Benno Adolph

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Benno Adolph (born March 17, 1912 in Winkl ; † December 20, 1967 in Iserlohn ) was a German doctor who worked as a camp doctor in the concentration camps Auschwitz , Flossenbürg , Buchenwald , Bergen-Belsen and Neuengamme .

SS doctor

Adolph was a member of the SA from April 1, 1933 to August 1, 1938, and from April 1, 1935 also a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 4,411,361). In 1938 he joined the SS (SS no.340.774). From 1938 to 1939 he served as a doctor in the medical department of the SS emergency service . In January 1940 he became a medical examiner in the SS supplementary office.

On August 25, 1939 he was promoted to Untersturmführer, on September 1, 1940 to SS-Obersturmführer and on June 21, 1942 to Hauptsturmführer. From May 27 to July 24, 1941, he belonged to a division of the Waffen SS .

Doctor in concentration and extermination camps

On September 20, 1942, Adolph was transferred to Amt D III of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA) and was employed as a camp doctor first in the Gusen concentration camp and then in the Auschwitz concentration camp. From March 1943, he was the head camp doctor of the so-called "gypsy camp" Auschwitz for a short time . The fact that he fell ill with scarlet fever in April 1943 and was unable to work until November 1943 is considered the reason for Josef Mengele's transfer to Auschwitz, who took over Adolph's function there.

Adolph subsequently served in the Flossenbürg , Buchenwald , Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps . On June 24, 1944, he was transferred to the SS main office and on January 1, 1945, he was assigned to the headquarters of the Wehrmacht High Command in Slovakia .

After the end of World War II

Adolph was taken prisoner by the Soviets, but was released because former prisoners had testified for him. He was then interned by the Americans, but again exonerated by former prisoners. The German political prisoner Mathias Mai, who had been a Revierkapo in the Neuengamme concentration camp, described him as a “decent guy”. The former nurse in the infirmary, Pierre Schneider, remembered that Adolph had asked her when he arrived where they could help. He did not regard them as prisoners at all and requested more prisoner doctors for the station.

Adolph first moved to the GDR in 1953 and has worked at various clinics in the FRG since 1958 . He was not brought to justice.

literature

  • Aleksander Lasik: The Staffing of the Health Service of the SS in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1940–1945. In: Hefte von Auschwitz 20 (1997), pp. 290–368, here p. 304.
  • Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons , S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons , Frankfurt / Main 2013, p. 15
  2. ^ Ulrich Völklein : Josef Mengele - the doctor from Auschwitz / Ulrich Völklein . Steidl, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-88243-685-9 , p. 92 .
  3. Hermann Langbein: ... not like sheep to the slaughter . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verl., Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-596-23486-7 , pp. 237 .
  4. Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-10-039306-6 , pp. 47 .