Hans Delmotte (15 December 1917, in Liège – 1945) was a

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

SS doctor at the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in the branch of the Hygiene Institute of 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 ...

. He came from

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. Initially he refused to take part in selections, allegedly going as far as to tell his superiors "You can send me to the front or gas me myself, but I won't do it." By the late fall of 1944 he finally was persuaded to take part in selections. For Delmotte's dissertation, he reserved a Jewish prisoner doctor and professor to assist him. For this research, Delmotte took part in

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. Delmotte's dissertation entitled "Contributions to pathological physiology of gastric secretion in typhoid fever" was already completed in 1944. After the evacuation of Auschwitz in January 1945, Delmotte briefly continued to work in

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. While trying to make his way back to Belgium, he was arrested by

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

soldiers. During the transfer to a prison, Delmotte had somehow managed to shoot himself, he instantly died from his gunshot wound.People in Auschwitz (Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Museum) Hermann Langbein (Author),

Henry Friedlander Henry Egon Friedlander (24 September 1930 – 17 October 2012) was a German-American Jewish historian of the Holocaust who was noted for his arguments in favor of broadening the scope of casualties of the Holocaust. Born in Berlin, Germany, to a ...

(Foreword)

References

Literature

Ernst Klee Ernst Klee (15 March 1942, Frankfurt – 18 May 2013, Frankfurt) was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concer ...

: Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer. 3. Auflage. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, . *Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007. *

Hermann Langbein Hermann Langbein (18 May 1912 – 24 October 1995) was an Austrian communist resistance fighter and historian. He fought in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades for the Spanish Republicans against the Nationalists under Francis ...

: People in Auschwitz, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Wien: Ullstein, 1980; . *, Franciszek Piper (Hrsg.): Auschwitz 1940-1945. Studies on the History of the Concentration Camp and Death Camp Auschwitz. Verlag Staatliches Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oswiecim 1999, . *: The Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS in Auschwitz: Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (Hrsg.): Die Auschwitz-Hefte, Band 1, Hamburg, 1994; .

External links

Literature on Hans Delmotte in the German National Library. * Aleksander Lasik: Die Organisationsstruktur des KL Auschwitz, in: Aleksander Lasik, Franciszek Piper, Piotr Setkiewicz, Irena Strzelecka: Auschwitz 1940-1945. Studien zur Geschichte des Konzentrations und Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz., Band I: Aufbau und Struktur des Lagers, Staatliches Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim 1999, S. 320. *

: "People in Auschwitz". Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Wien 1980, S. 405f. *

Robert Jay Lifton Robert Jay Lifton (born May 16, 1926) is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of ...

: "The murderers are amongst us", in: ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'', Ausgabe 27 vom 4. Juli 1988. *

Hans Münch Hans Wilhelm Münch (14 May 1911 – 6 December 2001), also known as The Good Man of Auschwitz, was a German Nazi Party member who worked as an SS doctor during World War II at the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1943 to 1945 in German occup ...

über Delmotte Zitiert bei: Hermann Langbein: Menschen in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Wien 1980, S. 405
»Die Mörder sind noch unter uns« Ns-Ärzte: Von der Euthanasie (The Murderers are still amongst us: NS-Doctors, on the Euthanasia"), in: ''Der Spiegel'', Ausgabe 25 vom 20. Juni 1998.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Delmotte, Hans 1917 births 1945 suicides 1945 deaths Belgian Waffen-SS personnel Belgian prisoners of war in World War II Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Physicians in the Nazi Party Auschwitz concentration camp medical personnel Dachau concentration camp personnel Physicians from Liège Belgian medical researchers Suicides by firearm in Germany Nazis who died by suicide in Germany Nazis who died by suicide in prison custody World War II prisoners of war held by the United States Prisoners who died in United States military detention