Helmut Rühl (doctor)

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Helmut Rühl (born January 14, 1918 in Hachenburg ; † unknown) was a German medic and junior doctor in the Air Force who was involved in medical crimes during the Nazi era .

Life

Rühl finished his school career in Kassel in 1937 with the Abitur . After that he was employed by the Reich Labor Service (RAD) for six months and did his military service for 18 months. From the spring of 1939 graduated Rühl a study of medicine at the universities of Bonn , Jena and Marburg , which he attended the State University of Strasbourg in June 1943 with promotion to Dr. med. completed. He then did military service as a doctor in the Air Force from August 1943 to January 1944.

From January 21, 1944, Rühl was assistant to his doctoral supervisor Otto Bickenbach in the biological department at the research institute of the medical faculty in Strasbourg. In the summer of 1944, Rühl and the physician Friedrich Letz Bickenbach assisted in his poison gas experiments on inmates of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . At least 16 prisoners were exposed to the poison gas in a gas chamber in the Natzweiler concentration camp, at least four of whom died as a result of these attempts. Rühl's job was u. a. During the attempts to measure the steadily increasing concentration of the gas in the 20 m 3 gas chamber.

After the end of the Second World War, Rühl became a city ​​doctor in Bochum in 1946 . A year later Rühl was taken into British internment custody. Before being extradited to France, Rühl was able to escape from prison in 1948. Rühl was finally sentenced to death in absentia for "bringing poison". In the early 1960s, Rühl was hired as a medical officer for the Oberkreisdirektor of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis and retired there as a senior medical director in January 1983.

Investigations against Rühl, which had been initiated in the meantime, were discontinued by the Bochum public prosecutor's office and reopened in February 1980 following a criminal complaint against Rühl. Files from French holdings were also used in the course of the investigation. In the preliminary investigation, Rühl admitted his involvement in the poison gas tests - although at the time they were carried out, he was unaware that the prisoners were not protected. The proceedings against Rühl were discontinued in 1984 because he was unable to stand trial.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Florian Schmaltz: Warfare research in National Socialism. On the cooperation between Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, the military and industry , Göttingen 2005, p. 544
  2. ↑ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. , Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 356
  3. ↑ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. , Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 388
  4. ↑ a b Human experiments - Unbridled malice . In: Der Spiegel from November 14, 1983, issue 46, pp. 86-90
  5. ↑ a b Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich - Who was what before and after 1945 , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 513f
personal data
SURNAME Rühl, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medic
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Hachenburg
DATE OF DEATH 20th century or 21st century