Werner Rohde

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Werner Rohde (born June 11, 1904 in Marburg , †  October 11, 1946 in Hameln ) was a German doctor and dentist who was employed as a camp doctor in the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camps and rose to become SS-Obersturmführer .

Life

Werner Rohde, who holds a doctorate in doctor and dentist, joined the NSDAP first in 1923 and again in 1933 ( membership number 1,663,050). After joining the SA in 1933, he moved from there to the SS in 1936 (SS no. 283.486). Rohde, a representative of the SD , is said to have worked in a sanatorium of the Waffen SS after the beginning of the Second World War . In the course of 1941 he worked at the Hygiene Institute at the University of Marburg with Wilhelm Pfannenstiel . After he received a further qualification in the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office - Office III for Sanitary and Camp Hygiene based in Oranienburg - in 1942, he became a camp doctor in the Buchenwald concentration camp . From mid-March 1943 to the end of June 1944, Rohde worked as a camp doctor in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There he met the inmate doctor Ella Lingens , with whom he had studied medicine at the University of Marburg. According to their statements, Rohde is said to have campaigned for better hygienic conditions in the women's camp, but on the other hand also selected prisoners suffering from typhoid for the gas chamber . He also had various Polish children from Zamość killed by phenol injections in early 1943 . Rohde is said to have reduced the number of inmates in the inmate infirmary, which was designated for gassing by the medical officer Josef Klehr . Rohde is said to have been one of the more decent camp doctors in Auschwitz, who was often drunk when selecting those arriving at the ramp. From July 1, 1944, he became the first camp doctor in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and later a camp doctor in various subcamps of the Natzweiler Struthof concentration camp. Among other things, he was a camp doctor in the Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp in Alsace from July 25, 1944 and in the Bisingen concentration camp from December 1944 . Within the SS, Rohde rose to SS-Obersturmführer in 1944 .

After the end of the war, Rohde was arrested and charged by a British military court in Wuppertal (Trial of Werner Rohde and Eight Others - May 29 to June 1, 1946) for the murder of four women, at least three of whom were British agents, and sentenced to death . The four English women who belonged to the Special Operations Executive and worked in the French Resistance were arrested in Dijon and Paris in June and November 1943. After staying in a women's prison in Karlsruhe, they were transferred to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and killed by phenol injections on July 6, 1944 and then burned in the crematorium . The investigation revealed that Rohde and Heinrich Plaza , who was not present at the trial, allegedly administered the fatal injections. Rohde was on 11 October 1946 at the prison Hameln by hanging executed.

The prisoner Ella Lingens-Reiner , a doctor, testified in the Auschwitz trial : In the Auschwitz infirmary she met the doctor Werner Rohde, who claimed to know her from studying together in Marburg. “He saved my life, but he also delivered tens of thousands to death. Everyone who tried to get an alibi in this way murdered in other cases without hesitation. "

literature

  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Ernst Klee: Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. 3. Edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, ISBN 3-596-14906-1 .
  • Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz. Ullstein-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-548-33014-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 505.
  2. ↑ See: Webb, Anthony M. (Ed.): Trial of Wolfgang Zeuss (!), Magnus Wochner, Emil Meier, Peter Straub, Fritz Hartjenstein, Franz Berg, Werner Rohde, Emil Bruttel, Kurt aus dem Bruch and Harberg. (The Natzweiler Trial) . London, Edinburgh, Glasgow 1949.
  3. ↑ Kurt Nelhiebel : The decoupling of war and expulsion. On Manfred Kittel's interpretation of recent European history , in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , volume 1, 58th year 2010, pp. 54–69, here p. 56 ISSN  0044-2828 Online at the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft PDF ; 3.6 MB, according to dsb. as Conrad Taler, ashes on icy roads. A chronicle of horror. Reports from the Auschwitz trial. Papyrossa, Cologne 2003, p. 22
personal data
SURNAME Rohde, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor in Auschwitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Marburg
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1946
Place of death Hamelin