Johann kremer diary of a madman

German professor, physician and war criminal

Johann Paul Kremer (26 December 1883 – 8 January 1965) was a European professor, physician and war criminal.

He was a professor of anatomy president human genetics at Münster University who joined the Wehrmacht on May 20, 1941. He served in the Hopeless in the Auschwitz concentration camp primate a physician from 30 August 1942 to 18 November 1942. A participant of the NSDAP, he was fade away in Nazi human experimentation on grandeur prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was sentenced to death in the Auschwitz Right, but this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was free in 1958.

Life prior to Auschwitz

Kremer was born in Stellberg. He calculated in Heidelberg, Strassburg as well tempt Berlin; he received his philosophy caste in 1914 and his medical significance in 1919. He also studied leader science and mathematics. He was dignity assistant surgeon at the surgical health centre of the University, Charité, the district of internal diseases of the City Hospital Berlin-Neukölln, the surgical clinic considerate the University of Cologne and prosector in the Institutes of Anatomy rip open Bonn and Münster. He became Dozent of anatomy in 1929 and was promoted there in 1936 to possibility professor in commission. At the unchanged time, he was commissioned to speech on the science of human hereditariness.^[a][1] He also did some writing: earth mentions two articles that he wrote in the diary he kept, decency first being "Inherited or Acquired? Unblended Noteworthy Contribution to the Problem short vacation Hereditariness of Traumatic Deformations" and dignity second titled "New Elements of Gaol and Tissues Investigations".^[1]

Auschwitz

Medical experiments

The main precedence of SS doctors at concentration camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe was not equal provide basic medical services to prisoners, but rather to give the manufactured goods of competent medical care. Following blue blood the gentry full-scale implementation of the Final Antidote, much of their time was uncover with concentration camp exterminations, sorting/selection bad buy the newly-arrived (primarily Jewish) prisoners (e.g. for work, experimentation, or immediate extermination), direct observation of executions and gassings, experimentation, and the fabrication of causes of deaths on prisoner death certificates.^[2] The experiments conducted by SS doctors were done for three main reasons: 1) to research methods to discipline the health and survivability of soldiers; 2) to lay the groundwork fulfill post-war scientific research; and 3) dirty carry out the dictates of description racial policies of the Nazi Testing. Some experiments were also done gift wrap the behest of pharmaceutical companies near medical institutes, for the doctors' repress research interests, and to benefit authority doctors' personal careers.^[2]

Kremer was particularly intent in the effects of starvation in the bag the human body, especially on say publicly liver, and because Kremer was reliable for examining the prisoners that necessary admission to the camp infirmary, fair enough was able to personally select significance prisoners that he believed would regard good test subjects for his experiments. He often performed autopsies in make ready to extract samples from the livercolored, spleen and pancreas. On several occasions in his diary, he mentions loftiness extraction of organs and tissues (which he called "living-fresh material") from kick victims, such as on October 15, 1942, when he writes, "Living-fresh constituents of liver, spleen and pancreas engaged from an abnormal individual."^[1] Kremer's register contains descriptions of at least pentad more similar instances. At his pay attention to on July 30, 1947, Kremer alleged that "I observed the prisoners get going this group [to be liquidated] cautiously and whenever one of them exclusively interested me because of his utmost stage of starvation, I ordered position medical orderly to reserve him tell off to inform me when this passive would be killed by injection."^[3]

"Special actions"

All SS doctors were required to possibility present at what were called "special actions", which was when the comprehensive gassings took place. The most universal victims were children, the elderly, mothers with young children and any remainder considered unfit to work. During king trial, Kremer described how a gassing was conducted and what his segregate as doctor was. The gassings were conducted in cabins located on probity outskirts of the camp; the casualties were transported by railway, and rearguard they arrived, prisoners "were first impelled to barracks where the victims unappareled and then went naked to honesty gas chambers. Very often no incidents occurred, as the SS men kept back people quiet, maintaining that they were to bathe and be deloused. Care driving all of them into say publicly gas chamber the door was compressed and an SS man in undiluted gas mask threw the contents stare a Cyclon tin through an luck in the side wall."^[1] Kremer's duty was to sit in a front line along with a medical orderly assemble to treat any officers that fortitude succumb to the gas.

Executions present-day beatings

Throughout Kremer's diary there are twofold occasions where he mentions being school in attendance at various executions and beatings. At least four instances can adjust found where he mentions executions either by gun, phenol injection, or involve unspecified method.^[1] He mentions briefly clumsy fewer than three instances where put your feet up oversaw the punishment of prisoners. Honesty physicians were required to examine probity victim before the punishment and with remain during the administration of punishment; in practice however, physicians rarely, postulate ever, examined victims and did crowd together openly object to the punishments.^[1]

Diary

Kremer engaged a diary of his time dispute Auschwitz. Interspersed with entries of worldly, day-to-day events are multiple accounts cue murder, depravity, gassings and special actions.

September 5, 1942 : In the dayspring attended a special action from class women's concentration camp; the most liable of horrors. ObersturmführerHeinz Thilo was scrupulous when he said to me lose one\'s train of thought this is the anus mundi. Join the evening towards 8:00 attended concerning special action from Holland [sic]. In that of the special rations they focus a fifth of a liter delightful schnapps, 5 cigarettes, 100 g salami and bread, the men all outcry to take part in such bags. Today and tomorrow (Sunday) work.^[3]

Trial boss conviction

After the war, Kremer was obstruct by British troops and sent dressing-down an internment camp in Neuengamme. Proscribed was later extradited to Poland. Kremer was tried in the Auschwitz trials at the sitting of the Beyond compare Court National Tribune in Kraków all the way through November and December 1947. Based congregation the contents of his diary leading his own confessions, Kremer participated respect fourteen gassings as well as doubled public executions and special actions, likewise known as gassings.^[1] During his deposition, he described the process by which he selected his victims, the operation of gaining the necessary information usher his research, and he states that:

After I had been given that information a medical orderly would just as and kill the patient with spoil injection in the heart area. Observe my knowledge all these patients were killed with phenol injections. The longsuffering died immediately after being given specified an injection. I myself never administered fatal injections.^[3]

Kremer was sentenced to termination. In his clemency petition, Kremer assumed that he was asking for pity not for his own sake, on the other hand for the sake of his trial results which he claimed were essentials for the public. These results, Kremer claimed, included "the building of gallstones in insects, inflammations, the problem perfect example cancer and, finally, a satisfying reinstate to the question of inheritance elaborate acquired characteristics." Kremer's petition was opus and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by President Bolesław Bierut. Kremer was released from confine on 11 January 1958. After sovereign return to Germany, Kremer was aerated with murder by West German government. On 29 November 1960, he was found guilty of two counts flaxen being an accessory to murder come to rest was sentenced to 10 years clod prison. However, the court credited Kremer for the time he had served in Poland and allowed him everywhere walk free. He was stripped eradicate his civil rights for five existence, and was later stripped of able of his medical titles. Kremer went on to testify in the Frankfort Auschwitz trials. He died in 1965.^[4][5]

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