Carl Clauberg

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Carl Clauberg (1942)

Carl Clauberg (born September 28, 1898 in Witzhelden - Wupperhof ; † August 9, 1957 in Kiel ) was a German gynecologist who, as an SS doctor , carried out forced sterilization of hundreds of female concentration camp inmates .

Youth and career

Carl Clauberg was born in the village of Wupperhof in the Bergisches Land as the son of a family of craftsmen. The family moved to Kiel in 1903. From 1916 Clauberg took part in the First World War as an infantryman . Clauberg was deployed on the Western Front and was taken prisoner by the British in 1917.

Medical studies and work as a doctor

After his release from captivity, Clauberg began studying medicine at the University of Kiel in 1920 and continued studying at the University of Hamburg and Graz . He finished his studies in June 1924. After obtaining his license to practice medicine in April 1925 , he received his doctorate in May 1925 at the University of Kiel on the subject of "On the cause of death in air embolism " . From November 1925 to 1928 as a volunteer assistant and from 1928 to July 1932 as an assistant, Clauberg worked at the University Women's Clinic in Kiel, where he trained as a gynecologist. During this time, with the support of chemists from Schering- Kahlbaum, he researched the mode of action of female sex hormones and, in 1929, developed a gestagen test ( Clauberg test ) based on the research of George W. Corner and William M. Allen , which was developed by the companies Ciba, Organon and Schering-Kahlbaum was used in place of the more reliable but more expensive Corner-Allen test .

From August 1, 1932, Clauberg was employed as assistant doctor to Felix von Mikulicz-Radecki at the University Clinic in Königsberg and in November 1934 he moved to the University Clinic in Königsberg as a senior physician. Under Miculicz-Radecki , Clauberg completed his habilitation on February 18, 1933 at the University of Königsberg . In August 1937 he was appointed associate professor by the University of Königsberg. As a later favorite of Heinrich Himmler, however, he did not receive a full professorship.

Clauberg published specialist literature in the field of gynecology in the 1930s. Clauberg v. a. using a method he developed to inject a semi-synthetic 'oestradiol' (Progynon B) produced by Schering-Werke into infertile women due to fallopian tube obstruction in order to achieve pregnancy. In his later attempts at sterility, he followed the gluing of both fallopian tubes.

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Clauberg worked as a surgeon in a hospital during the attack on Poland . From 1940 Clauberg was the chief physician of a gynecological clinic in the miners' hospital in Königshütte (district Neu-Heiduk) ( famous worldwide because of the work of the exceptional neurosurgeon Prof. Wilhelm Wagner ) and at the same time at another hospital in this Upper Silesian industrial city.

Political activity

Clauberg joined the NSDAP ( membership number 2,733,970) and SA on April 1, 1933 . In the SA, Clauberg held the rank of chief medical officer. He was also a member of the Nazi Lecturer Association and the Nazi Association of Doctors . In 1940 Clauberg became an honorary SS group leader of the reserve.

Human trials

Dr. Carl Clauberg "The beast" , painting by the expressionist artist Stefan Krikl from his series Doctors of Death , 1985 (German: Dr. Carl Clauberg "Die Bestie" from Doctors of Death )

Clauberg, who was regarded as an expert in the field of sterilization research, had long harbored the plan for a research institute for reproductive biology , but got no further with the proposal at the relevant government agencies. He carried out animal experiments in which he injected the test animals with substances containing formalin into the fallopian tubes, which caused the mucous membrane to stick together. Clauberg sought contact with Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and was summoned by him on March 22, 1941. He presented Himmler's thoughts on the treatment of individual infertility, the general cause of the increase in infertility and non-surgical sterilization. The background to Himmler's interest was the intention to bring about a “negative demography” among the “Eastern peoples” in the areas that had already been conquered during the war. In May 1942, Clauberg wrote to Himmler asking for the possibility of carrying out these sterilization experiments on women on a larger scale. In December 1942 at the latest, Clauberg began working in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and began - like Horst Schumann - in Block 30 of the women's camp with the sterilization attempts. In March 1943 he was assigned to Block 10 in the main camp of Auschwitz for his experiments. Several hundred Jewish women from different countries were housed in the two halls on the upper floor of this block. With the method of non-surgical mass sterilization developed by Clauberg, a chemical agent specially prepared for this purpose was injected into the fallopian tubes, causing them to become severely inflamed. After a few weeks the ovaries had grown together and thus blocked. Some Jewish women died as a direct result of the experiments, others were selected because they were unsuitable for the experiments according to Clauberg's criteria, were suffocated in Birkenau in gas or were killed in a work detachment. From 1942 to 1944, Clauberg was made available to 498 prisoners in Auschwitz “for experimental purposes”, whereby he had to pay the camp administration a sum of 1 Reichsmark per woman and week. "Clauberg's brutal approach is soon known in the camp - SS guards come in one day because they want to see what he is doing with the women whose cries echo through the camp." Due to the advance of the Red Army , he continued his experiments in the Ravensbrück concentration camp on at least 35 other women. Overall, Clauberg carried out between 550 and 700 forced sterilizations. Ilse Arndt was one of his victims .

In June 1943 Clauberg wrote to Himmler :

“The method I devised to achieve sterilization of the female organism without surgery is almost completely worked out. […] As for the question that you, Reichsführer, asked me, namely in what time it would be possible to sterilize 1000 women in this way, I can predictively answer it today. Namely: If the examinations I have carried out continue as before - and there is no reason to assume that they do not - the moment is not very far away when I can say from a suitably trained doctor to a suitably equipped one With maybe 10 auxiliary staff, most likely several hundred, if not 1000 - in one day. "

On January 21, 2020, the film Medizinversuche in Auschwitz (subtitle: Clauberg and the women of Block 10 ) was shown on Arte , which was made in 2019 under the direction of Sonya Winterberg and Sylvia Nagel. In the accompanying text it says:

“At that time, Carl Clauberg was one of the world's leading reproductive medicine specialists, an ambitious, aspiring doctor who placed himself in the service of the Nazi regime in order to pursue a scientific career. With his research he laid the foundations for the birth control pill, his work on birth control and infertility are still part of the medical canon today - but without making any reference to his medical experiments in Auschwitz. "

- ARD program

Conviction, imprisonment and death

On June 8, 1945, Clauberg was arrested in Eckernförde ( Schleswig-Holstein ). After acknowledging his guilt, he was sentenced in July 1948 in the Soviet Union to 25 years in prison for the murder of Soviet citizens in KL Auschwitz. On October 11, 1955, he was released from captivity as part of the “ return home of the ten thousand ” as a “non-amnesty”. At first he worked as a gynecologist at his old university clinic again. He was celebrated there as a “late returnee” and a martyr. The Central Council of Jews in Germany filed a criminal complaint for “continued serious bodily harm ” . The arrest warrant was issued in Kiel on November 21, 1955, after he had been admitted to the psychiatric clinic in Neustadt in Holstein at the request of his wife for threats of murder and manslaughter . At the beginning of February 1956, the appraisers determined that he was sane, but confirmed that he had an "abnormal" personality. He was taken to the Neumünster prison and charges were only brought in December 1956 - there was "no leading gynecologist (like Martius , Philipp , etc.) who would have wanted to act as an expert in court". Ralph Giordano wrote of the indictment:

"Although I have attended many Nazi trials in front of German jury courts , the indictment against Clauberg is one of the most unbearable readings I have ever subjected myself to while studying Nazi crimes."

Due to the allegations made against him, Clauberg was refused membership in the German Society for Gynecology in 1956 and was banned from working in March 1957. Before the trial could begin - the defense had thwarted the opening and the Kiel Regional Court , which was filled with many former National Socialist lawyers, had dismissed the joint plaintiff Henry Ormond - Clauberg died of a stroke in custody in August 1957 . He was very obese at just 155 cm tall and was considered an alcoholic. Because there were doubts about a natural death, an autopsy was carried out by the Forensic Medicine Institute in Kiel. It resulted in "beginning softening of the brain" ( encephalomalacia ).

Publications (selection)

  • The corpus luteum hormone. In: Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie. Volume 54, 1930, pp. 7-19.
  • On the physiology and pathology of the sex hormones, in particular the hormone of the corpus luteum. 1st part: The biological test for the luteohormone (the specific hormone of the corpus luteum) in infantile rabbits. In: Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie. Volume 54, 1930, pp. 2757-2770.
  • The female sex hormones in their relationship to the genital cycle and the anterior pituitary gland. Berlin 1933.
  • Internal secretion of the ovaries and placenta. Leipzig 1937 (= informal treatises from the area of ​​the Inner Secretion , 2).

literature

  • Helmut Grosch, Carl Clauberg and the population policy of National Socialism , in: Eckhard Heesch (ed.), Healing Art in Disastrous Times, Frankfurt / M. 1993
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer 16048. The time of National Socialism ). 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. 3. Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, ISBN 3-596-14906-1 .
  • Alexander Mitscherlich , Fred Mielke: Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial . Fischer Vlg. For medicine, Heidelberg 1960. ISBN 3-596-22003-3 , 16th edition 2008.
  • Jürgen Peter: The Nuremberg Medical Trial as reflected in its processing based on the three document collections by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke. Münster 1994. 2nd edition 1998.
  • Till Bastian : Terrible doctors. Medical crimes in the Third Reich . Original edition, 3rd edition, Beck, Munich 2001, Becksche series 1113, ISBN 3-406-44800-3 .
  • Till Bastian: Auschwitz and the 'Auschwitz Lie'. Mass murder and falsification of history. , CH Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-43155-0 .
  • Hans-Joachim Lang : The women of Block 10: Medical experiments in Auschwitz . Hoffmann and Campe, 2011, ISBN 978-3-455-50222-0 .
  • Robert Jay Lifton : Doctors in the Third Reich , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1988 (Original edition: RJ Lifton, The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York 1986), ISBN 3-608-93121-X .
  • Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz. Ullstein, Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-548-33014-2 .
  • Eduard de Wind: The experimental block, in Hans Günther Adler , Hermann Langbein, Ella Lingens-Reiner eds .: Auschwitz. Certificates and reports. 6th edition. Federal Agency for Civic Education BpB, Bonn 2014 pp. 174–178.
  • Bruno Baum : Resistance in Auschwitz. (New edition) 2nd edition. 1962. Congress, Berlin (documents about and by C .: pp. 35 to 45, with several documents, including from the Nuremberg trials ).
  • Andreas Eichmüller: No general amnesty. The criminal prosecution of Nazi crimes in the early Federal Republic . Oldenbourg, Munich 2012 ISBN 978-3-486-70412-9 , pp. 135–142 Google Books (excerpts online)
  • Lydia Sliwinski: The significant other in the biography of the concentration camp doctor Prof. Dr. med. Carl Clauberg - a biographical reconstruction. Dissertation at the Philosophical Faculty of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (2017) ( Online , pdf, 264 MB).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Till Bastian: Auschwitz and the 'Auschwitz lie'. Mass murder and falsification of history. , CH Beck, Munich 1997, p. 55 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d Carl Clauberg - curriculum vitae ( Memento from October 31, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ a b c Jürgen Peter: The Nuremberg Medical Trial as reflected in its processing based on the three document collections by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke. Münster 1994., p. 238f
  4. ↑ a b c d e Till Bastian: Terrible Doctors. Medical crimes in the Third Reich. Nuremberg 1995, p. 86.
  5. ↑ Hans Heinz Simmer , Jochen Suss: The gestagen test on infantile rabbits. The invention of Willard M. Allen and its application by Carl Clauberg. A contribution to the problem of eponyms. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 399-416; here: p. 399 f. and 403 ff.
  6. ↑ Hans Heinz Simmer , Jochen Suss: The gestagen test on infantile rabbits. The invention of Willard M. Allen and its application by Carl Clauberg. A contribution to the problem of eponyms. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 399-416; here: pp. 409-412.
  7. ↑ Helga Satzinger, Adolf Butenandt, Hormone and Gender, in: Wolfgang Schieder, Achim Trunk, Adolf Butenandt and the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, Wallsteinverlag 2004 p. 102, cf. Schering (2) in the Sybodo Museum, Innsbruck.
  8. ↑ Medicine. Commun. Schering Heft 8, Nov. 1933, p. 209, cf. Schering (4) in the Sybodo Museum, Innsbruck.
  9. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 94.
  10. ^ Robert Jay Lifton: Doctors in the Third Reich , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1988, p. 312.
  11. ↑ Helmut Grosch, Carl Clauberg and the population policy of National Socialism , in: Eckhard Heesch (ed.), Healing Art in Disastrous Times. Frankfurt / M. 1993, p. 97
  12. ↑ Carola Sachse (ed.): The connection to Auschwitz. Life sciences and human experiments at Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. Documentation of a symposium . Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2003 (= History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism, Volume 6), ISBN 3-89244-699-7 , p. 137 f.
  13. ↑ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. , Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 438f.
  14. ↑ Hans-Joachim Lang: The women of Block 10. Medical experiments in Auschwitz , Hamburg 2011, pp. 115-131.
  15. ↑ Experiments: Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg ( Memento from January 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) , State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau ; together with other documents also in Bruno Baum: Resistance in Auschwitz, exp. Congress edition, Berlin 1957, 1962, p. 41
  16. ↑ Medical experiments in Auschwitz. Clauberg and the women from Block 10. In: Arte Geschichte. Accessed January 31, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Medical experiments in Auschwitz. In: ARD program. January 21, 2020, accessed January 31, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Disease names from Nazi doctors taz, January 3, 2018
  19. ↑ Hermann Langbein in a letter to Maria Stromberger v. November 8, 1955 [1] (PDF; 2.3 MB) and note 262
  20. ↑ Prof. K. Tietze, cit. according to Helmut Grosch, Carl Clauberg and the population policy of National Socialism , in: Eckhard Heesch (ed.), Healing Art in Disastrous Times . Frankfurt / M. 1993, p. 117
  21. ↑ Ralph Giordano: If Hitler had won the war. The plans of the Nazis after the final victory , Hamburg 1989, p. 173
  22. ↑ Jürgen Peter: The Nuremberg Medical Trial as reflected in its processing based on the three document collections of Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke. Münster 1994., p. 243.
  23. ^ Andreas Eichmüller: No general amnesty , 2012, p. 141.
  24. ↑ de Wind quotes in detail letters from his wife, who, as a prisoner, describes the human experiments of Clauberg from direct observation.
personal data
SURNAME Clauberg, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gynecologist, SS doctor
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Witzhelden - Wupperhof
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1957
Place of death Kiel