Karl Josef Gross

Karl Josef Gross (also Joseph Carl Gross and other name variants; * December 12, 1907 in Bad Vellach in Carinthia ; † January 1, 1967 ) was an Austrian country doctor who carried out human experiments as SS-Sturmbannführer in Mauthausen concentration camp .

Life

Gross was initially taught by his father, the operator of the spa, and from 1920 attended the grammar school in Klagenfurt , where he graduated in 1927 . While still at school and then while studying medicine, he carried out extensive excavations in a Stone Age hunting cave. After receiving his doctorate in 1933, he became a spa doctor in his home town. Here he is said to have treated many destitute patients (including some from across the Yugoslav border) free of charge.

In January 1939 Gross volunteered for the Waffen SS and advanced to the position of Sturmbannführer . He first served as a troop doctor, but from May 1942 researched at the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS in Berlin, from where he moved to the Robert Koch Hospital in Vienna in June . From there, he tested vaccines and vaccines on behalf of the Behringwerke . a. against paratyphoid fever in prisoners in Mauthausen concentration camp. From 1943, at the instigation of Himmler, he was assigned to the Central Institute for Cancer Research in Nesselstedt (Polish: Pokrzywno ) near Posen , where he took over the management of the bacteriological department. On the one hand, it was a center for cancer research; on the other hand, the effect of vaccines was tested there on prisoners. The files with the names of 1,105 victims and the date and type of tests between February and April 1943 have been preserved. Were used vaccine (typhoid and paratyphoid A and B, tetanus vaccine ), by the colors IG were made, blood samples were in the University of Vienna studied.

After the war he worked as a doctor again. In 1947 he was briefly imprisoned for belonging to the SS. Since his practice no longer flourished afterwards, he lived in the family villa in Bad Vellach on his father's fortune.

literature

Egmont R. Koch, Michael Wech: alias artichoke . Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-570-00662-7
Friedrich Hans Ucik: Dr. med. Josef Carl Gross jun. In: Carinthia 191, 2001, pp. 73-82.
Ernst Klee : The personal encyclopedia on the Third Reich / Who was what before and after 1945 (see also the entry on Gross in https://www.hagalil.com/archiv/2005/01/einleitung.htm ).

Individual evidence

↑ The biography up to this point after Friedrich Hans Ucik: Dr. med. Josef Carl Gross jun. In: Carinthia 191, 2001, pp. 73–82, who does not want to find out anything more about the work as an SS doctor.
↑ ^a ^b Erhard Geißler: Biological weapons, not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1919 to 1945 (= studies on peace research. 13). LIT, Münster 1999, pp. 530-547.
^ Paul Wendling: Victims and Survivors of Nazi Human Experiments. Science and Suffering in the Nazi Holocaust. Bloomsbury, London 2015, p. 107.
↑ Friedrich Hans Ucik: Dr. med. Josef Carl Gross jun. In: Carinthia 191, 2001, p. 81.

personal data
SURNAME	Gross, Karl Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Great, Josef Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian doctor and SS-Sturmbannführer
DATE OF BIRTH	December 12, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bad Vellach
DATE OF DEATH	January 1, 1967

[1] The biography up to this point after Friedrich Hans Ucik: Dr. med. Josef Carl Gross jun. In: Carinthia 191, 2001, pp. 73–82, who does not want to find out anything more about the work as an SS doctor.

[Meixner-2] Erhard Geißler: Biological weapons, not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1919 to 1945 (= studies on peace research. 13). LIT, Münster 1999, pp. 530-547.

[3] Paul Wendling: Victims and Survivors of Nazi Human Experiments. Science and Suffering in the Nazi Holocaust. Bloomsbury, London 2015, p. 107.

[4] Friedrich Hans Ucik: Dr. med. Josef Carl Gross jun. In: Carinthia 191, 2001, p. 81.