Hans Joachim Sewering (30 January 1916 – 18 June 2010) was a German doctor. In

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 is alleged to have participated in transferring 900 handicapped Catholic children into a camp where they were killed.

Biography

Sewering was born on 30 January 1916, 17 years to the day before

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

came to power. Sewering joined the SS on 1 November 1933 for "social reasons", claiming that young men were "simply the victims of propaganda." A year later, he joined the

Nazi Party 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 the summer of 1942, he worked as assistant physician at the Schönbrunn Sanitarium, near

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

in Bavaria. According to two nuns who broke their silence in 1993, he killed 900 physically and mentally handicapped children by transferring them from Schönbrunn to the Eglfing-Haar "healing center", a facility south of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. One of these children he was accused of killing, the 14-year-old Babette Fröwis whom he consigned to Eglfing-Harr as epileptic, was never examined by him. She later became a postergirl for the practice of Nazi euthanasia. Sewering denied these allegations. However, he was barred from entering the United States on these grounds and Jewish organizations called for him to be tried for murder. After World War II, he became a respected

physician 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 ...

, and earned the praise of noted doctor Wolfgang Wesiack. Sewering, who became the head of the German Medical Association in 1993 lived in Dachau in his latter years. A San Francisco Bay Area physician who lost 26 relatives in the Holocaust, Dr. Michael Franzblau, spent years attempting to have Sewering indicted for war crimes. In May 2008, the German Federation of Internal Medicine awarded Sewering the Gunther-Budelmann medal for services to the nation’s health system, its highest honor. The

Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...

condemned this, saying that "to honor an accused war criminal, one who is alleged to have used medicine for harm, is an insult to those who have suffered under the Nazis".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sewering, Hans 1916 births 2010 deaths SS officers Physicians in the Nazi Party Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich