Oskar Schröder

Oskar Schröder during the Nuremberg Trials

Oskar Schröder (born February 6, 1891 in Hanover , † January 26, 1959 in Munich ) was a German medical officer and ENT doctor . As head of the Air Force's medical services , he was involved in human experiments in the Dachau concentration camp , for which he was convicted in the Nuremberg medical trial.

Life

Schröder studied medicine from 1910 to 1914 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy for military medical education . In 1911 he became active in the Pépinière Corps Saxonia. He received his doctorate on 30 August 1919 in Berlin to Dr. med. In the meantime he served as a troop doctor during the First World War . After the end of the war - which was associated with a reduction in the armed forces for the German Reich - Schröder retired from military service. In 1923 he also became a member of the Corps Franconia, which the KWA had moved to Hamburg. With his corps brother Paul Stenger in Königsberg i. Pr. And trained as an ENT doctor in Würzburg , he was approved as a contract doctor in 1925 . He ran a doctor's practice for several years .

During the National Socialist era , Schröder became Chief of Staff of General Doctor Erich Hippke in the Reich Ministry of Aviation in 1935 . In the same year, the existence of the previously camouflaged air force was officially announced. Promoted to senior medical officer in 1938 , Schröder took over the management of a department in the Air Force's medical inspection. On May 1, 1938, he became a member of the NSDAP (membership number 6.147.130). During the Second World War , in 1940 and 1941 he was a temporary fleet doctor with Luftflotte 2 . On January 1, 1944, Schröder replaced his superior and corps brother Hippke as chief of the Air Force's medical services.

Attempts to make seawater drinkable in 1944

Since 1942, processes for making seawater drinkable have been developed on behalf of the Luftwaffe . The background to this were cases of members of the Air Force and the Navy in distress at sea . A conference on this subject was held on May 9, 1944 in the Reich Ministry of Aviation. Also present were Oskar Schröder, the consultant for aviation medicine in the medical sector, Hermann Becker-Freyseng , and the junior doctor on the staff of the Research Institute for Aviation Medicine, Konrad Schäfer. The participants decided to try two different methods through human experiments. Becker-Freyseng saw the best conditions for a series of experiments in a concentration camp .

On June 7, 1944, Schröder applied to the Reich Minister of the Interior and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler for human experiments in the Dachau concentration camp :

“Honored Mr. Reichsminister!

Earlier, you gave the Air Force the opportunity to clarify urgent medical questions in experiments on humans. Today I am again faced with a decision that, after numerous animal and human experiments on volunteer test persons, calls for a final solution: The Air Force has simultaneously developed two processes for making seawater drinkable. One process, developed by a San.Office, desalinates the seawater and turns it into real drinking water , the second process, specified by an engineer, leaves the salt content unchanged, it only takes away the unpleasant taste of the seawater. In contrast to the first, the last process does not require any bottleneck raw materials. From the medical point of view, according to our current knowledge, this procedure must be viewed as questionable, as the supply of concentrated salt solutions can cause severe symptoms of poisoning.

Since the tests on humans could only be carried out up to a duration of four days so far, but the practical requirements require care for those in distress at sea for up to twelve days, corresponding tests are necessary.

40 healthy test persons are required, who would have to be fully available for 4 weeks. Since it is known from earlier experiments that the necessary laboratories are in KL Dachau, this camp would be very suitable. [...] "

On June 28, 1944, positive statements from Karl Gebhardt , Richard Glücks and Arthur Nebe were available and on July 11, 1944, Rudolf Brandt , Heinrich Himmler's personal adviser , announced the decision to assign "anti-social gypsy mixes" and three other inmates for the experiments to use. The seawater experiments were carried out between July and September 1944, and the Austrian physician Wilhelm Beiglböck was in charge .

Nuremberg medical trial

After the end of the war, there were indications of the involvement of Air Force doctors in the human experiments in concentration camps in the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals . Hermann Göring , Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force , was also charged here . The Allied investigation went according to the medical historian Udo Benzenhöfer the possibility of the right on the tests involved and met "through enactment of the chain of responsibility to the higher-ranked and highest-ranking defendant" before. Schröder was charged with seven other air force doctors in the Nuremberg medical trial. An indictment against Schröder's predecessor Erich Hippke did not take place because his whereabouts were not known.

The main allegation against Schröder were the Dachau seawater experiments. Furthermore, Schröder, as head of the Air Force's medical services, was also responsible for the high altitude and hypothermia tests by Sigmund Rascher in the Dachau concentration camp, the sulfonamide tests carried out in the Ravensbrück concentration camp under the chief clinician of the Reich physician of the SS, Karl Gebhardt , as well as the jaundice and jaundice tests Spotted fever attempts by the Air Force officer Eugen Haagen in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp are charged.

Schröder was found guilty of the decisive initiative and implementation of the seawater tests. The court ruling indicates that the experiments in the Dachau concentration camp began within a month of Schröder's letter to Himmler. After the charges of the sulfonamide experiments were withdrawn by the prosecution, the court convicted Schröder as being jointly responsible for the experiments to research a typhus vaccine because of the involvement of Air Force officers who were under his control at the time. Schröder was also found guilty of the mustard and phosgene experiments in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, in which Air Force officers Haagen and Karl Wimmer were involved. No charge had been brought against Schröder on this point; he was acquitted of the remaining charges by the American military tribunal . On August 20, 1947, Schröder was sentenced to life imprisonment and then transferred to the Landsberg war crimes prison .

On January 31, 1951, Schröder's sentence was reduced to fifteen years by the American High Commissioner John Jay McCloy , and on March 31, 1954 he was released with suspension of the sentence. After his release from prison, in the spring of 1955 he married the former managing director of the specialist committee for nursing in the working group for voluntary welfare and NS sister Karin Huppertz . Schröder then stayed temporarily in the USA and advised the US Air Force on organizational issues relating to air medicine. As a member of the two Pépinière Corps, he received the Ribbon of the Corps Brunsviga Göttingen in 1956 .

Schröder died in Munich in 1959 and received his final resting place in Hanover.

literature

• Alexander Mitscherlich, Fred Mielke: Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-22003-3 .

Web links

• Nuremberg Trials Project Documents from the Nuremberg Doctors Trial on Oskar Schröder (partly in English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 63 , 162; 60 , 528; 40 , 1083
2. ↑ Biographical information in: Klaus Dörner (Ed.): The Nürnberger Ärzteprocess 1946/47. Verbal transcripts, prosecution and defense material, sources on the environment. Band. Saur, Munich, 1999, ISBN 3-598-32020-5 , p. 145.
3. ↑ Schröder's letter to Himmler in the facsimile ( memento of the original dated June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Nuremberg Document NO-185). 
4. ↑ Document VEJ 11/146 in Lisa Hauff (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 (source book), Volume 11: German Reich and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia April 1943-1945 . Berlin / Boston 2020, ISBN 978-3-11-036499-6 , pp. 427-428.
5. ↑ Udo Benzenhöfer: Nürnberger Ärzteprozess: The selection of the accused. Deutsches Ärzteblatt 1996; 93: A-2929-2931 (issue 45) (PDF, 258 kB).
6. ↑ Benzenhöfer, Ärzteprozess , page A-2930 Ibid. A scheme related to the trial on the position of the accused in the German health system.
7. ↑ Excerpt from the judgment in Mitscherlich, Medicine , p. 103.
8. ↑ Hubert Kolling: Huppertz, Karin In: Horst-Peter Wolff (Hrsg.): Biographical Lexicon for the history of care. "Who was who in nursing history". Urban & Fischer, Munich 2001, Volume 2, ISBN 3-437-26670-5 , pp. 106-108.
9. ↑ trillion Graves: Professor Dr. Oskar Schröder .