Friedrich Karl Wilhelm

Friedrich Karl Wilhelm in April 1947

Friedrich Karl Wilhelm (* March 6, 1890 ; † November 26, 1948 in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison ) was SS-Untersturmführer and was employed as a senior medical officer in Buchenwald concentration camp .

Life

Wilhelm, a member of the SS , was assigned to the Buchenwald concentration camp as an SS medical officer from September 1939 at the latest. From January 1941 to April 1945 Wilhelm was the senior medical officer in the prisoner infirmary of the Buchenwald concentration camp. According to Eugen Kogon , a former Buchenwald prisoner, Wilhelm is said to have been heavily dependent on alcohol and was nicknamed "the old Willem" in the camp. In the first quarter of 1945, Wilhelm and three other nurses are said to have killed 61 inmates using poison injections in Block 61 every day.

“Once a prison orderly led a sick person to the bathroom; Wilhelm saw her and shouted at the nurse: 'What are you thinking of bathing such a wreck? We'll make soap out of that! ' He wrote down the number of the patient who was promptly transferred that evening. "

After the end of the war, Wilhelm and 30 other accused were indicted by a US military court in the main Buchenwald trial , which took place as part of the Dachau trials . Wilhelm was accused of killing Allied prisoners by injecting poison. Wilhelm himself appealed to an orderly emergency and remarked in court that the prisoners killed by means of the injections would have died anyway and that, from a medical point of view, he would still do so today; in this way he would have created capacities for other sick inmates in the inmate infirmary. On August 14, 1947 Wilhelm was sentenced to death by hanging due to the extent of his deeds for "helping and participating in the operations of the Buchenwald concentration camp" . Wilhelm was executed on November 26, 1948 in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison .

swell

Buchenwald main trial: Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), November 1947 Original document in English (PDF file ; 17.4 MB)

literature

Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich : Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8
Eugen Kogon : The SS State: The System of the German Concentration Camps . Komet, Frechen 2000, ISBN 3-89836-107-1 (first 1947).

Individual evidence

↑ See Buchenwald main process: Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), November 1947, pp. 89f.
Eugen Kogon: The SS state. The system of the German concentration camps , Munich, 1974, pp. 143 and 147
↑ quoted in: Eugen Kogon: Der SS-Staat. The system of the German concentration camps , Munich, 1974, p. 147
↑ See Buchenwald main process: Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), November 1947, pp. 89f.

personal data
SURNAME	Wilhelm, Friedrich Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wilhelm, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German SS medic in Buchenwald concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH	March 6, 1890
DATE OF DEATH	November 26, 1948
Place of death	Landsberg War Crimes Prison

[1] See Buchenwald main process: Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), November 1947, pp. 89f.
Eugen Kogon: The SS state. The system of the German concentration camps , Munich, 1974, pp. 143 and 147

[2] quoted in: Eugen Kogon: Der SS-Staat. The system of the German concentration camps , Munich, 1974, p. 147

[3] See Buchenwald main process: Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), November 1947, pp. 89f.