MAUTHAUSEN PART 5

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATIONS - STERILISATION - CASTRATION - AND THE SICK
Sterilisation was one of the means by which the Führer was determined to cleanse his Master Race of the inferior, the deformed and the sex perverted. As part of this plan gypsies, Poles and any remaining Jews were to be sterilised. Yet by Nazi Standards, extreme measures were carried out to excess. Those who were unfortunate enough to have contracted tuberculoses in early life, even though they were fully recovered, would be subjected to the drastic treatment of castration. Shortly after such operation, the castrated prisoners were returned to the full rigours of camp life and work, with disastrous consequences. Their plight naturally attracted the attention of the SS, who dealt well aimed kicks to the abdomen.[ Germany was not alone , Sterilisation was conducted in other countries as well, including the USA: The United States was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilisation programs for the purpose of eugenics. Eugenics, the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilisation, based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.
Eugenics was practised in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany. The heads of the program were avid believers in eugenics and frequently argued for their program. It was shut down due to ethical problems. The principal targets of the American program were the mentally retarded and the mentally ill, but also targeted under many state laws were the deaf, the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed. According to the activist Angela Davis, Native Americans, as well as African-American women were sterilised against their will in many states, often without their knowledge while they were in a hospital for other reasons (e.g. childbirth). Other Native American activists such as Dr. Pinkerman concluded some 25,000 Native American women were forcibly sterilised against their will. Fortunately, these cases, as common mathematics would prove, were grossly over exaggerated. Some sterilisations took place in prisons and other penal institutions, targeting criminality, but they were in the relative minority. In the end, over 65,000 individuals were sterilised in 33 states under state compulsory sterilisation programs in the United States.sic] Proposal of Morgenthau for Germans after WW II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buUAJc-6-AI- The Morgenthau Plan (AKA The Jewish plan to rid the world of Germans.)
During a well publicised medical forum in 1942 in the USA, an American doctor expressed the view that in his opinion all Germans should be sterilised after the war. [PS 2176, testimony of Pofessor Busek, j.A.D. 3rd US Army, sic] It was too wild a statement to be taken seriously, except those who were guilty of such actions themselves. The statement was reported in Germany and conferences were hurriedly held by the SS Medical Authorities, presumable in Oranienburg. They were sufficiently frightened to issue vast supplies of hormone tablets and hormone fluids for the injection of those previously sterilised. Many of those were in Mauthausen. Now they were given hormone treatment and were watched over vigilantly to see if they react normally. Of course there was no hope of rehabilitation for those who had been castrated, but for those who had been sterilised the use of the brothel was encouraged. As a rule only Germans or those with particularly lucrative jobs in the camp had been able to make use of the brothel up till now. They would apply to the clerk of their Block in advance, and at roll-call after the day's work they would be summoned by the order: "Bordell Besucher antreten" (Applicants for a brothel visit fall in)When the hormone experiments began all such visits came to a temporary halt.
The women of the brothel were not keen in taking part in the experiments. Their previous clients, SS and Kapos, usually brought with them small luxuries and titbits obtained through the camp black market, whereas the poor wretches under test brought nothing. The SS found great amusement in watching the miseries of these men, who were harassed to perform in public under the eyes of the doctors and themselves.

Heinrich Himmler inspecting the camp brothel in Mauthausen/Gusen

Eventually the tests were stopped and any of the guinea pigs who were still alive were returned to the quarries. Hormone supplies continued to arrive at the camp for some time after the tests had ceased and SS Dr. Richter hit upon an unusual way of profiting from them. He sold hormone tablets to criminal prisoners who were under the illusion that their enjoyment would be heightened when they visited the brothel. This may have been so initially, but in the long run there must have been many and grave side effects. The brothel also served another purpose. It acted as an efficient intelligence service in reporting to the SS the general climate of passions in the camp. Through it they soon got to hear of any nucleus of organised resistance, and it helped them to keep an ear to the ground concerning the camp's black market and any other matters of general interest. Kapos who had access to the brothel were usually on passable terms with the SS. It was not uncommon, however, for the thieves to fight among themselves or to brawl over one particular women. The women of the brothel were seldom seen by the ordinary inmates of the camp. They took their exercise behind block I, where the brothel was situated.
A wide range of medical experiments was conducted on prisoners in Mauthausen and it's sub-camps, Gusen in particular. The experiments were supervised by the camp doctors, who attended the executions and shootings. The camp doctors were Dr Krebsbach (nicknamed 'Spritzbach', (which meant needle expert), Dr Richter, Dr Ramsauer, Dr Gross and Dr Wolters (formerly of Dacchau where he selected Roman Catholic Clerics and Poles on whom to experimented. Their experiments included the trying out of new vaccine medicines and new techniques of forcible feeding. They also conducted their arbitrary operations on sick, injured and the healthy. The dissection chamber, which was connected with the crematorium by a corridor, is very small. Its walls and floors are made entirely of stone, and its only window is high and small. The sloping dissection-table is also made of stone. At its higher end is a bowel-shaped indentation into which the blood would flow to pass down the narrow channel running the length of the table and so into a respectable at the lower end. This table was also used for the extraction of gold fillings from the dead man's teeth, or to remove the skin for the gruesome lampshade-making hobby of certain SS men. The bodies of the prisoners with increasing tattoo marks were skinned, sent to the pathology laboratory in Gusen I, processed and made into satchels, lampshades, book covers and gloves. This was the particular interest of Dr Richter, Seidler the commandant of Gusen, and Chmielewski, the chief chemist at Gusen. The infirmary at Mauthausen , which should have given help to the sick and broken, brought about instead the final extinction of life and hope Their world was one where time and life had no place.

The Dissecting Table

In the quarry there was a field ambulance to which sick or injured prisoners could report during working hours. However bad the illness or injury, the SS guard always considered that the prisoner was using it as an excuse for evading work and ill-treated him accordingly. Medical treatment at this ambulance took two different forms. An aspirin was described for pains above the waist, a purgative for those below. Injuries were paper-bandaged. Injections were liberally applied. On returning from work to the camp, prisoners could apply to their block leader for permission to report sick. Sickness affected the block's labour allocation, and the block clerk in charge of sick reports therefore had to accompany the prisoner to the dispensary or infirmary. Loth to do this, he would tell patients to come back the following day. As a result they often collapsed at their work or were beaten to death for failing to work hard enough. If an operation was needed, the clerk had to get permission from headquarters. The authorisation usually arrived long after the sick man had died. [PS 2176 Prof. Busek, JAD, 3rd US Army, sic] SS and Kapos clubbed any who did not look ill enough. So long as one could bear the pain, or survive one's injuries unaided, it was better to keep away from the infirmary. For, in seeking admittance, one automatically subjected oneself to the indiscriminate, dangerous and sudden 'selections' by the SS doctors. There were also the distinct possibility of catching an even worse disease from other infirmary inmates.
Three or four men occupied a single bunk in the infirmary. The stench was indescribable. Phlegmons occurred frequently, as a result of malnutrition. The suppurating wounds from both phlegmons and erysipelas would leave huge crater-like holes in the legs of the sufferers. Tubercular patients coughed up their contagious. The scrofulous, the delirious, the dysentery patients who fouled all around and beneath them, the constantly coughing men dying of pneumonia, all these shared the same bunks. Those who groaned too loudly were beaten by the Kapos. Those who were too weak to go to the lavatory were dragged out of bed and hosed down with cold water. For some time the infirmaries were staffed by male nurses, known as Pfleger. Some of them were German criminals whose brutality was legendary. Three of the most infamous prisoners murdered their patients in order to claim their rations. It was one of the German male nurses who invented a simple form of general anaesthetic, a sharp crack over the head with a wooden clog. Very sick prisoners who were unfortunate enough to be admitted when Dr Krebsbach was on duty were dealt with summarily. He saw to it himself by applying a lethal injection to the heart.

Mauthausen - A half-dead prisoner found lying in his own filth"

SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) H. Vetter, formerly a doctor in the experimental department of IG Farben at Ludswigsburg, regarded human beings merely as guinea pigs. He divided his time between Mauthausen and Gusen, but spent more of it at the latter. Another SS Hauptsturmführer, Dr Sigbert Ramsauer, was known as a drug addict. He was the last doctor at Mauthausen and at the sub-sub-camp of Loibl-Pass, and experimented a great deal in conjunction with Vetter. During the winter of 1941-42 he spent a whole night killing approximately 250 Russians with injections of benzine. Inasmuch as he had been a patient at the insane asylum of Giessen, it is surprising that he was ever accepted, especially at this fairly early stage into the SS elite, and that he reached the rank he did. Waaitsky, the pharmacist at Mauthausen, was an ardent admirer of Dr. Krebsbach. He often suggested different substances to be used when killing prisoners by injection method. Both man had access, as to a lesser extent did all the others mentioned, to all the drugs and pharmaceutical products which came into the camp. The supplies might have been enough for a reasonable number of sick prisoners, but the number was never reasonable, nor were the maladies from which they suffered. The amount available for them was decreased still further because doctors and pharmacists appropriated a proportion of them for their own use and for sale on the black market.

"Mauthausen - filth & human waste strewn around the sleeping area (picture was most likely taken after "liberation")

The systematic liquidation of intellectuals in the prisoner's ranks meant that the doctors and nurses amongst them had to keep very quiet about their skills. It was only later that prisoner doctors were permitted to give their sick comrades what comfort they could. The first recorded prisoner doctor was Dr Pagen from Block 20, who worked from the beginning of 1942 until May 1942. In October of that year Professor Podlaka from Brünn, at first room orderly, was also allowed to tend prisoners. Dr Krebsbach was eventually transferred to Riga-Kaiserwald, where he put to death thousands of Jews by his chosen method. There he joined Sauer, the original Commandant of Mauthausen, who had also been transferred. Both, as previously mentioned were hanged at Landsberg for their crimes after the war.
Although Mauthausen possessed modern X-ray equipment which successfully detected tuberculoses in all its stages, it was never used constructively for medical action. If the X-ray showed a positive result, the patient would be put to death without further ado. The dental equipment was again extremely modern, but it was not applied well. The dental surgery was available to prisoners twice a week, but permission had to be obtained before they could attend. In an emergency they could go to the dispensary, where the tooth or teeth would be extracted with the minimal of formality. The dental surgery was, however, open at all times to the SS. Not surprisingly, they often found that a prisoner dentist was more careful than a local one.

                                                    
                                                              hanged inmate
Of all the camps Mauthausen had the smallest incidence of typhus (1.5%). Bergen-Belsen had the highest (86.6%), while Auschwitz came between the two with (37.5%). However, the reason for Mauthausen's remarkable figure was not due to the care and attention exercised by the camp command, but to the fact that, at the slightest sign of typhus in a Block, all inmates, both the sick and the fit, would be killed immediately. [Prof. Charles Richet and Dr Antonin Mans, Pathologie de la deportation (Monaco 1958, page 104, sic] Conditions were particular bad in Block 7, to which prisoners were sent because of general physical feebleness, or allgemeine Körperschwäche. Originally intended for 200 prisoners, the Block usually housed 400 and 500, of four or five nationalities. There were three tiers of bunks on which the shaven-headed prisoners lay in disorder, their arms and legs in all directions. many of their legs and feet blown up like balloons from oedema. As in the infirmary, the smell was appalling. The putrefying smell of phlegmons and gangrenes, the rancid smell of scabies, the suffocating smell of those who were covered in excreta from dysentery and diarrhoea, the smell of the tubercular, already in a state of decomposition, all these smells permeated the barracks and seeped into the skin and clothing of inmates.
KILLING THE HANDICAPPED AND DEFORMED
On the 14th July 1933, [only months of Hitler taking power, sic] the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Posterity was promulgated on the direct orders of the Führer for the express purpose of eradicating the incurably deformed. It was divided into three main categories:
1. Euthanasia for incurable invalids
2.Direct elimination by 'special treatment
of undesirable national elements and
undesirable invalids
3. Experimental work preliminary to mass sterilisation
It appears however, that Hitler realised that such measure would meet with open opposition from the church and other influential bodies in time of peace. Thus in 1935, he told Dr Wagner that 'in the event of war he would take up and deal with this question of euthanasia'. He thought that the programme could be put through more smoothly in wartime, when opposition would not be so strong. As early as July 1939, professors, psychiatrists and other experts were for the first time formerly briefed at the Chancellery in Berlin. They were told by the then head of SS, Victor Brack, that all insane persons in Germany were to be liquidated under plans which would be carried out by euthanasia. After the Polish campaign, Hitler told Phillip Bouler, head of the chancellery, that he 'now intended to bring about a definite solution to the problem of euthanasia. At the end of October 1939, Hitler signed a decree with the effect retrospective to 1st September 1939. Thus it was that the official euthanasia establishments were set up. These were Hadamar in Hessen, Harthein near Linz, Grafeneck in Württemberg, Brandenburg on the river Havel and Sonnestein near Pirma.

Plan of Hartheim

Hartheim came within the orbit of Mauthausen and the following concerns this installation only, although the castle Hartheim was not a sub-camp of Mauthausen and was never administered by it, it was closely linked by the movements of prisoners between the two camps and by its gas chambers. It was the only prison in use during the Second World war from which there were no survivors. A committee of psychiatrists, known as the Chief Surveyors, toured the institutions and sanatoriums to select patients for euthanasia. Relatives had no say in the matter and were not even informed of the patients removal. Adults and children from the age of three were eligible for the elimination on grounds of idiocy or malformation of the body, so were the old and senile. Long questionnaires had to be filled in to ascertain whether the subject was German, Jewish mixed Jewish or Negroid origin. Those who were selected for further investigation were taken first to observation stations, then transferred by bus, usually in groups of about seventy, to the euthanasia establishments. They would arrive in the morning and by nightfall all would have been dealt with. The following example of the letters which were sent to relatives of the dead. It is identical with those sent from Hartheim.

Grafeneck Munzingen National Convalescent Home, 6th August 1940
Frau B.... Sch....Z....
My dear Frau Sch....
We are sincerely sorry to tell you that your daughter F...Sch...who had to be transferred to this Institution in accordance with measures taken by the National Defence Commissioner, died suddenly and unexpectedly here, of a tumour of the brain, on 5th August 1940. The life of the deceased had been a torment to her on account of her severe mental trouble. You should therefore feel that her death was a happy release. As this institution is threatened by epidemic at present time, the police have ordered immediate cremation of the body. We would ask you to let us know to what cemetery we may arrange for the police to send the urn containing the mortal remains of the deceased... Any enquiries should be addressed to this institution in writing, visits being for the present forbidden as part of the police precaution against infection...
(Sgd) Dr. Koller [This was a complete lie, but was common practice during the Third Reich when dealing with Party Officials, you never knew what was factual and what was fabrication only to obtain their objective and it was usually written 'im Sinne des Führers"(in the spirit of the Führer, sic]
In 1941, Himmler sent out a secret order to the concentration camps stating that the mentally afflicted Jews were to to be included in the euthanasia programme 14f13 which was the official symbol used by Himmler's Inspector of Concentration Camps, otherwise Group (Service) D of the SS Headquarters for Economic Administration in Berlin. A letter from the Inspector illustrates the activity of the 'medical committee':
To the concentration camp commandant at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Flossenburg. Gross-Rosen, Neuengamme and Niederhagen.
As the camp commandants at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Auschwitz have already been informed in communication on the subject, medical commissioners will shortly visit the above named camps for the purpose of examining prisoners. A specimen of the form to be completed at this stage is enclosed. All available papers and medical documents are to be held ready for inspection by the committee on demand.
On conclusion of the examinations a report is to be forwarded to the Inspector of Concentration Camps in which the number of prisoners subjected to the special 14f13 treatment will be stated. The exact date of the arrival of the committee will be communicated in due course.
sgd. per pro Liebehenschel
SS Obersturmführer

Map of German Concentration Camps

This letter dated 10th December 1941, showed that Hitler's original plan for mercy killing had been overridden because of its ambiguity and because it was abused. Henceforth the order would cover any person whose elimination was required. In 1941 when Hitler abandoned his euthanasia plan for adults, [Göring had a handicapped sister, whom he sincerely loved, due to be gassed, he told Hitler in no uncertain terms to stop the euthanasia programme, sic] some gas chambers in euthanasia institutions were dismantled and re-erected in eastern cities such as Lublin (Majdanek), where the overwhelming majority of victims were Polish Jews. However, the killing of deformed and idiot children continued until the end. This decision of the Führer did not affect Hartheim, where the extermination of civilians from selected clinics continued unabated. [In following narrative I will in the main comment on activities on Hartheim only, sic]


CONTINUED UNDER PART 6