Kurt Blome

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Kurt Blome as a defendant in the Nuremberg medical trial (1946/1947)

Friedrich Ludwig Kurt Blome (born January 31, 1894 in Bielefeld , † October 10, 1969 in Dortmund ) was a German doctor , officer , National Socialist and anti-Semitic politician , member of the Reichstag of the NSDAP and Reichsärzteführer . He was a specialist in skin and venereal diseases . His areas of medical practice were cancer and biological weapons

Life

The early years

After attending primary and secondary school in Dortmund , Blome graduated from high school in 1912 and then studied medicine at the universities of Göttingen , Münster , Gießen and Rostock . In 1912 he became a member of the Holzminda fraternity in Göttingen . In the summer semester of 1914 he moved to Rostock, where he began his military service on April 1, 1914 as a one-year volunteer with the Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Fusilier Regiment "Kaiser Wilhelm" No. 90 and subsequently took part in the First World War from August 2, 1914 to 1918 , mainly as a lieutenant in the infantry regiment "Bremen" (1st Hanseatic) No. 75 . Most recently he was lieutenant in the reserve and deputy battalion leader. He experienced the end of the war due to an injury in March 1918 in a hospital in Bremen . From 1919 he temporarily continued his medical studies in Münster and Gießen.

The time in Rostock

In 1918/1919 he became a Freikorps member in Rostock and a member of the Escherich organization , the Ehrhardt naval brigade and the Consul organization . In March 1920 he was actively involved in the Kapp Putsch , where he was wounded. He was also involved as a time volunteer in the Reichswehr Brigade 9 . In 1920 he passed his medical state examination in Rostock. Blome was there in 1921 with a work on the behavior of bacteria in electrical currents to the Dr. med. PhD . After completing his studies, he became a medical intern in Münster and Gießen, then an assistant doctor and senior physician at the Dermatological Institute of the University of Rostock . He was an early member of the NSDAP , which he joined in 1922. After the NSDAP was banned in November 1923, he was dismissed from the University of Rostock for Nazi activities. He was also a member of the Front Warrior Association and the Tannenberg Association . From 1924 to 1934 he then ran his own practice as a specialist in skin and venereal diseases.

In 1924 he belonged to the DVFP and was a co-founder of the Völkische Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mecklenburg. As part of the DNVP and the Völkische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, he was a member of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin state parliament from 1924 to 1926 .

In 1931 he rejoined the NSDAP ( membership number 590.233) and became a member of the SA , 1932 SA-Gausturmarzt, on July 1, 1932 SA-Sanitäts-Oberführer and then Medical Brigade Leader, later also Gaureferent for the medical system in the Gauleitung Mecklenburg-Lübeck NSDAP and district chairman of the NSDÄB in the Mecklenburg-Lübeck district of the NSDAP. In 1934 he became district manager of the Office for Public Health of the Gaus Mecklenburg-Lübeck of the NSDAP.

Career in the time of National Socialism

Kurt Blome in the time of National Socialism

In 1934 he was appointed to the Main Office for Public Health in Berlin and was appointed representative of the Fuehrer's deputy for the exceptional provisions of the Nuremberg Laws. From March 1, 1935 to February 28, 1936, he was still in charge of the business of the group doctor of the SA group Berlin-Brandenburg (Berlin). During this time he was also employed as a doctor for the Reich Insurance Company for salaried employees and as an adjutant in the main office of the German Red Cross . After he was appointed in January 1935 by the "Reichsärzteführer" Gerhard Wagner as the representative for medical training and thus head of medical training and medical training in the Third Reich , Blome had been a member of the Reich Committee for the Protection of the German since February 8, 1936 Blood . Around this time he also became a lecturer at the driving school of the German Medical Association , where the first “compulsory training courses” began in autumn 1935. On November 9, 1937 he was promoted to SA medical brigade leader ( OSAF ). From 1938 he was also President of the Permanent Bureau of the International Academy for Advanced Medical Education. From March 1, 1938 to November 8, 1940, he was also deployed as a medical liaison officer for the OSAF to the German Labor Front. In April 1938 he was unsuccessfully proposed to the Reichstag election. In 1939 Blome became deputy head of the National Socialist Medical Association and general doctor . From April 20, 1939 he was Deputy Head of the Main Office for Public Health and, from April 22, 1939, Reich Main Office Head of the NSDAP and Deputy Reich Medical Officer.

In the “ last electoral period ”, Blome was a member of the Reichstag from April 1939, replacing the late MP Gerhard Wagner . On August 29, 1939, two days before the attack on Poland , he succeeded Hans Deuschl until August 1944 as deputy to the Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti . In October 1939 he took over the editing of the monthly magazine Ziel und Weg. The health management . From 1940, Blome was the division manager for genealogical and racial maintenance in the Reich Research Council. From January 1942 to 1945 he was also the department head of the Reich Research Council for Cancer Research. From November 9, 1940 to 1945 he was employed as a liaison leader of the OSAF to the main office for public health of the NSDAP and on January 30, 1941 SA-Sanitäts-Gruppenführer (OSAF).

In 1942 Blome was involved in a plan to murder 35,000 Poles suffering from tuberculosis in a gassing , but objected in a letter of November 18 to Gauleiter Arthur Greiser for reasons of secrecy: “If the guarantee of complete secrecy were given, it could to put concerns aside ”.

On April 30, 1943, Blome became authorized representative for cancer research , which according to Ernst Klee was a "cover word for bio-weapons", as well as a member of a working group lightning rods , which should serve in plain language to prepare a "biological warfare". Blome was thus the head of the Central Institute for Cancer Research in Nesselstedt near Posen and a member of the "Blitzforschung" working group. The following research projects were coordinated by Blome:

  1. "Nesselstedt" (Blome) - declared with the "highest priority level"
  2. "Development of an aircraft spreader for litter-like insecticides and fungicides (especially for combating malaria)" (Colonel von Borstell) - classified as 'secret'
  3. "Combating the Colorado potato beetle" (Dr. M. Schwartz)
  4. "Influence of bacterial metabolic products on cancerous growth" (lecturer Dr. Fr. Trense)
  5. "Development of a low-raw material shipping container for bacterial cultures" ( Eugen Gildemeister )
  6. "Detection of crop pesticides. Soil disinfection "(Dr. Seel)
  7. "Rewarming with general cooling of the human body, healing for partial frostbite, cold adaptation of the human body" ( Sigmund Rascher )
  8. "X-ray early diagnosis of gastric cancer" (Prof. Hohlfelder)

In Erhard Geißler's book (see literature) there are several references (from Nazi and American doctors) that Blome is just an old party member with no specialist knowledge with regard to B-weapons, whose work is limited to administrative matters.

He was promoted to senior service leader of the NSDAP and in 1944 a member of the scientific advisory staff of Karl Brandt , the authorized representative for the health service.

As the Red Army came within a few kilometers of Posen in January 1945, Blome and his team fled. He received from Heinrich Himmler instructed in Geraberg under the guise of an "Institute for Frontier Areas of medicine" laboratories for Pestforschung build. In addition to his family, Blome took important documents, some scientific equipment, and special containers in which his plague cultures were located. When Thuringia was occupied by American troops in April 1945, an area in Geraberg with unfinished research buildings fell into their hands. Most of the documents were probably destroyed by Blome, including records of plague attempts on people. During the search of the local school building, the troops came across papers from Blomes Adlatus Karl Josef Gross.

Life after 1945

Nuremberg medical trial

On May 17, 1945, Blome was arrested in Munich, as US experts in biological warfare as part of the Alsos mission and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) were looking for him. Blome was transferred to the Twelfth Army Group Interrogation Center for questioning. Since there were numerous documents in which Blome - among others with Himmler - discussed the need to carry out human experiments in order to force research into the plague, he was indicted at the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial on October 25, 1946. Blome himself argued in court that the intention to conduct human experiments without them ever being realized is not a crime. Furthermore, Blomes defense attorney tried to make an impact by presenting examples of human experiments involving the US Army. So let the defense z. For example, an article in Life magazine from 1945 describing experiments on 800 prison inmates by the American Office of Scientific Research and Development ( Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study ) was read out in court. Another problem for the prosecution was that no witnesses were available. Although there was an incriminating testimony against Blome by Walter Paul Schreiber during the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals , Schreiber was under the control of Soviet authorities, who refused to interrogate them further.

Blome was acquitted on August 20, 1947 after the trial before the 1st American Military Court, which lasted from December 9, 1946 to July 20, 1947. The court ruled that Blome may have been preparing experiments on humans in connection with biological warfare, but the existing records do not disclose this or that he actually carried out such experiments. After he was denazified by the Spruchkammer in Schwelm on June 10, 1948 , he settled as a specialist in Dortmund in his own practice for skin and venereal diseases.

Operation Paperclip and work at Camp King

In March 1951, Blome was visited by Charles McPherson, an officer of the US Special Projects Team, to offer him a contract as part of Operation Paperclip. During the recruitment interview, Blome indicated that he had worked in a top-secret biological weapons program as part of Operation Matchbox , the UK equivalent of Operation Paperclip, and expressed interest. Blome then committed on August 10, 1951 to work on an American intelligence program for the Army Chemical Corps in Project 63 . However, this did not materialize because the American consul in Frankfurt am Main refused Blome's entry into the USA.

In anticipation of his emigration, Blome had already handed over his practice in Dortmund to another doctor and the US Special Projects team feared that word of Blome's negative experiences would get around among German scientists and make further recruitment for Project Paperclip difficult. From December 1951 he was given a position (Contract DoD DA-91-501) as a successor to Walter Paul Schreiber as a doctor in the US secret service in an American military hospital at the European Intelligence Center (Camp King) , the American European command in Oberursel , assigned. There he worked on a project that is referred to in his 'foreign scientist case file' as "Army 1952, Project 1975" and has not yet been declassified. Blome had previously worked on a “special cause” for the US government at Camp King.

After finishing his work at Camp King, he returned to Dortmund and became a specialist again in Hagen and Dortmund after being denazified by a German chamber .

In the Federal Republic he was involved in the German party , for which he ran in the Bundestag constituency Dortmund III in 1953 in vain for the German Bundestag . He died in Dortmund in 1969.

Awards

Publications

  • Literature by and about Kurt Blome in the catalog of the German National Library
  • About the behavior of bacteria in an electric current. Dissertation University of Rostock 1921.
  • Since October 1939: Editor of the monthly magazine Ziel und Weg. The health management.
  • Cancer research and the fight against cancer. In: goal and path. The health management. No. 11, 1940, pp. 406-412.
  • Doctor in battle: experiences and thoughts. Barth, Leipzig 1942 (listed in the Berlin Nazi bibliography since October 24, 1941).

literature

  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: A – E. Heidelberg 1996, pp. 102-103.
  • Ernst Kienast (ed.): The Greater German Reichstag 1938, fourth electoral period. R. v. Decker's Verlag, G. Schenck, June 1943 edition, Berlin.
  • Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , pp. 45–46.
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, p. 54.
  • Erhard Geißler : Biological weapons - not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1915 to 1945. Münster 1998, ISBN 3-8258-2955-3 .
  • Friedrich Hansen: Biological warfare in the Third Reich. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993 ( Review: Dirty business . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1993, pp. 227-233 ( Online - Oct. 25, 1993 ). )
  • Thomas Maibaum: The leadership school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007, dissertation. PDF
  • Gabriele Moser: From Deputy to "Reichsbevollmächtierter" and Defendant at the Nuremberg Medical Trials: Dr. Kurt Blome and Cancer Research in National Socialist Germany , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart (Hrsg.): Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, pp. 199-220.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k E. Kienast (Ed.): Der Großdeutsche Reichstag 1938, IV. Electoral period. R. v. Decker's Verlag, G. Schenck, June 1943 edition, Berlin.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad Joachim Lilla: Extras in Uniform - The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945 . Düsseldorf 2004, pp. 45-46.
  3. ↑ See Kurt Blome's first matriculation in the Rostock matriculation portal . A second matriculation took place in the winter semester of 1919/20.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Thomas Maibaum: The leadership school of the German medical profession Alt-Rehse , University of Hamburg, Hamburg 2007. Dissertation ( pdf )
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 54.
  6. ↑ Kurt Blome: Doctor in the fight (1942), pp. 276–290.
  7. ^ Quote from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, p. 54.
  8. ↑ Quotes from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, p. 54.
  9. ↑ Erhard Geissler: Biological weapons - not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1915 to 1945. P. 401.
  10. ↑ Erhard Geissler: Biological weapons - not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1915 to 1945. P. 389.
  11. ↑ ALSOS Mission, Interrogation of Blome, Director of German BW Activities, July 30, 1945, NARA RG 319 Records of Army Staff, Box 22a, files of the Nuremberg Trials, A56-60, p. 4666
  12. ↑ Erhard Geißler: Biological warfare in the Third Reich . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 1993, ISBN 978-3-593-34988-6 .
  13. ^ A b Egmont R. Koch, Michael Wech: Code name artichoke - The secret human experiments of the CIA . Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-442-15281-0 , pp. 43-44 .
  14. ^ Annie Jacobsen: Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America . Little, Brown and Company, Inc. (2014) p. 77
  15. ^ Annie Jacobsen: Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America . Little, Brown and Company, Inc. (2014) pp. 273-274
  16. ↑ "It may well be that the defendant Blome was preparing to experiment on human being in connection with bacteriological warfare, but the record fails to disclose that fact, or that he ever actually conducted the experiments." Annie Jacobsen: Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. Little, Brown and Company, 2014, p. 274.
  17. ↑ Oliver Volmerich: How a leading Nazi doctor regained a foothold as a physician in Dortmund after the war. In: Ruhr news. October 6, 2019.
  18. ^ Annie Jacobsen: Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America . Little, Brown and Company, Inc. (2014) pages 342-346
  19. ↑ See project Paperclip and MKULTRA
  20. ↑ Erhard Geissler: Biological weapons - not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1915 to 1945. p. 757.
  21. ^ Annie Jacobsen: Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America . Little, Brown and Company, Inc. (2014) pp. 342-346, 364, 529
  22. ↑ Erhard Geissler: Biological weapons - not in Hitler's arsenals. Biological and toxin weapons in Germany from 1915 to 1945. P. 758.
personal data
SURNAME Blome, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blome, Friedrich Ludwig Kurt (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, deputy NS-Reichsärzteführer
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Bielefeld
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1969
Place of death Dortmund