Kurt Heissmeyer (26 December 1905 – 29 August 1967) 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 physician involved in medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates including children, notably seven-year old Sergio de Simone.

Medical experiments

In order to obtain a professorship, Heissmeyer needed to present original research. Although previously disproven, his hypothesis was that the injection of live

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

bacilli into subjects would act as a vaccine. Another component of his experimentation was based on

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

Nazi racial theory that race played a factor in developing tuberculosis. He attempted to prove his hypothesis by injecting live tuberculosis bacilli into the lungs and bloodstream of "

Untermensch ''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non- Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...

en" (subhumans),

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and

Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

being considered by the Nazis to be racially inferior to Germans. He was able to have the facilities made available and to test his subjects as a result of personal connections: his uncle, SS general

August Heissmeyer August Heißmeyer or Heissmeyer, (11 January 1897 – 16 January 1979), was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He commanded the SS Main Office in 1935–1939. After World War II, Heissmeyer was tried and convicted as a "major Nazi off ...

, and his close acquaintance, SS general

Oswald Pohl Oswald Ludwig Pohl (; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in ...

. His experiment was conducted on 20 Jewish children at

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

. The children, along with their four adult caretakers, were murdered by being hanged in the basement of

Bullenhuser Damm The Bullenhuser Damm School is located at ''92–94 Bullenhuser Damm'' in the Rothenburgsort section of Hamburg, Germany – the site of the Bullenhuser Damm Massacre, the murder of 20 children and their adult caretakers at the very end of W ...

School in

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

. After the war, Heissmeyer escaped detection and returned to his home in

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...

in postwar East Germany and started a successful medical practice as a lung and tuberculosis specialist. He was eventually found out in 1959, and arrested in 1963. In 1966, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. At his trial he stated, "I did not think that inmates of a camp had full value as human beings." When asked why he didn't use

guinea pigs The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus '' Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the a ...

he responded, "For me there was no basic difference between human beings and guinea pigs." He then corrected himself: "Jews and guinea pigs".Admitting the Holocaust: Collected Essays By Lawrence L. Langer Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 20, 1996) Language: English Heissmeyer died in prison on 29 August 1967.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heissmeyer, Kurt 1905 births 1967 deaths Neuengamme concentration camp personnel Physicians in the Nazi Party East German physicians Nazi human subject research German people convicted of crimes against humanity Nazis who died in prison custody Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by East Germany Prisoners who died in East German detention

Medical experiments

See also

References