Fritz Ernst Fischer (5 October 1912 – 2003) was a German

medical doctor A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

who, under the

Nazi regime Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, participated in medical experiments conducted on inmates of the

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure o ...

. Fischer was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. He studied

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

first at

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

, later at Berlin and

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, and finally graduated in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

in 1938. He joined the SS in 1934 (ultimately reaching the rank of ''

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War ...

'' ajor and became a member of the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

in June 1937. On 1 November 1939, he was assigned to the

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

of the SS-Department of the

Hohenlychen Sanatorium The Hohenlychen Sanatorium was a complex of sanatoriums in Lychen, Uckermark district (a bit north of Berlin), Germany, that was in use from 1902 to 1945. The complex was originally built in 1902 to house tubercular children. By the 1930s the Hoh ...

as a physician and SS Second Lieutenant. In 1940, he became troop physician of the SS Division ''

Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, (german: 1. SS-Panzerdivision "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler") began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding ...

''. After having been wounded he was posted back to Hohenlychen and worked in the camp hospital of the

as a surgical assistant to

Karl Gebhardt Karl Franz Gebhardt (23 November 1897 – 2 June 1948) was a German medical doctor and a war criminal during World War II. He served as Medical Superintendent of the Hohenlychen Sanatorium, Consulting Surgeon of the ''Waffen-SS'', Chief Surgeon in ...

. He participated in the surgical experiments carried out on concentration camp inmates there. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he was tried in the

Doctors' Trial The Doctors' Trial (officially ''United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.'') was the first of 12 trials for war crimes of high-ranking German officials and industrialists that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, convicted of war crimes and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

, and was condemned to life imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to 15 years in 1951 and he was released in March 1954. Fischer subsequently regained his license to practice medicine and started a new career at the chemical company Boehringer in

Ingelheim Ingelheim (), officially Ingelheim am Rhein ( en, Ingelheim upon Rhine), is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in the Rhineland-Palatinate state of Germany. The town sprawls along the Rhine's west bank. It has been Mainz-Bingen's district seat ...

, where he stayed until his retirement. Based on available records, when he died in 2003, aged 90 or 91, he was the last known living of those indicted at the Doctors' Trial.

References

*Schäfer, S.:
Zum Selbstverständnis von Frauen im Konzentrationslager: das Lager Ravensbrück
', p. 130f. PhD thesis 2002,

TU Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

. (

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

file, 741 kB). In German. *Schmidt, U.:
Lebensläufe: Biographien und Motive der Angeklagte aus der Perspektive des medizinischen Sachverständigen, Dr. Leo Alexander, 1945-1947
', in Dörner, K., Ebbinghaus, A. (ed.): ''Vernichten und Heilen: Der Nürnberger Ärzteprozess und seine Folgen''; Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2001; ; pp. 374–404. *Waltrich, H.:

part 2'', Ökostadt-Nachrichten 28 (1999).

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Fritz 1912 births 2003 deaths Physicians in the Nazi Party People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals Ravensbrück concentration camp personnel German prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States military University of Hamburg alumni Nazi human subject research SS-Sturmbannführer Physicians from Berlin People from the Province of Brandenburg German people convicted of crimes against humanity Waffen-SS personnel Boehringer Ingelheim people

References

Further reading

External links