The case of SS Doctor Heinrich Schütz

How to cite: Sterkowicz, S. The case of SS Doctor Heinrich Schütz. Kantor, M., trans. Medical Review – Auschwitz. December 30, 2019. https://www.mp.pl/auschwitz. Originally published as “Sprawa lekarza SS Heinricha Schütza”. Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim. 1977: 137–141.

Author

Stanisław Sterkowicz, MD, PhD, 1923–2011, cardiologist and historian of medicine, Neuengamme survivor.


Heinrich Schütz during his trial
On 15 October 1975, thirty-three years after the criminal pseudo-medical experiments had been carried out at Dachau concentration camp, the main performer of these experiments, Sturmbannführer SS Heinrich Emil Schütz, MD, was put on trial in the Second Munich Court. He was charged with causing the death of eleven prisoners. All the deaths were the consequence of phlegmon experiments conducted in Dachau on Heinrich Himmler’s personal orders. Himmler commissioned Chief SS Physician Prof. Ernest Grawitz to examine whether homeopathic remedies (called “biochemical remedies” in Germany, i.e. very dilute solutions of inorganic salts), could be more effective in the treatment of phlegmonous diseases than sulphonamides, which were in general use.

We had to wait over thirty years after the war to see Dr Heinrich Schütz in court being charged with criminal offences. For many years he had been living a quiet life and treating patients in a private medical centre in Essen. From the end of the war to June 1947 Dr Schütz lived in a POW camp for SS-men. After being set free, he was appointed chief physician of a sanatorium and neurological clinic in Essen-Bredeney. He also opened a private practice as a specialist in internal medicine with long and excellent clinical experience. Later the practice was the only source of his income.

In May 1971, Schütz was detained on remand during an investigation against him in connection with the Dachau crimes. But he was in prison only for three months. The Bavaria professional association paid in 225 thousand DM, and in August 1971 he was released on bail (Anklageschrift, I, 1). In fact, many eminent personalities from the West German business world, such as Heinz Wolf, a member of the Board of the Klöckner steel company; Curt Edeling, President of T. Goldschmidt A. G., Essen; and Ernst Schmidt, legal adviser to the Executive Board of Ruhr-Stickstoff A. G., Bochum; called for his release, stressing his high moral standards and professional virtues.

I shall now give an outline of Dr Heinrich Schütz’s CV. He came from a family of medical doctors. He was born in 1906. In 1925, he completed secondary school and went up to read Medicine at Munich University. Then he continued his studies in Paris and Leipzig. In 1931, he passed the state examination and graduated in Medicine from Leipzig University. Then he began working in the Internal Disease Clinic in Leipzig under the supervision of the well-known specialist in internal medicine Prof. Paul Morawitz. There he completed his doctoral dissertation on the pathology and therapy of aortic valve regurgitation. After Hitler seized power, Schütz gave up his academic career in Prof. Morawitz’s department and was appointed assistant physician in Erfurt municipal hospital, and later moved to Chemnitz, where he was head of the internal ward.

In May 1935, Schütz joined the NSDAP, afraid of losing his appointment. The following year he joined the Allgemeine SS. Just before the outbreak of the war he was drafted into the Luftwaffe. In January 1940, after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he was transferred to the Waffen-SS to work in the cardiology research centre at Dachau. A few months later, he was assigned to an SS division and sent to the Eastern Front. In 1942 he became seriously ill with viral hepatitis and was sent back to the SS hospital at Dachau. After his recovery, he was given orders to work in the internal diseases ward in the SS hospital at Dachau, which catered for the SS-men stationed in the concentration camp and their families.

His service in the SS was highly esteemed. He received several distinctions, including the Iron Cross (2nd Class), for combat on the Eastern Front, and was promoted. By November 1942 he was a Sturmbannführer SS, which was a rank equivalent to a major. He worked in Dachau SS hospital till September 1944. Next he was appointed chief physician of Bad-Aussee hospital, where he worked to the end of the war (Anklageschrift, II, 763-779).

The fact that Heinrich Schütz never officially held a physician’s post at Dachau helped him choose a method of defending himself during his trial after the war. Actually, it was a rather naive defence. He claimed that he could not have conducted experiments on prisoners because he only worked in the SS hospital; he only treated SS-men and their families, and examined the SS-men’s suitability for front-line service.

However, Schütz’s participation in the phlegmon experiments carried out at Dachau was indisputably proved on the grounds of the testimonies of victims who survived the hell of the concentration camp, and on the grounds of several documents. He had been ordered to conduct top-secret experiments by his superior, Chief SS Physician Prof. Ernst Grawitz.

The idea of these experiments was coined by Himmler himself, who had always been interested in folk medicine. In his childhood, he had seen his grandparents using and recommending herbal treatment. Himmler was especially interested in all kinds of hydrotherapy and homeopathic treatment. In his opinion, doctors were wrong to give up homeopathic methods. So he used his enormous power to get his chief physician Grawitz to carry out tests to determine the usefulness of homeopathy for the treatment of purulent diseases.

Grawitz scrupulously followed his boss’s orders. He assembled a medical team and gave them exact instructions. The task was to be supervised by Dr Heinrich Schütz, a specialist in internal diseases, supported by the chemist Dr Hermann Kiesewetter and Prof. Theodor Laue from Munich. Moreover, the camp physicians, including Karol Babor aka Barbor and Waldemar Wolter, were to help Schütz observe the victims selected for the tests.

Schütz sent Grawitz reports on the tests. Sometimes he attached the patients’ medical records. By late August 1942, Prof. Grawitz, could submit a provisional report on the tests to Himmler, writing that the experiments conducted in the camp gave a negative result (Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, document 409; and Anklageschrift I. 4-6).

The report said that there had been 40 experimentees, most of them suffering from artificially induced phlegmons. The biochemical remedies were also used to treat chronic sciatica, nephrosis, gall stones and other diseases. Ten out of the 40 experimentees died. Thirty-five prisoners who had received biochemical treatment showed no improvement, Grawitz observed. Four other cases gave positive results with certain reservations. Grawitz wrote in his report to Himmler that that the administration of homeopathic tablets had caused certain difficulties, which made Himmler angry. The tone of his reply to Grawitz was quite sharp. I shall quote large passages from this letter, since it characterises Himmler’s attitude towards these experiments and shows that Grawitz was eager to conduct other pseudo-medical experiments in different concentration camps on Himmler’s orders:

Reichsführer SS
Dear Grawitz!


Field unit, 30 September 1942

I am not pleased at all with your report of 29 September 1942.

The experiments and the characteristic sentence that the administration of the tablets was extremely hard on the patients show that yet another matter has been handled badly.

It is important to assume a scientific approach to research on a given problem, that is, to examine it conscientiously and to use research methods which will give irrefutable results; one should conduct research with all the seriousness the task requires. Therefore, there must be no problem with pros and cons. It is not my duty to check every research method.

I am sure that as a professor, and one that enjoys using the title, you could make a valuable contribution to these experiments and confirm your right to the title. . . .1

The idea that I want to deprive you of my confidence is simply absurd. I have never thought of it. Yet, if a similar situation were to occur again, you should not expect any further scientific commissions from me.

However, you should not think that there was a plot against you. Nobody has conspired against you. All I have seen is your research report on the tests. All I have done is to draw conclusions from the facts you present. . . .

The purpose of this letter is not to make you ponder for hours whether I am going to dismiss you and appoint someone else chief SS physician. All I want is to make you correct your main error, swallow your pride and take a serious approach to your duties, including the unpleasant ones, and make you reconsider your opinion that things can be done by prattle and persuasion. If you learn that and work on yourself, everything will return to normal, and I will continue to be pleased with you.

As soon as you carefully consider my letter, I will summon you in order to thoroughly rethink the research methods and other problems that I have mentioned in this letter.

Heil Hitler
Yours,
H. Himmler

(Anklageschrift, II, 225 -227)

No tests were conducted on a systematic basis during the correspondence between Grawitz and Himmler. After Himmler’s reprimand Grawitz did his best to intensify the experiments. Forty priests imprisoned at Dachau, most of them Polish, were selected as guinea pigs. On 10 and 26 November 1942, Dr Schütz himself selected 20 clergymen for the experiments, and eleven of them – one Dutchman, one Czech and nine Poles – died as a result of the experiments. The following Polish priests died of an artificially induced phlegmon: Stanisław Bukowy, Mieczysław Janecki, Józef Kocot, Czesław Sejbuk, Marian Stopczak, Stanisław Kołodziej, Marian Konopiński, Ludwik Lesniewicz, and Tomasz Lis. Most of them died in December 1942 (Anklageschrift, Sonderband ITS Unterlagen). Heinrich Stöhr, a male nurse in the hospital, risked his own life to save many prisoners who had been selected for the medical tests. Stöhr secretly gave them medicaments. His testimony given at the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial gives a good description of Schütz’s role in the experiments. Here are some excerpts from his testimony:

One day, in the late summer or autumn of 1942,2 Sturmbannführer Schütz and Standartenführer Laue came to inspect the surgical ward. They ordered me to bring a number of patients; Schütz examined their wounds superficially. Next he called Dr Wellen, the chief physician of Dachau concentration camp, and ordered him to administer biochemical [homeopathic – S. Sterkowicz’s note] treatment to the patients for a certain time.

In late autumn,3 Sturmbannführer Dr Schütz told camp physician Dr Babold to infect a number of people with pus. So a certain group of the prisoners were infected and we nurses gave them the medicaments that the doctors prescribed. Half of these people received allopathic and the other half biochemical treatment. Those who received biochemical tablets were in the first group and if I remember correctly, they all died.4 The second group consisted of 40 clergymen of different nationalities. These patients were selected from the clergymen’s block by Dr Wolter, the chief physician, and were sent to the operating theatre, where they were operated on by Dr Schütz and the biochemist Dr Kiesewetter. . . . When they had all been infected, Sturmbannführer Schütz ordered the nurses to administer allopathic treatment to half of them, and biochemical treatment to the other half. Special drugs, i.e. sulphonamides, were to be used if needed. All those who were treated biochemically developed abscesses. Some of those who had sulphonamides had no abscesses. Sturmbannführer Schütz visited the patients a few times and dictated short notes on their case histories to us. In addition, photos were taken of the abscesses. Sturmbannführer Schütz took all of these case histories with him. One day there was a visit of a number of people who probably came from Berlin and saw these patients. As far as I remember, I think it was Chief Physician Grawitz.5

(Anklageschrift, I, 27-32)

After the war, a medical record relating to the phlegmon experiments conducted at Dachau was found in Grawitz’s villa in Berlin. The record concerned the Polish priest Father Stefan Natorski, who had been put to these cruel tests. Father Natorski was lucky to survive the camp. A comparison of the data from his Dachau medical record with his post-war statement proves Dr Schütz’s guilt beyond all doubt. These shocking documents give a good idea of the cruelty of the experiments.

Here is a summary of the medical record found among Dr Grawitz’ documents.6

Diagnosis: Artificial Abscess on Left Thigh and Right Upper Arm. Natorski Stefan, born 21 January 1909. Admission to the hospital: 10 November 1942. Temperature: 35.8oC, Pulse: 60 Weight: 51 kg. Height: 1.63 m.

Course:

11 Nov. 1942 At 18.00h. the patient had 1 cm2 of pus injected into the left thigh; the pus was labelled “Purolin”7 and when observed under a microscope it was found to contain a great number of streptococci chains. Later on in the evening the patient complained of severe headache and pain in the left thigh.
15 Nov. 1942 The left thigh is completely swollen. Very sensitive to pressure; pain. Persisting headaches.
16 Nov. 1942 A pustule of the size of a pea has developed in the injection area on the left thigh. The patient complains of pulsating pain.
19 Nov. 1942 Puncture on the left inside thigh. 14 cu. cm of cream-coloured pus were extracted, 3 cu. cm of which were immediately injected intravenously into the right arm.
21 Nov. 1942 An incision was made in the thigh under ether anaesthesia; and the incision was extended using blunt tip forceps. Approximately 250 cu. cm of cream-coloured pus was extracted. A counter incision was made on the back of the left thigh; and a rubber catheter was applied to drain the pus.
22 Nov. 1942 The swelling on the left thigh has receded slightly. The lower part of the right arm is red, swollen and painful.
28 Nov. 1942 A swollen area the size of an egg has developed on the lower part of the upper right arm. The skin is red. A slight amount of fluctuation may be observed. An incision was made under ethyl chloride [chloroethane] anaesthesia. A large amount of cream-coloured/opaque pus drains freely. A rubber catheter and a dry dressing were applied.
18 Jan. 1943 The patient’s condition has improved. No complaints whatsoever. He has been discharged from the hospital.

Epicrisis: On being injected with Purolin, this patient developed an abscess on the left thigh. An abscess formed on the right upper arm as well following an intravenous purolin injection. Both abscesses were opened. A large and deep-seated area of necrotic tissue developed on the left thigh, giving rise to heavy bleeding which was stopped by ligating the vena saphena magna [great saphenous vein]. The wounds continued to discharge pus for several weeks. The patient was given large doses of Albucid and Tibatin administered orally. The incisions healed quite quickly as compared with the patients given biochemical treatment. The total amount of Tibatin administered intravenously was 124 g, and 336 g of Albucid administered orally throughout the course of the disease. (Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, Document No. 99, II, 545-572; Anklageschrift, II, 545-572)

In his commentary to this case history, the Munich public prosecutor wrote, “Injecting pus intravenously is dangerous even for the healthiest. Thus it must have been very dangerous for the condition of prisoner Natorski, especially as he was very weak. The fact that Natorski survived borders on a medical miracle.” (Anklageschrift, II, 572)8

In 1971 Father Stefan Natorski testified as follows:

. . . When I entered the operating theatre, I saw an SS officer in the rank of Sturmbannführer, standing sideways to those coming in, and leaning over the operating table. Next to him there was another SS officer, who ordered me to undress. The junior SS doctor told me to lie down on the table. He administered an injection into my left thigh. Then I got dressed and checked out with the Sturmbannführer, who was now standing opposite me. . . .

During my stay in the hospital, my fellow-inmates, the nurses and I identified these officers as Sturmbannführer Schütz and his younger colleague Pape who was a Sturmführer. In the hospital Schütz and Pape were interested only in us. Their tasks were limited to visits: Pape came every other day and looked at the our medical records but not at us or our wounds. On average his visit lasted half an hour. Schütz came even less frequently, usually once a week, always accompanied by Pape. Schütz only read the medical records. But one day Schütz’s behaviour was different. It was two weeks after the pus injection had been administered. My condition was improving slightly. Schütz entered the room and ordered the nurses to take me to the operating theatre. It was the first time I saw him wearing a doctor’s coat. He approached me and extracted the pus from my wound with a syringe, and immediately injected it into my right arm. I could observe it very carefully, as I was conscious. I am absolutely certain that it was Dr Schütz who administered this intravenous injection. We did not see any other doctors during the whole of our stay in the hospital. One day a large group of doctors attended by Schütz and Pape arrived. I do not know who they were, but judging by Schütz and Pape’s behaviour they must have been senior officers.” (Anklageschrift, II, 534-544)

When witness Natorski was shown 44 photos of SS-men (without their names), he immediately recognised Dr Schütz as the one who had supervised the phlegmon experiments (Anklageschrift, II, 543).

Undoubtedly, Schütz must have been fully aware of the deadly consequences of injecting pus intravenously and putting the patient’s life at risk. But due to the racist ideology of Fascism, he was indifferent to the fate of prisoners, whom he considered Untermensche [sub-human]. So he did not care that his pseudo-medical experiments led to the death, suffering and inhuman torment of his victims.


Lora. Marian Kołodziej. Click to enlarge.

Numerous witnesses summoned to the Munich trial confirmed Schütz’s active role in the phlegmon experiments. Many Dachau survivors, including Izydor Szyma, described their torture during the tests. Szyma said, “I could not stand the pain. I yelled and howled like an animal.” (Anklageschrift, II, 740)

Dachau survivor Hieronim Bieńka gave a particularly incriminating testimony against Schütz. Bieńka worked in the hospital for several years. He said that he had seen Schütz injecting pus, transferring the infection from the sick to the healthy. When he worked in the camp morgue, he carried the corpses of those who had been killed in the hospital with an intravenous injection of pus. According to Bieńka, Dr Kiesewetter, a biochemist [homeopath], also observed the phlegmon experiments. One group of patients was treated surgically, another with sulphonamides, and a third group was given biochemical, i.e. homeopathic treatment. Kiesewetter “looked after” the patients treated biochemically. He did not administer injections. He only administered large doses of calcium, which caused bloody stools. Schütz supervised the phlegmon block. Also Prof. Theodor Laue from Munich and Dr Waldemar Wolter, a camp doctor from Dachau, visited the hospital. (Anklageschrift, III, 1061-1066).

Despite incontrovertible proof of his guilt, Schütz argued that he had not participated in the experiments because he was not a camp physician. He never had the courage to admit to these offences. He did not have to fear the death penalty because it was abolished in the Federal Republic of Germany. In addition, having powerful protectors and on account of his age, he could count on a reprieve. He pleaded not guilty, although his guilt was proven beyond all reasonable doubt. He called witnesses for the defence who commended his medical activities and tried their best to prove that he had not participated in the Dachau crimes.

However, the court found the 70-year-old Heinrich Schütz guilty of the charges and sentenced him to ten years in prison. However, the bail that had been paid allowed him to remain at large, because the verdict did not become final. While waiting for the verdict of his appeal, Dr Schütz could continue in his medical practice. Since in West Germany justice for World War II criminals is not prompt, who knows if he will ever be convicted at all. How many years of life does this Dachau criminal doctor still have ahead of him?

Considering the atrocities he has committed against defenceless prisoners, killing at least 11 priests in a brutal way for the sake of his pseudo-scientific experiments, inflicting inhuman suffering on dozens of others, it is clear that the fact that Dr Heinrich Schütz is at large, is sheer contempt of the gigantic sufferings of his victims and must be considered a mockery of justice.

As for the fate of the other people involved in Schütz’s case, I shall add that Obersturmführer SS Dr Karol Babor aka Barbor died in Abyssinia in 1964, where he was hiding after the war. Dr Kiesewetter died of natural causes shortly after the war. Standartenführer SS Prof. Theodor Laue was killed on the front. Untersturmführer SS Dr Waldemar Wolter was sentenced to death for all his activities in the concentration camps in the trial of the Mauthausen staff, and the sentence was carried out in 1947 (Sterkowicz). The principal research commissioner, Prof. Ernst Grawitz, chief physician of the SS, committed suicide in April 1945. The only survivor out of the group that carried out the Dachau phlegmon experiments is Heinrich Schütz, who is evading justice. However, whatever happens to Dr Heinrich Schütz in the future, he will always be remembered as a Dachau criminal guilty of many atrocities who disgraced the finest ideals of the medical profession.9

Some Polish newspapers have published articles on Schütz’s trial. For example, Bishop Kazimierz Majdański, a concentration camp survivor, has described the atmosphere of the trial as not giving a full picture of the crimes and treating this criminal very leniently (Majdański). So it is at least good that the events discussed during the trial have been recalled on a broader international forum.

Translated from original article: Sterkowicz, S., “Sprawa lekarza SS Heinricha Schütza.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1977.

Notes

1. This passage contains a threat. Himmler is telling Grawitz that if he doesn’t “do better” (i.e. get the results Himmler wants), not only will he “fall from grace” and lose his job, but there will be further reprisals, e.g. being sent to the Eastern front, where the chance of being killed was high.a

2. We give an English translation of Prof. Sterkowicz’s Polish article. Below is the English version of the relevant passage from the court records of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial:

“I was the nurse at that station. One day—I think it was in the late summer and fall of 1943&mdsh;a certain Sturmbannfuehrer Schuetz came to me and also a Standartenfuehrer with the name of Laue or Lauer; I am not quite sure which—and inspected the surgical department. He was shown a number patients; that is, we had to take their bandages off, and he examined their wounds. That is, he just looked at them very superficially. After that, the chief physician of the concentration camp Dachau, Dr *olda, was called and he received the order to see to it that the patients received biochemical treatment for some time.” (See the source here. See also: Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946–April 1949. 1949: U.S. Government Printing Office. Vol. 1: “The Medical Case,” —read online here).b

3. We give an English translation of Prof. Sterkowicz’s Polish article. Below is the English version of the relevant passage (an extract from the testimony of Prosecution Witness Heinrich W. Stoehr) from the court records of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial:

“. . . During the fall, this Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Schuetz told them camp doctor by the name of Babo to infect a number of people with pus. We as nurses were told nothing about that, and we did not know what it concerned. These experiments were conducted on a group of men, and they extended over a period of approximately six to seven weeks.

“Firstly, a group of Germans were infected with pus, and we nurses had no idea about the cause of that illness, and we gave the patients those drugs that were ordered by the physicians. I emphasize again that half of these people received allopathic and the other half bio-chemical treatment. As nurses, we could see the following things:

“Every patient who received allopathical treatment were cured much quicker, that is, if they had any power of resistance with reference to their illness but the patient who had to take these pathological tablets, if I remember correctly, died with the exception of one person. There were approximately 20 persons who, at that time, were infected. The second group consisted of 40 clergymen belonging to all nations who were at that time in the group and fraternity brothers. These patients were selected in the block where all clergymen lived. They were selected by the Chief Physician Dr. Walda and were sent to the operational room of the concentration camp Dachau and were operated on by Dr. Schuetz and Dr. Kieselwetter. I think that was his name, and these experiments were conducted on them. A number of nurses and also the personnel of the operating room and I saw how they were injected in that manner. We were standing in the ante-room of the operating room.” (The Doctors’ Trial, 597–581; see the link. See also: Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946—April 1949. 1949: U.S. Government Printing Office. Vol. 1: “The Medical Case,” 665.—see also hereb

4. Sterkowicz’s Polish text says “they all died.” The English transcript of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial tells us they all died “with the exception of one person.” The Harvard Project has not put a reproduction of this page of the original German text online, so we can’t tell who was wrong—the Nuremberg translators, or Sterkowicz.a

5. This passage looks like a paraphrase of a testimony delivered before the Nuremberg Tribunal, but Sterkowicz attributes it to the records of Schütz’s 1971 trial. Did Sterkowicz get his reference wrong, or was evidence from the 1946 Doctors’ Trial re-used in the West German court in 1971?a

6. Compare the English translation of Sterkowicz’s article with the passage from the (original) English version of the records of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial (available here).c

7. “Purolin”—probably a false name Grawitz and his team used to cover up the fact that they were infecting patients. Using false names to cover up criminal practices was often applied in Nazi German documents, for instance the word Leichenhalle (“morgue”) appears on schematic diagrams of the Auschwitz gas chambers.a

8. Father Natorski’s case is quoted in Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke’s classic account of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial (English title Doctors of Infamy, 1950).a

9. Heinrich Schütz died in 1986. He never served his sentence.a

a—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa; b—Translating Team’s notes; c—notes by Maria Kantor, the translator of this text.

References


1. Anklageschrift gegen Dr. Schütz. [Indictment against Dr Schütz]
2. Majdański, Kazimierz. Proces monachijski [The Munich trial]. Tygodnik Powszechny. 1976; 11: 1–2.
3. Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial. Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946–April 1949. 1949: U.S. Government Printing Office. Vol. 1: “The Medical Case,” p. 665. Available online under this link. See also the following links to the Nuremberg Trials project hosted by the Harvard Law School Library:: 1, 2, 3, 4.
4. Sterkowicz, Stanisław. 1981. Zbrodnicze eksperymenty medyczne w obozach koncentracyjnych Trzeciej Rzeszy. Warszawa : Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej. (The book was published after this article appeared in Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, where it is cited as a manuscript)

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