Siegfried Ruff

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Siegfried Ruff during the Nuremberg Trials

Siegfried Ruff (born February 19, 1907 in Friemersheim , † April 22, 1989 in Bonn ) was a German air force medic. Because of his experiments on people at the time of National Socialism , he was indicted in the Nuremberg medical trial.

Life

Ruff studied medicine at the University of Bonn and in Berlin and after completing his studies worked at the University Hospital Bonn until January 1934 . After his doctorate as Dr. med. From 1934 he was director of the Institute for Aviation Medicine of the German Research Institute for Aviation e. V. in Berlin-Adlershof . In 1937 he joined the NSDAP , followed by his habilitation a year later . He was a corresponding member of the German Academy of Aviation Research .

Siegfried Ruff testified on April 25, 1947 at the Nuremberg doctors' trial

Because of his experiments on humans - he was involved in the altitude tests in the Dachau concentration camp in 1942 - he was indicted in the Nuremberg doctors' trial. Ruff and the co-defendant Hans-Wolfgang Romberg were able to prove at the hearing that they had tried to bring the vacuum chamber back from the Dachau concentration camp as soon as possible after it had been found that Sigmund Rascher had experimented unscrupulously with it and accepted three deaths. He was acquitted on August 20, 1947 together with Georg Weltz and Romberg of the charges made in the indictment (War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity). He then conducted research in Heidelberg at the Aero Medical Center of the US Army together with the physicians Hermann Becker-Freyseng and Konrad Schäfer, who were also indicted in the Nuremberg medical trial . Ruff put a vacuum chamber back into operation there, in which 80 prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp died when attempting pressure during the Second World War .

Then Ruff founded a medical-diagnostic laboratory in Bonn and was also the chief physician at Lufthansa . From 1954 to 1965 he was head of the newly founded Institute for Aviation Medicine of the German Research Institute in Bonn. From 1952 he also taught as a professor at the University of Bonn. Afterwards he was involved in the development of the air force in an advisory capacity . From 1969 he was a board member of the German Research Institute for Aerospace . Investigations by the public prosecutor's office at the Munich II regional court against him, Weltz and Romberg were discontinued in 1959.

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The personal encyclopedia of the Third Reich - Who was what before and after 1945. 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 514.
  • Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. 3. Edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-14906-1 .
  • Alexander Mitscherlich, Fred Mielke (ed.): Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial. FiTb 332, Frankfurt 1960
  • Walter Habel (founder): Who is who? last in the 33rd edition, Verlag Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1994, ISBN 3-7950-2015-8 , p. 1123; in the 34th edition, 1995, ISBN 3-7950-2017-4 , in the Nekrolog on p. 1518.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 514
  2. ^ Report in the General-Anzeiger (Bonn) from Saturday, April 29, 1989, city edition Bonn, page 6 / Local
  3. ^ Statement by Siegfried Ruff on December 10, 1946 at the Nuremberg Trials Project ( Memento of the original from July 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
  4. ↑ Alexander Mitscherlich , Fred Mielke (ed.): Medicine without humanity. FiTb 332, Frankfurt 1960, p. 48.
  5. ↑ High price. In: Der Spiegel 12, 1985, pp. 66-69.
  6. ↑ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. Frankfurt am Main, 1997, p. 254.
  7. ↑ Commitment to censure . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1965, pp. 76 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Ruff under pressure . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1960, pp. 52 ( online ).
  9. ↑ 100 years of the Luftsportverein Bonn (PDF)
personal data
SURNAME Ruff, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German air force medic, concentration camp doctor, university professor
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Friemersheim
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1989
Place of death Bonn