Sigmund Rascher

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Sigmund Rascher (born February 12, 1909 in Munich ; † April 26, 1945 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German concentration camp doctor and mass murderer . For the public in the post-war period , especially in the US media, Rascher presented the prototype of the Nazi medical criminal . The human experiments that he carried out and planned to be fatal in the Dachau concentration camp were classified as inhuman and criminal by the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial . Rascher was shot on Himmler's orders a few days before the Dachau concentration camp was liberated .

Life

Sigmund Rascher was born in Munich in 1909 as the third child of the doctor Hanns-August Rascher, an older brother was the musician Sigurd Rascher (1907-2001). His father was a committed supporter of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner , had entered the Anthroposophical Society in 1913, took part in Steiner's first medicine course in 1921 and sent his son to a Waldorf school . In 1930 or 1931 (the information differs in two handwritten résumés) he graduated from high school in Constance. From 1933 he studied medicine in Freiburg , where he also joined the NSDAP . There are also two versions of the time of entry. Rascher insisted on March 1st, while May 1st can be found in the files. After the physics course , he worked with his now divorced father and with the anthroposophically oriented chemist Ehrenfried Pfeiffer in Dornach and studied in Switzerland. In 1934 he did three months of voluntary labor service in Switzerland.

In October 1934 he returned to Munich to study. In 1936 he passed the medical state examination there and received his doctorate. Rascher tried to combine science with a mystical holism , a way of working with which, according to the British medical historian Paul Weindling, he laid the foundation for all of his later deceptions. His doctoral thesis dealt with a pregnancy test , which was of great interest to contemporary hormone researchers. He was fixated on the idea that pregnancy hormones could be measured with a copper chloride crystal test . The procedure itself had been introduced by his former superior in Dornach, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. With his harmless fraudulent results, which the German biochemist Benno Müller-Hill assessed as charlatanism, he received a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

In May 1936 he joined the SA . From 1936 to 1939 he was an unpaid volunteer assistant in the surgical clinic of the Schwabing Hospital in Munich. Supported by a grant from the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (predecessor organization of the DFG ), he carried out anatomical studies on crystallography in connection with cancer research. He published his results in the Münchner Medizinischen Wochenschrift .

On October 11, 1939, he switched from the SA to the SS ; in the SA he had made it to the Rottenführer (Obergefreiten) by then. On April 20, 1941 he became SS-Untersturmführer and on November 9th SS-Hauptsturmführer . On December 2, 1943, Himmler enabled him to be released from the Luftwaffe and to serve in the Waffen SS .

His wife's Nazi connections

Karoline Diehl , nee Wiedemann, a former pop singer and widow of the theater director Oskar Diehl , offered her almost 16 years younger companion Rascher, due to her good contacts with Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , opportunities for advancement in the Nazi state. Karoline Diehl is said to have given Himmler shelter in the early phase of the NSDAP, personal contact was maintained. At her recommendation, Himmler received him personally for the first time on April 23, 1939. Shortly after, the 30-year Rascher was Professor Walther Wüst research task early diagnosis of cancer disease transmitted.

Due to the age difference, Himmler was initially against marrying the two, because a marriage with numerous children was not to be expected. Himmler's consent to marriage was necessary because of Rascher's SS membership.

After the second illegitimate child, Himmler finally approved the marriage. He supported the couple and, for example, transferred 165 RM per month after the second child. He also sent parcels with fruit, chocolate and other rarities to the growing family. Frau Rascher returned the favor with family photos and asked for Rascher's official position to be improved. Himmler liked one of these family photos so much that it was used as a cover for Nazi training material. When the Rascher family had their third addition to the family in 1941, Himmler asked two other SS doctors, Ernst-Robert Grawitz and Gregor Ebner , for their opinion on whether it was possible that a woman between the ages of 49 and 50 could still bear children.

The path to becoming an SS scientist

Cancer research

On May 1, 1939, Rascher was accepted into the Ahnenerbe . On the same day, he submitted a memorandum to Himmler in which he suggested researching cancer with five questions. In addition to questions related to his work in Munich, the connection between the use of artificial fertilizers and cancer in cows was to be investigated. Rascher also tried to produce cancer in white mice in an attempt to find an infectious agent to control rats. At Himmler's request, Rascher was also to record a long-term check of the blood count of “life imprisonment” so that a possible illness could be documented from the start. The findings from this should later enable an early diagnosis based on blood count results in other patients. The plan contradicted the official regulation of the time: The duration of protective custody could not be fixed, but should be checked every three months to see whether it was still necessary. A “lifelong” imprisonment was not officially foreseeable. Rascher's results should be recorded in a cancer registry , which should also include genealogical research and regional examinations.

In a modest setting, Rascher began his research in his private apartment, where he set up a laboratory for blood tests, among other things. On May 13, 1939, Himmler approved in writing that the Ahnenerbe would assume the costs, including for light and water. His fiancée Karoline Diehl lived in the same household, as did her friend Julie Muschler, who worked as a laboratory assistant and housekeeper.

A little later an article appeared in the magazine “Die Woche” about his brilliant successes in researching cancer diseases. Wolfram Sievers and Wüst were astonished because of the rapid success and the fact that Rascher was dubbed “Department Head of Ahnenerbe”.

Service in the Air Force

In August 1939, despite his SS membership in the Air Force , Rascher was called up to serve as a medical officer for the reserve with a place of employment at the Flak Artillery School Schongau . At the Luftwaffe he developed a test method “for the medical selection of soldiers who are suitable for spatial vision”, which was used in the selection for pilot training.

On December 1, 1940, he wrote to SS-Standartenführer Enno Lolling in the Dachau concentration camp. With reference to his task in cancer research in the context of the Ahnenerbest and on an order from Himmler, he asked that his laboratory assistant Muschler be given blood samples every week.

In 1941 the Luftwaffe tried to develop jet fighters that could reach greater altitudes. In the Battle of Britain (1940) it was unable to defeat its British adversary, the Royal Air Force . On the occasion of a thank you to Himmler for congratulations and flowers on the birth of his second son, Rascher formulated the following request:

“At the moment I am assigned to Luftgaukommando VII in Munich for a medical selection course. During this course, in which altitude research plays a very important role - due to the somewhat higher summit height of the English fighter planes - it was mentioned with great regret that unfortunately we have not yet been able to make any experiments with human material, as the experiments are very dangerous and nobody volunteers to do it. I therefore seriously ask the question: is there a possibility that two or three professional criminals can be made available by you for these experiments? [...] These experiments, in which the test subjects can of course die, would take place with my cooperation. "

Himmler was in Oslo at the time. His personal advisor Brandt replied that the Reichsführer would of course and gladly make prisoners available. He was transferred to the Munich Institute for Aviation Medicine, where he began the experiments in Dachau under the scientific supervision of Georg August Weltz . For the test preparations that began in December 1941, the Dachau camp barrack 5 was cleared and equipped with a pressure chamber borrowed from Berlin by the Berlin physiologist Siegfried Ruff . In addition, a dissecting room was set up. The first attempts were started in February 1942.

Height tests

The Luftwaffe and SS negotiated the modalities. It was agreed that the SS would provide the required number of prisoners. Their condition was that the experiments in Dachau were carried out under the supervision of the SS and that Rascher was involved. The experimental station was set up in Revierblock 5; the air force commanded the scientifically experienced Wolfgang Romberg and provided a mobile vacuum chamber that was set up between block 3 and block 5. The tests simulated parachute jumps from heights of 21 kilometers; it lasted from mid-February 1942 to mid-May 1942. The doctors Siegfried Ruff , Romberg and Rascher signed the final report with the test results.

In Romberg's absence, Rascher used the vacuum chamber for further, own research experiments: For example, he immediately dissected test subjects if breathing or heart activity had not yet stopped in order to gain new knowledge about processes in the human organism, such as the behavior of the brain, heart and lungs win. He only informed Himmler of these results. Walter Neff testified that Rascher had carried out experiments in Romberg's absence and also at night. According to Neff, there were 70 to 80 deaths.

Attempts at hypothermia

In the air war with England, the lives of many shot down planes ended in the cold waters of the North Sea or the English Channel. The Reich Air Force suggested that the altitude tests should also be followed up by research on hypothermia. In June 1942, Himmler commissioned Rascher to prepare hypothermia experiments. The “Seenot” research group was founded, headed by Professor Ernst Holzlöhner . Rascher and Air Force doctor Erich Finke were part of the team. From August to October 1942, the Luftwaffe researched physical behavior in cold weather, the efficiency of appropriate protective clothing and subsequent rescue options such as warm-up attempts. For the hypothermic experiments, test subjects were left naked for 9-14 hours in the freezing cold, their body temperature falling to 27 ° C, or they were placed in basins with icy water. Also Eleonore Baur , called Sister Pia , was present several times in the experiments.

After the official series of tests was completed in October 1942, Rascher continued the tests in order to “supplement the results”. Rascher justified this against Neff by saying that he needed further test results for his habilitation with Wilhelm Pfannenstiel . The title of the habilitation thesis should be “Experimental Investigations into the Phenomena During the Cooling of the Human Body”. For the experiments, Rascher benefited from the fact that the winter from 1942 to 1943 was particularly hard. When winter was drawing to a close, Rascher asked Himmler to be transferred to Auschwitz because it was colder there. The area is also larger, so that it attracts less attention there. "The test subjects roar when they are cold," Rascher wrote. In May 1943, Rascher's attempts were over. According to Walter Neff, 80 to 90 people were killed.

Attempts to stop bleeding

After the end of the hypothermia attempts, Rascher tried to find a new area of ​​responsibility. The chemist and prisoner Robert Feix had developed pectin-containing tablets as a hemostatic drug and patented them under the name Polygal . With Himmler's support, Rascher endeavored to use the drug more frequently in operations or to administer it prophylactically. Other SS medics, such as Professor Karl Gebhardt , were skeptical of the drug. Rascher first had to prove the effect of polygal. The tablets were given to inmates and used in operations. Rascher had inmates shot at and then swallowed Polygal tablets to prove that this could accelerate hemostasis .

At the Nuremberg doctor's trial, an uncle Raschers made the statement that he had visited his nephew in the camp and found a record of an attempt: four prisoners were shot, treated with polygal and dissected after death. Rascher's uncle testified that he was so shaken that he had not read the rest of the minutes.

The Luftwaffe fired Rascher in August 1943; he now had the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer .

Medicine crimes

Rascher's scientific results were kept under a kind of secrecy; because they contained many statistics on physiological details and autopsy findings of people who had died or were killed. Rascher's work was not accepted as a habilitation thesis at the universities of Munich, Marburg and Frankfurt. Professor August Hirt campaigned for Rascher to gain acceptance at the University of Strasbourg . That never happened, because Rascher was eventually charged in connection with his wife and her child abductions after Himmler's suspicion was aroused because she gave birth to three children despite her age (see below).

Rascher's attempts were the subject of the Nuremberg medical trial. Scientifically, the experiments were considered worthless because inmate doctors who were forced to participate reduced the victims' pain as much as possible, for example systematically falsifying temperature information and thus rendering the results of the experiments unusable. Rascher was one of the most identified medicine criminals of the Nazi era. His absurd and horrific human experiments, in which he u. a. Let male inmates cool down and then warm up again on naked female inmates (“attempts at hypothermia” and “animal warmth”), testify to an individual pathological perversion . Research showed that the personalities of the Raschers had characteristics of schizophrenia .

The former prisoner Stanislav Zámečník describes Rascher as an ambitious person, with a personable appearance, reddish hair, of medium-sized, stocky build with a jovial demeanor. Inmate functionary Walter Neff also described his character in a similar way: "an amusing chatterer, mentally extremely lively, music lover and women towards cavalier". On the other hand, Rascher had his own father deported to a concentration camp .

Concentration camp imprisonment and execution

In March 1944, the Raschers were arrested for a sensational fraud affair after the Munich police came across Nini Rascher while tracking down a trace of a kidnapped baby. The investigation revealed that Rascher's wife was a multiple child kidnapper who only simulated her pregnancies and passed off the abducted babies as her own children. Ms. Rascher had also faked the fourth pregnancy in order to deceive the fertility desired by Himmler , and abducted an infant at Munich Central Station . In the course of the criminal investigation, a vague murder affair that had fallen victim to Rascher's assistant and a number of fraudulent offenses came to light, including embezzlement and "dealing" with prisoners: In 1943, Julie Muschler "disappeared" on a mountain excursion together with the Raschers. . When Muschler's body was found in 1944, both Raschers, with whom she had once lived in the shared apartment, came under suspicion of murder .

Rascher was not believed that, as a doctor, he had not noticed his wife's fake pregnancies and had no knowledge of the child allegations, and he was also arrested. His wife was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp , where she was hanged after an attack on a concentration camp guard and an unsuccessful attempt to escape . Rascher himself first came to the Buchenwald concentration camp . Himmler arranged for his favorite to be dismissed; however, because of overwhelming evidence, he had to be detained again. At the end of the war Buchenwald was evacuated and transferred to the Dachau concentration camp . There he came to the "bunker". On April 26, 1945, three days before the camp was liberated , the SS executed Rascher with a shot in the neck . The sons Volker, Dieter and Peter were accommodated in the Vinzentinus-Heim in Munich, son Rainer in the Löhehaus. Later they were all handed over to the Lebensborn -Heim Steinhöring .

literature

Rascher appears in many works on medical crimes of the Third Reich, since the experiments he carried out were part of the Nuremberg medical trial. His experiments were already discussed at the trial of the main war criminals before the International Military Tribunal , so the minutes of this trial also contain numerous information on Rascher's experiments and biography. (For literature and sources, see there)

  • Wolfgang Benz : Dr. med Sigmund Rascher - a career. In: Dachauer Hefte. Book 4: Medicine in the Nazi State; Perpetrator, victim, henchman. 1988, pp. 190-214. New edition: dtv, Munich, ISBN 3-423-04609-0 .
  • Michael H. Kater: The “Ahnenerbe” of the SS 1935–1945: A contribution to the cultural policy of the Third Reich. 4th edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-486-57950-5 , pp. 101-103, 231-264, 420-466 ( Google books , accessed January 31, 2009).
  • Albert Knoll: Human experiments in the Dachau concentration camp: The medical experiments of Dr. Sigmund Raschers. In: Contributions to the History of National Socialist Persecution in Northern Germany, 13th 2012, ISBN 978-3-8378-4033-9 , pp. 139–148.
  • Hubert Rehm : The downfall of the Rascher house. A documentary novel. With six portrait drawings by Frieder Wiech. LJ, Merzhausen 2006 ( publisher review ).
  • Wolfgang Schüler (Hrsg.): Serial killers in Germany. Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-86189-629-X . Inside: Hans Pfeiffer: A doctor as a serial killer. Pp. 138-158.
  • Arfst Wagner: Documents and letters on the history of the anthroposophical movement and society in the time of National Socialism. Volume III: Biodynamic economy / materials about Sigmund Rascher. Rendsburg 1993.
  • Stanislav Zámečník: That was Dachau. Edited by the Comité International de Dachau. Luxemburg 2002, ISBN 2-87996-948-4 (also: Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-17228-3 .)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Hubert Rehm: The fall of the Rascher house. A documentary novel.
  2. Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism (1933-1945). Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, p. 32.
  3. Sardar Ziauddin , Robin Yassin-Kassab: Critical Muslim 5: Love and Death. Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 86.
  4. Winfried Köppelle: book review Siegfried Bär, Der Untergang des Haus Rascher
  5. ^ Paul Weindling : Victims and Survivors of Nazi Human Experiments: Science and Suffering in the Holocaust . London Bloomsbury Publishing 2014. Blood Sampling section .
  6. ^ Benno Müller-Hill : Murderous science: elimination by scientific selection of Jews, gypsies, and others in Germany 1933-1945 . Afterword by James D. Watson . Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Plainview NY 1998, ISBN 0-87969-531-5 , pp. 108, 242.
  7. Schneider-Schwerte report for the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia: interim balance sheet of the historical commission for the investigation of the Schneider / Schwerte case and its historical circumstances. North Rhine-Westphalian Main State Archive Düsseldorf, August 1996, p. 85.
  8. Eric Kurlander: Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich . Yale University Press, New Haven 2017, ISBN 978-0-300-18945-2 , p. 370.
  9. Stanislav Zamecnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 263.
  10. Interview von Sievers, NOR 1, pp. 5737–5738 G. see Stanislav Zamečnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002.
  11. Reichsführer! Letters, pp. 135–136, source taken from: Stanislav Zamečnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002.
  12. Himmler, who had an agricultural diploma, was once a salesman for artificial fertilizers.
  13. Stanislav Zamecnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, pp. 263-264.
  14. ^ Interview by Sievers, NOR 1, p. 5738-G.
  15. Stanislav Zamecnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 264.
  16. Schneider-Schwerte report for the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia: interim balance sheet of the historical commission for the investigation of the Schneider / Schwerte case and its historical circumstances. North Rhine-Westphalian Main State Archive Düsseldorf, August 1996, p. 85.
  17. In contrast to other Nazi documents, a large part of the correspondence between Himmler and Rascher has been preserved.
  18. ^ Whitney R. Harris: Tyrants in front of the court: the proceedings against the main German war criminals after the Second World War in Nuremberg 1945-1946. BWV, Berliner Wiss.-Verlag, p. 404; International Military Tribunal, IMG XXVII, Doc. 1602-PS, pp. 381–383.
  19. IMG XXVII, Doc. 1582-PS, p. 348.
  20. Ulf Schmidt: The defendants Fritz Fischer, Hans W. Romberg and Karl Brandt from the point of view of the medical expert Leo Alexander. In: Klaus Dörner, Angelika Ebbinghaus: Destroying and healing. The Nuremberg medical trial and its consequences. Structure of Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Berlin, p. 392; Stanislav Zamečnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 268f.
  21. Karl-Heinz Roth: Deadly Heights: The negative pressure chamber experiments in the Dachau concentration camp and their significance for aeronautical research in the “Third Reich”. In: Klaus Dörner, Angelika Ebbinghaus (ed.): Destroying and healing. The Nuremberg medical trial and its consequences. Structure of Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2002, p. 123.
  22. ^ NOR 1, pp. 661–664 E.
  23. Attempts at high altitude in Dachau concentration camp, pp. 15–20 (PDF; 836 kB)
  24. a b Wolfgang U. Eckart and Hana Vondra: Disregard for human life: Hypothermia experiments in the Dachau concentration camp , in: Wolfgang U. Eckart (eds.): Man, Medicin, and the State. The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century, Contributions to the History of the German Research Foundation , Volume 2, Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart 2006, p. 164.
  25. Wolfgang Schüler (ed.): Serial killers in Germany. Leipzig 2006, p. 154.
  26. Stanislav Zamecnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 281.
  27. NOR 1, pp 4835-4836 G.
  28. NOR 1, pp 4569-4572 G., NOR 1, pp 4843-4844 G.
  29. Wolfgang Benz : Dr. med. Sigmund Rascher. P. 212 f., 214.
  30. ^ Memories Neffs, Dachauer Archiv, No. 15426, p. 23.
  31. ^ Interrogation by Prof. Weltz, NOR 1, pp. 7173–7174, taken from: Stanislav Zamečnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 283.
  32. Note: April 1944, according to Stanislav Zamečnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 282.
  33. Wolfgang Benz: Dr. med. Sigmund Rascher. P. 212 f., 214.
  34. See Wolfgang Schüler (ed.): Serial Murderers in Germany. Leipzig 2006, p. 156; Wolfgang Benz: Dr. med. Sigmund Rascher. P. 212 f., 214.
  35. Stanislav Zamecnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg 2002, p. 284.