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2019-01-09 Pathology as a Crime: Analysis of Dissection Protocols from Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, 1944-1945

Tannenbaum, Jessica

Tannenbaum, J. (2019). Pathology as a Crime: Analysis of Dissection Protocols from Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, 1944--1945 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/109443 master thesis

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Pathology as a Crime:

Analysis of Dissection Protocols from Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, 1944–1945

by

Jessica Tannenbaum

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JANUARY, 2019

© Jessica Tannenbaum 2019

Abstract

The present thesis examines 161 dissection protocols that were produced in the Flossenbürg concentration camp between July 1944 and April 1945. After an introductory overview of the history of pathology and an outline of the history of the Flossenbürg camp, the study describes the protocols in regards to formal and qualitative criteria. The analysis scrutinizes the conclusions or so-called diagnoses of the dissectors at the end of each protocol from a forensic perspective. All prisoner deaths that occurred in the context of a concentration camp are considered criminal or unnatural, having occurred under obscure circumstances. The present study shows how the allegedly objective language of medicine and pathology often covers up medical crimes, such as missing treatment or prevention of infectious diseases, improper abdominal surgeries, starvation, polytrauma, executions, and neglect, instead of uncovering them. This confirms what former prisoners had testified to in the immediate postwar period. The thesis furthermore attempts to provide a more probable cause of death in three exemplary cases.

Finally, it evaluates the scientific nature of the dissection protocols. It concludes that the

Flossenbürg dissection protocols should be described as arbitrary experiments on humans

(eigenmächtige Versuche am Menschen) but that they do not incorporate any necessary scientific criteria, nor were they created with truly scientific questions in mind. From the available historical evidence, the study concludes that the dissections were performed on deceased inmates to satisfy personal curiosity if not voyeurism stemming from a deeply misanthropic and criminal ideology of Germanic supremacy.

ii Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Frank Stahnisch, as well as the whole staff of the

University of Calgary’s History Department for accepting the adventure and for welcoming me as an international graduate student. The support has been friendly, warm, and exceptional. This is not limited to but includes generous funding through the department as well as the Faculty of

Graduate Studies. Without this, my journey would not have been possible. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate students Michelle, Shawn, Louis, Andres, Daniel, Jaqueline, Rebecca,

Nicholas, Stacey, and Rogelio for providing helpful feedback on parts of the manuscript. At the

ITS, I would like to thank the archivist Kim Dresel for being always helpful, friendly, and approachable as well as Elke Helmentag for granting permission to publish some of the original source material. At the Flossenbürg Memorial Site I would like to thank the historians and archivists Annabelle Lienhardt and Johannes Ibel for their kindness and support. Without my family, however, it would have been a lonely and a much less grounded journey. Thank you to my husband and two children for reminding me of your love and showing me again and again the magic of a mischievous smile, of the touch of a hand, or simply how lucky we are to be able to debate whether a room is in fact tidied up or not. I dedicate this thesis not only to my children, but to all the little dreamers in my life.

iii Table Of Contents

ABSTRACT ...... II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... III

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... IV

LIST OF TABLES ...... VI

LIST OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS...... VII

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, NOMENCLATURES ...... VIII

INTRODUCTION...... 1

Sources ...... 7

Historiography ...... 12

Methodology ...... 16

Terminology ...... 17

Names and Ethical Considerations ...... 19

Structure ...... 20

CHAPTER 1: THE HISTORY OF PATHOLOGY AND THE CONTEXT OF

NECROPSIES IN GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS ...... 23

1.1 THE MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY ...... 23

1.2 THE HISTORY OF PATHOLOGY AND DISSECTION IN EUROPE ...... 25

1.3 GERMAN PATHOLOGY BETWEEN 1933 AND 1945 ...... 34

Pathologists and the so-called “Euthanasia” Program ...... 36

Pathologists and their Work on the Bodies of Concentration Camp Inmates ...... 37

iv 1.4 THE HISTORY OF THE FLOSSENBÜRG CONCENTRATION CAMP BETWEEN 1938 AND 1945 .... 43

CHAPTER 2: THE PROTOCOLS ...... 49

2.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL ...... 50

2.2 A QUALITATIVE APPROACH TO THE VICTIMS ...... 63

2.3 EXAMPLES...... 66

The Transcripts ...... 67

The Translations ...... 68

3. ASSESSING THE FLOSSENBÜRG DISSECTION PROTOCOLS ...... 78

3.1 NAZI EXPERIMENTS AND PSEUDOSCIENCE IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY ...... 80

3.2 THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICIANS ...... 87

3.3 ARBITRARY EXPERIMENTS ...... 98

4. CONCLUSION ...... 107

EPILOGUE ...... 116

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 119

Consulted Archives ...... 119

Primary Sources...... 119

Websites ...... 120

Secondary Literature ...... 123

APPENDIX A ...... 132

APPENDIX B ...... 140

APPENDIX C ...... 141

v List of Tables

Table 1: Frequency of different etiologies...... 58

Table 2: Breakdown of internal diseases...... 58

vi List of Figures and Illustrations

Figure 1: The mortality rate between July 1944 and March 1945……………………………….52

Figure 2: The cover of the Flossenbürg notebook ………………………………………………53

Figure 3: Screenshot of the Flossenbürg Book of the Dead search template……………………54

Figure 4: Doc ID 10804165 (protocol 11), German transcript ………………………………….69

Figure 5: Doc ID 10804165 (protocol 11), English translation …………………………………70

Figure 6: Doc ID 10804189 (protocol 57), English translation………………………………….73

Figure 7: Doc ID 10804214 (protocol 118), English translation………………………………...76

vii List of Abbreviations, Nomenclatures

AGFl Archiv der Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg (Archive of the Flossenbürg

Memorial Site)

Am Amberg

BAarch Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives) Berlin

BarchG Bundesarchivgesetz (Federal Archive Act)

CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

CICR Commité International de la Croix Rouge, International Red Cross

DGP Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pathologie, the German Association of

Pathology

Dr.med. Medical doctor

FT Flossenbürg Trial

ITS International Tracing Service

LA Landesarchiv (Archive of one of the federate German states, comparable

to a provincial archive)

NARA National Archives and Records Administration

NMT Nuremberg Medical Trial (Nürnberger Ärzte-Prozess)

NRW Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia, one of the federate

German states)

NSG Nationalsozialistische Gewaltverbrechen (National Socialist Crimes)

RMdI Reichsministerium des Inneren (Ministry of the Interior)

RUS Reichsuniversität Strassburg

viii SA Sturmabteilung (Stormtroopers)

SHAEF Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

SS Schutzstaffel (Protection Squads)

Sta Staatsanwaltschaft (Department of Public Prosecution)

StA Stadtarchiv (Town archive)

StARch Staatsarchiv (State archive)

SU Soviet Union

Subag Sudetenländische Bergbau-AG

TB/TBC Tuberculosis

UA University Archive

UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

WCP War Crimes Prison

Wen Weiden

WVHA SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt (SS-Business Administration

Main Office)

ix

Wenn das Leben nichts mehr gilt, verschwindet auch die Achtung vor dem Toten.

Once life has become worthless, the deference for the dead will dwindle as well.

–Lucie Adelsberger, Auschwitz

(Dr. Adelsberger was a Jewish prisoner physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau)

x Introduction

Nazi mass atrocities have been subject of reports and inquiries since the late years of the

Second World War.1 Today, the literature on the Holocaust and its related crimes is vast.2 This holds also true for a specialty within the field of Holocaust Studies, which is the influence of medicine and science. This subfield examines the involvement of medical perpetrators, institutions, the abuse of medicine in a context of coercion and unfreedom, and the consequences on the victims.3 That the Nazi regime would mistreat its prisoners was suspected, but definite proof of the enormous scale of the crimes, medical and otherwise, only became available after the liberation of the different concentration camps at the end of the Second World War. Camps were spread out in a large area ranging from the Netherlands and France in Western Europe to the camps within the Reich, and to those which were mainly extermination camps in occupied

Poland.4 Concentration camps on the one hand were high-security enclosures where prisoners were mainly put to forced labour. This could be any type of work, but very often consisted of back-breaking labour in quarries, mines, or factories.5 Especially during the last years of the war, this type of slave labour was exploited in the war effort to build weapons, planes, or other types

1 One such report was smuggled from Poland to England and then to the USA by Jan Karski (1914–2000), a former Polish soldier who worked for the Polish underground. He was received by then US President Roosevelt in 1943. Jan Karski, Mein Bericht an die Welt (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2012), 529–541. Doris L. Bergen, The Holocaust: A Concise History, 2nd ed., (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009), 204–209. 2 See for example Bergen, Holocaust, which offers a meticulous and sensitive introduction. Saul Friedländer, Das Dritte Reich und die Juden: Die Jahre der Verfolgung 1933–1939 ; Die Jahre der Vernichtung 1939–1945 (München: dtv, 2008), which examines in detail the anti-Semitic measures taken by the Nazi regime. Ernst Klee, Was sie taten - was sie wurden: Ärzte, Juristen und andere Beteiligte am Kranken- oder Judenmord (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1987), which looks at the involvement in crimes of some of the most prominent members of the Nazi regime and how their careers continued mostly unbroken after 1945. 3 Patricia Heberer, “Science” in The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies, eds. Peter Hayes and John K. Roth, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 39–53. 4 “Map of the major Nazi concentration and extermination camps,” USHMM, accessed November 12, 2018, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1174815. 5 Bergen, Holocaust, 197–198.

1 of military material.6 Those prisoners who were young, strong, healthy, and able to understand some German had a theoretical chance of surviving this type of camp.

Extermination camps on the other hand, were built to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. There was no chance of survival. The extermination camps were Kulmhof

(Chelmno), Bełżec, Sobibór, Majdanek, and Treblinka. They were equipped with a minimal number of personnel whose duty it was to oversee the killing process via poisonous gases

(carbon monoxide or Zyklon B). Extermination camps ceased to exist at different dates between

1942 and 1944.7

The Red Army liberated Auschwitz, which had been both a concentration and an extermination camp, in January of 1945.8 Freeing the concentration camps of the Reich was a difficult and gruesome process for the Allied armies. It lasted several months from 1944 to 1945.

Flossenbürg and Dachau, as most other camps in Germany, were taken over by Allied forces in

April. Mauthausen in annexed Austria as well as prisoners on the many death marches were the last ones to be freed in early May. Allied forces came up close to medical crimes in the camp compounds they entered. Concentration camps that were not equipped with gas chambers, like

Flossenbürg, were still part of the bigger scheme of genocide and the Holocaust.9 Prisoners were

6 The so-called V1 and V2 rockets, for example, which were used by the Nazi regime to attack London, were produced by using slave labourers in concentration camps Peenemünde and Mittelbau-Dora. Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation, “The Beginning: Rocket Production is Moved from Peenemünde to Kohnstein Mountain,” accessed October 16, 2018, https://www.buchenwald.de/en/340/. 7 Henry Friedländer, Der Weg zum NS-Genozid (München: Wilhelm Heyne, 2001), 352, 453. 8 Geoffrey P. Megargee and Elie Wiesel, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS- Business Administration Main Office (WVHA) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 212. 9 This thesis will employ the definition of the term Holocaust as given by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and rejects all other uses of the term, be it in the context of the genocide of indigenous peoples or in attempts to allude to the dangers of nuclear weapons. It thus solely refers to the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Six million were murdered. “Introduction to the Holocaust,” Glossary, USHMM, accessed November 9, 2018, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust. For other clarifications on terminology see p. 17–18 and 23–25. On the problematic nature of the term ‘Holocaust’ see Frank Day,

2 starved, succumbed to egregious forced labour, or to unsanitary living conditions. After liberation, prisoners hardly felt truly liberated from the Schutzstaffel (SS), however. The SS

(literally protection squads) emerged from a small group that Adolf Hitler had designated as his bodyguard unit in 1932. It was understood as an elite group, where only reliable members of the

Nazi party were admitted. During the 1930s, they developed into a paramilitary branch and into a group that provided the guards for the concentration camps. The latter were called SS death head squads (SS-Totenkopfverbände). Both branches were under the command of the so-called

Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.10 Most inmates who were physically free, continued to feel the psychological terror they had been incessantly subjected to. One reason for this is that the majority of those who managed to survive had lost their families and circles of friends. This is exemplified by the quote of child survivor Jack Terry (Jakub Szabmacher, born 1930) whose mother and siblings had been shot in front of him in his Polish hometown. When the US Army liberated the Flossenbürg camp on April 23, 1945, he had just turned fifteen. “Although I left

Flossenbürg as quickly as I could, Flossenbürg never left me.”11

Military troops and prosecutors started gathering evidence during the last weeks and months of the Second World War. For example, Benjamin B. Ferencz (born 1919), prosecutor in

General Patton’s 3rd U.S. Army and later researcher for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials recalls. “It was a matter of moving with the front as quickly as possible. You had to get in [into

“Constantine’s Sword. The Church and the Jews—A History,” in, John K. Roth, ed., Holocaust Literature, Vol.1, The Accident - Letters and Papers from Prison, (Pasadena: Salem Press Inc., 2008), 66. 10 Martin Cüppers, Wegbereiter der Shoah: Die Waffen-SS, der Kommandostab Reichsführer SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939–1945 (Darmstadt: Primus, 2011), 23–26. 11 Jack Terry, “Holocaust Survivor Jack Terry. ‘I felt sure I would not live,’” Interview by SPIEGEL ONLINE, SPIEGEL ONLINE International, March 24, 2009, accessed October 29, 2018, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/holocaust-survivor-jack-terry-i-felt-sure-i-would-not-live-a- 614609.html.

3 the camp] and seize the evidence. If not, it would get destroyed.”12 Often, they received help from former inmates. “From those inmates who could talk.”13 Additionally, prosecutors like

Ferencz looked for former prisoners who would be willing to serve as witnesses in potential trials, but also for documents, and other evidence that could be used in court proceedings.

In some cases, war correspondents went into the just liberated camps as well and took photographs of former prisoners, barracks, or other infrastructure to document the atrocities.

Probably due to being completely overwhelmed by what they saw, their pictures often did not mention the names of the former inmates they showed, thus depersonalizing them to some degree again.14 Some of these photographs show another aspect of the end of Nazi dictatorship:

German citizens who by military order had to visit the former camps or the exhumed remains along the routes of the death marches. What is not documented on film, however, is the filth and the smell that the camp and the inmates radiated. Sometimes, this stench mirrors in the faces of the civilian visitors in the form of contempt or outright horror, though.15

After the Second World War was over, the first major indictment against National

Socialist medical personnel followed quickly. The Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial or Nuremberg

Medical Trial, NMT, (der Nürnberger Ärzteprozess) took place between December 9, 1946 and

12 Benjamin B. Ferencz, “Interview Benjamin B. Ferencz 2011”, Interview by Medienwerkstatt Franken, August 4, 2011, accessed October 29, 2018 through the online database of Flossenbürg Memorial, https://memorial- archives.international/login. 13 Ferencz, Interview. 14 Margaret Bourke-White's photographs, for instance, document the situation at the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. They were printed in the LIFE magazine in 1945. In this historical case, only one of the former inmates is superficially identified as “the Czech doctor.” Margaret Bourke-White, “Buchenwald,” International Center for Photography (ICP), accessed February 15, 2018, https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/objects/buchenwald-view-in-the-emergency-hospital-one-of-the-czech-doctors- is-leaning. See also Jörg Skriebeleit, Erinnerungsort Flossenbürg: Akteure, Zäsuren, Geschichtsbilder (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009), 50. 15 For an example from Flossenbürg, see KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg/Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten, eds., was bleibt: Nachwirkungen des Konzentrationslagers Flossenbürg, Katalog zur Dauerausstellung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010), 44.

4 August 20, 1947.16 One woman and twenty-two men were indicted of having participated in medical crimes such as forced human subject experimentation. All but three were physicians.17

Seven of the twenty-three were convicted to the death penalty by hanging, five received life imprisonment, four received sentences ranging from ten to twenty years, and seven were found not guilty.18 This trial had vital importance for bringing to light the extent and the systematic medicalized persecution and murder of the Nazi regime. Flossenbürg was not a topic in

Nuremberg, however.19

Not far from Nuremberg, judicial proceedings against former camp personnel from

Flossenbürg were undertaken in the so-called Flossenbürg Trial (FT) between June 12, 1946 and

January 22, 1947 in the former Dachau concentration camp. Verbatim records of this trial are available today in different archives as well as online via several databases.20 During the FT, only one of at least thirty different physicians and dentists who had been stationed at the

16 The historiography on this trial alone is abundant, so that the present study will focus on three major works: Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke, transl. Heinz Norden, Doctors of Infamy: the Story of the Nazi Medical Crimes (New York: Henry Schuman, 1949), accessible through “History of International Law,” accessed February 22, 2018, http://www.heinonline.org.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/HOL/Index?index=hoil/doctinfa&collection=hoil. The German original version: Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke, Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit: Dokumente des Nürnberger Ärzteprozesses (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 172009). Paul J. Weindling, Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical Crimes to Informed Consent (Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Angelika Ebbinghaus and Klaus Dörner, eds., Vernichten und Heilen: Der Nürnberger Ärzteprozeß und seine Folgen (Berlin: Aufbau, 2001). 17 Ebbinghaus/Dörner, Vernichten, 9–20. 18 Mitscherlich/Mielke, Doctors, 146. 19 Flossenbürg was merely mentioned in connection with an affidavit by Dr. Gerhard Schiedlausky who had been an SS doctor to several camps, namely Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, Ravensbrück, Natzweiler, and Buchenwald. His affidavit covered the experiments at Buchenwald. Harvard Law School Library, Nuremberg Trials Project, accessed January 7, 2019, http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/transcripts/1-transcript-for-nmt-1-medical- case/search?q=Schiedlausky. Mitscherlich/Mielke, Medizin, discusses Schiedlausky’s activities in Ravensbrück, 184187. Weindling, Consent, 322 does not consider Flossenbürg. For Schiedlausky’s biography, see Jessica Tannenbaum, Medizin im Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg, 1938–1945: Biografische Annäherungen an Täter, Opfer und Tatbestände (Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 2017), 9398. 20 Joshua M. Greene, Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor (Chicago: Ankerwycke, 2003). Rudolf Schlaffer, GeRechte Sühne? Das Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Internationalen Strafverfolgung (Hamburg: Dr. Kovac, 2001). Robert Sigel, Im Interesse der Gerechtigkeit: die Dachauer Kriegsverbrecher-Prozesse 1945–1948 (Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 1992). The complete verbatim records of the main and all follow-up trials can be viewed online, for example via the Jewish Virtual Library, accessed June 6, 2018, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/flossenb-uuml-rg-war-crimes-trials.

5 Flossenbürg camp was indicted, although a handful of the medical staff was held in custody as potential war criminals in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison (WCP), near Munich.21 This one physician, Dr. Heinrich Schmitz, a civilian surgeon who had worked in camp Flossenbürg on the basis of a contract with the SS, received the death penalty by hanging.22 After jurisdiction was transferred back to the two Germanies in the early 1950s, one trial against former medical staff

(Dr. Fischer) of Flossenbürg concentration camp followed in West Germany, but with a minor charge. All in all, Flossenbürg was understood as not having been a place of medical crimes or coerced human subject experimentation, with maybe the exception of civilian surgeon Heinrich

Schmitz, who, was executed in 1948. This fact led to an exculpation of the other Flossenbürg physicians, intentionally or not. Even Dr. Alfred Schnabel, who had been Schmitz’s superior between May and September of 1944, was denazified as belonging to the category V of the exonerated (die Entlasteten) - and never had to face criminal charges (also see Chapter 3, p.

94).23

When physicians were among the indicted in any of the just mentioned trials, the proximity of healing and killing became clear as the latter had been perceived as a form of healing by Nazi physicians. Healing in the context of eugenics and racial hygiene, was not so much about individual well-being, but about “healing” of the so-called German nation or peoples’ body (Volkskörper). This was carved out by medical historian Gerhaard Baader, the

21 The definite number of SS physicians at Flossenbürg is unclear. I was able to find biographical information for thirty individuals, which are presented in my medical dissertation. There is verbal testimony that at least two more doctors had been stationed in Flossenbürg, but either there were no documents on these men or the documents left out the time in Flossenbürg. Tannenbaum, Medizin, 152–162. 22 US vs Ewald HEERDE et al., NARA, 000-50-46-3, Review and Recommendations from February, 27, 1948, p. 10–21. Accessible via Forschungs- und Dokumentationszentrum für Kriegsverbrecherprozesse der Universität Marburg (The International Reseach and Documentation Centre of War Crimes Trials of the University Marburg), accessed November 12, 2018, https://www.uni-marburg.de/icwc/forschung/2weltkrieg/usadachau. 23 Entnazifizierungshauptausschuss der Stadt Essen, Kammer II, Entnazifierungssache Alfred Schnabel, Dr. med., vom 18.5.1949 (Denazification commission of the town of Essen, chamber II, denazification case Alfred Schnabel, MD, of May 18, 1949) in LA NRW, Abteilung Rheinland, NW_1005_G_34_01116, pages 6–7.

6 psychiatrist and medical historian Klaus Dörner, and Engelika Ebbinghaus in their publication about the NMT.24 Mitscherlich’s rightly asserted the trial could constitute nothing more than a mere sample, as he noted early on while documenting the NMT in 1946/47.25 What was made visible in Nuremberg was the peak of an enormous iceberg of state-wide and state-sponsored biomedical warfare against human beings who were categorized as inferior, allegedly too lazy to work, or racially impure.

Sources

As alluded to above, the verbatim records from the FT along with documentation gathered by the liberators who entered the camps early, remain among the most important sources for research into Flossenbürg’s history. Other sources constitute oral history interviews and memoirs that were collected systematically primarily from the 1990s on. More often than not these give the impression of Flossenbürg as having been a camp where medical crimes were committed mainly by Schmitz.26 However, it is important to remember, that inmates' perspectives were limited and confined to the narrow camp infrastructure, and few had the opportunity to observe what was happening beyond the camp’s fence. The impression that Schmitz was the only or the most threatening of the so-called medical staff, probably was amplified by post-physicians

(Standortärzte), the superiors to the camp physicians (Lagerärzte), who rarely visited the prisoner area of the camp. If they did so, they stole belongings, valuables, and alcohol, as has

24 Gerhard Baader, “Heilen und Vernichten: Die Mentalität der NS-Ärzte,” in Ebbinghaus/Dörner, Vernichten, 275– 294. 25 Mitscherlich/Mielke, Medizin, 14. 26 Alicia Nitecki and Jack Terry, Jakub’s World: A Boy’s Story of Loss and Survival in the Holocaust (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 52. Tadeusz Sobolewicz, Von der Willkür des Überlebens im Konzentrationslager (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2005), 197, 201. What makes Sobolewicz’s memoir so interesting is, that it shows how first Schmitz mistreated and then saved him by correctly operating appendicitis. Thomas Muggenthaler, “Ich lege mich hin und sterbe!” Ehemalige Häftlinge des KZ Flossenbürg berichten (Stamsried: Vögel, 2005), 31 mentions both Schnabel and Schmitz.

7 been testified by a group of several former inmates, among them the “secretary” (Schreiber) of the infirmary, the Czech Alois Valousek (b. 1908).27 I have argued that it was not due to the activities of Schmitz alone that inmates became seriously sick or died. Rather, in the postwar period, he was used as a scapegoat for the actions and the negligence of the other Nazi physicians. Nonetheless, the biography of Schmitz remains the one of a physician-perpetrator in

Flossenbürg of whom there exists the most archival material (Schmitz’s biography is described in detail in Chapter 3.2, p. 88). Most importantly here, he seems to be the main character involved in the creation of the source under study, the dissection protocols.

When Schmitz became camp physician, he got involved in numerous medical crimes. As a surgeon, he would operate on prisoners, but he would not limit himself to the so-called small or superficial surgery. Instead, he would perform arduous abdominal interventions. As he did not always use sterile instruments or gloves, a considerable number of his inmate-patients died due to severe complications. These offences are documented in the testimonies of former inmate physicians during the FT, and in a list of operations that was kept secretly by inmates. These crimes, especially the demanding surgeries, are also described by the last administrative clerk, in camp jargon “Kapo,” of the infirmary, Carl Schrade (1896–1974), in his memoir.28 Of those who died in the post-operative period, some can be found to have been dissected. The respective handwritten dissection protocols, that very likely were started by Schmitz and continued by his successors, are assembled in a small booklet or notebook. These documents are now housed at the repository of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany, and their analysis is the purpose of this study.

27 Alois Valousek et al., “Der wahre Sozialismus und die DEUTSCHE Kultur im Revier des Konzentrationslagers Flossenbürg, Straflager, Gruppe III, das sogenannte Haeftlingsspital, in der Zeit vom 18. November 1943 bis 20. April 1945,” ITS, Doc ID 82107277–82107280. 28 Carl Schrade, Elf Jahre: Ein Bericht Aus Deutschen Konzentrationslagern (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014), 247–261.

8 Following the initiative of the United States and Great Britain, as well as of the United

Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the Supreme Headquarters Allied

Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (CICR), the

ITS was established in 1942. The aim was to collect as much information on deported individuals as possible and to facilitate family reunions for the time once the war was over.29

Since then, the ITS has collected millions of personal files, transport lists, and camp documentation, that span “twenty-six running kilometres” and thus constitute “the world’s largest centralized repository on the victims of National Socialism.”30 Since the opening of its archive to researchers in 2007, the ITS has made its vast repository of personal prisoner documentation readily available not only to families but historians and others.31 This allows for different questions and approaches, the most important one still being the identification of prisoners and reconstruction of their biographies, which sometimes even leads to restitution of personal belongings to descendants.32

One small piece of this immense repository are the 161 dissection protocols from the concentration camp Flossenbürg.33 They were written between July 1944 and April 1945. The dissections seem to have been performed by camp physicians on inmates who had either been actively killed by the doctors or who had died due to the living and working conditions and

29 “The History of the ITS as an International Institute,” ITS, accessed June 7, 2018, https://www.its- arolsen.org/en/about-its/history/. 30 Jennifer L. Rodgers, “From the ‘Archive of Horrors’ to the ‘Shop Window of Democracy:’ The International Tracing Service, 1942–2013” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2014), 3. 31 “Zehn Jahre Archivöffnung,” ITS, accessed February 22, 2018, www.its- arolsen.org/nc/news/news/detailseite/news/detail/News/zehn-jahre-archivoeffnung/. 32 The current program #StolenMemory restitutes the so-called “effects,” (die Effekten) personal belongings that were taken from inmates upon arrival in a concentration camp, ITS, accessed June 7, 2018, https://www.its- arolsen.org/en/exhibits/stolenmemory/. 33 “Sektionsberichte” (Individual Death reports), 1.1.8.1/8091300 Section reports (Sektionsberichte) – from 28.7.1944–10.4.1945, ITS, Bad Arolsen. I thank Johannes Ibel, historian at the Flossenbürg memorial site, for having originally pointed out this source to me.

9 passive medical neglect. This collection of dissection or autopsy protocols is a rare and precious source (for a differentiation between dissection and autopsy please see Chapter 1, p. 23–25):

First, because there generally survives little source material with specific medical information on inmates; and second, because there are even fewer sources of that kind that were issued by the perpetrators themselves.34 The protocols stem from a profoundly criminal context where the individual life of a prisoner was seen as worthless when he fell ill, and homicide was accepted and expected to occur on a daily basis. The killing of those deported to the camps was considered normal, even necessary, to fulfill the biomedical utopia of a Germanized Europe.35 The camps constituted the internal front where doctors continued the work that the soldiers had begun on or near the front lines.36 For the Nazi doctors this meant that they “had an endless supply of disposable human subjects on whom to conduct experiments.”37 The present study will thus analyze these protocols from a forensic viewpoint, proceeding from the view that all cases of death registered in the camp were unnatural, obscure, and criminal, and thus can and should be described as murder. Consequently, this and the overall high mortality in the camp should have urged prompt judicial investigations.38 The very fact that people died in high numbers was either accepted as a given or instigated by the camp physicians, who then seem to have taken advantage

34 Between April 16 and April 20, 1945, SS members destroyed potentially incriminating evidence of their crimes, see Skriebeleit, Erinnerungsort, 54. 35 Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of The Nazi Concentration Camps (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), 248–255 and 274–277. Wendy Lower, “Living Space,” in Hayes, Handbook, 310–325. 36 Paul J. Weindling, Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe 1890–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1–5. Robert N. Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). Chapter 3 covers the overall importance of physicians for the Nazi regime in (medical) education, politics, and propaganda, whereas chapter 7 examines the practical involvement of the medical profession before and during the war. 37 Bergen, Holocaust, 190. 38 Judicial investigations into inmates’ deaths were delayed and stopped by Heinrich Himmler as early as 1933 in the “model camp Dachau.” See for example Karin Orth, Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager (Zürich: Pendo, 2002), 28.

10 of some of the available corpses to perform postmortem examinations.39 I will demonstrate that these dissections were performed because they were possible and no legal consequences had to be expected at the time. But I also aim to answer the question of what they are able to tell today.

For this, the specific subtext, or in other words, the reason why the given individual really died will be uncovered, at least to the extent possible. This evaluation of the Flossenbürg dissection protocols I hope will contribute to a re-humanization of the victims.

I examined three factors in each dissection protocol, these were its accuracy, its completeness, and whether the indicated cause of death followed consistently from the previous findings. What do I mean by these terms? Accuracy refers to the way the body opening was performed and whether the protocol followed common contemporary pathological guidelines.

Completeness relates to the fact that in the majority of cases, important obligatory steps of a body opening were left out during the postmortem examination, leading to meager or missing descriptions and conclusions. Consistency of the given cause of death refers to the question whether the end statement logically follows from the content of the protocol and if possible alternative explanations for the prisoner’s death are discussed. In those protocols, where the dissector made no explicit statement about a possible cause of death, I attempt to provide several possible causes. If this is not possible either, because of lack of detailed information, the cause of death will have to remain unsolved. This part of the thesis aims to get as close as possible to the clinical reality of dying in the camp by deciphering specialist medical terminology on the one hand and describing the specificities of the Flossenbürg concentration camp at that time on the other.

39 For general remarks on terminology please see the last section of this Introduction. For remarks on medical terminology, please see Chapter 1.

11 The second part of the study argues that Flossenbürg main camp was a place where arbitrary, or non-systematically organized, medical experiments were performed as the infrastructure of an extra-legal and extra-territorial space of absolute power permitted this.40 The culprits were all medical staff and the camp commandant was the superior in the ranks of the SS.

As the killing and dying had become normalized over the years, so had the exploitation of prisoners’ bodies by physicians.41

Historiography

The study can be situated in the much larger field of recent research into anatomical and neuropathological collections of German and Austrian Universities or research institutions within the context of the Nazi regime on the one hand, and inquiries into the pathology departments of the various camps on the other. However, systematic studies on how pathology departments were involved in body or tissue acquisition during the Third Reich are still outstanding.42 In October

2017, the German Association of Pathologists (DGP) began a research project on pathology and pathologists during the time of National Socialism.43 Whereas concentration camps Buchenwald,

Dachau, Natzweiler-Struthof, and Auschwitz are all known to have some form of connection to an outside scientific institution, this is not necessarily the case for smaller camps, such as

Neuengamme and Flossenbürg. I will go over these in more detail. At Buchenwald there was both coerced human subject experimentation and a pathology department that produced

40 For the term “absolute power,” coined by sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky, please see Wolfgang Sofsky, Die Ordnung Des Terrors: Das Konzentrationslager, 6th ed., (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2008), 27–41. 41 Pathologist Kremer had specific inmates killed for his studies while stationed in Auschwitz in 1942. Klee, Auschwitz, 408. 42 Sabine Hildebrandt, The Anatomy of Murder: Ethical Transgressions and Anatomical Science during the Third Reich (New York: Berghahn, 2016), 243. 43 “Pathologie und Pathologen im Nationalsozialismus – Projekte zur Aufarbeitung der Geschichte von DGP, DGNN und BDP,” accessed June 8, 2018, https://www.pathologie-dgp.de/die-dgp/aktuelles/meldung/pathologie- und-pathologen-im-nationalsozialismus-projekte-zur-aufarbeitung-der-geschichte-von-dgp/.

12 pathological specimens from prisoner bodies.44 There was also a connection between

Buchenwald and the Institute for Legal Medicine in Jena. A few protocols remain to this day and testify to body openings of inmates, but also of SS members.45 For Dachau, proof exists that at least five bodies were sent to Schwabing Hospital in Munich by Dr. Rascher (1909–1945).46 The latter also subjected prisoners inside the camps to experiments with cold water and simulation of high altitudes. He called those experiments that he knew would cause the death of the test person

“terminal experiments.”47 For Natzweiler, the activities of Dr. August Hirt (1898–1945) have been extensively documented. He is most notorious for compiling a “Jewish skeleton collection,” but he also performed mustard gas experiments, and was involved in the supply of bodies from at least one of Natzweiler’s satellite camps to teach anatomy at the Reichsuniversität Strassburg

(RUS).48 For Auschwitz, a detailed account of the work and the working conditions under Josef

Mengele (1911–1979), was provided by the prisoner and forensic pathologist Miklós Nyiszli

(1901–1956). He details how prisoners of all ages were subjected to research and then killed, a procedure that was then followed by a dissection that Nyiszli was forced to do.49 The situation for Neuengamme is somewhat more complicated. Well documented is the murder of twenty

Jewish children, twenty-eight adults, and twenty-four Soviet prisoners of war in the former school building called Bullenhuser Damm. The children had been subjected to willful infection

44 Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, ed., Konzentrationslager Buchenwald 1937–1945: Begleitband zur ständigen historischen Ausstellung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), 58, 273. Hildebrandt, Anatomy, 244–245. 45 Friedrich Herber, Gerichtsmedizin unterm Hakenkreuz (Leipzig, Voltmedia, 2006), 253–254. 46 Hildebrandt, Anatomy, 245. 47 Mitscherlich, Infamy, 4. He followed up the results of these experiments with a dissection. One is quoted in Mitscherlich, Infamy, 9–10. In the German edition, there is a reprinted series of photographs of one such experiment. Mitscherlich/Mielke, Menschlichkeit, insert between p. 208 and 209. 48 Rafael Toledano, “August Hirt and the supply of corpses at the Anatomical Institute of the Reichsuniversität Strassburg (1941–44),” in Paul Weindling, ed., From Clinic to Concentration Camp: Reassessing Nazi Medical and Racial Research, 1933–1945 (London, New York: Routledge, 2017), 100. 49 Miklós Nyiszli, Im Jenseits Der Menschlichkeit: Ein Gerichtsmediziner in Auschwitz (Berlin: Karl Dietz, 1991). See as well Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel and Angelika Königseder, eds., Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager Band 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme (München: C.H.Beck, 2007), 127.

13 with tuberculosis and they were all killed just before the end of the war.50 To this day, there are no other studies that prove dissections in the Neuengamme camp system.

In general, reports of physicians who performed autopsies in concentration camps are rare.51 At this point, I would like to point to the subtext of National Socialist sources, which needs to be kept in mind: as the context of these deaths is a criminal one, deception was regularly used by the perpetrators, either by leaving out key information, or by using euphemisms or highly medicalised language. Both, deception and allegedly neutral language were used to create the illusion of neutral and rational science. Furthermore, only few people outside the medical establishment were able to understand pathological diagnoses in Latin. These different layers of either codified language or absence of any language were added in order to obfuscate the fact that human lives were deliberately taken.52 The present thesis will thus undertake three forms of terminological and language translation: one will be the obvious one from German to English, the second will be the explanation of the Latin diagnoses into laymen’s terms, and the third will be to put these in the context of a dehumanizing and ultimately lethal context of a concentration camp. What will emerge corresponds to the “death history” exacted by medical historian Paul

Weindling in order to achieve a new historiography of Nazi medical crimes and experimentation.53 This approach will hopefully make clear what information was left out and render some dignity to the victims.

50 Iris Groschek and Kristina Vagt, “… dass du weißt, was hier passiert ist“: Medizinische Experimente im KZ Neuengamme und die Morde am Bullenhuser Damm (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 2012). 51 Herber, Gerichtsmedizin, 256. 52 On the language of the Third Reich see Victor Klemperer, LTI: Notizbuch eines Philologen, 23rd ed. (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 1975). Sternberger, Storz, Süskind, Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen (Hamburg: Claassen, 1957), 19–22, 96–99. Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, and Adalbert Rückerl, “A coded Language,” in Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 5- 12. 53 Weindling, Clinic, 11.

14 After the Second World War, Flossenbürg was quickly forgotten as a place where a concentration camp had been. Consequently, when it came to medical offences and their criminal prosecution in the post-war years, Flossenbürg was rarely taken into consideration. Architectural changes which were implemented in the former camp reinforced this neglect that bordered on denial. Parts were either re-used for different purposes like social housing and an industrial zone, or characteristic buildings of the camp were destroyed and replaced by residential areas. The three barracks where the infirmary had been, were dismantled, as were the barracks of the so- called rehabilitation (Schonung). The history of the place was to be erased, at least in its material structure.54 Medical questions were addressed relatively late with the first professionally researched work on Flossenbürg, published in 1979.55 Although local activist groups had started to challenge the silence surrounding the former camp and the village since the 1980s, research only began in the late 1990s.56 Historian and director of Flossenbürg memorial site, Jörg

Skriebeleit put the medical sphere in relationship to the excruciating forced labour, first in the granite quarry, then for the Messerschmitt plane factory.57 Publications by the journalist Thomas

Muggenthaler always focused on the lived personal experience of those who had survived and who were willing to talk about it.58 These, as well as various memoirs, devoted varying degrees of importance to medical issues, but few left them out. For the present study, the report of the

54 More about the post-war history and the late establishment of a memorial site see Skriebeleit, Erinnerungsort, 161–248. 55 Toni Siegert, “Das Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg. Gegründet für sogenannte Asoziale und Kriminelle,“ in Martin Broszat, Elke Fröhlich and Anton Grossmann, eds., Bayern in der NS-Zeit: Herrschaft und Gesellschaft im Konflikt, 2nd vol. (München, Wien: de Gruyter, 1979), 429–492. 56 For example: Hildegard Vieregg, Willi Eisele, Theo Emmer, Bayerischer Philologenverband, Landesfachgruppe Geschichte-Sozialkunde, Verband der Geschichtslehrer Deutschlands, Landesverband Bayern, Begegnungen mit Flossenbürg: Beiträge, Dokumente, Interviews, Zeugnisse Überlebender (Weiden: Spintler, 1998). 57 Jörg Skriebeleit, “Flossenbürg – Hauptlager,” in Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel, eds., Flossenbürg: Das Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg und seine Außenlager (München: C.H.Beck, 2007), 11–60. 58 Thomas Muggenthaler, “Ich lege mich hin und sterbe!” Ehemalige Häftlinge des KZ Flossenbürg berichten (Stamsried: Vögel, 2005).

15 last administrative clerk or so-called Kapo of the infirmary (Revier), Carl Schrade, is maybe the most important one. The other publications from Flossenbürg memorial site cover medical questions, like forcible sterilizations, but they do not analyze the relevance of the dissection table which still stands in the memorial site today.59

Methodology

In order to approach the protocols, I first transcribed and typed each handwritten protocol, formatted the text to requirements of the ITS, and then secured it in a Microsoft Word file. As the source was generally easily readable, only a few gaps remain in the German transcripts. Further details on this process are given in Chapter 2 (p. 67) and at the beginning of the separate Appendix C. I then translated each protocol from German into English. Each transcription and translation can be found in the appendix to the printed version of this thesis. In some exemplary cases (described in Chapter 2.3, p. 70–78), I followed this process up with a reconstruction of the individual’s biography. This was possible via searches on the memorial’s database, the memorial’s Book of the Dead, and other online sources.60 The most important point, however, was to establish a medical history pointing out the factors that might have or very probably led to the death of the inmate. This type of source study, which almost assumed a forensic perspective of the primary material, partially succeeds in unveiling the underlying crimes. In this translation and elucidation process, however, it became more and more difficult to give clear answers or to draw definite conclusions, as the protocols usually become shorter near the end of the war, and because they regularly are incomplete. In general, each interpretation

59 It is in one room of the crematory building and commonly shown or accessible to visitors. 60 Flossenbürg memorial site/Bavarian memorial foundation, Database, https://memorial-archives.international/login and “Book of the Dead,” Flossenbürg memorial site/Bavarian memorial foundation, both accessed June 8, 2018, http://www.gedenkstaette-flossenbuerg.de/index.php?id=314&L=1. For the latter also refer to Chapter 2.

16 offered here, raises new questions. A most probable explanation was thus attempted but does not claim to be definite.

Terminology

A study of National Socialism and the Third Reich necessitates a careful usage of the

German terminology. “Nazi terminology … is offensive, nonsensical, or both.”61 The labels

“Aryan,” “race,” and “blood” did not describe objective realities, but within the regime and for those who were excluded of the community of Germans (Volkskörper), these categories could mean the difference between life and death.62 This means that words have to be contextualized as

Nazi propaganda distorted their original meaning. Occasionally, substitution by a neutral word is necessary. For example, the Nazi terminology for Gypsies should not be repeated today because it is pejorative. Instead of saying Zigeuner, it is much more respectful to speak of Sinti and

Roma. In the context of ‘Euthanasia,’ the German terms “unworthy of life” (unwertes Leben) or

“empty shells of bodies” (leere Körperhülsen) have to be understood as terminology that took away any human right of mentally or physically disabled as well as of chronically sick and dependent people. The language in the camps was even more cynical, dismissive, and aggressive. Guards and other camp staff used insults such as “skunk” (Schweinehund) and

“shitbag” (Drecksack) towards the prisoners regularly.63

The term “material” is common and accepted usage in anatomy and pathology and thus is usually used without quotation marks. It refers to any parts taken from a person’s body, either

61 Bergen, Holocaust, 36. 62 Bergen, Holocaust, 36. 63 Julian Noga, “’Wir haben viel bezahlt für unsere Liebe.’ Julian Noga: Wegen seiner großen Liebe ins KZ verschleppt,” in Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 24. And Jack Terry, “’Wir waren der letzte Dreck.’ Jack Terry: Der jüngste jüdische Häftling – in einem Tunnel versteckt,” in Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 149.

17 during a dissection or during surgery. This “material” can then be used to create anatomical preparations, specimens, or tissue slides. In the context of dehumanizing language of the camps, however, it turns into a dismissive way of speaking about human beings. The prisoners were merely seen as “material” out of which something could potentially be “produced” for the gain of the SS. This is why I will use the term “material” in quotation marks throughout.64

For camps in the occupied countries, I will use the following terminology pattern:

German concentration and extermination camps in Poland, for example. City names, if they come up, will be given in both the German and the local language respectively, Lodsch/Łódź, for instance.

Another reason, why I use language cautiously is that present-day Nazi groups in

Germany often circumvent otherwise illegal German expressions by using their English counterpart, which still express the same hateful ideology, but for linguistic reasons are not judicially persecuted in Germany.65 As this introduction was being written there was a mass- shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, USA. While killing eleven senior citizens, the attacker screamed “all Jews must die!”66 So language, understood as a vector for ideas and concepts, should be of primary interest not only for researchers but for educators, too.

64 Hildebrandt, Anatomy, 17–18. 65 The acronym W.O.T.A.N., for example, stands for “will of the Aryan nation,” Belltower News, “Rechtsextreme Symbole, Codes und Erkennungszeichen,”, accessed March 10, 2018, http://www.belltower.news/lexikontext/wotan. Nazi symbols and codes are also in use in Canada, see “Right-wing extremist groups and hate crimes are growing in Canada,” Documenting Hate, CBC, accessed October 29, 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/features/right-wing-extremist-groups-and-hate-crimes-are-growing-in-canada. Although now a little outdated, the Nizkor Project names some groups and puts them in relationship to US or other internationally operating groups, see “Right-wing extremism in Canada,” The Nizkor Project, accessed October 29, 2018, http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/canadian/league-for-human-rights/heritage-front/right-wing- extremism.html. 66 “’Brutally murdered simply for their faith.’ 11 killed by gunman in Pittsburgh synagogue,” CBC news, accessed October 29, 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/pittsburgh-active-shooter-near-synagogue-1.4881234.

18 Names and Ethical Considerations

The discussion about whether researchers on the Holocaust and related crimes should or could mention the names of the victims whose fate they are researching is ongoing. There exist strong arguments both for and against anonymization of victims. Two ardent advocates for the disclosure of complete names (and against the use of initials or pseudonyms) are Paul Weindling and Götz Aly. Weindling has established a database on victims of Nazi coerced human subject experimentation, trying to recuperate the names but also the perceptions of the victims.67 Aly brought the ‘euthanasia’-killings into the German spotlight in the 1980s. He still fights for a database for ‘euthanasia’ victims.68 The opponents of naming the victims are those who interpret the particular German law (Bundesarchivgesetz) in a strict way, arguing that it is about the protection of privacy.69 For the present thesis it was not always clear which way would be the best. Knowing the advantages of online databases, but also concerned about a loss of control once the thesis was online, I was torn between naming and anonymizing. The archivists of the

ITS have given me permission to disclose all personal data. After discussion with archivists of the Flossenbürg memorial site, with Canadian librarians, and with my supervisor, I looked at the dissection protocols again. The information contained in them is sensitive, certainly, as all medical information is, and it requires some understanding of medical terms and concepts. But it is also information that might be important in efforts to determine the fates of these individuals.

Or it might elucidate how a person died. These protocols carry some genuine informational

67 Weindling, Experiments, 7–8. Aleksandra Loewenau and Paul Weindling, “Nazi Medical Research in Neuroscience: Medical Procedures, Victims, and Perpetrators” in Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 33, no. 2, (Fall 2016), 434–440. 68 Götz Aly, Die Belasteten: ‘Euthanasie’ 1939–1945, Eine Gesellschaftsgeschichte, (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 2013), 9–20. 69 Gesetz über die Nutzung und Sicherung von Archivgut des Bundes (Bundesarchivgesetz, BarchG), (Federal Archive Act), §13 Einschränkungs- und Versagensgründe, Absatz 2, “schutzwürdige Interessen Betroffener.”

19 value, especially in those cases where people seem to have disappeared, meaning in those cases when no date of death was written down. So, in view of abuses of information on the internet, the right to privacy, autonomy, and protection of families on the one hand, and the need to rename the victims of National Socialism in order to return dignity, I decided on a compromise.

There will be two versions of this thesis. The online version will contain an anonymized list of protocols linked to the respective document ID (Doc ID) of the ITS archive (see Appendix A, p.

131). The printed version, which will be available for researchers and to family members at the

ITS, the USHMM, and the Flossenbürg memorial site, will contain the complete personal data

(see Appendix C). I believe that this will be a sensible and sensitive way to ensure a “benefit for the individual.”70 In this case, it will hopefully be to the benefit of the family members of the individuals who were killed and whose bodies were then dissected in Flossenbürg.

Structure

Chapter one will give an overview of the history of pathology and dissection from the last two hundred years, approximately, as these led up to the scientific medicine of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Readers will be introduced to the history of the Flossenbürg concentration camp and its main characteristics. The chapter will then shift to an overview of the coerced human subject experimentation in concentration camps, other than Flossenbürg, and how these involved pathological practices, forms of documentation, and postmortem analyses.

Chapter two constitutes the core of the thesis. It will present 161 dissection protocols quantitatively and qualitatively. The most important aim is to discuss the possible medical history and the most probable cause of death, where the given information permits this. The

70 Hildebrandt, Anatomy, 325.

20 German transcripts and the corresponding English translations can be found in the appendix of the print version of this thesis. This chapter points out the many shortcomings of the dissection protocols and what they are unable or unwilling to tell.

Chapter three will be broader and more theoretical in order to argue that these dissections were part of an arbitrary experimental approach to prisoner lives. Unlike experiments tried during the NMT, the Flossenbürg experiments were not systematic but arbitrary, they did not come from cooperations with research institutions located outside the camp, nor were scholars of national and sometimes international renown involved. The experiments at Flossenbürg remained purely local and mostly undocumented, with the dissection protocols being a rare exception in that they might offer a glimpse onto the otherwise hidden and secret events. Taken together with eyewitness accounts, the protocols allow us to see abuse, medicalized torture, medical neglect, and denial of crimes. The highly specialized language of pathology does more to obscure than to reveal reality.

This investigation deepens knowledge about medical conditions in the Flossenbürg main camp, conditions that were not exclusively but still intricately linked to the camp physician

(Schmitz), and to the two last post-physicians (Schnabel and Fischer) and their actions and negligence. By taking a source that was handwritten by the perpetrators themselves, we have a rare view onto a crime scene, that complements current knowledge.71

One result of the present thesis is the production of a complete German transcript, supplemented by a full English translation, both of which will be available at the ITS, and the

71 In light of TV series such as BONES or the German Tatort, that distort, romanticise, or sensationalize the profession of forensic scientists, police officers, and pathologists, this study will refrain from any allusion to or instrumentalization of voyeurism to cause “creepy” feelings. On the issue of the present-day popularization of forensic pathology see also Jacalyn Duffin, History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction, 2nd ed., (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 87.

21 Flossenbürg memorial site in Germany, and at the USHMM in Washington, D.C. By making this material available to other researchers and family members in an appropriate contextualization, I hope to be of assistance in a helpful and respectful way.

22 Chapter 1: The History of Pathology and the Context of Necropsies

in German Concentration Camps

The present thesis addresses the practice of pathology and of opening corpses in the context of violent suppression of prisoners in German concentration camps during the Nazi regime. It focuses especially on Flossenbürg concentration camp. The first section of this chapter will define key medical terminology, before tracing some of the most important developments in the history of pathology in Central and Western Europe over the last 200 years. It will then focus on the history of coerced human subject experimentation in concentration camps, especially those where pathology or some form postmortem exam was involved. The final part will then give an overview of the history of the Flossenbürg concentration camp between 1938 and 1945.

1.1 The Medical Terminology

Today, the general aim of a dissection is to visualize the physical structure of the human body, whereas the goal of an autopsy is to determine the cause of death. A dissection is performed by an anatomist while an autopsy is performed either by a pathologist or by the coroner or medical examiner. In other words, a dissection is mostly of educational value, and an autopsy is primarily of legal interest. Historically, these differences were not so clear-cut.

The term “dissection” refers to the opening of the body after death in order to study anatomy, thus the healthy organization and localization of the different body parts: organs, vessels, nerves, the brain, muscles, and bones. The act of dissecting aims “to illustrate and

23 explicate” the human norms in the context of medical education.72 The first time the word appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1559.73 “The Latin root ‘sectio’ (a cutting, cutting off, or cutting up) was increasingly propelled into a broader vernacular use by association with dis-section.”74 An autopsy, postmortem dissection, postmortem examination, or simply a postmortem on the other hand, is a procedure whose aim it is to determine the “cause of death or the character and extent of changes produced by disease.”75 Another type of autopsy, the forensic autopsy, aims to elucidate sudden, suspicious, obscure, unnatural, or criminal deaths. The term necropsy is “semantically the most accurate description of the investigative dissection of a dead body.”76 Etymologically, the term anatomy is derived from the Greek anatomé: ana meaning up and tomé meaning cutting.77 Pathology is the study of disease in all its relations and the functional and material changes produced by it. Again, the roots are Greek. Pathos stands for suffering and logos for discourse or treatise.78 Finally, outside the context of torture and execution, the term vivisection is used to describe cutting operations on a living animal for purpose of experimentation.79 The dissectors in Flossenbürg mostly used the word Sektion or

Sektionsbefund (dissection report. See the examples in Chapter 2 and Appendix C). This leads to the impression that the dissectors really performed dissections. This was not the case, however.

72 Katharine Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Spring, 1994): 7. This article argues against the alleged myth that the opening of a dead body was a taboo in medieval and Renaissance Europe. 73 Richard Sugg, Murder After Death: Literature and Anatomy in Early Modern England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), 3. 74 Sugg, Murder, 3. 75 "Autopsy." In Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 2016, accessed June 12, 2018, http://ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/mwmedicaldesk/autopsy/0? institutionId=261. 76 Pekka Sukko and Bernard Knight, KNIGHT’S Forensic Pathology, 4th ed., (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2016), 1–2. 77 “Anatomy.” In Thomas Lathrop Stedman, A practical medical dictionary, 11th ed., (New York: William Wood and Company, 1930), 49. Accessed June 12, 2018, via Hathi Trust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4210491. 78 “Pathology.” Ibid., 775. 79 “Vivisection.” In Thomas Lathrop Stedman, A practical medical dictionary, 11th ed., (New York: William Wood and Company, 1930), 1150. Accessed June 12, 2018, via Hathi Trust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4210491.

24 Most of the body openings were incomplete, or partial dissections at best. It did ultimately not become clear whether the motivation behind these body openings was educational, forensic, or something else. Consequently, for increased readability, I will interchangeably apply the terms dissection, necropsy, autopsy, postmortem examination and opening of the body. And although improbable, I cannot exclude that some of the dissections were in fact vivisections.

1.2 The History of Pathology and Dissection in Europe

Before the introduction of different imaging techniques like the ultrasound, the x-ray, and the Magnetic Resonance Imagery (MRI) in the twentieth century, physicians had very few means to visualize a living patient’s body from the inside.80 Examination was thus largely restricted to external inspection or to investigations after death. The first traces of body openings or necropsies date from antiquity.81 The routine opening and inspection of bodies—necropsy—was probably common in the Eastern Roman Empire.82 In Western Europe, “autopsy and dissection emerged as a regular and integral part of both legal practice and medical training in the cities of northern and central Italy” in the fourteenth century.83

Jumping ahead into the seventeenth century, religion started to partially lose its influence on science or natural philosophy. The body was increasingly seen as a machine, consisting of tubes where hydraulic processes were predominant. This was enforced by the new Newtonian

80 Russell C. Maulitz, “The Pathological Tradition,” in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, vol. 1, eds. W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter (London, New York: Routledge, 1993), 188. 81 Desmond R. Long, A History of Pathology (New York: Dover Publications, 1965), 9–10. Lawrence I. Conrad et al., eds., The Western Medical Tradition: 800 BC to AD 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 33– 35. 82 Lester S. King and Marjorie C. Meehan, “A History of the Autopsy. A Review,” American Journal of Pathology Vol. 73, No 2, November 1973: 519. 83 Park, “The Saintly Body,” 3.

25 concepts of mechanics.84 Anatomy was part of demystifying processes within societies.

“Increasingly, a once cosmically meaningful organism [was] spiritually hollowed and neutralized, into an entity which talks only about itself, in the most limited mechanical sense.”85

However, the use of extremely cruel torture with procedures that could resemble those applied in the dissection room, like the slow flaying in public executions, for example, did not disappear until the French Revolution.86 Public dismemberment was now considered a dramatic penalty for loathsome crimes, and the public exposure was seen as humiliating.87

One of the most influential scholars in pathology was the physician Giovanni Battista

Morgagni (1682–1771) in Padua. He worked thoroughly and his work proves a high level of observation. It shows a “completeness of correlation between clinical detail and postmortem revelation,” meaning that Morgagni was among the first to link morbid anatomy to specific disease manifestations.88 Russel Maulitz calls him the architect of modern pathology and suggests that he created the most important work before Virchow.89 Simultaneously, the understanding of disease was complimented by the new science of physiology, whose major proponents were Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) and Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), who relied heavily on sometimes cruel animal experiments.90 Their results added the understanding of function to the understanding of structure and morphology.

Eventually, the pursuit of anatomical knowledge spread from Italy north to different

European countries: France, German principalities, Holland, and England all had large and

84 Roger French, “The Anatomical Tradition,” in Companion Encyclopedia, 93. 85 Sugg, Murder, 5. 86 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 3–5. 87 Park, “Saintly Body,” 13. 88 Long, Pathology, 67–72. 89 Russel C. Maulitz, “The Pathological Tradition,” in Companion Encyclopedia, 174–175. 90 Roy Porter, “The Eighteenth Century,” in Medical Tradition, 366.

26 influential universities by 1800.91 In Britain, the “Murder Act” of 1752 had made dissection part of the punishment for murder in order to supply bodies. Executed criminals were legally handed over to anatomists and surgeons.92 This development led to the rise in the number of dissections and helped to bring about either new or more sophisticated instruments, such as the microscope, although it took until the mid-nineteenth century before it really became standard in pathological work.

The late 1700s also saw the rise of the hospital. This helped surgery, which was intricately linked to anatomy, to establish itself as a medical specialty that was taught at universities.93 What was most important for this development, however, was that hospitals provided supplies of unclaimed dead bodies, primarily of the poor.94 “Admission to the hospital implied tacit permission for dissection” if the patient’s health could not be restored.95 In this process, the anatomy theatre became one more laboratory.96 This helps to see a connection between hospitals, the poor, and the more or less explicit right of physicians there to use the bodies of those alive as well as of those deceased for many procedures they judged necessary and justified. In a similar fashion, the bodies of the executed were made available for anatomical studies.97

91 Stukenbrock mentions 22 protestant and eighteen catholic universities by 1700 in the German territories and five more by 1800. See Karin Stukenbrock, “Der Zerstückte Cörper.” Zur Sozialgeschichte der Anatomischen Sektionen in der Frühen Neuzeit (1650–1800) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001), 194. 92 Anita Guerrini, Experimenting with Humans and Animals : From Galen to Animal Rights (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 76. 93 Stukenbrock, Cörper, 137–141. 94 Porter, “Eighteenth Century,” Medical Tradition, 438–439. 95 Maulitz, “The Pathological Tradition,“ in Companion Encyclopedia, 172. 96 Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, Medizin am Toten oder am Lebenden? Pathologie in Berlin und in London, 1900–1945. (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2003), 67. 97 Sabine Hildebrandt, “Capital Punishment and Anatomy: History and Ethics of an Ongoing Association,” Clinical Anatomy 21, no. 1 (2008): 5–14.

27 The growth in the number of hospitals notwithstanding, body procurement for dissection was often difficult. In nineteenth-century Great Britain, the need for bodies gave rise to the emergence of the group of so-called body-snatchers, resurrectionists, or sack ’em up boys. They would open graves and deliver the corpses to physicians, who would use them for teaching purposes. This practice ended with the Anatomy Act of 1832, which regulated the supply of bodies for dissection within clearly defined legal bounds.98 This same act also turned dissection into a “punishment for being poor,” as now the bodies of the destitute who died in workhouses and hospitals would be turned over to anatomists.99

The growing number of dissections, not just of animals, but of humans, the details of this endeavour as well as the search for the force of life, gave rise to one of the most influential works of fiction, Mary Shelley’s (1797–1851) Frankenstein.100 In her novel, an artificial creature is put together from body parts coming from different human beings, which do not fit nicely together. It is brought to life by a thunderbolt and scares the nearby villagers. The plot thus mirrors and dramatizes, the anatomy and the physiology laboratory.101 Frankenstein can also be interpreted as a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and the scrupulousness of scientists.102 Let me now turn back to the development of pathology at the universities.

European nineteenth-century pathology was considerably formed by two men: Carl von

Rokitansky (1804–1878) and Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902). Rokitansky institutionalized

98 Maulitz, “The Pathological Tradition,“ in Companion Encyclopedia, 172. 99 Guerrini, Experimenting, 76. Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection, and the Destitute, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 266–270. 100 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or, the modern Prometheus (New York: New American Library, 1965). 101 Roseanne Montillo has eloquently situated Mary Shelley’s novel in its time, describing the role of body snatchers, and how convicts’ bodies in England were handed over to the anatomists. Unfortunately, she does not render a scholarly work by limiting herself to a general bibliography. Roseanne Montillo, The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece (New York: Harper Collins, 2013). 102 Guerrini, Experimenting, 75.

28 pathology in Vienna and is famed for having performed more than 30,000 necropsies himself, establishing a method that proved enduringly influential.103 As with all documentation at the

University of Vienna pertaining to deaths and dissections, his papers are almost completely preserved since 1817.104 His German counterpart Virchow was called to the Charité in Berlin in

1856 and, like Rokitansky, he institutionalized the specialty of pathology there. This led to a full professorship for Virchow, but also to a clear separation between clinical and pathological work.105 Virchow is also credited with finally recognizing the indispensable value of the microscope. It allowed him to coin the concept he is most known for, cellular pathology.106

After Virchow, the doyen of pathology, died in 1902, his successor Johannes Orth (1847–

1923) served as director of the Charité Pathological Institute until 1917. The next to step into

Virchow’s footprints was Otto Lubarsch (1860–1933).107 Lubarsch merits some specific comments. He was the director during the Weimar Republic, which was a crucial transition period between the end of the First World War in 1918 and the takeover of power by the Nazis in

1933. But Lubarsch was also a complex figure: he had converted from Judaism to Protestantism as a young man and he did anything to avoid the accusation of helping Jews.108 He fought against tobacco and alcohol consumption, as well as against the Americanization of life in a more general anti-modernist spirit. He was a German nationalist (deutschnational) and did not value

103 Long, Pathology, 104–109. 104 Eduard Winter, Doris Höflmayer, Beatrix Patzak, Walter Feigl. 2013. “Obduktionsbefunde in Wien seit Lorenz Biermayer – eine durchgehende 195jährige Dokumentation,” Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, Vol. 163, Issue 13–14, 316–321. 105 Prüll, Medizin, 68. For a more critical view on Virchow and contextualization within the emerging German scientific and political landscape see Constantin B T - Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography Goschler, “Virchow, Rudolf Carl,” vol. 25 (Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008), 157–61.. 106 Prüll, Medizin, 70. 107 Prüll, Medizin, 85. 108 Peter Th. Walther, “Entlassungen und Exodus: Personalpolitik an der Medizinischen Fakultät und in der Charité 1933,“ in Die Charité im Dritten Reich. Zur Dienstbarkeit medizinischer Wissenschaft im Nationalsozialismus, eds. Sabine Schleiermacher and Udo Schagen, (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2008), 46.

29 democracy or republican ideals. On the other hand, as a pathologist, Lubarsch also realized the potential for research on dynamic processes in the origin of diseases, precisely biochemistry, which might lead to successful treatments.109 Lastly and most importantly for this study, he was an advocate of constitutional medicine (Konstitutionspathologie). This was an understanding of disease that was put forward by his contemporary Ludwig Aschoff (1866–1942), professor of pathology at Freiburg University. During the First World War, Aschoff developed the field of pathology of war (Kriegspathologie), which he believed had to be the foundation for constitutional medicine.110 Aschoff wanted dissections to be done in the military hospitals behind the frontlines to make use of the “splendid material.”111 The term “material” referred to the bodies of fallen soldiers, who were mostly young and otherwise healthy. Aschoff apparently failed to consider the ethically highly problematic dimensions of this request. His demand was successful, however, and resulted in 70,000 dissection protocols and more than 8,000 specimens.112 Aschoff’s influence on medicine in general and pathology in particular continued to be enormous until medical historians Eduard Seidler and Cay-Rüdiger Prüll started a process of critically examining his biography and legacy in the 1990s. Prüll details how Aschoff intertwined politics and medicine from the beginning, using vocabulary that the Nazis would later use as well. In fact, Aschoff repeatedly voiced the ideas of a peoples’ body (Volkskörper) and of science as guarantor for a healthy German people (Volk) in public by 1915.113

109 Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, “Von ‘Akademischer Freiheit’ und ‘Akademischer Wehrfreiheit’: Das Pathologische Institut der Charité 1933 bis 1945,” in Schleiermacher, Die Charité, 153–154. 110 Prüll, “Akademische Freiheit,” 153. Nadine Metzger, “’Auf strengster wissenschaftlicher Grundlage’. Die Etablierungsphase der modernen Konstitutionslehre 1911 bis 1921,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 51, 2016/3: 223– 224. 111 Metzger, “Wissenschaftliche Grundlage,” 224. 112 Prüll, Medizin, 352. 113 Cay-Rüdiger Prüll, “Pathologie und Politik - Ludwig Aschoff (1866–1942) und Deutschlands Weg ins Dritte Reich,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 19, no. 3 (1997): 341–344.

30 The importance of Aschoff for the analysis of the Flossenbürg dissection protocols might be immense. Schmitz, born in 1896 and the main suspect of having dissected the bodies of deceased inmates in Flossenbürg was only one generation younger than Aschoff. Additionally, he had been a medical student in Freiburg in the 1920s and his proof of enrollment explicitly mentions that he attended Aschoff’s pathology lecture.114

During the Weimar Republic, many German pathologists were busy analyzing the dissection protocols and specimen collected during the First World War. The results were published in a journal on the pathology of war and constitutional pathology (Veröffentlichungen aus der Kriegs- und Konstitutionspathologie), which Aschoff co-edited. In the late 1920s the journal changed its name to occupational medicine and constitutional pathology (Gewerbelehre and Konstitutionspathologie), reflecting the changed focus on occupational healthcare and constitutional pathology; the warrior at the fighting front was now replaced by the labourer in the factory frontlines.115 During the Weimar Republic several new University or research institutions on Racial Hygiene (Rassenhygiene) were founded. Munich, for example, had two institutions of this kind, both led by ardent advocates of the cause of studying and improving the human races.

In 1919, Ernst Rüdin (1874–1952) became director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für

Genealogie und Demographie (KWI for genealogy and demographics). Starting in 1927, physician Fritz Lenz (1887–1976) headed the institute for hereditary biology and racial hygiene of Munich University (Institut für Erbbiologie und Rassenhygiene der Universität).116 Rüdin, a psychiatrist, had also been the founding member of the first Society for Racial Hygiene

114 Studien- und Sittenzeugnis über das Sommersemester 1921 und das Wintersemester 1921/22 vom 5.5.1922, (Proof of enrollment and certificate of good conduct of the summer semester 1921 and the winter semester 1921/22, May 5, 1922), University archive Freiburg (UA Fr), B44/107/541. 115 Prüll, “Pathologie und Politik,” 351–355. 116 Proctor, Hygiene, 328. For more on Rüdin see Volker Roelcke, “Programm und Praxis der psychiatrischen Genetik an der ‘Deutschen Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie’ unter Ernst Rüdin: Zum Verhältnis von Wissenschaft, Politik und Rasse-Begriff vor und nach 1933,” in Medizinhistorischen Journal 37, no. 1 (2002), 2155.

31 (Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene) in 1905. When such a society was founded in Freiburg in 1909,

Lenz became its secretary. The plant geneticist Erwin Baur (1875–1933) and anthropologist

Eugen Fischer (1874–1967) were also members. The aim of this and later similar societies was

“to further the cause of human racial improvement.”117 The three Freiburg men later authored what would become the most read textbook on racial hygiene, the Outline of Human Genetics and Racial Hygiene (Grundriss der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene), also called the “Baur-Fischer-Lenz” in short.118 Lenz had successfully defended his doctoral thesis in

1912 in Freiburg, under the supervision of none other than Aschoff. His thesis was titled “On the faulty hereditary traits of man and determination of the sex in men” (Über die krankhaften

Erbanlagen des Mannes und die Bestimmung des Geschlechts beim Menschen).119 Fischer had been hailed as “the father of genetics” (Erblichkeitslehre), after his 1913 publication on the

“Rehobother Bastards,” a study he conducted on the children of so-called mixed breed marriages between Boer immigrants to German South-West Africa and local Nama (Hottentots) women.120

During the 1920s, pathology was linked and contributed more and more to the growing field of eugenics (Rassenhygiene). Aschoff’s colleague Max Busch (1886–1934) at the Berlin pathological institute took over responsibility of the war pathology collection

(Kriegspathologische Sammlung) in 1925 and enlarged it considerably with increased numbers of dissections in different Berlin hospitals. Specimen from surgeries in these institutions were also added to the collection. Following Prüll’s investigations, this was undertaken at civilian

117 Proctor, Hygiene, 17. 118 Proctor, Hygiene, 7, 50–59. For more on the “Baur-Fischer-Lenz” see Thorsten Noack and Heiner Fangerau, “Eugenics, Euthanasia, and Aftermath,” in International Journal of Mental Health 36, no.1, The Holocaust and the Mentally Ill: Part III: Euthanasia (Spring 2007), 112–124. 119 Kirsten Knaack, “Fritz Lenz,“ Die Hilfsschule im Nationalsozialismus, accessed October 30, 2018, http://www.hilfsschule-im-nationalsozialismus.de/seite-10.html. 120 Robert Proctor, “From Anthropologie to Rassenkunde in the German Anthropological Tradition,” in Bones, Bodies, and Behavior: Essays in Behavioral Anthropology, ed. Geroge W. Stocking Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 164–165.

32 hospitals, but also at police and military hospitals, as well as at the rather isolated Rummelsburg orphanage in the eastern part of Berlin. Apparently, Prüll did not inquire further into Busch’s policy of body procurement. He does show, however, that Busch was a German nationalist and that next to his job as a pathologist, he worked as a specialist for gas injuries giving lectures for the Armed Forces of the Weimar Republic (Reichswehr).121

Lubarsch on the other hand, was targeted as a Jew by the growing number of National

Socialists in the 1920s, his nationalist mindset and sympathies for Aschoff’s scholarship notwithstanding. His institute was defamed as being too much under Jewish influence (the

German expression Verjudung is decidedly more pejorative). In 1940, seven years after

Lubarsch’s death, his bronze bust would be taken down in Berlin.122

Another scientific field that needs to be mentioned is anthropology. In the early twentieth century, the method of anthropometry (the measuring of the human body in all its dimensions) informed and was in turn shaped by racial hygiene. One specific incident which may exemplify this connection, stems from Germany’s colonial endeavours and brought “material” into the hands of anthropologists and then into German museums, where some of the human remains are present up to this day. Between 1904 and 1907, the Herero and Nama of all ages in German

South-West Africa (today’s Namibia) were forced into the desert, or into early concentration camps, where they died or were shot. Human remains from these killings were studied by several physicians, who often were also anthropologists, in Germany. There exists a striking similarity of practices between the colonial behaviour in Africa, and later on in the Nazi-occupied territories of Europe. To be clear, anthropologists did not actively take part in this genocide, but they

121 Prüll, Medizin, 351–352. 122 Prüll, “Akademische Freiheit,” und Stefanie Endlich, “Distanz und Nähe. Braucht Gedenken sichtbare Zeichen?” in Schleiermacher, Die Charité, 155 and 247.

33 profited from it.123 Zimmerman also articulates the dilemma non-European peoples had to face as they were turned into the “other” or the colonized by the colonizers; so-called natural peoples

(Naturvölker) were clearly human, but they were not seen as possessing “humanity,” in contrast to the cultured peoples of Europe (Kultuvölker).124

1.3 German Pathology between 1933 and 1945

Generally, physicians were Nazified earlier, and they did more for the Nazi regime than any other profession. It was their intellectual authority that helped to justify the carrying out of medicalized murder.125 This was true in asylums, in concentration camps, as well as in extermination camps. But this also holds true for the 300,000 to 400,000 forced sterilizations, which were performed on gynecology and surgical wards, after having been ordered by Eugenic or Hereditary Health Courts (Erbgesundheitsgerichte).126 Physicians would carry out these procedures, physicians as committee members in the courts would sanction them, and physicians served in public health offices (Gesundheitsämter) where they would sometimes be the first ones to know about so-called problematic cases.127

In 1933, non-Jewish German physicians benefitted from a law that prohibited Jewish-

German colleagues from holding professorships or other jobs in the public service sector. It was

123 Andrew Zimmerman, Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 244–245, and fn. 25. Along with the genocide came robbery of the collective property and destruction of Herero and Nama political organizations. Zimmerman devotes a whole chapter to craniometry, the measuring of the human skull, 86–107, pointing to the important link between anthropology and racialized science. 124 Zimmerman, Anthropology, 2–3. 125 Michael H. Kater, Doctors under Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 4–5. Proctor, Hygiene, 214. 126 For a concise introduction see “Forced Sterilization,” USHMM, accessed October 20, 2018, https://www.ushmm.org/learn/students/learning-materials-and-resources/mentally-and-physically-handicapped- victims-of-the-nazi-era/forced-sterilization. 127 Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross, Belinda Cooper transl., Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).

34 infamously called the Law on the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur

Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums). Issued on April 10 of that year, it constituted the first of many steps toward the coordination (Gleichschaltung) of all parts of German society, as it would bereave the group of people the Nazis hated the most, of its financial means and eliminate individuals in influential positions. In this procedure, one quarter of all the academics of the

Berlin Pathological Institute was dismissed, for example, and sometimes these “dismissals” involved acts of violence.128

Within a few years, the pathology of war, which had its roots in the First World War, gained in importance again. Starting in 1935, the pathological collection was curated by Paul

Schürmann (1895–1941), who was also appointed the advisory pathologist to the army

(Beratender Pathologe des Heeres-Sanitätsinspekteurs). A former student of Aschoff, Franz

Büchner (1895–1991), became advisory pathologist to the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), and his

Freiburg pathology department housed a research division for aviation medicine or aviation pathology.129 There was hence considerable overlap between the academic and the military spheres, and both were uncompromisingly shaped by the ideology of National Socialism, namely anti-Semitism, and a thought system based on the alleged inequality of the so-called human races.

Yet, National Socialist pathologists were active in at least two other fields. First, they opened bodies of murdered patients of the so-called euthanasia or “T4-Action.” This was the mass murder of approximately 300,000 mentally disabled and psychiatric patients. Upon

128 Prüll, Medizin, 371–382. Hildebrandt on coordination in the field of anatomy: Sabine Hildebrandt, “Anatomy in the Third Reich: Careers Disrupted by National Socialist Policies,” Annals of Anatomy - Anatomischer Anzeiger : 194, no. 3 (June 2012): 251–66. 129 Prüll, Medizin, 354–355.

35 dissection, researchers would harvest organs or tissues.130 Second, pathological examinations were part of systematic coerced human subject experimentations on concentration camp inmates.131

Pathologists and the so-called “Euthanasia” Program

Neuropathologist Julius Hallervorden (1882–1965), who was at the KWI for Brain

Research in Berlin-Buch and head of the pathology service in the Brandenburg-Goerden asylum took advantage of the bodies of murdered patients of the “Euthanasia” asylums. For instance, he

“received some five hundred brains of ‘euthanasia’ victims.”132 He used these to create tissue slices, which in turn formed the basis for his publishing activities and helped him solidify his scientific reputation. But Hallervorden is just one example of many. Carl Schneider (1891–1946) was a tenured professor of psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg and Viktor von Weizsäcker

(1886–1957) was the head of the Neurological Research Institute in Breslau/Wrocław, near

Loben/Lubliniec. The Berlin pathologists Berthold Ostertag (1895–1975) and Georg Bessau

(1884–1944) of the Rudolf-Virchow-Hospital and the University Childrens’ Hospital, respectively, cooperated with the killing site Berlin-Wittenau, as did the Vienna-based pediatrician Franz Hamburger (1874–1945) with the pediatric asylum (Kinderfachabteilung) Am

Spiegelgrund. The KWI for Psychiatry in Munich, under the above mentioned Ernst Rüdin, opened a research unit for dissections (Prosektur) directly in the nearby asylum München-

130 For an overview on Neurologists and Psychiatrists involved, see Hans-Walter Schmuhl, “The Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists and research in the context of eugenics and ‘euthanasia’”, in Weindling, Clinic, 57– 70. 131 Prüll, Medizin, 378, 382–383. 132 Heinz Wässle, “A Collection of Brain Section of ‘Euthanasia’ Victims: The Series H of Julius Hallervorden,” Endeavour 41, no. 4 (2017): 166–175. Loewenau and Weindling, “Neuroscience”. The rare neurodegenerative disease that was named after Hallervorden and his colleague until recently, the Hallervorden Spatz Disease, is now called “Pantothenate Kinase-Associated Neurodegeneration,” (PKAN).

36 Haar.133 The following quote is taken from Kamila Uzarczyik on her chapter on

Loben/Lubliniec, but it describes the situation in all of the above mentioned institutions:

Death was not the final act ... the pathological tradition and the idea to prove links between the clinical form of an illness and abnormalities and lesions in the internal organs go back to the late eighteenth century.... However, the launching of the ‘euthanasia’ programme brought about new opportunities for researchers, who could ... have an unprecedented steady supply of specimens ... but ... also ... take part in the selection of cases, which suited their own research interests.134

Considering the chronic scarcity of bodies for scientific research, this “unprecedented steady supply of specimens” was something new and unique. Senior researchers, but also research assistants and young scholars benefitted from the accumulated “material.” Academic credentials that were awarded after 1945 but used specimens acquired before the end of the Second World

War, were not revoked by the German state.135

Pathologists and their Work on the Bodies of Concentration Camp Inmates

Another place, where human beings died due to negligence or were killed in great numbers, were concentration and extermination camps. Some of these killings were preceded by human experiments that were designed in a way that they would cause death. These were called

“terminal experiments” and were usually followed-up with an immediate dissection in order to find any potential changes to the body.136 The most notorious example of this type of systematic killing in the name of science are the barometric trials in the Dachau concentration camp

133 Götz Aly, Die Belasteten: ‘Euthanasie’ 1939–1945, Eine Gesellschaftsgeschichte (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 2013), 120. On Loben/Lubliniec, see Kamila Uzarcyik, “Der Kinderfachabteilung vorzuschlagen. The selection and elimination of children at the Youth Psychiatric Clinic Loben (1941–45),” in Weindling, Clinic, 183–206. 134 Uzarcyik, in Weindling, Clinic, 196. 135 Aly, Belasteten, 124. 136 Mitscherlich, Doctors, 4.

37 conducted by Dr. Sigmund Rascher (1909–1945), who was supported by the Luftwaffe and the

SS. He reported to Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) directly. One of the dissections that he performed, not as a pathologist but as a physician with a disconcerting interest in pathology, proves that the test person was still alive or, more correctly, was in the process of dying after such a ‘terminal experiment’ and that Rascher planned to use the harvested specimens for scientific purposes. In his dissection report, he noted:

POST-MORTEM REPORT After opening the chest cavity, the pericardium was found to be distended (pericardial tamponade). Upon opening the pericardium 80 cc of clear yellowish fluid spurted out in a stream. The moment the tamponade had ceased, the right auricle began to beat vigorously....One hour after the cessation of respiration the brain was removed, the spinal cord being completely severed....The brain showed a large subarachnoid brain edema. Much air was found in the brain arteries. In addition large numbers of air embolism were found in the heart and liver vessels. The anatomical preparations are being preserved, so that they will be available for my evaluation at a later date.137

The Nazi regime dismissed Rascher before the end of the war, but fellow physicians Hans

Wolfgang Romberg (1911–1981), Siegfried Ruff (1907–1989), and Georg August Weltz (1889–

1963) found themselves in the dock in Nuremberg. They had all witnessed the Dachau experiments and knew about their deadliness. Ruff even admitted to having witnessed one autopsy. They were all acquitted on August 20, 1947, which was the last day of the Doctors’

Trial.138 Mitscherlich convincingly argues that “The inescapable fact is that these deaths were part of the plan and Romberg not only had no desire to interfere but was very much interested in the cause of death through air embolism.”139 This suggests that the scientific interest was so

137 Postmortem report by Dr. Rascher in Mitscherlich/Mielke, Doctors, 9–10. The mistakes in punctutation were left in place. 138 Mitscherlich/Mielke, Menschlichkeit, 367. 139 Mitscherlich, Doctors, 110.

38 high, that all measures seemed to be justified to achieve the end result, which in this case, was the autopsy. Only the latter could visualize the changes to the human body after exposure to extremely low air pressure. Maybe it would thus be more appropriate to replace the word interest with curiosity.

Another example is Robert Neumann (1902–1962), professor of pathology, who himself dissected the corpses of those inmate-patients in the concentration camps of Oranienburg (later

Sachsenhausen), Buchenwald, and Auschwitz who did not survive his experiments. He made macro- and microscopic preparations of all organs. He was not brought to justice.140

The concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz is usually linked to the Holocaust, which is the annihilation of Europe’s Jewry.141 And although this mass-murder took place not only in Auschwitz, it is the camp Auschwitz II or Auschwitz-Birkenau that like no other represents the insane duality of National Socialist doctors and the type of medicine they practiced. When the deportees arrived on the ramp, sometimes after days and nights without food or rest, they were very quickly screened by physicians in a process called “selection.”

Again, the element of deception cannot be ignored here. Yet what these physicians did was a quick evaluation of the person’s ability to work or to serve in a research context in the camp’s laboratory.142 Two of the most notorious physicians who benefitted directly from the imprisonment of Europeans coming from all over the continent were Josef Mengele (1911–

1979), camp physician and his superior Otmar von Verschuer (1896–1969), geneticist and

140 Prüll, Medizin, 393–398. Ernst Klee, Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945, 2nd ed., (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2007), 435. 141 On Auschwitz, the Holocaust, and the Final Solution, see for example Wachsmann, KL, 291–337 and the photographs in the same book, insert between p. 466 and 467. Please also see the p. 2–3 in the introduction to this thesis. 142 Bergen, Holocaust, 189–190. More in depth in Friedländer, Das Dritte Reich, 883–892. Klee, NS-Medizin, 415– 416. Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by scientific selection of Jews, Gypsies, and others, Germany 1933–1945, trans. George R. Fraser (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 71.

39 leading scholar in racial hygiene at the Berlin KWI for Anthropology. Verschuer would receive packages from Mengele with “material.”143 One witness who in the eyes of the perpetrators was not meant to stay alive was forensic pathologist Dr. Miklos Nyiszli (mentioned in the

Introduction). Part of his training had taken place in Germany, and he was Jewish. Deported to

Auschwitz from what is today Rumania, he was made Mengele’s prosector in one of the crematory buildings. Nyiszli describes Mengele and the work he had to do for him, in detail.144

Mengele escaped to Argentina in 1948 and was never caught, while von Verschuer was whitewashed and got the post of full professor at the University of Münster in 1951.145

The last section gave only some examples of the practice of dissections in concentration camps, or how body parts were harvested there and then further studied outside the physical camp. During the last five to ten years, research into the provenance of anatomical and pathological collections at universities and other research institutions potentially holding specimens originating in criminal contexts has intensified considerably. This is an area where there is an extensive amount of research currently underway. For example, an independent group of historians is producing an inventory of the holdings of brain tissue slices and the corresponding remaining documentation at the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG, an indirect successor organisation of the KWI). And professional associations are hiring historians to document any involvement into ‘euthanasia’ or other medical crimes during the Nazi era.146

143 Proctor, Hygiene, 44. Friedländer, Jahre, 887. 144 Nyiszli, Jenseits. 145 Klee, Personenlexikon, 402 and 639. Patricia Heberer, “Science” in Hayes, Roth, Handbook, 52. Bergen, Holocaust, 189–191. Gerald Steinacher, Nazis auf der Flucht. Wie Kriegsverbrecher über Italien nach Übersee entkamen (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2010), 296. Sheila Faith Weiss, “After the Fall: Political Whitewashing, Professional Posturing, and Personal Refashioning in the Postwar Career of Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer (Critical Essay),” Isis 101, no. 4 (2010): 722–758. On experiments with children in Auschwitz, see Astrid Ley, “Children as Victims of Medical Experiments in Concentration Camps,” in Weindling, Clinic, 215–217. 146 For an overview see Paul J. Weindling, “Post-war legacies, 1945–2015. Victims, bodies, and brain tissues,” in Weindling, Clinic, 337–364. Megan Gannon, “Germany to probe Nazi-era medical science” in Science 06 Jan 2017:

40 That these body parts and human remains have been used in medical education long after

1945 poses a non-negligible ethical dilemma. This is an area of discussion that overlaps with

North American or post-colonial history from a more general viewpoint, as specimens from colonial contexts were acquired and are present in many current exhibits, at least until recently.147 In regard to human remains “countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia,

New Zealand and the United Kingdom have passed legislation in relation to the care and management of human remains”, which mostly led to their complete removal from the showrooms in museums.148 What is different, however, is that Nazi-era specimens were acquired in tremendous quantities and through systematic deception, terror, and organized – systematic – mass murder. This means that the latter did no less than to “supply” anatomists and pathologists with specific, requested corpses from concentration camps or other execution sites, like prisons.149 Knowledge, involvement, and active support for these actions came from physicians whose single ethical duty it should have been to protect those very persons who were instead used to “produce” anonymous tissue slices or anatomical atlases.150 In the process of making the specimens, the identities of the victims were erased, and of course, while still alive, the targeted were terrorized, dehumanized, and abused in physical and psychological ways. The present-day recommendation of the German Chamber of Physicians clearly states that an individualized

Vol. 355, Issue 6320, pp. 13. The announcement on the official internet platform of the German Association for Pathology (DGP), accessed April 11, 2018, https://www.pathologie-dgp.de/die-dgp/aktuelles/meldung/pathologie- und-pathologen-im-nationalsozialismus-projekte-zur-aufarbeitung-der-geschichte-von-dgp/. 147 For the Calgary based Glenbow Museum and its efforts to give back Indigenous property such as sacred bundles, for example, see Gerald T. Conaty, We Are Coming Home : Repatriation and the Restoration of Blackfoot Cultural Confidence (Edmonton, AB : AU Press, 2015), 21–36. 148 Andromache Gazi, “Exhibition Ethics–An Overview of Major Issues,“ in Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies, 12(1):4, pp.1–10. 149 Hildebrandt, Anatomy, 323. 150 A discussion about the legitimacy of continued usage of the so-called Pernkopf Atlas in anatomical training is documented by Sabine Hildebrandt, “How the Pernkopf Controversy Facilitated a Historical and Ethical Analysis of the Anatomical Sciences in Austria and Germany: A Recommendation for the Continued Use of the Pernkopf Atlas” in Clinical Anatomy 19:91–100 (2006). On usage of National Socialist terminology, please see the Introduction.

41 approach to such collections is favorable to a collective one, in order to avoid another form of anonymization.151

In summary, bodies of marginalized people, namely the poor, women, prisoners, and of the executed have been put to use in anatomy and pathology laboratories for centuries.152

Difficulties in acquiring sufficient numbers of bodies is an element that is intricately linked to the history of anatomy and pathology. This subchapter also showed that a radicalization of medicine had already set in before 1933, when the Nazis took over power. Following the work of historian Michael Kater, this turn towards radical and then extreme measures in the name of science and medicine was something that the German medical establishment actively demanded.

This included the forced retirement of colleagues who under the new laws were now classified as so-called “non-Aryan,” some of whom could successfully emigrate, some of whom were killed in concentration camps.153 This also meant that patients and “in the end, the entire world of the living human being is reduced to biology....Man is understood ... exclusively as a biological entity.” If a patient could not be “integrated into the community by means of active ‘biological’ therapy, work and shock therapy, then, in a biological sense, he has lost his right to existence.”154

This quote by medical historians Rotzoll and Hohendorf exemplifies to what human beings were reduced and how a peculiar sense of “value” was applied. This was especially true for people

151 Bundesärztekammer, Mitteilungen, Arbeitskreis “Menschliche Präparate in Sammlungen“, Empfehlungen zum Umgang mit Präparaten aus menschlichem Gewebe in Sammlungen, Museen und öffentlichen Räumen, in Deutsches Ärzteblatt, PP, Heft 8, August 2003, 378–383. A more recent recommendation has been published by the German Association of Museums, Deutscher Museumsbund e.V., “Empfehlungen zum Umgang mit menschlichen Überresten in Museen und Sammlungen,“ accessed June 12, 2018, https://www.museumsbund.de/wp- content/uploads/2017/04/2013-empfehlungen-zum-umgang-mit-menschl-ueberresten.pdf. 152 On this see also Hildebrandt, “Capital Punishment,” 5–14. 153 For an example see the group of 462 anatomists forced out of their positions as researched by Hildebrandt: Sabine Hildebrandt, “Anatomy in the Third Reich: Careers Disrupted by National Socialist Policies,” Annals of Anatomy - Anatomischer Anzeiger : 194, no. 3 (June 2012): 251–66. 154 Maike Rotzoll and Gerrit Hohendorf, “Murdering the Sick in the Name of Progress? The Heidelberg Psychiatrist Carl Schneider as a Brain Researcher and ‘therapeutic idealist,’” in Weindling, Clinic, 174–176.

42 who did not look or behave like “Aryans” or like Germans “worthy” of being considered part of the “people’s body” (Volkskörper).155

1.4 The History of the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Between 1938 and 1945

Flossenbürg, in the Upper Palatinate Region in south-eastern Germany was intended to be a place for the exploitation of the inmates in the granite quarry. Up to today it is not very widely known outside academia, and its significance for the medical history of camps is rather small.156 I have shown before, that this is not completely justified.157 The existence of the dissection protocols add another element to our understanding of the everyday conditions in which the inmates had to live and in which at least 30,000 ultimately perished. But before I embark on the analysis of the protocols themselves, an overview of this camp’s history is necessary.

In spring of 1938, the village council of Flossenbürg approved SS plans to build a concentration camp in order to exploit prisoner labour in the gray granite quarry. On May 3,

1938, the first 100 men arrived from the Dachau concentration camp.158 They built the camp and prepared the quarry. The first death certificate was issued on May 23, 1938, leaving no doubt about the conditions in this camp, which was founded approximately at the same time as

155 Eugenics poster entitled “The German Face“ (Das deutsche Gesicht), USHMM, last accessed October 30, 2018, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1129242. See also “defining the Enemy,” USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia, last accessed October 30, 2018, https://encyclopedia. ushmm.org/content/en/article/defining-the-enemy. 156 Skriebeleit puts the working conditions in context with the health status of inmates. Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 11– 60. The first systematic study was provided by Siegert, see fn. 55. Schrade covers Schmitz’s behaviour in depth, Schrade, Elf Jahre, 247–261. Sommer incorporates Flossenbürg’s brothel and the potential health threats into his study about the camp brothels, Sommer, Bordell, 119. 157 Tannenbaum, Medizin. 158 For this and the following please see Skriebeleit, “Flossenbürg, 11–60.

43 Mauthausen in annexed Austria.159 Flossenbürg was a camp of the second generation. This means, it was not a place primarily destined to imprison, silence, and eventually kill political opponents like the camp Dachau, which was built in 1933. Instead, people judged as undesirable due to their life style, but not necessarily for racial reasons, were deported to Flossenbürg in order to exploit their labour. Other camps that were built close to a quarry were Natzweiler near

Strasbourg in France, and Groß-Rosen in Poland.

Flossenbürg’s first prisoners were categorized as “criminals” (Kriminelle) or “asocials”

(Asoziale). These labels for prisoners were based on pejorative, discriminatory, and somewhat elastic definitions, and they necessitate reflection.160 A “criminal” could have been somebody who had served a prison sentence but was not released at the end of it but deported to a camp on so-called preventive measures without a court ruling. They might have been petty criminals or murderers.161 The other group was made up of people who came from the margins of society: homeless and jobless people, the wandering people (Sinti and Roma, Gypsies), those involved in prostitution, or people who were living on the fringes of society. “Gypsies, like Jews and homosexuals, were often described by Nazi medical authorities as a ‘health risk’ to the German people. ... or as von Verschuer put it as ’asocial and genetically inferior’.”162 Again, these categories left room for interpretation and arbitrariness.

The group called the criminals had to wear a green triangle on the prisoner garment and were thus often called “the Greens” (die Grünen). This group was essential in the inner

159 Both, Mauthausen and Flossenbürg were built in order to exploit prisoner work force in a granite quarry. Both equally had a staircase made out of granite stone on which many inmates were terribly abused and died as a consequence of either exhaustion or due to their injuries. For an overview and a photograph of the so-called stairs of death see “The Mauthausen Concentration Camp 1938–1945,” accessed October 22, 2018, https://www.mauthausen-memorial.org/en/History/The-Mauthausen-Concentration-Camp-19381945. 160 On the arbitrariness of the prisoner labels see Kogon, SS-Staat, 71. 161 Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 16–17. 162 Proctor, Hygiene, 214–215.

44 organization of camp Flossenbürg throughout its existence, contrarily to camps Buchenwald and

Dachau, where this task was managed by the political prisoners.163 Most “Kapos” or functionary prisoners were recruited from this group. They were thus at the top of the prisoner hierarchy. A significant number of them participated in torture, abuse, and murder, earning them the title of collaborators with the SS. One who is continually famed as being an honorable exception was the last “Kapo” of the infirmary (Revier), Carl Schrade. Other prisoner groups were the

“politicals” (die Politischen, also called “the Reds” - die Roten), and “the Homosexuals” (die

175er – referring to the judicial paragraph that made homosexual acts a criminal offense).164 The purple triangle was reserved for Jehovah’s witnesses (the contemporary German term was

Bibelforscher), who were persecuted by the Nazi regime as they refused to abdicate their beliefs which included abstention from the use of arms. They thus refused to profess allegiance to the commander in chief, Adolf Hitler (1889–1945).165

Prisoners of war (POWs) were either kept for special interrogation in the bunker, which was a prison inside the camp, surrounded by a high wall, or they were exchanged with German

POWs. However, this mode of hostage exchange applied mostly to Western Allied troops, if at all. Many were shot or hanged within the parameters of the bunker.166 The biggest group of

POWs, however, came from the Soviet Union (SU). Members of the Red Army had only a minimal chance of survival. They were placed in the so-called quarantine part of the camp in

163 Kogon, SS-Staat, 71. 164 Heger, Männer. See also in English “Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich,” USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia, accessed October 22, 2018. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/persecution-of- homosexuals-in-the-third-reich. On the bottom of this entry there is also a photograph depicting the differently colored prisoner markings. 165 Wachsmann, KL, 126–127. Kogon, SS-Staat, 273–274. 166 For example, the Canadian Gustave Biéler was shot in September 1944. On March 29, 1945 thirteen more secret agents were hanged in the detention building or bunker. Flossenbürg Memorial/Bavarian Memorial Foundation, Flossenbürg Concentration Camp 1938–1945: Catalogue of the Permanent Exhibition, trans. Patricia Szobar (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009), 208–209.

45 summer 1941, and their numbers dwindled quickly. They were the first victims of deadly injections with phenol (carbolic acid) by the camp physician Richard Trommer (1910–1945).

“Between September 1941 and summer 1942 approximately 2,000 soviet prisoners of war were killed.”167 The “quarantine” of course was anything but sanitary and is one more proof of the abuse of language (mentioned in the Introduction, p. 17).

Another victim group that was deported to Flossenbürg was a group of approximately

12 women, who had allegedly signed up voluntarily for sexual forced labour in the camp’s brothel after having been told that they would be set free after a few months. The construction of brothels in the camps was another example of dehumanization.168

Between 1938 and 1943, prisoners had to cut stones from the granite quarry. Former

French prisoner Clement Meis (b. 1912) describes this ordeal:

The worst? The quarry! Because we were always outside. If you have only one jacket, one pair of pants, and it rains, what do you do? You get wet. You return to your barrack and you are wet. There is no fire. You sleep in your bed – wet. The next morning, you get up and go to the quarry, and it continues to rain. You are always wet. That is why there were many deaths due to pleurisy and tuberculosis. During the winter, we had frozen fingers, frozen feet. You had nothing to protect yourself, no gloves. We had wooden shoes, but no socks. We did not have boots.169

Between 1943 and 1945 this changed, however, and the prisoners were put to work for the

Messerschmitt airplane company.170 In other words, prisoners were used for the war effort. In

1943, the so-called Flossenbürg-complex began to emerge as more and more satellite camps were built. They stretched out like a spider’s web, with the Flossenbürg main camp at the centre.

167 Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 29. 168 Sommer, Bordell. 169 Clement Meis, “Im Krankenhaus fand ich meine große Liebe,“ in Muggenthatler, Häftlinge, 47. Translation JT. 170 Messerschmitt asked the SS in Flossenbürg whether they could transfer their production there and at the same time make use of the slave labour at hand. Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 34–36.

46 In and after the summer of 1944, there was a great influx of deported Jewish inmates, when the camps in occupied Poland were “evacuated”. This was a euphemism, as an evacuation is designed to save as many people as possible in a time of catastrophe. These inmates however, were forced on marches, either by foot or by train, with little or no food supplies and anybody who could not walk or was exhausted or injured, was shot.171 For Jewish inmates, Flossenbürg was often one camp of many they had experienced. They often later failed to remember the names of each place they were brought to, and they generally lost one or several family members along the way. Within the hierarchy of prisoners, they were at the very bottom.

The last ten months of the camp’s existence between August 1944 and April 1945 were marked by a steady decline into chaos. Rising numbers of inmates lead to five-fold overcrowding, which made access to food and individual space more difficult. It also contributed to the rapid spread of epidemics, as did the constantly growing and confusing network of satellite camps with sometimes even harsher conditions than in the main camp. “In no other period of time did more people die ... than in 1944 and 1945.”172

The liberation of Flossenbürg on April 23, 1945 was followed by similar measures taken by the US Army as elsewhere: The inhabitants of the village of Flossenbürg had to make coffins and they had to participate in the funeral of former inmates in a central place in the village.

Where corpses had been exhumed along the roads of the death marches, civilians were forced to look at them. These events were photo-documented.173

171 Lucie Adelsberg describes her odyssey in: Lucie Adelsberger, Auschwitz: Ein Tatsachenbericht, Das Vermächtnis der Opfer für uns Juden und für alle Menschen (Berlin: Duplikator, 1956). Also, see the online exhibit “The Women of Volary”, Yad Vashem, accessed October 22, 2018, https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/volary_death_march/index.asp. 172 Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 46. Translation JT. 173 KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg/Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten, was bleibt: Nachwirkungen des Konzentrationslagers Flossenbürg. Katalog zur Dauerausstellung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), 38 and 44.

47 To summarize this chapter, where the Nuremberg doctors’ trial in Nuremberg 1946/47 brought to justice physicians and organizers behind large-scale systematic experiments, the situation for Flossenbürg was very different. Flossenbürg was not discussed in the Nuremberg

Trial. And although fifty-one former camp personnel were indicted in the Flossenbürg trial (FT), which took place simultaneously, there was only one physician among the defendants: Heinrich

Schmitz. Others who had been involved in “medical care” were either not indicted or were POW in the SU, from where they could not be extradited. This is all the more surprising as there had always been at least one if not more physicians on the spot at the main camp whose duty it was to look after the inmates, but also to supervise Schmitz. The FT ended with the death penalty for this one physician, and this turned out to be a lucky incident for the others, as there were a few minor charges pronounced later in the 1950s, but most of those who returned from the war continued to practice medicine.

This lack of judicial prosecution has two main consequences that matter for the present study: source material is rare. Trials make up an important source for researchers up to this day, either because there exists no contemporary material or because the existing documents are faulty or distorted. The trial documents offer another perspective that facilitates a reconstruction of the reality of the camp. For Flossenbürg specifically, a second consequence is that most sources on physician perpetrators focus on Schmitz. The other physicians are often covered only in passing. In and of itself this creates a distorted image of the reality in the main camp. Schmitz certainly was important by the way he acted, but he was not alone. The problem for the historian is to make those other physicians who in part were required to supervise him visible. The present study will try to accomplish that.

48 Chapter 2: The Protocols

This thesis is based on an intensive examination of a notebook containing 161 handwritten autopsy or dissection protocols from the Flossenbürg concentration camp.174 The latter part of the notebook also includes handwritten reports on x-ray tests on prisoners from this camp. These are not subject of the present analysis, however. Today, this notebook is kept in the historical collection on the Flossenbürg concentration camp by the International Tracing Service

(ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Unfortunately, the original cannot be accessed by researchers due to its very fragile state of conservation.175 Consequently, the examination of the protocols could only be accomplished by using digital black and white copies (in one PDF file) provided by the ITS collection curator. Each page of this electronic file contains a precise document identification number (document ID), so that an unequivocal designation is possible for each protocol and hence for almost each deceased individual from the camp.176 Examples of the transcription and English translation will be provided in later sections of this chapter. Appendix

A of the online version of this thesis holds a complete, anonymized list of all dissection protocols and their respective document IDs, so that identification becomes possible at the ITS archive.

The printed version of this thesis is complemented by Appendix C, which holds the complete transcripts and translations, including individual names.

174 For a distinction between these two terms, please see Chapter 1.1, p. 23. The exact signature is 1.1.8.1 / 8091300 Section reports (Sektionsberichte) – from 28.7.1944–10.4.1945. 175 In fact, while this chapter was written, the notebook was being restored in Italy. 176 In those cases where identification of a prisoner was impossible, this was due to the lack of any identifying factors, like the last or first name, or a prisoner number.

49 2.1 Description of the source material

The cover of the notebook (please see figure 2, p. 54) shows a German as well as an

English title. The latter was probably added when the book first came into possession of the US

Army. It is presently unclear, exactly when this happened, but the early days after the liberation seem to be a reasonable assumption (see the interview with prosecutor Ferencz in Chapter 1, p.

3). The book then was given to the ITS archive in 1948/49. This archive operates differently from many other archives which register archival material depending on origin (Provenienz).

The ITS, however, was a tracing institution originally. That means that archival material was recorded in respect to pertinence (Pertinenz), or in other words, it was grouped according to names or objects. In this case, all material that pertains to Flossenbürg was grouped together.177

The book cover also shows the ITS signature before its digitisation. The external measurements are 20 x 15 x 2cm. Judging by the appearance, page numbers were added later, as handwriting style and color are different. The first protocol starts on page three and is dated July

28, 1944 (see Appendix, Document ID 10804157 and 10804158). The last autopsy was recorded on page 86 and is dated April 10, 1945 (see appendix, Document ID 10804240 and 10804241).

This was less than two weeks before the main camp would cease to exist. If there were dissections performed in Flossenbürg before July 1944, no written evidence survives either in the

German Federal Archive (Bundesarchiv), or at the ITS.

The time frame between July 1944 and April 1945 needs special consideration because of several important features. First, this was when overcrowding became more and more critical, causing chaos and a sharp decline in already inadequate sanitary conditions among the prisoners.

The main camp had been planned for 3,000 people but held approximately 8,000 in August 1944,

177 Kim Dresel, email to the author, October 16, 2018.

50 about 12,000 in December 1944, and around 15,000 in March 1945.178 Jack Terry, who had been deported to other camps and whose father was killed in Majdanek describes this situation the following way. “Flossenbürg was not an extermination camp, but a human life did not count here either. During the last months, the camp was hopelessly overcrowded….During the last weeks, there were 15,000 people. Death was always present.”179 Infectious diseases spread quickly, the most prominent one being tuberculosis. A typhus epidemic started in October 1944 and was not met with necessary preventive measures, such as quarantine or vaccination.180 The danger of being infected with any of these contagious diseases, TB, typhus, and pneumonia especially, was enormous and explains in part the skyrocketing of the mortality rate in this time period. The following graph visualizes the number of deaths per month between July 1944 and March 1945.

The numbers were taken from the “Book of the Dead”, which can be searched online (see fig. 3, p. 54)

178 Flossenbürg Memorial Site, Catalogue, 183. 179 Jack Terry, Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 147. 180 Testimony Dr. Frantisek Polak, Flossenbürg Trial, NARA, US vs. Friedrich Becker et al. 000-50-46, 602–645. The camp physician Dr. Heinrich Schmitz confirmed this. Examination of Dr. Heinrich Schmitz, Flossenbürg follow-up trial, NARA, US vs. Heerde et al., 000-50-46-3, 917.

51 Number of deaths per month 3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0 Jul 44 Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan 45 Feb Mar

Fig. 1: Monthly death rates. Numbers taken from the “Book of the Dead.”181 Some individuals might have been mentioned twice.

Second, the year 1944 marked an acceleration in the construction of satellite or subcamps, eventually leading to a network of smaller or bigger camps that stretched from Würzburg in the

West to Prague in the East, and that could involve civilian authorities and businesses. Living conditions differed significantly in each of these camps as did the type of the forced labour. In total, there were at least 90 subcamps, out of which 25 were for women. Prisoners were moved constantly from one satellite camp to another, further aggravating the threat of contagion.182

181 “Book of the Dead,” Flossenbürg memorial site, accessed October 25, 2018, https://www.gedenkstaette- flossenbuerg.de/index.php?id=314&L=1. 182 “The Flossenbürg Subcamps,” Flossenbürg memorial site, accessed April 26, 2018, http://www.gedenkstaette- flossenbuerg.de/en/history/flossenbuerg-concentration-camp/1942-1945-the-flossenbuerg-subcamps/. This page illustrates the resulting network of camps and their geographical locations.

52

Fig. 2: The cover of the notebook containing 161 dissection protocols from the Flossenbürg concentration camp. “Sektionsberichte (Individual Death reports)”, 1.1.8.1/8091300 Section reports (Sektionsberichte) – from 28.7.1944–10.4.1945, ITS, Bad Arolsen. Courtesy ITS.

53

Fig. 3: Screenshot of the Flossenbürg Book of the Dead search template. In the frame shown, one can search if the name and/or the prisoner number are known. Another way to search is via a day-by-day listing of deceased individuals. “Book of the Dead,” Flossenbürg memorial site, accessed October 25, 2018, https://www.gedenkstaette- flossenbuerg.de/index.php?id=314&L=1.

Third, the summer of 1944 also marked the beginning of the deportation of high numbers of Jewish inmates. As the Red Army was advancing on the Eastern Front, the Nazi regime sent inmates of the camps in Poland who were deemed able to work (arbeitsfähig) westward, either by foot or by train. The majority of these “evacuees” were Jewish. One such transport for example left camp Kraków-Płaszów on July 31 and arrived in Flossenbürg on August 4, 1944.

The rationale behind these so-called evacuations was by no means to save the inmates, but to exploit their workforce for the regime’s last war effort. It was a move that somewhat contradicted the exterminatory policy of the Final Solution, which aimed at annihilating

Europe’s Jewry completely and which was continued both simultaneously and intensely at

Auschwitz-Birkenau for those inmates who were deemed unable to work (nicht arbeitsfähig).

54 Fourth, 1944 was also the beginning of the dissolution of the National Socialist regime and uncertainty among the SS about how things would end began to grow. For inmates, this meant that the behaviour of the SS members became less predictable. All of these factors led to a constant increase of disorder in the camp and caused a further deterioration of living conditions.

“The result was chaos,” as access to essential resources like food, clothes, personal space, and warmth in the winter months decreased sharply.183

It is to this background that the 161 dissection protocols were created. As I have shown above, they constitute a random sample of the much larger and ever growing and changing prisoner population. This limitation notwithstanding, the source can be described qualitatively, and this is where its overwhelming significance lies.

My assessment will proceed in two steps. First, I will analyze the formal properties of the protocols. Second, I will describe my observations in regard to their content. 159 dissections were performed on male corpses; only two women’s bodies were among the dissected (see

Appendix A or C, Doc ID 10804230, protocol 145/2, and Doc ID 10804231, protocol 148.). This is probably due to the fact that the main camp was exclusively for male inmates.184 Each protocol carries its own number, 1 to 164, but in three cases the dissection did not actually take place or was not recorded (marked as “N/A” in Appendix A). This brings the total number of actually written protocols to 161. All but two protocols were originally dated and all but seven mentioned the prisoner number of the deceased.185 The correct name, or in ambiguous cases the name used by the memorial site, as well as the corrected prisoner number are indicated in square brackets in

183 Karin Orth, “Camps,” in Hayes, Handbook, 372. 184 It is currently unclear where exactly the two female corpses came from and how they were selected for dissection in the Flossenbürg main camp. The camp brothel did host between ten and twelve women for sexual forced labour, but they seem to have survived. 185 When no prisoner number was indicated in the protocol, the identification was achieved via the memorial’s database and the Book of the Dead. In three cases, no identification was possible.

55 the transcript (see also the introduction to the Appendix). The family name was given in all but seven cases, whereas first names were mostly missing. This part of the identification process was essential to ensure that the right individual was made part of the analysis. It was the most time- consuming step in this thesis. Last names had often been misspelled by the dissectors, especially when they were Slavic. Here, a correction was necessary, using again the memorial’s database extensively. Only a handful of protocols carry signs of racist language, for example, one carries the Magen David (Star of David), which was scribbled in awkwardly by hand, indicating that this inmate was Jewish.186 The otherwise consistently employed method of categorizing the prisoners according to the labels outlined in Chapter 1, was not always reproduced in the protocols. For example, a French Jewish man would have been numbered in the camp’s registry as “FJ,” followed by his prisoner number. In the protocols, however, this method of notation appears only five times.

Following this fragmentary mentioning of personal information, the reports usually give a very brief description of the body, also called external examination, or none. The next step documents the body opening itself and the findings in different organs. It is here where the biggest range of accuracy and completeness lies. This led to significant differences in regard to the length of the protocols; some do not take up more than two lines, while others amount to three full handwritten pages.187 The conclusion often simply lists the different findings in their

Latin terms under the subheading “diagnosis,” but in sixty-six cases this was left out completely.

Up to protocol 26 (Doc ID 10804177), most protocols were signed, thus potentially allowing for the identification of the dissector. The dissectors mostly used the Latin medical terms for

186 This is also one of those protocols that only indicate the prisoner number, but no name at all, which is humiliating, too. Doc ID 10804167. Dissection report 13, dating from August 19, 1944, ITS 1.1.8.1/10804167. 187 Doc ID 10804193 (protocol 66) compared to Doc ID 10804169 (protocol 16), for example.

56 diseases, sometimes employing the familiar German words interchangeably for specific organs like the heart (cor), for example.

So far, I have outlined the formal characteristics of the protocols under study. What follows now, focuses on the content. Out of the 161 dissections, very few protocols start with a clinical history that covers the time the person had been sick for, what the working diagnosis had been, and what type of treatments were attempted or not, and why. If clinical information appears, it is rudimentary and usually limited to a keyword, such as “suspected typhus”, for instance Doc ID 10804188, protocol 54. The autopsy itself typically does not adhere to the required procedure of opening all three body cavities (abdominal, thoracic, and the skull) and examination of all organs. Instead, the focus was placed on the organ systems most likely affected, and the extent of the autopsy was limited accordingly.

Sixty-eight protocols proved the presence of an infectious disease: tuberculosis for the most part. Forty-two dissections were performed after some form of surgery. Usually, no symptoms or medical indications for surgery are given. During the dissections, however, the finding was almost always diffuse peritonitis. Peritonitis is a fatal infection of the lining of the abdominal cavity and either caused by unsterile operation techniques or ruptured intestines. The following protocols outright mention that this entry of germs was caused by a rupture of the surgeon’s suture or by necrosis (the localized death of living tissue) of parts of the intestines due to squeezing: Doc ID 10804180 (protocol 31) and Doc ID 10804195 (protocol 73).

Eleven protocols were taken down after shootings, and again, we do not learn anything about the motivation for why these corpses were chosen for necropsy. The remaining protocols either describe some form of polytrauma, or various internal diseases. The latter mostly comprise diseases affecting the cardio-vascular or the genitourinary system

57

Most probable organ system or etiologies Frequency associated with the death of the prisoner Infectious diseases 68

Surgery 42

Internal disease (further specified in table 2) 20

Gunshot wounds 11

Trauma 8

Starvation 5

Central nervous system 3

Poisoning 1

Drowning 1

Unclear 2

Total 161

Table 1: Frequency of different etiologies in the Flossenbürg dissection protocols.

Further breakdown of internal diseases Frequency into organ systems affected Cardio-vascular 10

Genitourinary system 5

Gastro-intestinal 4

Metabolism (Diabetes) 1

Total 20

Table 2: Breakdown of internal diseases as cause of death in the Flossenbürg dissection protocols.

58 (congestive heart disease or glomerulonephritis, respectively). Some, but by far not all protocols pinpoint the effects of prolonged starvation, for example Doc ID 10804185 (protocol 44).

I will now list the parts of a dissection that should have appeared in all protocols but were omitted in some or in all of them. Then I will move on to a discussion of why these omissions are present. For this, I will need to consider the perpetrator physicians who were most likely involved in the creation of this document and what their motivations behind these necropsies might have been. In other words, I will think about possible benefits that the dissectors might have gained through performing these documented dissections.

As a recapitulation, the aim of a dissection is to visualize the physical structure of the human body, whereas in an autopsy the goal is to determine the cause of death. As outlined in

Chapter 1, dissections are usually performed by anatomists whereas autopsies are performed either by a pathologist or by the coroner or medical examiner. In other words, a dissection is mostly of educational value, and an autopsy is primarily of legal interest. The question whether the protocols from the Flossenbürg concentration camp qualify as one or the other cannot be answered. For this, one would need testimonies of the perpetrators specifying their intentions or motivation. Yet, such statements do not exist in any of the post-war trial documents consulted.188

It is hence by exclusion principle, by noting what is absent in the protocols, that I am closing in on a reasonable categorization as either anatomical or pathological dissection of these body openings.

The large absence of racialized language might indicate that the primary interest of the dissectors lay not so much in racial hygiene, genetics, or anthropological studies, but with other

188 These are the verbatim records of the FT 1946–1947, investigation trials of the district court in Weiden (Landgericht) in the 1950s, different denazification trials in Regensburg, Nuremberg, and Ludwigsburg, as well as entries in the Central Office of State Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist crimes (Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen) in Ludwigsburg.

59 areas of National Socialist medicine. A few possibilities are conceivable. An interest in the effects of hunger, in ballistics, abdominal operations, or in the presentation of Tuberculosis

(TBC, TB) seem to have been present. By contrast, there are no extensive discussions of the postmortem findings or comparisons with the individual clinical histories. Nor do a weighing of possibly different causes of death appear in the documents. These omissions limit the diagnostic and intellectual validity of the dissections.

The protocols do not adhere to the contemporary guidelines, as outlined by Emil

Abderhalden (1877–1950) for instance.189 The protocols consequentially cannot be used to clearly determine what exactly the deceased inmates died from. They can at best give hints and help us to understand what the probable causes of death were. The “diagnosis” that ends some of the protocols is preliminary from a pathological viewpoint. It is often given in Latin terminology and it is this observance of supposedly objective language that might be hiding the real cause of death. To explain this, I will go further in the analysis of the source.

If a highly contagious disease such as typhus was found, nothing is mentioned about possible preventive measures for the rest of the inmate population.190 Even in those cases where a bacteriology sample was taken, such as in Doc ID 10804158 (report 3), or when the suspected typhus was confirmed, such as in Doc ID 10804202 (report 91), no follow-up comments can be found, such as “quarantine ordered” or “fumigation of the barrack necessary.” This would have been medically indicated however, in order to prevent the spread of the different and highly contagious diseases. This negligence to protect the greater prisoner population was one reason

189 Emil Abderhalden, ed., Handbuch der biologischen Arbeitsmethoden (Berlin, Wien: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1935), 1093–1123. Abderhalden was professor in Halle and published a reference book of the current methods employed by pathologists. He also cooperated with von Verschuer on twin research. 190 Doc ID 10804208 (protocol 107), dating from February 16, 1945, ITS 1.1.8.1/10804208.

60 why Heinrich Schmitz was indicted at the FT. The prosecution in this trial also charged Schmitz with repeatedly having performed abdominal surgeries on concentration camp inmates. By looking at the respective post-operative dissections alone, we can see that extensive and physically demanding stomach procedures were regularly performed on prisoners. This makes the accusation of medical malpractice against Schmitz seem justified. I will return to a discussion of whether they also constitute medical experiments in Chapter 3.

Similarly, in those eight cases, where the protocol definitely shows the presence of severe physical trauma, no explanation was undertaken on how this trauma had occurred, thus leaving out the potential clarifying aspect of an autopsy. To recapitulate, Flossenbürg prisoners had to work in a granite quarry for long hours every day, where many were hit by falling stones.

Sometimes, the inmates were abused by fellow inmates, and sometimes they were tortured by SS staff. Torture often involved severe beatings with diverse objects but also the hanging-on-the- tree, where a prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back and was then suspended on a tree or post until his shoulder joints dislocated.191 There is only very little concrete information in the protocols that would allow us to determine what caused the individual trauma. One example of such a polytrauma can be seen in Doc ID 10804198 (report 81), where the victim had a ruptured lung with subsequent hemothorax, a rupture of the spleen with subsequent bleeding into the abdominal hole, a fracture of the skull, of the nasal bone, and of the orbita. Another case of probable abuse is Doc ID 10804220 (report 127), which proves that the man drowned (or

191 Flossenbürg memorial site, Catalogue, 97.

61 possibly was drowned). It also proves that the corpse was left in cold temperatures as it was

“completely frozen.”192

Perpetrator physicians

For August and September 1944, two physicians were the possible authors of these protocols:

Heinrich Schmitz (1896–1948) and Alfred Schnabel (1888–1955). The first was a civilian surgeon working on contract for the SS. The latter was the SS post-physician and superior of

Schmitz. Hermann Fischer (1883–1959) replaced Schnabel by the end of September 1944, but the handwriting of the protocols does not change. This indicates that the post-physicians were not the dissectors themselves. However, the protocols written before October 1944 almost always carry a signature, whereas those written later do not. Comparison of Schmitz’s with

Schnabel’s handwriting samples suggest that during Schnabel’s time as post-physician, Schmitz noted down the protocol, but Schnabel signed off on it. Hermann Fischer does not seem to have continued this practice towards his subordinate, as none of the protocols issued after September

1944 carry a signature. The reasons for this are not known, but a few explanations seem possible.

First, the value of these protocols might not have been high enough to make them equal to some other bureaucratic procedure in the eyes of the SS. The protocols might never have been intended to be sent to outside institutions and were thus neither consistently signed nor typed but were only handwritten. This leads to the question what they were intended for.

A second reason why they were not signed might have been that it was only a small group of select people who were involved in dissections. Those who had the skills to perform one were few, and those who had permission to do so, were probably still fewer, at least for the

192 Doc ID 10804220 (report 127), dating March 2, 1945. For more examples of physical abuse, see Flossenbürg memorial, Catalogue, 148–149.

62 period under scrutiny. Only one former prisoner physician, the Czech Dr. Frantisek Polák (1906–

1982), testified during the FT that he had done a dissection in October of 1944, but this dissection is not documented. And the prosecution in the FT did not inquire further into the matter.193 In the testimonies of other former inmate physicians and in memoirs, I could not find any trace that they performed body openings in Flossenbürg.

Third, from one of the most notorious reports from a former prisoner physician we know that SS physicians ordered inmate doctors to perform body openings on their behalf.194 For

Flossenbürg, too little is known about the prisoner physicians. Only one, Dr. Polák, testified that he performed at least one dissection. Whether he did this clandestinely, as he suggests, or if he performed more, either voluntarily or by coercion is not clear. So far, my attempts to contact his family in the hopes of finding some form of memoir or letters, have been unsuccessful. It is my opinion, however, that the prisoner physicians were not the ones who kept this notebook. And if this was the case, it was coerced. Chapter 3.2 will discuss the role of the physicians further.

2.2 A Qualitative Approach to the Victims

It is important to remember that most of the personal information on the lives of inmates before imprisonment is lost. Only very few details can be derived from the administrative camp files about the lives and the suffering of the people whose bodies were dissected after death in

Flossenbürg. This is the sad reality of research into the Holocaust and its related crimes. And this is why the present source is so important. That statement notwithstanding, however, sometimes

193 Testimony Dr. Polák, NARA, US vs. Friedrich Becker et al, 000-50-46, p. 602. 194 The forensic pathologist Miklós Nyiszli (1901–1956), a Hungarian Jew who had trained in Germany and who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, was ordered by Josef Mengele (1911–1979) to perform autopsies. These autopsies were sometimes preceded by experiments and usually involved the harvesting of “interesting material,” like organs or eyes, which were then sent to the KWI for Anthropology in Berlin. Nyiszli, Jenseits.

63 the underlying illness of the prisoner-patient remains entirely unclear; sometimes it is possible to take an educated guess based on the information given in the protocol. One thing that the protocols undoubtedly prove, however, is that none of the people mentioned would have died from the conditions described, had they not been subjected to the difficult living and working conditions of the concentration camp. Work makes you free (Arbeit macht frei) was the cynical motto of the concentration camps, and as such a camp we have to understand that Flossenbürg was also designed to kill its inmates, not in gas chambers but through slave labour and dehumanization. This was not kept secret from the inmates, either, as the former Belgian prisoner Charles Dekeyser (1921–2011) recalls. Upon his arrival in Flossenbürg as a young man, ready to work, he asked one of the guards what the phrase “work makes you free” meant, and he received the following response:

So, when you work a lot and hard, then you get there [to the crematory] very quickly. And once you are up there [at the end of the chimney], then you will see the clouds and the smoke. So, and when you are there, that’s when you will be free. Then, nobody can hurt you anymore.195

This shocking statement, which was apparently voiced matter-of-factly illustrates the harsh reality in the camp. The satisfaction of good work was completely turned into its opposite extreme. Work had become nothing else than another way of killing. Dekeyser also notes that

Flossenbürg was much more difficult for him than the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

I had forgotten the [prisoner] number from Sachsenhausen, which was the 79916. But the 2264, which was older, because I was first brought to Flossenbürg [and then to Sachsenhausen], this number, I will not forget it until the end of my days. When you are called like this, you knew you were in trouble.196

195 Charles Dekeyser. “’Ich war kein Held.’ Im ‘Waldkommando’ einen Mordversuch überlebt.” In Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 92. Translation by JT. 196 Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 93. Translation by JT.

64 Additionally, starvation, filth, and the cold climate in northern Bavaria were constant companions for the inmates. As American troops quickly realized during the liberation process, almost everybody had contracted TB:

A high incidence of tuberculosis was discovered in military and civilian prisoners of Allied and other European nations, who were liberated … in western Germany shortly before the end of the war in Europe. The prevalence was so great as to suggest a grave spread of tuberculosis as a result of the conditions of imprisonment.197

TB was found among most the survivors of the camp. This was due to overcrowding, the malnutrition, the cold climate, and the constant fear of death, which all contributed to a weakening of the immune system. It can also be found in many of the dissection protocols, for example Doc ID 10804221 (report 129) or Doc ID 10804177 (report 25). In 1945, there existed no antibiotic treatment. Many of those who survived the camps, were chronically struck with it, or died within a few weeks after their liberation, as was shown in 1956 in a French publication on “the pathology of deportation.”198 Moreover, again due to the overcrowding and generally egregious living and working conditions, US medics suspected many prisoners to be incubating typhus:

The German SS marched out thousands of prisoners from the Flossenburg [sic!] concentration camp–many with typhus, others incubating the disease–a few days before the camp was liberated …. About 1,180 cases of typhus were observed by the typhus team in this area, of which 95 percent was related to the concentration camps.199

Most of the inmates would have naturally lived longer and probably healthier if they had never been deported in the first place. Many biographies were lost forever through the deportations.

197 No author, “Tuberculosis in German Prison Camps“, in Bulletin of the U.S. Army Medical Department, Vol. 4, no. 4 (Oct. 1945), 428–429. 198 Charles Richet and Antonin Mans, La Pathologie de la Déportation (Paris: Plon, 1956), 135. 199 No author, “Typhus in Lower Bavaria”, in Bulletin of the U.S. Army Medical Department, Vol. 5, no. 2 (Feb. 1946), 141–142.

65 With the aid of the memorial's database, some information can be gathered about the men and the two women who appear in the dissection booklet: some had been members of the Warsaw rising, and their transport arrived in Flossenbürg on August 28, 1944. Some were German inmates who had succeeded in surviving in the camp for five or six years, and others had been first deported to Auschwitz from France or Hungary before being brought to the Upper

Palatinate.200 All corpses were likely cremated after dissection, like all other cadavers. The ashes were put in the water treatment plant or into holes in the ground of the nearby forest.201

2.3 Examples

This section will provide some examples of protocols and what can be derived from them. I chose the first protocol because it was created relatively early, in August 1944, because it is of medium length compared to the other protocols, and because the inmate apparently succumbed to a severe form of disseminated or miliary TB. In this case only, I have added the

German transcript preceding the English translation, so that the reader may have an impression of the original. The other complete transcriptions and translations will be made available through the ITS and Flossenbürg memorial site. The goal is not to give a definite medical diagnosis but to point out possible explanations for the inmate’s death in view of the information presented in the protocol.

Any additional biographical information comprises, for example, the country of origin, the route of deportation, or any post-war acknowledgements of service, like for the French

200 On the Warsaw rising see for example Włodzimierz Borodziej, Geschichte Polens im 20. Jahrhundert (München: C. H. Beck, 2010), 249–252. 201 Nitecki, Terry, World, 62.

66 Resistance, for example. This section on supplementary biographical material will naturally not be uniform in every case due to the different amount and accessibility of sources.

Each example will conclude with a proposal of the real cause of death in order to attempt a forensic approach to the protocols. This is intended to start a discussion about what might have happened. It is also designed to return some dignity to the victims by placing them within a criminal context that took advantage of their defenselessness – a position in which they had been put on purpose in the first place.

The Transcripts

The transcriptions, which are in Appendix C together with the translations, were done from handwritten originals whose readability on the computer screen was generally good.

However, those syllables or words that could not be deciphered are indicated with a long placeholder (“___”). Misspellings were preserved, whereas common abbreviations were spelled out to increase readability. For example, the German ‘and’ (und) and articles (also used as relative pronouns der, die, das) often appear in their abbreviated forms as “u.” and “d.” in the original. In the transcription they were spelled out completely in order to ease the flow of reading. If, in the original, a word or a section was stroked through, this was maintained in the transcript as well. Many protocols were inconsistent in the usage of the German Umlaut, sometimes spelling them out (ä, ö, ü), sometimes spelling them in the Latinized way (ae, oe, ue); this was preserved. Any elements that facilitate identification of persons and which were added during the transcription process by the author appear in square brackets, the page numbers and the document ID, for example. In the case of Russian names, the database sometimes lists different versions. This is either due to varying forms of transcription from Cyrillic to Latin

67 letters, or to bad legibility in the original handwritten registry. In this case, I have chosen the name given in the online Book of the Dead available on the memorial’s website.

The Translations

The translation stayed as close to the original as possible. Where the original was written in German, the translation was done to English. However, the Latin terms employed regularly in the German original, were translated to the English form most commonly used today. This was done in order to increase intelligibility to readers without medical training. These rather abstract but explanatory comments will now be followed by concrete examples. For further details on how to read the protocols, please see the first two pages of the Appendix C.

68 2.3.1 An Example of Disseminated or Miliary Tuberculosis

[Doc ID: 10804165] 11.) 15.08.44 [Seiten 10/2–11/1] F 6476 [ ... ]

[ ... ] männliche Leiche; reduzierter Zustand. Oedeme an Beinen und linker Hand; Ascites.

Brust: Pleuritis adhesiva beiderseits rechts mehr als links. Links an der Basis hämorrhagisches

Exsudat, rechts ein abgekapseltes seröses Exsudat.

Lungen: An der Spitze des linken Oberlappens eine etwa kirschgroße Kaverne ___ mit schwieligen Auflagerungen belegt, starr, Oberlappen infiltriert, Unterlappen an der Basis atelektatisch, rechter Oberlappen infiltriert, oedematös, Basis des rechten Unterlappens atelektatisch. Pleuritis interlobaris.

Perikard verdickt und kleinknotige Einlagerungen.

Herz o.B.. Klappen o.B.; braune Atrophie.

Bauch: Ascites; Mesenterialdrüsen stark vergrößert; perlenartige Reihe von Drüse Lymphknoten und Tuberkel bis zum Darm;

Dünndarm: Blutungen der Schleimhaut.

Leber: periphere Verfettung.

Diagnose: Cavernöse-infiltrative Tbc der Lungen, Pleuritis exsudativa beiderseits und Pleuritis adheaesiva. Tuberkulose der Mesenterialdrüsen und Haemorrhagie der Darmschleimhaut

(Enteritis) Ascites.

Unterschrift [Nicht zugeordnet]

Fig. 4: Doc ID 10804165 (report 11), German transcript, dating from August 15, 1944, ITS 1.1.8.1/10804165.

69 Doc ID: 10804165

11.) August 15, 1944 [Pages 10/2–11/1]

F 6476 [ ... ]

[ ... ] male corps; reduced state. Edema on legs and left hand; Ascites.

Thorax: adhesive pleurisy on both sides, more on the right than on the left. At left base hemorrhagic exudate, on the right one encapsulated serous exudate.

Lungs: At the apex of the left upper lobe one approximately cherry-sized cavern ___ covered with callous precipitate, oedematous, the base of the right lower lobe show atelectasis. Interlobar pleurisy.

Thickened pericardium and small infiltrated nodules.

Heart without pathology. Valves without pathology; brown atrophy.

Belly: Ascites; mesenteric glands greatly enlarged; pearl-like glands lymph nodes in a row and tubercles up to the intestine;

Small intestine: bleedings in the mucosa.

Liver: peripheral fatty liver.

Diagnosis: Cavernous-infiltrative Tb of the lungs, exudative pleurisy on both sides and adhesive pleurisy. Tuberculosis of the mesenteric glands and hemorrhage of the mucosa (enteritis) ascites.

Signature [Unidentified]

Fig. 5: Doc ID 10804165 (protocol 11), English translation, August 15, 1944, ITS 1.1.8.1/10804165.

70 In this example, protocol 11, dated August 15, 1944, the name was originally misspelled by the dissector. I determined the correct spelling and identity via a search of the prisoner number in the memorial’s online database (see Chapter 1, page 3 and Chapter 2, p. 55).

Protocol 11 opens with general remarks on the sex and nutritional state of the cadaver.

However, the use of “reduced state” is a vague descriptive term, and it does not give a precise description of this person’s weight. Because most inmates were severely starved and clinically malnourished, the act of leaving out a detailed description of the body’s weight, height, and the general appearance can be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the grave conditions in the camp. This holds especially true as the dissector mentions edema and ascites, which might have been caused by the starvation itself. A current textbook of forensic pathology lists two types of fatal (and non-fatal) starvation in Nazi concentration camps. First, the ‘dry’ type with emaciation, but only leg edema, and second, the ‘wet’ type. The latter is characterized by marked edema (swelling) of the face, trunk, and limbs combined with ascites and pleural effusion. In a diet where carbohydrates and fat are largely absent, protein is diverted from the body to produce energy, causing protein deficiency, also called hypoproteinaemia. According to the textbook, during the Second World War, “the skeleton accounted for 50% of the total body weight, instead of the usual 15%” in some victims.202 It can thus be safely assumed that the present dissection was performed on a man who was greatly starving as both limb edema and ascites are mentioned.

As with most other protocols, this one also does not carry any hints to what might have been known from the man’s clinical history in the camp. The reader of the protocol does not learn whether the man had been in the camp’s infirmary for a few hours, for days, or for weeks.

202 Pekka Saukko, Bernard Knigth, KNIGHT’s Forensic Pathology, 4th ed. (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2016), 416.

71 The protocol is also silent about whether he had been treated clandestinely in “his” camp barrack, or whether he had worked every day and then suddenly collapsed. The illnesses listed in the protocol, however, leave no doubt that he had been very sick and that he very likely was incapable of doing demanding physical work.

Based on the information in this protocol, it seems very probable that the man had suffered from miliary tuberculosis as the lungs show caverns, but also the mesenteric glands and possibly the heart, although this is not further specified. Other organs to which tuberculosis could have migrated include the nervous system, the skeleton or the genitourinary tract, yet they were not mentioned in the dissection. Additionally, as a potential side effect of tuberculosis, he suffered from bilateral pleurisy, hemorrhagic enteritis, and ascites. The latter two conditions, however, are mentioned without any context.

Taken together, this case seems to represent a typical case of tuberculosis, which was rampant in the camps. We know little about the time before February 1944, so it is impossible to say when this patient contracted TB exactly. The living conditions, however, with the combination of cold and humid climate, extraneous work, overcrowding, and starvation with ensuing malnutrition are known factors in aggravating and spreading of this disease to other organs.203

203 Dr. Max Michel, Gesundheitsschäden durch Verfolgung und Gefangenschaft und ihre Spätfolgen. Zusammenstellung der Referate und Ergebnisse der Internationalen Sozialmedizinischen Konferenz über die Pathologie der ehemaligen Deportierten und Internierten, 5.–7. Juni 1954 in Kopenhagen und ergänzender Referate und Ergebnisse einschließlich 1955 [Health problems caused by persecution and imprisonment and their after effects. Collection of presentations and results of the International conference of social medicine on the pathology of the former deportees and internees, June 5–7, 1954, in Copenhagen] (Frankfurt/M.: Röderberg, 1955), 91–100.

72 2.3.2 An Example of Abdominal Surgery

[Doc ID: 10804189]

57.) [Page 34/2]

P 24 997 [ ... ] 04.XI.44

[ ... ] 16 days after Billroth I because of a callous ulcer.

Area of surgery: adhesions (easily to be loosened) of the stomach with liver, gallbladder, colon; starting at the colon towards the ___, so that stomach ___ intact

Mucosa shows 2 little defects at point of adhesion, which are covered with coating

(physiological reaction)

Lungs: grey hepatization of the right and left lower lobe that enters the state of lysis partially.

Purulent bronchitis, pulmonary edema.

[No signature]

Fig. 6: Doc ID 10804189 (protocol 57), English translation, November, 4, 1944, ITS 1.1.8.1/10804189.

As in the previous protocol, the remarks on the clinical history of this patient are scant.

The procedures Billroth I and II describe extensive abdominal operations that entail partial gastrectomy (partial resection of the stomach) and different methods of reconnection of the remaining stomach parts to the small intestine. It is named after Vienna-based surgeon Theodor

Billroth (1829–1894), who devised this surgical approach for the treatment of chronic peptic ulcers in the late nineteenth century. It was one of the first effective treatments, albeit a difficult

73 one that often had severe side effects.204 In this case, Billroth I had been allegedly performed because of a chronified peptic ulcer, also called callous ulcer, 16 days before the passing of this inmate-patient. No pre-operative symptoms like pain, cramps, or weight loss are mentioned, neither are attempts at conservative treatment. Whether this man tolerated the difficult surgical procedure well during the post-operative period is not mentioned either, but this would have been crucial in order to detect serious complications like blood loss or a beginning infection.

What is not discussed either are any clinical signs of pneumonia such as fever, weakness, or coughing. So today, it is impossible to determine whether pneumonia that was diagnosed upon dissection was already present before the surgery or whether it developed afterwards.

It is striking that in this case, the description of the former operative situ is minimal, which differs from other such post-operative cases, see Doc ID 10804161 (protocol 7) and Doc

ID 10804166 (protocol 12), for example. The fact, however, that the author insists on saying that the two defects are a “physiological reaction” makes one wonder whether this was indeed the case. The biographical information of this man is as follows.

He had been born on October 24, 1887, in Warsaw. He was registered in Flossenbürg on

September 1, 1944, after a transfer of 1,000 men from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

He received the prisoner number 24997 and was sent to the subcamp Brüx (Most).205 This camp existed only from September 1 to October 7, 1944. Prisoners had to work for the

Sudetenländische Bergbau AG (Subag), a mining company for lignite.206 Upon dissolution, this prisoner was transferred to the main camp Flossenbürg, other inmates were sent to

204 Juraj Körbler and Alexander Haeffner, “Zur Geschichte der Magenresektion,” in Gesnerus: Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine 21, no. 34 (1964): 216–218. 205 Transportliste vom 1.9.1944, KZ Sachsenhausen – Außenlager Brüx, KZ Flossenbürg, https://memorial- archives.international/entities/show/5acc88e1589cefa84e8b4567 (last accessed May 5, 2018). 206 Ulrich Fritz, “Brüx (Most)“, in Benz/Distel, Flossenbürg, 71–73.

74 Leitmeritz/Litomĕřice. When he first reported sick or whether he did so at all is not known. But a registry of surgeries, most likely secretly kept by inmates, performed on inmates indicates the date of his operation was October 27 and the date of death was November 3, 1944.207 The camp documentation shows his death date as November 4, 1944, thus one day later, which is not unusual. His corpse was dissected on November 4 as well. He was fifty-seven years old when he perished.

This man’s death was probably primarily caused by an extensive abdominal procedure, which was usually done against the will of the patients. There is no mention of the type or the severity of pre-operative symptoms, no note on how the surgery was performed, and no details about the post-operative period, which lasted between one and two weeks depending on whether we follow the information given by former inmates or the information given by the dissector. He might have died due to respiratory failure, but sepsis (generalized infection of the whole body) is equally conceivable. If pneumonia had already been present before the surgery, performing the very act of a partial gastrectomy was against the standards of care at the time, since the patient was inoperable. If it developed after the surgery, this underlines the bad conditions for post- operative care in the camp.

207 “Operationsliste“ (list of surgeries), Bundesarchiv Berlin (BAB), NS 4/Fl - 388, F43, 1738–1741. The origins of this source are not completely clear. Following the testimony of the former clerk of the infirmary, Carl Schrade, this registry was copied clandestinely in German. After liberation, it was handed to US troops. At the time of the Flossenbürg Trial (FT), only an English translation was available. No authors were indicated at that time. As personal data on this list coincide with those from the present dissection protocols and the memorial's database, it is included in this study as offering veracious information.

75 2.3.3 Gunshot Wounds

[Dok-ID: 10804214]

Dissection report 118 [Pages 60/2–61/1] 24.2.45

[...] 40626

[ ... ] Shot while escaping. On the left above the root of the nose one can see a ___ entry wound, 4mm wide; on the right, in the frontoparietal area, there is an approximately 3cm large and fuzzy entry wound. The exit wound is larger than the palm in the occipital area (on the right side); through it flows the partially smashed brain. The skull bones are mobile in total. After the opening of the skull, one can see the smashing of the bones. The right brain is partially missing, partially wholly destroyed. The bones of the base of the skull are equally smashed.

[No signature]

Fig. 7: Doc ID 10804214 (protocol 118), English translation, February, 24, 194, ITS 1.1.8.1/10804215.

This protocol testifies to the death of a man by shooting. But it testifies to much more, despite its brevity. It is a perpetrator-physician's writing that proves that inmates were shot. If incidents like this had been an exception, one would expect a longer report and the deployment of forensic language. This is not the case, however. Rather, the description, the briefness, and the tone are the same as in all other protocols, thus testifying to a “normal” event in the eyes of the dissector. There were at least two projectiles fired at an unarmed person who may or may not have tried to escape. The formula “shot while escaping” (auf der Flucht erschossen) could mean anything from a serious attempt to escape to morbid games of the SS involving an inmate being forced into an area where he was not supposed to be. It becomes also clear through this protocol that the target of the shots was the head. In this case, there was one entry wound next to the nose and one on the side of the head, in front of the ear. The skull and the brain were both destroyed.

76 This means that these two shots were not intended to be warning shots. Instead, these shots were undoubtedly fired with the intention to kill. This could be a case of regularly occurring arbitrary killing by the guards. One might consider the question of suicide, too. Maybe this young man provoked the situation that eventually caused his death because he wanted to die. There is no way to answer this question, and the camp records that mention suicide (Freitod) probably underestimate the real number of suicides or forced suicides. The former Czech prisoner Fridolín

Macháček wrote the following about Flossenbürg: “Many a desperate inmate, who was fed up with the camp life, chose this ... form of suicide and it never ended only with the attempt; as expected the despaired found the calm of death.”208

The man whose body was dissected on February 24, 1945 is listed in the Central

Database of Shoah Victims’ Names as a Hungarian labor battalion victim.209 Other information about his life could not be acquired. As an exception to the rule of Holocaust victims, though, in his case the perpetrators left a relatively precise trace of his dying by dissecting his body after death.

208 Fridolín Macháček, trans. Kathrin Janka, Pilsen – Theresienstadt – Flossenbürg: Die Überlebensgeschichte eines tschechischen Intellektuellen (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2017), 121. 209 Yad Vashem, “The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names,” accessed October 14, 2018, https://yvng.yadvashem.org/. So far, this entry specifies his fate as “unknown.”

77 3. Assessing the Flossenbürg Dissection Protocols

In the previous chapters I have shown the arbitrariness of the dissection protocols that were produced between July 1944 and April 1945 in the concentration camp of Flossenbürg.

Much of the information that can be found in these protocols is incomplete. This consequently suggests that the dissections themselves were performed incompletely as well. A detailed study of the 161 dissection protocols raises more questions about the causes of death than I am able to answer, as was demonstrated in Chapter 2, (please see especially p. 70–78). In the present chapter, I will summarize the findings before discussing the question of whether the documented dissections in Flossenbürg might be qualified as science. For this, I will present some thoughts and arguments drawn from the discussion around the term “pseudoscience”. In the second section, I will discuss the concrete involvement of the physicians who were stationed in

Flossenbürg and how they related to the dissection protocols. In subchapter three, I will be offering my final assessment of the protocols’ missing scientificity.

It was not uncommon for universities and research institutions to take full advantage of the possibilities that the camps and the ‘euthanasia’ killings offered them. This held true during the Third Reich, but also beyond (please see Chapter 1, p. 36–38).210 Flossenbürg had no such connections and no known systematic research activity, though.

As I have laid out in Chapter 2, the protocols do not adhere to the contemporary guidelines. Camp doctors left out whole steps of an autopsy, leading to large gaps in the description of the findings. What is sometimes called “diagnosis” at the end of the protocols presents as either fragmentary, or is left out entirely. With a “diagnosis” or any type of summary

210 Volker Roelcke and Simon Duckheim, “Medizinische Dissertationen aus der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus: Potential eines Quellenbestands und erste Ergebnisse zu ‘Alltag’, Ethik und Mentalität der universitären Medizinischen Forschung bis (und ab) 1945,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 49, no. 3 (2014): 260–271. Wässle, “Hallervorden,” 167.

78 missing, there is no written trace of the intellectual work of piecing together evidence from the clinical history and the findings of the autopsy to arrive at a final elucidating statement. But this exactly constitutes the underlying task of any body opening. Precisely that part was often left out that is designed to bring about the biggest knowledge gain during a dissection, because it helps to form a coherent picture of the most plausible cause of death in each individual.

The absence of this information, makes definite judgement on a given prisoner’s death impossible. From a forensic viewpoint, which is to determine the most probable cause of death under criminal circumstances, the protocols are often insufficient. Those protocols which do carry valuable information pose the problem for the historian of not going too far in

“retrodiagnosing.”211 Those protocols that were created toward the end of the war are even less complete than in the earlier ones, suggesting that time was an important element. As the war situation developed unfavorably for Germany, and as the camp became more and more overcrowded, the approach of the dissectors to the opening of bodies apparently also changed.

Another finding from the analysis is, that the conclusions drawn during the Flossenbürg

Trial (FT) and the accusations from former inmates Polák and Schrade can be corroborated.

Schrade was a prisoner who worked as a clerk in the camp’s infirmary (Revier) and Polák was a

Czech prisoner physician, who had to work under Schmitz in the infirmary as well. In 1946, they both testified to the American Military court that in the fall of 1944, there were no measures instigated to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, especially typhus. This is confirmed by the protocols; in those cases where either bacteriological samples were drawn, or an infectious disease was definitely observed by way of examination of the corpse, no comments were made

211 Retrodiagnosing is also impaired by a potentially different terminology or a change of meaning in the same terminology. See Janet Padiak, “Diachronic Analysis of Cause-of-Death Terminology: The Case of Tuberculosis,” Social Science History 33, no. 3 (2009): 341–56.

79 about the rest of the prisoner population needing protection. Infectious diseases that are documented in the dissection protocols are typhus, typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and one infestation with the giant roundworm. These are the diseases where the specific infectious agents were known. Other contagious diseases that are documented, but which could have been caused by a range of germs are pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, meningitis, and sinusitis. This brings me to the question of how we have to understand the protocols. Are they proof of a scientific endeavour? Are they proof of pseudo-science in Flossenbürg, and what does that mean? Or are they something else? In the post-war years, Flossenbürg was not discussed as a place of either science or pseudoscience. In the following section, I will think about where

Flossenbürg might fit in within the wider discussion about medicine in the concentration camps.

3.1 Nazi experiments and Pseudoscience in the Historiography

The question of whether to characterize the German experiments as path-breaking science, or depraved ‘pseudo-science’ was already discussed during the Nuremberg Doctors’

Trial (December 9, 1946–August 20, 1947).212 In fact, historians have struggled to categorize these experiments, some of which I have described in Chapter 1 (please see p. 37–40).

Almost fifty years later, medical historian Michael Kater argued that Nazi experiments should be categorized as pseudo-scientific: Nazi scientists often formally followed through the scientific method, but something that still awaited its scientific proof was prematurely and apodictically taken as an axioma (as a given). “Nazi dogma imputed the desired result before experimentation had begun,” Kater argued and thus turned science into a “caricature of itself.”213

The geneticist Benno Müller-Hill, who was the first to uncover the connection between

212 Weindling, Nuremberg Trials, 2, 150. 213 Kater, Doctors, 227.

80 Auschwitz and the KWI for Anthropology in Berlin-Dahlem, described Nazi science not as purely un- or pseudoscientific. Following the words of Müller-Hill, what really was disastrous, however, was that science was put to the service of active injustice.214 “Anthropologists and psychiatrists … gave a scientific gloss and tidiness to the Nazi programme.”215 And more precisely, he insists, “the fundamental defect of these investigations is that they were carried out on human beings who had been deprived of their rights.”216 The American émigré historian

Henry Friedländer who uncovered the connection between the “T4 action” and the extermination camps in occupied Poland was similarly damning about Nazi experiments. He described them as

“egregious,” “unconscionable,” and “ruthless” experiments that either served the war effort, personal ambitions, or ideological goals of the NS regime. He also underlines the opportunistic character of the scientists who took advantage of the new possibilities for research when the regime switched from murdering the sick and disabled to murdering Jews and other

“undesirables.”217 Friedländer (1930–2012) was also a child survivor of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. He was one of the first to research the perpetrators and helped establish the field of Holocaust studies.218 German historian Wolfgang Eckart describes the Nazi experiments as

“criminal human subject experimentation” and notes that they grew out of a general trend to instrumentalize patients. This, in Eckart’s view, happened in the context of ever-growing power imbalances between patients and their physicians, a development that had started in the

214 Benno Müller Hill, no title, Medizin Im Nationalsozialismus, Kolloquien des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte (München: Oldenbourg, 1988), 43. 215 Müller-Hill, Science, 75. 216 Müller-Hill, Science, 99. 217 Friedländer, NS-Genozid, 222–225. 218 Michael Berenbaum, obituary for Henry Friedlander, “Henry Friedlander, Holocaust Scholar, Dies at 82,” Forward, accessed October 28, 2018, https://forward.com/news/164832/henry-friedlander-holocaust-scholar-dies-at- 82/.

81 nineteenth century.219 Paul Weindling, one of the leading historians of National Socialist medicine, argues that “far more was involved than ‘pseudo-science’ in terms of the rationales of leading clinicians and the involvement of research institutes.”220

The current state of medical historiography on Nazi experimentation has thus established that it is insufficient to characterize the experiments as the work of a few misguided psychopaths who had no understanding of scientific principles. Rather, it is important to recognize that many of the Nazi research activities did indeed have “a scientific validity, or at least rationality,” all while completely disregarding the pain, suffering, and outcome for the many so-called research subjects.221 The latter were either prisoners who had been robbed of every individuality upon deportation to a concentration camp, or they were inmates of asylums where they were diagnosed and judged on the basis of their “value;” which was solely defined upon their ability to do work. Those considered insane, disabled, or imbeciles were destined to be murdered. The killing was often either preceded or followed by experimentation. As Müller-Hill has pointed out, the “research subjects,” human beings, had been deprived of every right. Their participation in these experiments was coerced. Here, a connection appears between dehumanizing, criminal medicine and science on the one hand and professional medical scientists on the other. The

German and Austrian doctors had been trained in an internationally acclaimed and renowned system of academic medicine. That same system now advocated for a reckless selection process based on the principles of racial superiority and inferiority. The medical establishment in general, and the physicians in particular were considered the best tools in the realization of this utopian endeavour. The upsetting link between healing and killing, or killing as one therapeutic

219 Wolfgang U. Eckart, “Verbrecherische Humanexperimente,“ in Robert Jütte et al., Medizin und Nationalsozialismus: Bilanz und Perspektiven der Forschung (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), 126. 220 Weindling, Experiments, xii. 221 Volker Roelcke, “The Richtlinien Guidelines” in Weindling, Clinic, 34.

82 possibility, has been described by Ebbinghaus and Dörner in their analysis of the NMT (see

Chapter 1, p. 4–5).222 In this trial, the higher administrators of the Nazi health care system who had either planned, conducted, or sanctioned systematic research programs on prisoners were indicted. Events at Flossenbürg were not discussed, however. Although systematic medical experiments on humans did not take place in Flossenbürg, some of the questions that were discussed in Nuremberg should also be applied to Flossenbürg and to the dissection protocols under study here. These are the questions of whether or not the medical procedures constitute science and whether human subject research in general is ethical. This is what I will explore in the following section.

Historically, there have been different attempts to define what science is and what it is not. This has been called the question of demarcation and has been debated among scientists and philosophers of science since the early twentieth century. But although there is “a lot of disagreement about what counts as science,”223 there are a number of acceptable models today that allow for a better understanding. A brief overview of the positions of some philosophers of science will make these models clearer and show how they contrast with pseudoscience.224

One of the most influential philosophers of science who has worked on the question of demarcation was Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902–1994). He centered his concept of science on falsifiability and deductive reasoning. Following Popper, who was born in Vienna and stayed there until 1937, only a theory that can possibly be refuted can be called scientific. Popper’s

222 Ebbinghaus/Dörner, Vernichten, 2001. On the so-called “Euthanasia“-killings of the sick and disabled see Aly, Belasteten. 2013. A much shorter version of this is offered by Rolf Winau, “Medizinische Experimente in den Konzentrationslagern,“ in Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel, eds., Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager, Vol.1, (München: C.H. Beck, 2005), 165–178. 223 Peter Godfrey-Smith, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003), 2. 224 Unless otherwise noted, the following is based on Sven Ove Hansson, “Science and Pseudo-Science,” 2017, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/pseudo-science/.

83 work was in part an answer to the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, whose members in the

1930s had “developed verificationist approaches to science.” These proposals, however, aimed at solving another demarcation problem, that between science and metaphysics.225 For Popper, the paradigmatic example of good science was the work of Albert Einstein, as it was dominated by a

“critical spirit.” Because Popper thought that this critical spirit was completely absent in psychoanalysis and holism, he rejected these areas of thought.226 Due to his Jewish family background, he left Austria for New Zealand in 1937, where he stayed until 1946. During these years he wrote one of his most important works, The Open Society and Its Enemies, which on the surface provides a critical discussion of Plato, but which ultimately turns out to be an intellectual treatise against totalitarianism.227 One quote summarizes his concept nicely:

The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism [the closed society], the more surely do we arrive at the Inquisition, at the Secret Police, and at a romanticized gangsterism. Beginning with the suppression of reason and truth, we must end with the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is human.228

In this work he also clearly articulates his view of what science is: “The method of science is ... to look out for facts which may refute the theory.” For Popper, the history of science confirms this opinion, as it shows that scientific theories are often refuted by experiments.229

Popper moved back to Europe in 1946 and worked at the London School of Economics until his death. Throughout his career he argued against the destruction of science and of objective approaches that were aligned with the rise of Nazism. Popper’s philosophical model

225 Hansson, Science, 14–17. 226 Stephen Thornton, “Karl Popper,” 2018, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 3. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/popper/. 227 Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London, New York: Routledge, 2002). First published in two volumes in 1945. See here, especially the chapter with the same name, 161–189. 228 Popper, Society, 189. 229 Popper, Society, 466.

84 has been hotly debated by scholars such as Imre Lakatos, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Feyerabend.

Lakatos (1922–1974) tried to introduce some aspects of the reality of scientific work into his argument by arguing that a scientific program had to be adjusted to new facts and theoretical assumptions. A scientific program, following Lakatos, is scientific if it is productive in the long run, which of course is something that can only be judged retrospectively. Thomas Kuhn (1922–

1996) worked out the necessity of a central paradigm, or a central question, that has to be resolved, in order for a discipline to be really scientific. Like Popper, Kuhn was convinced that science can be demarcated from non-science. Feyerabend (1924–1994) on the other hand, argued that science and myth are closely linked, closer than most scientists and philosophers would like to admit. For him, a clear definition of the term pseudoscience was impossible.230 Somewhat simplistically, a checklist has recently been proposed on how to “clearly distinguish” science from pseudoscience.231 To complicate things, the term ‘pseudoscience’ has also historically been used to discredit disagreeable colleagues and with them the concepts that they represented.

‘Pseudo-science’ tends to be used in a strongly depreciative manner, as a war cry, usually in a political context. It designates a sphere in which the one who uses it, does not wish to be identified with. It carries a touch of deception and fraud.232 Consequently, the one who is being called “pseudoscientific” would never self-identify as such, but rather put all possible effort into the proof that he or she is to be called a scientist with all the accompanying respect.233

So, it seems to me that part of “our revulsion for Nazi medical experiments” and for why we might like to discount them out of hand as ‘pseudo-science,’ “stems from the fact that they

230 Michael Hagner, “Bye-bye science, welcome pseudoscience? Reflexionen über einen beschädigten Status,“ in Dirk Rupnow, Veronika Lipphardt, Jens Thiel and Christina Wessely, eds., Pseudowissenschaft (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2008), 34–38. 231 Hagner, “Reflexionen,“ 39. Hagner presents this checklist quite critically. 232 Dirk Rupnow, Veronika Lipphardt, Jens Thiel and Christina Wessely, “Einleitung,“ in Rupnow, Pseudowissenschaft, 7–8. 233 Hagner, “Reflexionen,” in Pseudowissenschaft, 24–25.

85 violated a relationship of supposedly unique confidence and trust.”234 The exploitation of the doctor-patient relationship betrayed the hope of people to find individual, not collective, help.

For the present study, I would like to use Proctor’s approach as it takes into account the scientific community of which every scientist automatically is a part of as well as the politics that shape how scientists practice. In Proctor’s words “Scientists … were not simply pawns in the hands of

Nazi officials. But without a strong state to back them, [the science of] racial hygiene was relatively impotent.”235 Furthermore, Proctor argues to look at the result of science.

I will not use the term ‘pseudo-science’ for the Flossenbürg dissection protocols, because the term is a loaded and polemicone, as I have shown above. Instead, it seems important to me to review the standard of the science of pathology, because the guidelines of how to perform a dissection were well in place since Rokitansky and Virchow (disregarding minor variations).236

Moreover, in pathology, and especially in forensic pathology, different levels of observation must come together before a conclusion can be drawn. The first level consists of the clinical history delivered by the treating physician, which ideally includes descriptions of the patient.

The second level refers to the description of the patient’s death, if known. The third level concerns the macroscopic observation of the external bodily features, followed by the macroscopic observation and description of the internal body holes and organs. The fourth level was introduced in the twentieth century, which is a microscopic observation of body fluids like blood or pus, if deemed necessary.237 None of these steps is coincidental; they are required on the basis of the experiences of pathologists who write regulations for the field of pathology. This

234 Proctor, Hygiene, 221. 235 Robert N. Proctor, “Nazi Biomedical Policies,” in When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust, ed. Arthur L. Caplan (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, 1992), 29. 236 A contemporary guide to the correct way of performing an autopsy can be found in Abderhalden, Handbuch, 1093–1123. 237 In modern-day forensics, chemical or biochemical exams can be added to prove the presence of poisonous substances, for example.

86 includes, for instance, the regulation of how to perform an autopsy. The basic steps of a body opening can be modified, depending on the medical history, the signs and symptoms of the patient, or on observations the pathologist makes during his necropsy. That does not imply, however, that whole steps of the defined process can be left out without some form of justification.

In order to switch the focus from the philosophical underlying questions and debates, the next section will establish the basis for understanding the medical system present in Flossenbürg during the last year of the war, which is the time when the protocols were created.

3.2 The Role of the Physicians

In order to understand concentration camp Flossenbürg’s medical history for the years

1944 and 1945, I will first trace some important steps in the development of the “medical” care at Flossenbürg between 1938 and 1945 more generally. When the first prisoners were deported to Flossenbürg on May 3, 1938, no arrangements had been made for the care of sick or injured men. The forced labour they were subjected to, however, was extremely difficult and injuries occurred frequently. This led to the construction of a make-shift wooden barrack called emergency infirmary (Notrevier). A permanent “hospital” barrack, similarly made out of wood, was installed in the summer of 1940; during the preceding winter the first epidemic of a contagious type of dysentery (Ruhr) had ravaged the inmate population. Tellingly, the year 1940 was also the year when the construction of the camp’s own crematory was finished.238

Another peak of the death rate occurred between 1941 and 1942, when large transports with Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) were brought to the camp. Approximately 2,000 of them

238 Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 18–20.

87 were killed during this time. Some of them were executed by shootings, some were executed by injections of poisonous substances given by the camp physician, and some succumbed to the horrendous living and working conditions.239 Equally in 1942, one Sonderbehandlung 14f13 is documented. This was the selection of 209 prisoners who were considered unable to work. They were transported to the ‘euthanasia’ killing centre at Bernburg where they were suffocated with carbon monoxide in the gas chamber. The corresponding official death certificates give an innocuous cause of death such as pneumonia.240

The next peak of mortality happened during the last months of the camp’s existence, as shown in Chapter 2. In 1944, the expansion of the camp system with ever more satellite camps increased the risk of epidemics, because prisoners were sent back and forth without proper diagnosis or treatment. The influx of prisoners from the “evacuated” camps in occupied Poland increased overcrowding. Medical care was minimal. Often it was the prisoner physicians who secretly tried their best to treat inmates. The camp physician Schmitz occupies a special role between May 1944 and March 1945, as we will see shortly. The last phase of camp Flossenbürg consists of the death marches. Between 16,000 and 20,000 prisoners were marched south with little or no food, inappropriate shoes, and no medical care at all. Those who were too weak to walk on were either shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. The rough estimates of the victims of these death marches range between 5,000 and 8,500. During the seven years of its existence, around

100,000 inmates were interned in Flossenbürg. At least 30,000 did not survive.241

239 Flossenburg memorial, Catalogue, 264–265, 288–291. Siegert, Flossenbürg, 471. Johannes Ibel, Einvernehmliche Zusammenarbeit? Wehrmacht, Gestapo, SS und sowjetische Kriegsgefangene (Berlin: Metropol 2008.) 240 “’209 Häftlinge im Sammeltransport überstellt.’ - Die ‘Sonderbehandlung 14f13’ und das Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg,” presentation by Julius Scharnetzky, historian of the Flossenbürg memorial site, who kindly sent me his manuscript. 241 Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 50–52.

88 To summarize, prisoners were not killed in gas chambers in Flossenbürg. It was not an extermination camp. Instead, prisoners were killed by work (see the quote by Charles DeKeyser in Chapter 2, p. 65), and mostly by negligence. Active medical killing by camp physicians also happened and was done either by injection of poison or by unclean surgical procedures. The latter involved especially the surgeon Heinrich Schmitz to whom I will now turn. In passing, I will present his medical colleagues who were present in Flossenbürg during different months between 1944 and 1945, as well.

The camp physicians at Flossenbürg between May 1944 and March 1945 included Hans-

Joachim Geiger (probably only for a short period in fall or Winter 1944/45) and Otto Adam

(probably from February 1945 to April 20, 1945). The senior physicians, called post-physicians

(Standortärzte) were Alfred Schnabel (from August 1942 to September 1944) and Herrmann

Fischer (October 1944 to April 20, 1945). As the source under study here was created during the time of Schmitz’s employment at Flossenbürg, and as he arguably had the most impact on inmates, I will now turn to a closer look onto his biography. Schmitz was employed as a civil surgeon in the highly militarized zone of the camp, which was ruled by an SS-death head squad

(please see Chapter 1, p. 3) Now, how did this come about?

Heinrich Schmitz was born on July 3, 1896, the third of four children. He served in the

First World War and was severely wounded, spending three years in military hospitals.242 He then went to medical school in Jena, Freiburg, Göttingen, and Berlin and received his license in

1924. In Freiburg, his transcript states that he had lectures in psychiatry given by Professor

242 “Psychiatric Examination of Dr. Heinrich Schmitz,” I.F. Bennet, Capt. M.C., Chief of N.P. Section, in NARA, US vs. Heerde et al., 000-50-46-3.

89 Hoche (1865–1943).243 The lecture in surgery was given by Professor Lexer (1867–1937).244 As already discussed, the lecture in Pathology was given by no other than Aschoff (for Aschoff, please see Chapter 1.3, p. 29).245 This is significant, because this shows that Schmitz was educated in the spirit of the time.

Between 1924 and 1937, Schmitz changed work places often, one of them was at the

Pathological Institute in Breslau (Wrocław, in today’s Poland), where he worked as an assistant in 1928. He finally settled in his own clinic in Gera as a surgeon, gynecologist and obstetrician in

1937.246 In 1938, he was charged with being mentally ill with “manic-depressive insanity,” and the Gera eugenics court concluded that he had to undergo forcible sterilization.247 Schmitz appealed this decision. The same year, his first marriage was divorced, and he left Gera very suddenly to open a private practice in Oldenburg. Between 1938 and 1943, Schmitz underwent at least six psychiatric examinations by different psychiatrists, who were to a greater or lesser extent in favor of the eugenic policies. A few of those reports survive, but they disagree on the definite diagnosis. The diagnoses ranged from ‘psychopathy’ to ‘chronic maniac diseases.’ Even a ‘brain sclerosis’ was mentioned.248 Schmitz himself continued to refute the judgement of the

243 Alfred Hoche had been one of the authors of the book “Freigabe und Vernichtung unwerten Lebens” (Release and Destruction of Lives Not Worth Living), first publishesd in 1920. The second author was Rudolf Binding, a professor of law. The authors argued that the principle of ‘allowable killing’ should be extended to the incurably sick, and that the right to live must be earned and justified. Proctor, Hygiene, 178. 244 Lexer was a pioneer of facial, plastic, and reconstructive surgery. But he also commented on the surgical procedure of sterilization in man in the “Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses” (Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring). “Erich Lexer,” Deutsche Biografie, last accessed November 16,2018, https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd118728008.html#ndbcontent. Klee, Personenlexikon, 370. 245 Studien- und Sittenzeugnis über das Sommersemester 1921 und das Wintersemester 1921/22 vom 5.5.1922, (Enrolment certificate and certificate of good conduct of the summer semester 1921 and the winter semester 1921/22), May 5, 1922, University archive Freiburg (UA Fr), B44/107/541. 246 Anamnese, Krankenakte Göttingen (Medical history, medical file Göttingen), NLA H, Hann. 155 Landes-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Göttingen, Acc. 2004/008 Nr. 01243, no pagination. 247 Akte des Erbgesundheitsgerichtes Gera (File of the eugenics court Gera), Thüringisches Landesamt für Rassewesen (Thuringian State Office of Race Affairs), Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar (hereafter ThHStArch W.), Nr. 9080, sheet 1r. 248 Tannenbaum, Medizin, 137–142.

90 eugenics court. He tried to commit suicide in 1940.249 His appeals were ultimately unsuccessful and Schmitz was forcibly sterilized in June 1943.250 At the same time, the state attorney in

Osnabrück led an investigation against Schmitz for financial fraud. He was sentenced to one year in prison, and his medical license was revoked. 251 Additionally, he was declared unfit to serve in the German military.252 Due to the shortage of physicians, he could do substitute work for a while. When this was no longer possible either, he spoke to Dr. Herbert Linden (1899–1945) and to Dr. Enno Lolling (1888–1945) in Oranienburg near Berlin. Linden was the chief physician of the asylums for the mentally ill within the Ministry of the Interior (Reichsbeauftragter für die

Heil- und Pflegeanstalten im Reichsministerium des Innern, RMdI). Grawitz (1899–1945) was the chief physician of the concentration camps. After an exchange of letters at the highest administrative levels of the health care system, they agreed to let Schmitz work in the concentration camp of Flossenbürg, where he arrived in May 1944. He was supposed to be working under “strict observation”, and reports had to be issued back to them about him.253 The very fact that he was employed in a concentration camp was called an “experiment.”254

In other words, Schmitz had been forcibly sterilized on the basis of a diagnosis of

“maniac depressive insanity” (bipolar disorder, in today’s terminology). Whether this diagnosis was accurate has to remain an open question. Schmitz almost certainly was an extraordinary

249 Anamnese, Krankenakte Göttingen (Medical history, medical file Göttingen), NLA H, Hann. 155 Landes- Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Göttingen, Acc. 2004/008 Nr. 01243, no pagination. 250 Fachärztliche Bescheinigung von Professor Hosenmann über die Unfruchtbarmachung von Heinrich Schmitz (Official confirmation by Professor Hosenmann about the sterilization of Heinrich Schmitz), Flossenbürg follow-up trial, NARA, US vs Heerde et al., 000-50-46-3, exhibits. 251 Entziehung der Bestallungsurkunde des Dr. med. Heinrich Schmitz, (Withdrawal of the medical licence) Sta Osnabrück, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Oldenburg (hereafter NLA O), Best. 136, Nr. 16105, no pagination. 252 Ausmusterungsschein des Wehrbezirkskommandos Braunschweig vom 7.9.1943 (Rejection from military service by the Recruiting District Headquarters Braunschweig, September 7, 1943), Flossenbürg follow-up trial, NARA, US vs. Ewald Heerde et al., 000-50-46-3, D-Ex-31. 253 Letter Lolling to Grawitz, dating January 6, 1944, BArch, NS 19/519, sheet 5. 254 Letter Heinrich Himmler to Grawitz, dating December 17, 1943, ibid, sheet 3.

91 individual, probably non-conformist, and unquestionably very intelligent. Whether he was or was not seriously mentally ill is impossible to say in retrospect. This holds true all the more, as there are no surviving personal papers from Schmitz. He was a known alcoholic and had tried to commit suicide at least once. His medical colleagues deliberately sent him into an environment that was deeply traumatizing, knowing very well that this might have dire consequences for him and for his inmate patients. This can be seen by the descriptor “experiment,” which appears in one of the administrative letters. Up until his arrival in Flossenbürg, Schmitz could have been described as a victim of the regime.

Schmitz started work as a contract physician to the SS in May of 1944 and stayed in

Flossenbürg until March 1945. As a camp physician he participated in the selection process of incoming inmates and regularly performed small and large surgical procedures.255 These were not always done with the proper care and attention, and with no or too little anesthesia. He neglected the urgent need for prophylactic measures in view of a typhus epidemic that started in

October 1944, and he participated in the overall abuse of inmates despite their physical and medical needs. His superiors apparently gave him plenty of scope and did not supervise him, at least not in a way that would have conformed with medical ethics. Some documents or prescriptions that Schmitz issued had to be signed off by the post physicians, at least in theory.256

That might be why some of the dissection protocols carry a signature that seems to belong to

Alfred Schnabel, (see Doc ID 10804157 (protocol 1) to Doc ID 10804178 (protocol 27).

Heinrich Schmitz contracted typhus himself in March 1945 and was hospitalized in the nearby city hospital of Weiden. Soon after his hospitalization he was arrested by US Army

255 Nitecki, World, 52, 61–62. 256 Aussage (Testimony) MuDr. Frantisek Polák, NARA, US vs. Becker et al., 000-50-46, 602–645. Schrade, Elf Jahre, 248–261. Urteil des LG Wen vom 29.5.1956 (Verdict of the district court Wen), Ks 2/55 and BGH dating 8.2.1957, 1 StR 375/56 in Rüter/deMildt 1975, 743.

92 troops. He was indicted at the FT in 1946 and sentenced to death in December 1947. He was hanged in Landsberg in the spring of 1948.

The record of Schmitz’s trial is one of the most important sources about him, especially because he was again examined by a psychiatrist. This time, however, he was declared to be sane, accountable, and thus criminally liable. Quite surprisingly, this diagnosis was extended backwards in time from 1947 to 1944 and 1945. Remarkably, he was the only former

Flossenbürg physician against whom charges were made on the basis of actions that had occurred in Flossenbürg. Other men, who had served as either camp or post-physicians appeared as witnesses, but they did not face a trial themselves.257 Within the paramilitary hierarchy of the

SS, Schmitz’s superior had been the camp commandant Max Koegel (1895–1945), who committed suicide after being arrested by US troops.258 Like many other Nazi perpetrators, he thus refused to take responsibility for his crimes.

Alfred Schnabel (1888–1955) had acquired his medical license in 1914. His doctoral thesis was on injuries to the larynx by shotgun wounds.259 He joined the SS and the NSDAP early, in 1933. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht in late August 1939 and transferred to the SS in 1942, the same year he took over the position of post-physician in Flossenbürg. He served there the longest of all physicians, almost two years in a row, with only short interruptions to visit the family mansion in Lower Silesia. His deployment to the Flossenbürg camp coincides with the practice of forced sterilizations.260 It also overlaps with Schmitz’s first five months as a contract physician. Schnabel was transferred to Bergen-Belsen in October 1944, where he contracted typhus.

257 Tannenbaum, Medizin, 147–161. 258 Between August and October 1942, Koegel had been the commandant of the extermination camp Majdanek. 259 Promotion (Doctoral certificate), BArch, SSO (earlier BDC), Schnabel, Alfred, 11.3.1888. 260 Ferdinand Knobloch, in Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 31.

93 At an unknown date Schnabel became a prisoner of war (POW) in the Soviet Union (SU) where he remained until 1949. Upon his return to West Germany, he was denazified and categorized into group V, the exonerated Germans (die Entlasteten), which was reserved for those not involved in the Nazi regime or in war crimes at all.261 The denazification commission accepted the loss of the family mansion as an extenuating circumstance. Schnabel reopened a private practice for Ear-Nose-Throat diseases in Cologne, where he lived until his death in 1955.

In 1954, the state attorney in Weiden opened an investigation trial against Schnabel. The former post-physician of Flossenbürg was interrogated several times, and he downplayed his knowledge and involvement. Schnabel’s self-defense strategy is illustrated by his testimony regarding executions of concentration camp inmates between 1942 and 1944:

In most cases it [testifying to the death of an inmate] probably was about individual executions. The prisoners were shot from behind. The distance of the weapon might have measured 15cm. They aimed at the neck. But the dead often showed several shots.262

The state attorney moved ahead to open penal proceedings, but this was rejected by the criminal division at the district court in Weiden. The fact that Schnabel was never indicted with a formal criminal charge had two major consequences: first, his involvement in criminal actions was not recognized by West Germany. Second, his immense knowledge about staff, events, and the medical situation was not elicited. When Schnabel died, his tremendous knowledge, which almost certainly included the practice of dissections between 1942 and July 1944, was lost.

261 Entnazifizierungshauptausschuss der Stadt Essen, Denazification commission of the town of Essen/ Kammer II, Entnazifierungssache (denazification trial of) Alfred Schnabel, Dr. med., vom 18.5.1949 in LA NRW, Abteilung Rheinland, NW_1005_G_34_01116LA NRW Duisburg, NW 1005-G34 Nr. 1115 zu Alfred Schnabel (Arzt, geb. am 02.03.1888). 262 Testimony of Schnabel on May 26, 1953 in Cologne, interrogation by the state attorney Weiden. StArch Am, Sta Wen (NSG) 81/2, gegen Wilhelm Faßbender, sheet 217. Translation JT.

94 The case of the last post-physician and Schmitz’s second superior is more informative.

Hermann Fischer (1883–1959) was a WWI veteran and had joined Nazi organizations early on in

1931. He had a private practice in Düsseldorf until 1939, when he was drafted into the

Wehrmacht. He was stationed in various geographic locations throughout the war, one of them was concentration camp Vught, in the Netherlands, where he had been post-physician, too. He took over that same position in Flossenbürg in October 1944, where he remained until the SS abandoned the camp on April 20, 1945.263 He was interned in Landsberg but for reasons that remain obscure, he was only called upon as a witness during the trial against Schmitz. His examination in front of the military tribunal was short and unproductive.264 Fischer was denazified in Düsselforf into group IV of the follower category (Mitläufer) in 1950. He then reopened his private practice, also in Düsseldorf.

In contrast to Schnabel, the investigation by the state attorney in Weiden against Fischer, however, ended with a verdict by the district court Weiden in 1956 for Fischer’s actions in

Flossenbürg. This trial constitutes a helpful source for understanding what happened in the camp during the last six months. Medical information remains superficial, however, and dissections were not mentioned at all. Fischer was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, which he was allowed to serve in his own home, as his death certificate of April 1959 implies.265

Fischer’s prison sentence was disproportionately mild compared to Schmitz’s death penalty, especially when one considers that the latter might have been moderately to severely

263 Based on the curriculum vitae of Fischer that preceded the verdict. Urteil des Landgerichts (LG) Weiden (Wen) vom 29.5.1956 (Verdict of the district court Weiden, May 29, 1956), Ks 2/55. Rüter/DeMildt, Sammlung, 745. 264 Zeugenaussage Dr. Fischer (Testimony Dr. Fischer), NARA, US vs. Friedrich Becker et al., 000-50-46, 9042– 9053. 265 Abschrift der Todesbescheinigung (Copy of the Death Certificate), BArch, ZStL, B 162/26397.

95 mentally ill. When one looks at Schmitz’s fellow camp physicians Geiger and Adam, the situation is not much different. I will shortly present them now.

The exact times that Geiger was stationed in the Flossenbürg main camp are unknown.

He was also in charge of two satellite camps, at least temporarily: Hersbruck near Nuremberg and Obertraubling near Regensburg. His testimony during the FT was too short to be substantial.266 He was not indicted for his actions in Flossenbürg, possibly because he had already been convicted for his actions in the sub-camp of Mauthausen, Ebensee. Geiger served a

20-year prison sentence in the War Crimes Prison (WCP) Landsberg, where he was interrogated by the German state attorney of Weiden at least once in the early 1950s.267 In the context of the amnesty law of 1954 (Straffreiheitsgesetz), he was released prematurely in 1954.268 In the same year he wrote a medical dissertation, which was accepted by the University of Munich.269 Geiger then opened a private practice as general practitioner in Coburg.270 An investigation trial was opened against him in 1958, but no substantial evidence could be found, and witnesses did not remember Geiger. This investigation was abandoned in 1959.271

The last camp physician Otto Adam was stationed in Flossenbürg most probably from mid-February until April 20, 1945. He is credited with being less of a threat to the inmates than

Schmitz, operating less often and leaving mostly a free reign to the inmate physicians. He is also

266 The reasons for this are presently unknown. An examination of pre-trial documents of the FT at NARA might explain the leniency of the American prosecutors. 267 StArch Am, Sta Wen., Ermittlungsverfahren (NSG) 98 gegen Hans-Joachim Geiger. (Investigation trial against Hans-Joachim Geiger). 268 Norbert Frei, Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit (München: C. H. Beck, 2012), 100–131. 269 Hans-Joachim Geiger, Über einen Fall einer Pseudomonas aeruginosa-Meningitis ohne nachweisbare Infektionspforte mit Ausgang in Heilung (medical dissertation, Munich: no publisher indicated, 1955). Here, he describes the medical history of a girl who had been treated in the pediatric hospital and survived. A dissection is not part of this work. 270 Personal message to the author, StA Coburg. 271 Ermittlungsverfahren gegen Hans-Joachim Geiger (Investigation against HJG), StArch Am, Sta Wen., Ermittlungsverfahren (NSG) 98, sheet 92.

96 said to have participated in the creation of effective preventative measures against the typhus epidemic in the camp, which had started in October 1944 under the eyes of Schmitz and Fischer, and which had taken a large toll among the inmates.272 During his interrogation in the FT, Adam was evasive. Former inmates spoke in favor of him. As his testimony was short, it did not go into depth either and, as in the other interrogations, it did not bring up the issue of dissection in the camp.273 Adam spent three years as a POW, before he was finally denazified as a follower

(Mitläufer) of the Nazi regime.274 Again, this mild assessment through the De-Nazification Court in 1948 allowed him to open a private practice in the town of Germersheim in the same year.

What is interesting about all these biographies is that the people who were the best informed were not interrogated accordingly by the criminal police or indicted even though the state attorney had prepared the necessary incriminating material. In the exemplary case of

Schnabel, where the attorney’s course of action came close to an indictment, it was the superior criminal division that brought the process to a halt. For the present study this means that although the dissection protocols were most likely created by the perpetrators, there are few other elements that could be added to the picture, as it was never talked about in investigations or other judicial proceedings. It seems as if the dissections had fallen into oblivion after 1945, which is deceiving. In the context of National Socialism this is the rule, however.275 A complete analysis of the investigations leading up to the FT is pending, this source material being the only one that might still hold further information about the criminal dissections.

272 Schrade, Elf Jahre, 234, 289, 297. 273 Aussage Dr. Adam (Testimoney Dr. Adam), NARA, US vs. Heerde et al., 000-50-46-3, 526–531. 274 Spruchkammerakte (Denazification file), StArch Ludwigsburg, El 90217 Bü 131, sheet 54. 275 Ulrich Fritz, “Vorwort,” in Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 16.

97 3.3 Arbitrary experiments

The protocols constitute a historical source that was very probably written by the physician-perpetrators.276 They offer a limited insight into the otherwise largely hidden universe of medical notetaking from within the camp. The source thus talks from the perspective of the perpetrators, and it employs their language. One might judge the allegedly objective language of medicine, more precisely of pathology, as timeless and thus helpful. After a first contact with this source, the hope is to finally see what inmates died from and how. After a thorough examination, all these expectations hold true, although with sometimes big limitations. The main conclusion has to be that these protocols sometimes veil much more than they unravel. They raise questions regularly and fail to answer them.

In the first half of all protocols, dating July to December 9, 1944, (up to protocol 71) there was an attempt made by the dissector, who was probably Heinrich Schmitz, to at least mention several diseases as possible diagnoses that might have contributed to the inmate’s passing. After that date, however, even the attempt to provide differential diagnoses was omitted in most cases. The protocols’ length became shorter and their content less precise. In contrast, most protocols that were done after shootings, extensively document the entry and exit wounds of the different projectiles.

The use of allegedly neutral pathological language or medical terminology has one major pitfall: to the non-pathologist it is not readily understandable and thus makes it possible to cover a subtext of criminal events. The protocols are thus of forensic value, as there are hidden hints in key terms. For example, the regularly recurring expressions “peripheral fatty liver degeneration” or “atrophy” are findings that point to prolonged starvation. A second example is the high

276 The definite identification of the different types of handwriting could not be accomplished for the present MA- thesis.

98 frequency of peritonitis after abdominal procedures. This raises the serious question about cleanliness in the operating room. (This includes the sterility of the operating table, of the tools, and the cleanliness and diligence of the surgeon.) Evidence brought up during the FT, proves that the necessary steps to keep the operation sterile were not always taken. This included the repetitious use of the same gloves and instruments without proper disinfection in between different procedures and different patients.277 Those dissections that were done after such surgeries prove that peritonitis occurred very often.

Another group of protocols points to the high incidence of tuberculosis (TB). In the early

1940s, there was no efficient antibacterial treatment for this disease.278 Streptomycin only became available after 1945.279 Destitute living conditions were known aggravating factors of

TB. So, taking these factors together, it was no surprise that tuberculosis (or phthisis) was very common and deadly among inmates. This, too, is proven by the protocols. The fact that nothing was done to cut down on overcrowding or to improve nutrition and the overall living conditions has been established from other sources.280

The protocols also point to other serious infectious diseases, namely typhus, typhoid fever, and diphtheria. Again, taken together with evidence from the FT, a picture begins to emerge of extreme medical negligence. During the trial, several former inmates, including former prisoner physicians, testified that a typhus epidemic started in the camp in October 1944, and that no necessary preventive steps had been taken to prevent a further spread of this threat.

Necessary steps would have included quarantine of those infected and those in the incubation

277 Testimony Heinrich Schmitz on December 12, 1947 in NARA, US vs. Heerde et al., 000-50-46-3, 909–912. 278 An attempt by Robert Koch to use a substance developed by himself and called tuberculin as a type of vaccination failed tremendously in the early 1890s. Christoph Gradmann, “Robert Koch and the White Death: From Tuberculosis to Tuberculin.” Microbes and Infection, 2006; 8(1):294-301. 279 Thomas Dormandy, The White Death. A History of Tuberculosis (New York, New York University Press, 2000), 361–375. 280 Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg, 46–50.

99 period, as well as vaccination for all other inmates.281 Prisoner physicians further testified that they had argued with Schmitz about the diagnosis and Schmitz refused to acknowledge that it was in fact typhus. If one deciphers these diagnoses given explicitly or implicitly in the protocols and considers the camp conditions, then the protocols constitute nothing less than the forensic evidence for what the former prisoners had testified to.

Especially interesting is the fact that the protocols were probably produced by different physician-perpetrators, thus, they also can be taken as a confession of guilt. They do not necessarily prove the active involvement of camp physicians in the killings, but the protocols do ascertain the physicians’ knowledge and complicity in these murders. In the case of abdominal procedures, especially, the respective dissection protocols seem to confirm what Carl Schrade has written in his published memoir: that surgery of peptic ulcers was Schmitz’s obsession, and that he operated on anybody he chose with reckless enthusiasm, knowing very well that chances of survival were minimal.282 The forty-two dissection protocols (please see the tables in Chapter

2, p. 58) which were performed after abdominal surgeries prove what Schrade has written.

What one might further expect, but what is missing in the protocols concerning abdominal surgery, is some discussion of the different operation techniques. As already discussed, the surgeon obviously employed different ways of performing the so-called Billroth procedures of partial gastrectomy (please see Chapter 2, p. 74) In none of the protocols, however, does the dissector ever refer to any type of potential rational for why one procedure was preferred over the other or whether a specific question had to be answered by choosing different operation techniques. Rather the opposite is the case: even when the sutures did not hold or when patients died of a long and painful infection of the abdominal lining (peritonitis),

281 Testimony Dr. Frantisek Polak, Flossenbürg Trial, NARA, US vs. Friedrich Becker et al. 000-50-46, 602–645. 282 Schrade, Elf Jahre, 261.

100 no mention of a potential cause is made. The source of that infection is not discussed, nor is it mentioned that this is a complication that should not have occurred. On the contrary, the observation of (fatal) peritonitis is given in a succinct tone, as if it were an irrelevant matter. On the whole, these protocols can be taken as an example of the potential of language, especially of supposedly neutral language, to distort the reality.

Another observation has to be made: no apparent interest in racial hygiene or racial anthropology can be detected in the protocols, as racist language is very rare. If the dissector had an interest in proving German or Aryan supremacy, it does not show in the documentation. The same goes for the bodies chosen for dissection. Most of them were Poles, but the second largest group were Germans, generally those labeled criminals. Apparently, no distinction was made between Jewish and non-Jewish victims or other ethnicities, like the so-called Gypsies. The protocols do not seem to follow any pattern with regards to racial hygiene, if any pattern at all.

Schmitz and the other physicians who were the probable dissectors hence cannot be qualified as different versions of Mengele. The latter not only had a very different academic education, he also had firm ties to an external scientific institution. Mengele had specific questions he aimed to solve with his research on so-called dwarfs and twins in Auschwitz-Birkenau. He had a functioning relationship to the anthropologist Otmar von Verschuer at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-

Institute (KWI) in Berlin-Dahlem, where he regularly sent specimens for further inspection.

None of this was true for the doctors at Flossenbürg.

Today, it is impossible to say whether Schmitz was a convinced Nazi, adhering to ideas of supremacy and racial policies, or whether he was merely an opportunist who chose to work in a camp because that was a tactic to keep practicing medicine. Also, no connections of any of

Flossenbürg’s physicians to an outside scientific institution is known to this day. The closest

101 university was Erlangen, and the recent evaluation of the pathology collection there did not raise any suspicion about human remains coming from Flossenbürg.283

This still leaves the question open of what the underlying motivation was for performing dissections in the first place. Was it out of a need to practice anatomy and pathological anatomy?

Was it the sheer possibility to do something that was quite unthinkable in the civilian world?

Was it scientific curiosity of some sort, and if yes, in what respect and in search for which answers? One needs to note that none of the physicians who were interrogated or put on trial ever mentioned science or the will to publish their results in the pursuit of an academic career as a driving force behind their actions. This does not preclude them from having used some of their experiences in the camps for a medical dissertation later on, as did the already mentioned Hans-

Joachim Geiger. But also Karl-Gustav Böhmichen (1912–1964), who had been stationed in the camp in 1940 and 1941, wrote a medical dissertation after the war.284 None of the Flossenbürg physicians entered a career in academic medical positions once the war was over, and they were

“rehabilitated” into German society. This is similar to many other cases of concentration camp physicians, who could return or start work in civilian hospitals.285

Schmitz and the post-physicians Schnabel and Fischer were in their late 40s or their 50s while stationed in Flossenbürg, which means that they were already too old to anticipate a

283 Eichhorn, Philip, Udo Andraschke, Fritz Dross, Carol I. Geppert, Arndt Hartmann, and Tilman T. Rau. “Restoration of an Academic Historical Gross Pathology Collection—Refreshed Impact on Current Medical Teaching?” Virchows Archiv, May 10, 2018, 1–10. An inquiry to the Pathological Institute at the University of Prague currently awaits a response. 284 Böhmichen returned from the Soviet Union in 1955. With the help of a state scholarship he wrote a thesis on pathological erection, priapism. Karl Gustav Böhmichen, Das Krankheitsphänomen des Priapismus unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pathogenese und Therapie, medical dissertation, (Münster: no publisher indicated, 1958). 285 See for example the biographies of Dr. Robert Neumann (1902–1962) and Professor Heyde (1902–1964). Neumann was a pathologist who had started his career in Berlin and who then experimented on inmates in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In the late 1940s he got acquitted, and he became owner of a private clinic in Reutlingen. Ernst Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer, 5th ed. (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 2012), 36, 54. On Heyde, see Kater, Doctors, 224.

102 continuing health sciences career after the end of the war. A strong scientific interest as a motivator for the dissections thus does not seem very likely. What appears much more likely seems to me to have been their ambition to practice surgery and pathology, which they could acquire through repeated dissections. The younger physicians Adam and Geiger both worked in private practice after the war and died relatively young in the early 1960s. For them, scientific ambitions during their deployment to Flossenbürg cannot be excluded, but they did not seem to have materialized after 1945. For them, a dissection, maybe even under the guidance of Schmitz, might have had educational value.

As the camps were extralegal spaces, the general rules of civil society were abandoned.

The “value” of a human being in a concentration camp such as Flossenbürg was measured in accordance with the ability to work. At the same time, the living and working conditions were constructed in a way that inmates quickly lost their physical strength. Those men who could not find additional food were destined to starve to death within a few months. The system itself thus created the so-called inferior beings (who were unable to do productive work) it pretended to eradicate. In this climate of total dehumanization, it was logical to deny effective medical treatment to those who were still alive, and it seems just as logical to withhold any respect to those who died.

As I have shown in Chapter 2, the mortality rate exploded between July 1944 and April

1945. The prisoners were so worn out that the death rate remained high even after liberation.

“People were dying all over. On the floor, you didn’t know if they were dead or alive.”286 It might thus not be surprising to detect a dulled empathy on the side of the perpetrators, if one wants to presume that any type of empathy had existed in the first place. For them, the inmates

286 B. Ferencz, Interview.

103 probably constituted nothing more than “human material” that could be used for whatever means seemed expedient. There were no rules, anything was possible in the most negative meaning, and consequently the dead received even less deference than the living. In this context, the rules of a pathological approach to the dead were considered no longer necessary, just as any other humane way of interaction had been dismissed long before the physical death. So, corpses, of which there were many, could be used if needed. I would thus conclude that the dissections were performed on the deceased inmate bodies because these bodies were seen as available “material” that could be used for inspection, to satisfy curiosity, and for practice. The Flossenbürg dissection protocols do carry a provoking voyeuristic aspect that is underlined by the circumstances of death. Not only was the dying brought about either actively or passively by the physicians or the camp system, of which they were part, but the perpetrator-physicians also took advantage of the same system and continued to abuse the inmates after their death.

As no connection to any outside scientific institution could be found, I will classify these dissections as arbitrary or unsystematic experiments that do not constitute science. The perpetrators did not pretend to be acting scientifically, instead they used the “material” at hand, taking advantage of the opportunities that the secluded camp offered them. But they did so in an manner, that was against the state of the art. And when they were done, they disposed of the dead in the incinerator like with any other corpse.

161 cases of documented dissections is not very much for a time period when fifty to several hundred people died per month (please see Fig.1 in Chapter 2, p. 52). This might explain why little was said about these dissections; the former inmates who were called to be witnesses during the FT did not mention them, because they were not asked about them. But Carl Schrade, the last “Kapo” of the infirmary, does not mention them in his memoir either. Neither does any

104 other former prisoner physician who has left a form of memoir or eyewitness report. Whether the

American and later the German prosecutors were unaware of them or did not bother to include them in their prosecution proceedings is currently unclear. Well-informed prisoners probably knew about the dissection practices. It must have been one more demoralizing element of their lives. The idea of being cut up by physicians who did not care about life and death must have been a very difficult one to endure, similar to smelling the smoke from the crematory. On this subject Terry notes:

The crematory was working constantly. When its capacity was surpassed, they put the corpses on top of logs – the smell of the burnt corpses hang obtrusively in the air. ‘One could smell it constantly ... it was always there ... and not only the smell, also the ashes.’”287

As I have argued, scientific ambitions can be largely ruled out as motivating factors for the camp physicians, based on the age of the most important dissector (Schmitz), the mediocre quality of the protocols, and lacking high-profile publications in the post-war period. Only spurious scientific elements could be found in terms of ordering principles, systematicity, and differential diagnostics, so that it seems logical to say that these dissection protocols do not constitute science. I would not, however, call them pseudo-science, because the protocols do not seem to have been created in the attempt to appear scientific. Also, the connotation of the term is highly problematic. Instead, I would simply like to describe the protocols as non-science. The dissectors did not test different, changing variables, nor did they talk at scientific conventions. They were not university professors with an international reputations. But they did act in the name of a type of medicine that pretended to be scientifically informed. As doctors employed in a camp, benefiting from a high salary, wearing a white coat, working in a building that was officially called an infirmary, using tools and equipment that in the military and civilian hospitals were

287 Terry, in Muggenthaler, Häftlinge, 147.

105 employed to alleviate pain and suffering, yet that was used for the contrary on the ideological grounds of extreme medical science, all these factors illustrate that physicians acted in a deceptive way. German scientific medicine had a high reputation, even during the 1930s after the

Nazis had come to power, and that high esteem mirrored onto the events of the Second World

War. To think that a physician could judge killing as not just a form of healing, but as a legitimate, or even necessary form of healing, boggled the minds of the inmates. The high reputation of German medicine was deliberately used to create a deceiving atmosphere at first, during the selection process, and later to terrorize the inmate population as a whole. If not even the physician could be trusted, the whole value system had to collapse and the individual was left completely helpless. In the case of a real illness, inmates had to rely on each other.

The protocols are rudimentary in style and content. Compared to the standards of the time they are completely insufficient. From a forensic viewpoint they raise more questions than they answer. All arguments taken together, they must be characterized as unsystematic and arbitrary experiments that were undertaken because the time and the place opened up this possibility. The dissections capitalized on the high reputation of German medical science, which included pathology, pretending to be objective and clarifying, which I hope to have shown they were clearly not.

106 4. Conclusion

This study examined a source corpus from Flossenbürg concentration camp. The source is a booklet of 161 protocols of postmortem examinations performed on killed or deceased prisoners between July 1944 and April 1945. The dissectors probably were the physician- perpetrators themselves, who were stationed in Flossenbürg as camp and post-physicians during that time period. The booklet itself is in the repository of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany. This archive was first created after the Second World War by the US military government and the International Red Cross in order to accumulate personal information on deported people from all over Europe. This was important and sometimes facilitated family reunions. The extensive archive of the ITS was opened to researchers only in 2007. As it holds a wealth of information it is one of the most important archival resources for research into the fate of victims of the Nazi era and of Nazi crimes.

In order to analyze these protocols, the following steps were taken. First, each handwritten protocol was transcribed into German, and then translated into English. These two, the German transcript and the English translation, will be made available in the printed version of this thesis which will be given to the archives of Flossenbürg memorial site and the ITS in

Europe, as well as at the USHMM and the University of Calgary in North America. The online version of this thesis will hold an anonymized list, which allows for identification with the help of the printed version. A balancing of privacy rights on the one hand and re-humanization of

National Socialist victims on the other, lead to this complicated approach in the publishing of my research results.

The second step was to establish or to confirm each deceased individual’s identity. This was achieved by comparing the personal information and prisoner number given in the protocols

107 to the entries of two online databases created by the Flossenbürg memorial site (the database as such and the “Book of the Dead”). In three cases an identification was impossible, because no personal information whatsoever was given.

The third step of the analysis was a breakdown of the pathological language employed in the protocols and what this expert’s terminology might openly convey or, on the other hand, hide. As these dissections were performed in a criminal environment, the anticipation had been, that each protocol would tend to cover up the real cause of death, starvation for example. This expectation has been confirmed in the vast majority of cases.

The most common cause of death documented in the protocols were infectious diseases.

The second largest group had undergone abdominal surgery before dying and the dissection was limited to the former operative area. The third largest group among the dissected inmates had succumbed to some form of internal disease, an affliction of the heart or of the kidneys in most cases. The fourth largest group were inmates who had been shot and the dissection meticulously traced the trajectory of the projectiles. The other cases of dissection can be split up into cases of starvation, diseases of the central nervous system, one case of poisoning and drowning, respectively, and a few that remain ultimately unclear. I would like to stress that most inmates probably starved between 1944 and 1945. Yet, traces of this extreme form of emaciation are rarely mentioned explicitly in the protocols.

What was also shown, is the inaccuracy, incompleteness, and incorrectness of the postmortem examination in the first place. Whole steps were left out and especially in the post- operative cases, the postmortem exam was clearly a surgical demonstration of the former operative area, but often done in a spurious and superficial way. This is topped by the insufficient discussion at the end of each protocol where the important features should have been

108 assembled and weighed against each other in a form of synopsis, in order to determine a most probable cause of death. This is significant, because that important final intellectual assessment of the case by the dissectors was either present in a rudimentary way only, or completely missing.

This finding also strongly corroborates the conclusions of the Flossenbürg Trial (FT) where one of the camp physicians had been indicted and eventually convicted for performing unnecessary and unclean extensive abdominal surgeries on inmates.

In the few cases where clearly a polytrauma had been the cause of death, the forensic perspective proves somewhat fruitful. Shots from behind on an unarmed person as well as shots to the head and multiple projectiles fired at one and the same person can be proven. These cases constitute nothing other than executions.

But there were also four unexpected findings: First, in the early protocols a sample for bacteriological testing was taken when an infectious disease seemed likely. It is unknown how well equipped the infirmary was with the necessary tools to do these types of tests, neither is it known who did these. It might very well have been one of the prisoner physicians who examined samples of blood, pus, or other secretions and body fluids. Often, the results of these tests prove the presence of Tuberculosis (TB), (see Doc ID 10804163, protocol 9). Although this might seem diligent, it was not carried through all the time until April 1945. The protocols leave out a mentioning of necessary preventive measures to be taken in order to protect the rest of the inmate population. This would have been extremely important in the face of typhus, a deadly epidemic against which the overwhelming portion of the prisoners was not vaccinated. The consequences of this omission were disastrous.

109 Second, there is a stark contrast between the shortness and superficiality of protocols that cover internal diseases and those that examine the victims of shootings. The latter usually describe in detail the entry and exit wounds, but also the trajectory of the projectiles. This could be explained in the military context of the camps. It could also stem from an interest in ballistics, but this assumption awaits its proof for now.

Third, only two bodies of women were dissected. Flossenbürg main camp was for men only, but there were between ten and twelve women in the camp brothel present constantly between 1942 and 1945. Also, the Flossenbürg network of satellite camps had up to 16,000 female prisoners. Why and how these two women ended up in the main camp, has to remain open for the moment.

Fourth, with the limitations just outlined, the protocols can serve as forensic evidence for the crimes committed in the camp. They prove starvation, infectious diseases (especially TB and typhus), shootings, severe internal diseases that should have been treated outside the camp, and polytrauma. All of these instances are known to have happened and have been put to trial at least twice (in the proceedings against Schmitz and Fischer). What is special about the protocols, however, is that they were very probably written by the perpetrator-physicians themselves. The validity of this type of forensic proof is thus a different one. It takes away any potential doubt of the credibility of inmates’ testimony. I have argued elsewhere, that the other medical culprits turned Schmitz into a scapegoat in order divert attention from them.288 Had this source been available to any of the prosecutors, American or West German, the trials might have even taken another course.

288 Tannenbaum, Medizin, 159–161.

110 Considerable thought was given to the question of how to publish the protocols. They carry the name of the inmate which has been carefully established by using the memorial’s databases. Publishing of victims’ names has been the subject of intense debate among historians and archivists, but also affected individuals or their families. This debate centers around the right of individuals to protection of privacy on the one hand, and around the need to counteract the imposed anonymization by the Nazi regime in order to restore human dignity. Naming an individual with its correct first and last name restores humanity and avoids the need for making use of the prisoner number, which after all had been completely replaceable in the camps. For the ethical considerations in regards to the present thesis, the following factors were taken into account: the source itself covers the period after death of 161 individuals, something that is rare in the case of concentration camp victims. It is as such an incredibly individual and rich source, despite all its flaws. This information, as any other information on prisoners in German concentration camps, should be made available to family members. It is one more mosaic stone that might help construct a bigger picture of somebody’s relative. At the University of Calgary, however, graduate students are required to upload their defended theses to the online system of the university library.289 In the case of the present study, this would mean that very cruel, specialized, and intimate information would be online, open to anyone who might be researching pathology in a criminal context or who might stumble upon it by chance. These protocols carry complex information that is not easy to understand and moreover, they raise more questions than they answer. Thus, it is my opinion, that the protocols should not go online. Instead, an anonymized list is provided that allows for identification for those who wish to pursue family or other types of research. This list will be provided to the archives listed above. By choosing this

289 “PRISM Repository,” Libraries and Cultural Resources, University of Calgary, https://prism.ucalgary.ca/.

111 approach, I hope to do justice to two conflicting principles. The one is to bring victims out of the shade of oblivion, and the other is to deal with sensitive information in a responsible way. I realize that this decision is debatable, and I am happy to receive feedback on it.

Regarding the bigger picture of medicine in concentration camps, the dissections performed on inmates in Flossenbürg are described as arbitrary experiments performed in the context of a lawless, violent space. They were not intended to be scientific as they are much too short and do not adhere to pathology’s guidelines. They do not show any articulated questions or particular inquiries, nor specific conclusions. For example, in the case of different Billroth procedures (an extensive type of stomach surgery), no comment is included in the respective protocol, whether Billroth I or Billroth II had any advantage for the surgeon. Nor is it mentioned why one procedure was performed in one case but not in another. This speaks to a considerable superficiality that make scientific ambitions not impossible, but unlikely. Additionally, no link to the closest university, Erlangen, could be established for now. This is a major difference to experiments discussed during the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial or NMT, where it was shown that scientific connections between the camps, different institutions, and people were prevalent.

There is no evidence so far, however, that Flossenbürg’s doctors had any connection to outside scientific institutions, be it a university or a department of the military. But the doctors might have been familiar with the misanthropic experiments that were conducted in other camps and they might have felt the right to similarly use the dehumanized inmates’ bodies as they saw fit.

Some of the dissectors were still young enough to pursue a scientific career as such, but they did not, as research into their post-war biographies has shown. It thus seems much more likely that these postmortem examinations were done in order to satisfy curiosity and personal interest,

112 maybe even out of self-deceit. The knowledge that inmates’ bodies could be used without any serious repercussions by superiors or the legal system facilitated this endeavor.

As in other concentration camps, in Flossenbürg, the maltreatment of inmates’ bodies was normalized. Forced labor, starvation, negligence of basic physical needs, such as warm clothes, and denial of appropriate medical treatment put prisoners at the discretion of the camp staff which the doctors were a part of. This left the doctors of the camp with an extreme level of power and allowed them to unpredictably decide over life and death. From their perspective, it thus must have seemed logical to use the “human material” at hand as they did not look at prisoners as human beings with their own humanity, but as something that could be exploited.

Utilisation after death was the last step in a long chain of humiliation and misanthropy.

The thesis argues further that despite the mentioned omissions in the protocols and the lack of scientific methodology, their value lies in two main factors: the biographical and the medical information. The biographical dates that could be retrieved from the protocols help to form a more complete picture of already very fragmentary information on a specific person’s life. For example, the only information that had been available so far is that an inmate had died on a specific date. By adding the information from the protocol, this date of death can either be confirmed or rectified (usually only by one day). The second important piece of information lies in the medical notes. When read with skepticism, the whole spectrum of typical diseases of concentration camp inmates emerges, ranging from infectious diseases to starvation and physical abuse. The protocols thus constitute a type of forensic evidence of the crimes committed in the

Flossenbürg concentration camp, medical and otherwise. They thus confirm what has been unveiled during the few post-war trials on medical personnel of Flossenbürg and they offer a new avenue of research into what can be called arbitrary experiments. By the latter I understand

113 coerced human subject experimentation that did not follow any scientific endeavour, but that unpredictably and capriciously made use of inmates’ bodies by looking at them as “material,” or mere objects. To objectify patients, prisoners, and other marginalised members of society is an extension of a tradition that has always been more or less present in the fields of anatomy, pathology, and medical research in general. It is a tradition, however, which became dominant in the nineteenth century German medical establishment, as described in Chapter 1. The idea to sacrifice an individual body for the alleged greater good was hence not new, but National

Socialist physicians and anthropologists took it to a new extreme.

But the medical information unveiled in the protocols does carry another, very personal value, most importantly. It might resolve the question that so often haunts family members of how their relative died. As one of the main tasks of the memorial site Flossenbürg is to reconstruct biographies, this source holds great value. At least in those instances where the cause of death becomes clear through the protocol, as in cases of TB or of shootings, that information could be given to family members. This might help to end a long journey of family research.

Several potential future research questions emerge from this analysis: the medical infrastructure of Flossenbürg’s satellite or sub camps and how they interacted with Flossenbürg main camp’s infirmary is not systematically studied to this day. As there were at least ninety of these smaller camps in different locations and at different times, this is a major task. Similarly, the medical history of female Flossenbürg prisoners who were mostly interned in those sub camps (working for Siemens in Nuremberg, for example), needs to be unearthed. Both of these research avenues can stretch into the postwar era and examine local specificities, in commemoration or denial of such, for example, or into how individuals dealt with physical or psychological traumatizations after 1945. This would allow to place Flossenbürg in the wider

114 field of Holocaust and Genocide studies, and more precisely it would contribute to the relative young field of examining women’s fates and sexuality as well as sexualized violence during the

Holocaust and other times of mass violence.

So, where does this leave us? Can anything be taken from these dissection protocols and do they constitute science? How do they compare to other studies in anatomy or pathology from other camps? The answer to the first question is a cautious positive affirmation. With certain reservations the Flossenbürg dissection protocols hold a wealth of pathological and historical information. The answer to the second question is clearly a negative one. After reviewing their form and content, the protocols are categorized as non-scientific and arbitrary. The last question needs to remain partially open, however. Flossenbürg’s dissections do not have a lot in common with the dissections performed in Dachau by Dr. Rascher, in Natzweiler by Dr. Hirt, or in

Auschwitz by Dr. Mengele (Dr. Nyiszli), nor to dissection performed after the so-called

‘euthanasia’ killings. But they might be similar to practices in Neuengamme or Bergen-Belsen.

This is the biggest research avenue that this thesis can point to. A thorough evaluation of similar dissection protocols from lesser known camps that answers the question of similarities and differences from a medical, forensic, social, and potentially linguistic perspective might prove very fruitful for the field of medical history of concentration camps.

115 Epilogue

In the hopes to prevent confusion, this section will quickly outline the two versions of the thesis. One version will be uploaded via the library server of the University of Calgary and will thus be accessible online to any interested user. As this takes away any possibility of control on the side of the library and the author, the online version will not disclose any individual names, but will limit itself to an anonymized list. This list can be found in Appendix A.

As family members and researchers on the other hand also have a right to access names and as names render human dignity, the second or printed, version of the thesis will be supplemented by the complete transcript and translation of the original documents, which almost all hold the personal data. This appendix C will be made available to the following institutions: the ITS and Flossenbürg memorial site in Germany, and the USHMM and the University of

Calgary in North America. Apart from these two appendices, there will be no differences in the main text of the thesis.

The transcriptions, which are in Appendix C together with the translations, were done from handwritten originals whose readability on the computer screen was generally good.

However, those syllables or words that could not be deciphered are indicated with a long placeholder (“___”). Misspellings were preserved, whereas common abbreviations were spelled out to increase readability. For example, the German ‘and’ (und) and articles (also used as relative pronouns der, die, das) often appear in their abbreviated forms as “u.” and “d.” in the original. In the transcription they were spelled out completely in order to ease the flow of reading. If, in the original, a word or a section was stroked through, this was maintained in the transcript as well. Many protocols were inconsistent in the usage of the German Umlaut, sometimes spelling them out (ä, ö, ü), sometimes spelling them in the Latinized way (ae, oe, ue);

116 this was preserved. Any elements that facilitate identification of persons and which were added during the transcription process by the author appear in square brackets, the page numbers and the document ID, for example. In the case of Russian names, the database sometimes lists different versions. This is either due to varying forms of transcription from Cyrillic to Latin letters, or to bad legibility in the original handwritten registry. In this case, I have chosen the name given in the online Book of the Dead available on the memorial’s website.

The Translations

The translation stayed as close to the original as possible. Where the original was written in German, the translation was done to English. However, the Latin terms employed regularly in the German original, were translated to the English form most commonly used today.

Considerable thought was given to the question of how to publish the protocols. They carry the name of the inmate which has been carefully established by using the memorial’s databases. Publishing of victims’ names has been the subject of intense debate among historians and archivists, but also affected individuals or their families. This debate centers on the right of individuals to protection of privacy on the one hand, and around the need to counteract the imposed anonymization by the Nazi regime in order to restore human dignity. Naming an individual with its correct first and last name restores humanity and avoids the need for making use of the prisoner number, which after all had been completely replaceable in the camps. For the ethical considerations in regards to the present thesis, the following factors were taken into account: the source itself covers the period after death of 161 individuals, something that is rare in the case of concentration camp victims. It is as such an incredibly individual and rich source,

117 despite all its flaws. This information, as any other information on prisoners in German concentration camps, should be made available to family members. It is one more mosaic stone that might help construct a bigger picture of somebody’s relative. At the University of Calgary, however, graduate students are required to upload their defended theses to the online system of the university library.290 In the case of the present study, this would mean that cruel and intimate information would be online, open to anyone who might be researching pathology in a criminal context or who might stumble upon it by chance. These protocols carry complex information that is not easy to understand and moreover, they raise more questions than they answer. Thus, it is my opinion, that the protocols should not go online. Instead, an anonymized list is provided that allows for identification for those who wish to pursue family or other types of research. This list will be provided to the archives listed above. By choosing this approach, I hope to do justice to two conflicting principles. The one is to bring victims out of the shade of oblivion, and the other is to deal with sensitive information in a responsible way. I realize that this decision is debatable, and I am happy to receive feedback on it.

290 “PRISM Repository,” Libraries and Cultural Resources, University of Calgary, https://prism.ucalgary.ca/.

118 Bibliography

Consulted Archives

Archiv der Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg (AGFl)

Bundesarchiv-Lichterfelde, Berlin (BArch)

International Tracing Service, Bad Arolsen (ITS)

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Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Hannover (NLA H)

Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Oldenburg (NLA O)

Staatsarchiv Amberg, Amberg (StArch Am)

Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar (ThHStArch W)

Universitätsarchiv Freiburg (UA Freiburg)

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131 Appendix A

Anonymized list

For the online version of the MA thesis of

Jessica Tannenbaum at the University of Calgary

Protocol number Doc ID Date of dissection

1 10804157–58 July 28, 1944

2 10804158 July 28

3 10804158 Aug. 1

4 10804159 Aug. 5

5 10804160 Aug. 5

6 10804161 Aug. 7

7 10804161 Aug. 8

8 10804162 Aug. 8

9 10804163 Aug. 12

10 10804164 Aug. 12

11 10804165 Aug. 15

12 10804166 Aug. 16

13 10804167 Aug. 19

14 10804167–68 Aug. 19

15 10804168 Aug. 20

132 16 10804169 Aug. 24

17 10804170 Aug. 28

18 10804171–72 Aug. 29

19 10804173 Sept. 1

20 10804173 Sept. 2

21 10804174 Sept. 4

22 10804174 Sept. 5

23 10804175 Sept. 7

24 10804176 Sept. 8

25 10804177 Sept. 15

26 10804177 Sept. 16

27 10804178 Sept. 20

28 10804178 Sept. 23

29 10804179 Sept. 25

30 10804179 Sept. 26

31 10804180 Sept. 29

32 N/A

33 10804181 Oct. 5

34 10804181 Oct. 6

35 10804181 Oct. 6

36 10804182 No date

37 10804182 Oct. 9

38 10804182 Oct. 11

133 39 10804183 Oct. 12

40 10804183 Oct. 16

41 10804184 Oct. 16

42 10804184 Oct. 19

43 10804185 Oct. 22

44 10804185 Oct. 24

45 N/A

46 10804185 Oct. 24

47 10804185 Oct. 25

48 10804186 Oct. 25

49 10804186 Oct. 25

50 10804186 Oct. 28

51 10804186–87 Oct. 28

52 10804187 Oct. 31

53 10804187–88 Nov. 2

54 10804188 Nov. 2

55 N/A

56 10804188 Nov. 3

57 10804188 Nov. 4

58 10804189 Nov. 4

59 10804189 Nov. 6

60 10804190 Nov. 7

61 110804190–91 Nov. 8

134 62 10804191 Nov. 8

63 10804191 Nov. 9

64 10804192 Nov. 11

65 10804192 Nov. 18

66 10804193 Nov. 20

67 10804193 Nov. 22

68 10804193 Nov. 27

69 10804194 Nov. 29

70 10804194 Dec. 8

71 10804195 Dec. 9

72 10804195 Dec. 12

73 10804195–96 Dec. 18

74 10804196 Dec. 29

75 10804196 Dec. 29

76 10804196 Jan. 2, 1945

77 10804197 Jan. 3

78 10804197 Jan. 3

79 10804197 Jan. 4

80 10804198 Jan. 4

81 10804198–99 Jan. 5

82 10804199 Jan. 6

83 10804199 Jan 6

84 10804200 Jan. 9

135 85 10804200 Jan. 10

86 10804200 Jan. 10

87 10804200–01 Jan. 11

88 10804201 Jan. 11

89 10804201–02 Jan. 13

90 10804202 Jan. 15

91 10804202 Jan 18

92 10804202 Jan. 18

93 10804202–03 Jan. 20

94 10804203 Jan. 21

95 10804203–04 Jan. 23

96 10804204 Jan. 26

97 10804204 Jan. 30

98 10804205 Jan. 31

99 10804205 Feb. 3

100 10804205 Feb. 5

101 10804206 Feb. 7

102 10804241 Feb. 9

103 10804207 Feb. 15

104 10804207 Feb. 15

105 10804207 Feb. 16

106 10804208 Feb. 16

107 10804208 Feb. 16

136 108 10804208 Feb. 16

109 10804209 Feb. 17

110 10804210 Feb. 18

111 10804210–11 Feb. 18

112 10804211 Feb. 19

113 10804211–12 Feb. 21

114 10804212 Feb. 21

115 10804213 Feb. 22

116 10804213 Feb. 23

117 10804214 Feb. 23

118 10804215 Feb. 24

119 10804215 Feb. 24

120 10804216 Feb. 25

121 10804216 Feb. 26

122 10804217 Feb. 26

123 10804218 Feb. 28

124 10804218 Feb. 28

125 10804218 Feb. 28

126 10804219 Mar. 1

127 10804220 Mar. 2

128 10804220–21 Mar. 3

129 10804221 Mar. 3

130 10804222 Mar. 4

137 131 10804222 Mar. 4

132 10804223 Mar. 4

133 10804223 Mar. 5

134 10804224 Mar. 6

135 10804224 Mar. 7

136 10804225 Mar. 8

137 10804225–26 Mar. 9

138 10804226 Mar. 9

139 10804226 Mar. 10

140 10804227 Mar. 12

141 10804227 Mar. 12

142 10804228 Mar. 12

143 10804228 Mar. 13

144 10804229 Mar. 13

145/1 10804229 Mar. 13

145/2 10804230 Mar. 13

146 10804230 Mar. 13

147 10804231 Mar. 15

148 10804231 Mar. 16

149 10804232 Mar. 17

150 10804233 Mar. 20

151 10804233 Mar. 20

152 10804234 Mar. 24

138 153 10804234 Mar. 24

154 10804235 Mar. 25

155 10804235 Mar. 27

156 10804236 Mar. 28

157 10804237 Mar. 28

158 10804238 Mar. 29

159 10804238 Mar. 30

160 10804238 Apr. 4

161 10804239 Apr. 5

162 10804239 Apr. 5

163 10804240 Apr. 5

164 10804241 Apr. 10

139 Appendix B

Translation of Copyright Permission. Translation by JT:

Department: administration of the archive

Reply all

Sun 06-03, 23:29

Jessica Tannenbaum

Dear Ms. Tannnebaum,

Thank you very much for your clarifications.

The ITS is giving you permission to publish the cover of the booklet holding the dissection protocols from Flossenbürg concentration camp as well as the protocol of Herman Joseph Haubner in your Master’s thesis.

We wish you a lot of success for your Master’s thesis.

Kind regards,

Elke Helmentag

Administration of the archive

140 Appendix C

Appendix C is provided separately. Please refer to the main text (pages 18–19) and to the epilogue (on p. 116) for the rationale behind this decision.

141