Eugene Gildemeister

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Eugen Gildemeister (born October 28, 1878 in Bromberg ; † May 8, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German bacteriologist and President of the Robert Koch Institute . Gildemeister was involved in the typhus tests carried out on prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp .

Life

After completing his school career, Gildemeister studied at the universities of Greifswald and Breslau . He completed his studies in 1902 with a doctorate to become Dr. med. from. Gildemeister then worked at the hygiene institutes in Breslau and Poznan . Gildemeister was employed as a department head at the Royal Hygiene Institute in Poznan from 1913 until he moved to the Reich Health Office in Berlin in 1915 . There he initially headed the bacteriological department and became senior councilor and in 1918 adjunct professor . In addition, Gildemeister was the publisher of the “Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie”.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists was Gildemeister early July 1935 Managing Director and Vice President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). He was also President of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology from 1935 to 1945 . The NSDAP stepped Gildemeister at the 1938th He was also a member of the Nazi teachers ' and Nazi doctors' association. From 1939 Gildemeister was a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . From 1942 Gildemeister was President of the RKI and Vice President of the Reich Health Office. In 1939, Gildemeister was co-editor of the standard medical work “Manual of Virus Diseases” together with Eugen Haagen and Otto Waldmann .

Gildemeister played a key role in the decision and planning of pseudo-medical experiments by the RKI on prisoners in the Buchenwald, Natzweiler , Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps . Gildemeister and Haagen were involved in obtaining a typhus vaccine and competed with other manufacturers. On March 3, 1942, Gildemeister witnessed the infection of 145 prisoners with typhus in the typhus experiment station in Buchenwald concentration camp . In this series of experiments, the local doctor Erwin Ding-Schuler infected himself with typhus. When Gildemeister and the department head for tropical medicine at the RKI Gerhard Rose visited the Buchenwald typhus station two weeks later, only Thing's deputy, Waldemar Hoven , was present there. Five prisoners died during this series of experiments alone, and a total of 250 prisoners did not survive the series of typhus experiments. The aim of these human experiments was to develop an effective typhus vaccine.

From 1944 onwards, Gildemeister was still a member of the scientific advisory board of Karl Brandt , the authorized representative for health care . Gildemeister committed suicide after the battle for Berlin .

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The personal dictionary on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
  • Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. 3. Edition. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-14906-1 .
  • Wolfram Fischer: Exodus of Sciences from Berlin: Questions - Results - Desiderata. Academy of Sciences in Berlin. de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, ISBN 9783110139457 .
  • Volker Klimpel: Doctors Death: Unnatural and Violent Death in nine chapters and a biographical appendix. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-2769-8 .
  • Alexander Mitscherlich , Fred Mielke: Medicine without humanity: documents of the Nuremberg medical trial. Fischer, Heidelberg 1960, ISBN 3-596-22003-3 .
  • Thomas Werther: Typhus research in the German Reich 1914–1945. Studies on the relationship between science, industry and politics with special consideration of IG Farben. Inaugural dissertation at the Philipps University of Marburg. Wiesbaden 2004, p. 131. ( online , PDF file; 1.08 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Volker Klimpel: Doctors Death: Unnatural and violent death in nine chapters and a biographical appendix. Würzburg 2005, p. 117.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 184.
  3. ^ Directory of the deceased members of the Leopoldina since its foundation in 1652 ( Memento from May 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.8 MB)
  4. ^ Wolfram Fischer: Exodus of Sciences from Berlin: Questions - Results - Desiderata , Academy of Sciences in Berlin, 1994, p. 445.
  5. ↑ Thomas Werther: Typhus research in the German Reich 1914–1945. Studies on the relationship between science, industry and politics with special consideration of IG Farben. Inaugural dissertation at the Philipps University of Marburg. Wiesbaden 2004, p. 45.
  6. ↑ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 289ff.
personal data
SURNAME Gildemeister, Eugene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bacteriologist who was involved in carrying out typhus tests on prisoners in Buchenwald concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Bromberg
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1945
Place of death Berlin