Waldemar Wolter

Waldemar Wolter (born May 19, 1908 in Würzburg , † May 28, 1947 in Landsberg am Lech ) was a German physician and camp doctor in several concentration camps .

Career as a camp doctor

He was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 3.140.090). Wolter completed a degree in medicine and received his doctorate in 1938 from the University of Würzburg with the dissertation : The colloid chemical formation of the fecal stone in the appendix to the Dr. med. As unfit for the front line, Wolter joined the Waffen-SS (SS-Nr. 104.540) in January 1941 , in which he was appointed SS-Hauptsturmführer of the reserve on April 1, 1942. As a regular SS camp doctor in the SS special camp Hinzert until the end of December 1941, on October 16, 1941, he received a so-called special treatment (here faked vaccination, actually "spraying" using a potassium cyanide solution) from probably 70 Soviet alleged political commissars of the Red Army from the "labor camp for Soviet prisoners of war " carried out at the Baumholder military training area. According to the so-called commissioner order , the then camp commandant SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Pister organized this mass murder. A case from 1961 against involved SS medics from the SS special camp in Hinzert before the Trier district court incriminated Wolter according to what was known at the time.

Wolter was then a camp doctor in Sachsenhausen and from 1942 in the Dachau concentration camp . There he is said to have been involved in the implementation of the so-called phlegmon experiments between 1942 and 1943 (see: Nuremberg Medical Trial ) by selecting Catholic clergymen and friars from the pastor's block as test subjects .

From August 1944 to April 27, 1945 he was a medical officer in the Mauthausen concentration camp . He is said to have given prisoners fatal injections there. Wolter is also said to have made selections for the transport of the disabled , also known as " Aktion 14f13 ", which mostly led to the Nazi killing center in Hartheim . On January 30, 1945 Wolter was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer of the reserve.

After the end of the war

After the end of the war, Waldemar Wolter and 60 other representatives of the camp administration were indicted in the main Mauthausen trial in 1946 . Among other things, he was accused of ordering the gassing of 1,400 to 2,700 prisoners shortly before the end of the war. The assessment of Wolter's behavior as a site doctor in Mauthausen turned out to be controversial. A number of former prisoners were found who attested to his decent behavior. It was stated that Wolter had sought to improve the medical care of the camp inmates and campaigned for better food supplies in the camp. According to the doctor's clerk Ernst Martin, Wolter was "the most decent in relation to all previous on-site doctors."

On May 13, 1946, all 61 defendants were found guilty and 58, including Wolter, sentenced to death by hanging . After the verdict was announced, a number of people spoke out in favor of a pardon for Wolter, including Martin Niemöller . Waldemar Wolter was transferred to the Landsberg War Crimes Prison and executed there on May 28, 1947.

literature

• Joshua M. Greene: Justice at Dachau .
• Alexander Mitscherlich / Fred Mielke (ed.): Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial .
• Review and Recommendations of the Deputy Judge Advocate for War Crimes: United States of America v. Hans Altfuldisch et al. - Case No. 000.50.5 Original document Mauthausen main trial , April 30, 1947, (English, PDF file, 75.2 MB)
• Uwe Bader / Beate Welter (Red.): Persecution and Resistance in Rhineland-Palatinate 1933-1945 , Vol. 2: Memorial SS Special Camp / Hinzert Concentration Camp - Exhibition Catalog , Mainz 2009, p. 86 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ quoted from: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 678