in Wurttemberg, where mentally ill people were gassed with carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...
in the first gas chamber. In the early summer of 1940, he was ordered to the Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre. Schumann also belonged to a commission of doctors, the famous "Action 14f13
Action 14f13
Action 14f13, also called "Sonderbehandlung 14f13", was a campaign of the Third Reich to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Also called "invalid" or "prisoner euthanasia", the campaign culled the sick, elderly and those deemed no longer fit for work from the rest of the prisoners in a...
", who transferred weak and sick prisoners from Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...
, Gross-Rosen
Gross-Rosen concentration camp
KL Gross-Rosen was a German concentration camp, located in Gross-Rosen, Lower Silesia . It was located directly on the rail line between Jauer and Striegau .-The camp:...
, Mauthausen
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp
Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
, Neuengamme and Niederhangen concentration camps to the euthanasia killing centers.
Auschwitz
Schumann also performed typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
experiments by injecting people with blood from typhus patients and then attempting to cure the newly infected subjects. Schumann left Auschwitz in September 1944 and was appointed to the Sonnenstein Clinic in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
which had earlier been converted into a military hospital.
Medical career after the war
While serving as a military doctor on the Western Front, he was captured by the Americans in January 1945. He was released from captivity in October 1945. In April 1946, he began to work as a sports doctor for the city of GladbeckGladbeck
Gladbeck is a city in the district of Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.The name ´Gladbeck´ evolves from Low German, originally spoken in the area around Gladbeck. ´Glad´ means something like gleamy and ´beck´ means about brook. However, the brook Gladbeck flows under the ground...
. An application for a license for a hunting gun led to his being identified in 1951 so the GDR issued an arrest warrant. According to his own statement, Schumann served as a ship’s doctor for three years and because he did not have a German passport, he applied for one in Japan in 1954 and received it under his own name. Schumann then fled, first to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and eventually settled in Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...
in the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
as head of a hospital. He was forced to flee from Sudan in 1962 after being recognised by an Auschwitz survivor. Then he went to Ghana, where he received the protection of the head of state, Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
.
In 1966, he was extradited from Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
where the trial against him was opened in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
on 23 September 1970. However, Schumann was released from prison on 29 July 1972 due to his heart condition and generally deteriorating health. However, he did not die until 5 May 1983, 11 years after he had been released. As Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform...
has observed "...Schumann has great importance for us because of what he did – intense involvement in both direct medical killing and unusually brutal Auschwitz experiments – and what he was – an ordinary, but highly Nazified man and doctor..." (p. 284).
See also
- The HolocaustThe HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
- Nazi human experimentationNazi human experimentationNazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners by the Nazi German regime in its concentration camps mainly in the early 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust. Prisoners were coerced into participating: they did not willingly volunteer and there...
- Josef MengeleJosef MengeleJosef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
- Eduard WirthsEduard WirthsEduard Wirths was the Chief SS doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp from September 1942 to January 1945...