Sanitätswesen
Encyclopedia
The Sanitätswesen was one of the five divisions of a Nazi concentration and extermination camp organization during the Third Reich. The other divisions were the command center, the administration department, the Politische Abteilung
and the protective detention
camp.
(CCI), called after 1937, the Leitender Artzt ("head doctor"). The chief physician of the CCI was responsible for assigning and posting "medical personnel" to the concentration camps, for technical instructions to the camp doctors and for evaluation of their monthly reports.
Later, the CCI became "Amt D" of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
and Enno Lolling
became head on March 3, 1942 of "Amt D III for Medical Corps Units and Camp Hygiene" with headquarters in Oranienburg
. As such, he was the head doctor supervising all concentration camp doctors, who was, in turn, subordinate to the Reichsarzt SS, Ernst-Robert Grawitz
.
and their family members.
According to Auschwitz concentration camp
commandant Rudolf Höss, their non-medical tasks were:
Moreover, the doctors had the opportunity, and in some cases, were assigned, to conduct "medical research
". These experiments were conducted on living prisoners or sometimes on prisoners who were executed for the purposes of the particular research project. Along with this were manifold relationships throughout the German Reich with National Socialist professors at medical faculties and institutions, such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
(now the Max Planck Institute), also the pharmaceutical industry and medical organizations.
When the local registrar's office required a death certificate for one of these dead prisoners, it was falsified with regard to doctor's name and cause of death.
s as ancillary staff, who served as nurses in the infirmary. These medics often had little or no nursing training and as a result, possessed only limited medical knowledge.
and some were executed, many Nazi doctors slipped into comfortable and respected positions after the war. For example, in East Germany, Herman Voss became a prominent anatomist and in West Germany
, Eugen Wannenmacher became a professor at the University of Münster
and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer
, who had been Josef Mengele
's mentor and sponsor, was allowed to continue his medical practice.Their Nazi past was generally ignored, though some were forced to work under false names. The experiments they conducted have been cited in medical journals and sometimes republished with no reference or disclaimer as to how the research data were obtained.
Politische Abteilung
The Politische Abteilung , also called the "concentration camp Gestapo", was one of the five departments of a Nazi concentration camp set up by the Concentration Camps Inspectorate to operate the camps...
and the protective detention
Protective custody
Protective custody is a type of imprisonment to protect a prisoner from harm, either from outside sources or other prisoners. Many administrators believe the level of violence, or the underlying threat of violence within prisoners, is a chief factor causing the need for PC units...
camp.
Background
The medical corps was an obligatory component of the command center staff of a concentration camp. This division was subordinate to the chief physician of the Concentration Camps InspectorateConcentration Camps Inspectorate
The Concentration Camps Inspectorate was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten, after Eicke's position in the SS...
(CCI), called after 1937, the Leitender Artzt ("head doctor"). The chief physician of the CCI was responsible for assigning and posting "medical personnel" to the concentration camps, for technical instructions to the camp doctors and for evaluation of their monthly reports.
Later, the CCI became "Amt D" of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt was responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects for the Allgemeine-SS...
and Enno Lolling
Enno Lolling
Enno Lolling was a German physician. As a member of the SS, he served as a lagerarzt at Dachau concentration camp. He later headed up the medical division for all the SS concentration camps. Lolling committed suicide in Flensburg as the war was ending.- Biography :Lolling was born in Cologne...
became head on March 3, 1942 of "Amt D III for Medical Corps Units and Camp Hygiene" with headquarters in Oranienburg
Oranienburg
Oranienburg is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Oberhavel.- Geography :Oranienburg is a town located on the banks of the Havel river, 35 km north of the centre of Berlin.- Division of the town :...
. As such, he was the head doctor supervising all concentration camp doctors, who was, in turn, subordinate to the Reichsarzt SS, Ernst-Robert Grawitz
Ernst-Robert Grawitz
Ernst-Robert Grawitz was a German physician in Nazi Germany during World War II.- Early life :Grawitz was born in Charlottenburg, in the western part of Berlin, Germany.- Career :...
.
Chief physician
The Standortarzt, the chief camp physician, also called "first camp doctor", ran the medical corps at the concentration camp. In this capacity, the leading doctor was the supervisor of the entire medical staff of the camp. He was also responsible for carrying out the instructions of the chief physician of the CCI and the preparation of monthly reports to them.Troops doctor
The "troops doctor" was responsible for the medical care of the SS-guardsSS-Totenkopfverbände
SS-Totenkopfverbände , meaning "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich....
and their family members.
Camp doctors
The rest of the camp doctors divided up the remaining areas of the camp (men's camp, women's camp, etc.), according to the duty roster. The medical care of prisoners was secondary to their main tasks. Of primary importance were the hygienic aspects of disease prevention and maintenance of prisoners' capacity to work. To this end, they availed themselves of prisoners who were doctors and nurses to serve as auxiliary staff in the infirmary.According to Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
commandant Rudolf Höss, their non-medical tasks were:
- They were to be present at the arrival of Jewish transports to conduct selektions of those men and women able to work.
- They were to be at the gas chamberGas chamberA gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
s to observe the killing procedures and verify that everyone was dead. - Dentists had to conduct continual spot tests to verify that the prisoner dentists from the SonderkommandoSonderkommandoSonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
removed all gold from the mouths of the dead before they were incinerated in the crematorium and had placed the gold in the secure containers on hand for that purpose. They also had to supervise the gold being melted afterward. - They were to "retire" and send to be exterminated those Jews who had become incapacitated and for whom the prognosis did not anticipate a return to work within four weeks. Those who couldn't get out of bed were to be killed with an injection.
- They had to conduct verschleierten Exekutionen ("covert executions") of healthy prisoners arrested by the Politische AbteilungPolitische AbteilungThe Politische Abteilung , also called the "concentration camp Gestapo", was one of the five departments of a Nazi concentration camp set up by the Concentration Camps Inspectorate to operate the camps...
who had been sentenced to death for political reasons. These were "liquidated" by injection. The camp GestapoGestapoThe Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
wanted the executions to be kept secret, hence the doctors certified the cause of death as being from "natural causes". - Attendance at "judicial" camp executions was required to certify death.
- They had to be attend the corporal punishmentCorporal punishmentCorporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
of prisoners in order to examine the prisoner serve as an impediment. - They had to conduct forced abortions on non-German women, up to the fifth month.
Moreover, the doctors had the opportunity, and in some cases, were assigned, to conduct "medical research
Nazi human experimentation
Nazi 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...
". These experiments were conducted on living prisoners or sometimes on prisoners who were executed for the purposes of the particular research project. Along with this were manifold relationships throughout the German Reich with National Socialist professors at medical faculties and institutions, such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
The Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science was a German scientific institution established in 1911. It was implicated in Nazi science, and after the Second World War was wound up and its functions replaced by the Max Planck Society...
(now the Max Planck Institute), also the pharmaceutical industry and medical organizations.
When the local registrar's office required a death certificate for one of these dead prisoners, it was falsified with regard to doctor's name and cause of death.
SS medics
The camp doctors were allocated SS medicMedic
Medic is a general term for a person involved in medicine, especially emergency or first-response medicine, such as an emergency medical technician, paramedic, or a military member trained in battlefield medicine. Also the term is used toward a Nurse in pre-hospital care and/or emergency...
s as ancillary staff, who served as nurses in the infirmary. These medics often had little or no nursing training and as a result, possessed only limited medical knowledge.
Prisoner doctors and nurses
The direct care and treatment of sick prisoners was mainly by prisoners who had been doctors and nurses before their arrest. At times, their medical work was performed "illegally", in disobedience of a direct order from the SS.After 1945
Though a number of the most important Nazi doctors were tried in NurembergDoctors' Trial
The Doctors' Trial was the first of 12 trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg, Germany after the end of World War II. These trials were held before U.S...
and some were executed, many Nazi doctors slipped into comfortable and respected positions after the war. For example, in East Germany, Herman Voss became a prominent anatomist and in 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....
, Eugen Wannenmacher became a professor at the University of Münster
University of Münster
The University of Münster is a public university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. The WWU is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a society of Germany's leading research universities...
and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer
Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer
Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer was a German human biologist and eugenicist concerned primarily with "racial hygiene" and twin research...
, who had been Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef 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...
's mentor and sponsor, was allowed to continue his medical practice.Their Nazi past was generally ignored, though some were forced to work under false names. The experiments they conducted have been cited in medical journals and sometimes republished with no reference or disclaimer as to how the research data were obtained.
See also
- Henryk MandelbaumHenryk MandelbaumHenryk Mandelbaum was a survivor of the Holocaust. He was one of the prisoners in the Sonderkommando KL Auschwitz-Birkenau in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who had to work in the crematory...
- Josef KlehrJosef KlehrJosef Klehr was an SS-Oberscharführer, supervisor in several Nazi concentration camps and head of the SS disinfection commando at Auschwitz concentration camp.- Life :...
- Adolf TheuerAdolf TheuerAdolf Theuer was an SS-Unterscharführer at Auschwitz concentration camp...
- Hans KochHans Koch (SS man)Hans Koch was an SS-Unterscharführer and member of staff at Auschwitz concentration camp. He was prosecuted at the Auschwitz Trial....
Sources
- Karin Orth, Die Konzentrationslager-SS. dtv, Munich (2004) ISBN 3-423-34085-1
- Wolfgang Kirsten, Das Konzentrationslager als Institution totalen Terrors. Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler (1992) ISBN 3-89085-649-7
- Hermann LangbeinHermann LangbeinHermann Langbein was an Austrian who fought in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades for the Spanish Republicans against the Nationalists under Francisco Franco...
, Menschen in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Wien, Ullstein-Verlag (1980) ISBN 3-54833014-2 - Eugen KogonEugen KogonEugen Kogon was a historian and a survivor of the Holocaust. A well-known Christian opponent of the Nazi Party, he was arrested more than once and spent six years at Buchenwald concentration camp. Kogon was known in Germany as a journalist, sociologist, political scientist, author and politician...
, Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager, Alber, Munich (1946); later, Heyne, Munich (1995) ISBN 3-453-02978-X