Rudolf Brachtel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rudolf Adalbert Brachtel (born April 22, 1909 in Gaya ; †  1988 ) was a German internist . As SS-Hauptsturmführer he was employed as a concentration camp doctor in the Dachau concentration camp .

biography

Brachtel received his doctorate in medicine and worked as an internist from 1938 . He then learned the examination method of liver puncture from Wilhelm Nonnenbruch in Frankfurt am Main . Brachtel (SS-No. 327.556), who was drafted into the Waffen-SS in November 1939 , worked as a doctor in the Dachau concentration camp from April 1941 to February 1943. In Dachau he headed the X-ray department, was Claus Schilling's assistant for a year in the malaria research station and headed a tuberculosis ward. His experiments on concentration camp prisoners included infection with malaria, performing liver punctures for experimental purposes, and participating in hypothermia experiments. In addition, according to the former concentration camp inmate Walter Neff , Brachtel is said to have ordered the selection of sick concentration camp inmates for the gassing facilities.

After the end of the Second World War , he was indicted on November 24, 1947 in a subsidiary trial of the Dachau main trial as part of the Dachau trials together with the chief chaplain of the infirmary Karl Zimmermann . Infectious jaundice was rampant in the Dachau camp in 1942. According to witnesses, he is said to have punctured around 180 inmates. According to his own statement, he had made about 80 punctures that were only diagnostic. Brachtel, like Zimmermann, was acquitted on December 11, 1947 for lack of evidence.

Brachtel then worked as a resident doctor in the Gießen area .

Contemporary witness reports

  • Eugene Ost, who worked as a district clerk in the Dachau infirmary, noted the following two deaths. According to Ost, Brachtel is said to have removed the two index cards of the deceased.
  1. Johann Pausch, inmate No. 24.351, suffered from jaundice on June 6, 1942, liver puncture by Brachtel on June 7, died on June 7
  2. Max Latowsky, inmate No. 15,534, punctured on June 18, 1942, died on June 30. Cause of death according to Claus Schilling : liver atrophy (loss of liver tissue due to a state of hunger).
  • According to Stanislav Zámečník , who worked as a district keeper, Brachtel is also said to have punctured healthy prisoners and thus carried out medical experiments. The tissue that was removed with the help of a trocar was forwarded to an institute in Munich.
  • The former prisoner and doctor František Bláha had to work as a dissector in the infirmary.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich : Who was what before and after 1945. , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 68
  2. ↑ Robert Sigel: In the interests of justice. The Dachau war crimes trials 1945-48. , Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 79–83
    Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. , Frankfurt am Main, 1997, 32 and 36f.
  3. ↑ See Ernst-Robert Grawitz : infectious hepatitis, and Prof. Eugen Haagen in Natzweiler.
  4. ↑ United States vs. Rudolf Adalbert Brachtel et al. - Case 000-50-2-103 litigation documents in English (pdf; 630 kB)
    Robert Sigel: In the interests of justice. The Dachau war crimes trials 1945-48. , Frankfurt am Main 1992, pp. 79-83
  5. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 68
  6. ^ Eugene Ost: "The Malaria Experimental Station in the Dachau Concentration Camp", Dachauer Hefte No. 4, pp. 174-189.
  7. ^ Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002, p. 284
  8. ^ František Bláha: Medicina na scesti. Praha, 1946, pp. 94-95.
personal data
SURNAME Brachtel, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brachtel, Rudolf Adalbert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concentration camp doctor in Dachau
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Gaya
DATE OF DEATH 1988