Fritz Fischer (physician)

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Fritz Fischer as a defendant in Nuremberg

Fritz Ernst Fischer (born October 5, 1912 in Berlin-Tegel , † 2003 in Ingelheim am Rhein ) was a German surgeon and Sturmbannführer of the SS . He was convicted in the Nuremberg medical trials for human experiments in the Ravensbrück concentration camp .

Life

Before his career in the SS, Fischer worked as an assistant to Berthold Ostertag at the Rudolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin . He joined the SS in February 1934 and the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 . Two years later he was transferred to the Waffen SS and assigned to an SS hospital in Hohenlychen . After receiving his medical license on January 15, 1938 and doctorate on July 8, 1938, he worked there from November 1939 as an assistant doctor to Karl Gebhardt , who later became the senior clinician of the Reichsarzt SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz . In June 1941 Fischer moved to the SS Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler , but returned to Hohenlychen in the same year. In the Ravensbrück concentration camp, he carried out various sulfonamide experiments on the women imprisoned there. In May 1943 he left the concentration camp and went to the front. After being wounded and amputated his right arm (August 18, 1944), he was appointed as a doctor at the Charité in Berlin in December 1944 and returned to Hohenlychen in April 1945.

Fischer received a life sentence at the Nuremberg doctor trial on August 20, 1947 for his sulfonamide experiments as well as attempts at bone, muscle, nerve renewal and bone transplantation; his defender there was the future CSU politician Alfred Seidl . The military tribunal was commuted to 15 years imprisonment on January 31, 1951 by the American High Commissioner John Jay McCloy . On April 1, 1954, Fischer was released early from the Landsberg War Crimes Prison .

He started a second career as a research assistant at the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim . In an interrogation from 1946, Fischer justified his actions as follows:

During this time I was a soldier under a very high boss who had a very strong personality. I was informed in a clear order that the head of state had ordered these experiments on an urgent question of practical medicine at the front.

Fritz Fischer was married and has three children, two sons and a daughter.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fischer, Fritz Ernst (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German surgeon and Sturmbannführer of the SS
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin Tegel
DATE OF DEATH 2003
Place of death Ingelheim am Rhein