X-ray “sterilisation” and castration in Auschwitz: Dr Horst Schumann

For a precise definition of the subject I am going to address, I shall begin by explaining what is meant by “sterilisation” and “castration,” because these two concepts are used erroneously in the German records. Sterilisation is a procedure which makes an individual sterile (infertile), in other words unable to have offspring. It does not deprive that individual of his or her sexual attributes, neither does it affect his or her libido. Sterilisation is effective if it cancels the subject’s potential for procreation, making him or her infertile on a temporary or permanent basis. Female sterilisation involves the sealing of a woman’s Fallopian tubes, either by putting a temporary block on them, incising them, or removing them completely. Male sterilisation (vasectomy) is done by sealing (cutting or tying up) a man’s vas deferens (the tube that carries sperm) above the testicles. The difference between successful anti-conception and sterilisation is that it is difficult to restore the fertility of a person who has been sterilised, and the success rate of such procedures is only 35-40%.

Therapeutic sterilisation is practised in the civilised world on doctor’s recommendations; for eugenic¹ reasons; or in some countries on a patient’s request for their own comfort. A doctor may recommend sterilisation on the usual medical criteria for the termination of pregnancy to save the mother’s life or health, or for social reasons.

In almost all cases when male sterilisation is recommended, the man is suffering from a disease of the reproductive organs (usually cancer). The operation is conducted only with the patient’s consent. There are various attitudes to sterilisation for eugenic reasons and as yet there are insufficient scientific grounds to recommend it. Some statistics show that 89% of mentally retarded individuals are born into normal families, while very often the children of mentally retarded parents are normal. Sterilisation conducted for the convenience of a given individual is legal in some countries but only providing it is done with the consent of the interested party.

Castration is quite a different operation and involves the removal of the testicles or ovaries, or the destruction of the gametes using X-rays, leaving the individual permanently infertile and inducing serious somatic and mental disorders. Castration may be carried out only for strictly medical reasons and on the patient’s consent.

Neither castration nor sterilisation are practised in People’s Poland as a security or punitive measure. Under Polish law, sterilisation and castration are considered serious mutilations of the human body. Article 235 § 1 of the Polish Criminal Code prescribes a maximum sentence of ten years in prison for a person who deprives another person of their fertility, while under Article 251 this offence is considered a violation of human rights. Therapeutic castration may be conducted under the same provisions as those applicable in other medical procedures. Castration for “convenience” or eugenic reasons is illegal in Poland and would be considered a serious mutilation of the human body.

In 1933, the government of Nazi Germany passed its sterilisation law on the grounds of eugenic postulates.² Mandatory sterilisation and castration started to be practised immediately on a mass scale, and the new law was used as a good opportunity to implement the Nazi racist and political policy of genocide.³

Certain records dating back to the Second World War which have survived help us to trace the evolution of the criminal activities in which the politicians, “ideologues,” and scientists of the Third Reich engaged.

Germany wanted to exterminate the Jews and other nations it had conquered during the War, while at the same time exploiting them as a labour force for its war industry. This served as the grounds for the Nazi ideology to conduct experiments to determine the simplest method for mass “sterilisation.” The German authorities and scientists considered sterilisation with the use of X-rays, pharmaceutical methods, and the intrauterine application of chemical substances to block the Fallopian tubes.

Viktor Brack and other defendants who stood trial before the Nuremberg Tribunal said in their statements that by 1941 it was “an open secret for the senior authorities of the Nazi Party that its plenipotentiaries intended to exterminate all the Jewish people in Germany and the countries under German occupation.”⁴ In the opinion of Brack and his colleagues, especially Dr Hevelmann and Blankenberg, were unworthy of the authorities of the German [Nazi] Party and the whole of mankind, and that was why they “decided to look for an alternative way to resolve the Jewish problem, which would be less radical than the full extermination of the entire race (Document No. 426; see References, Item 4⁵).

So in 1941 Viktor Brack presented a proposal to Bouhler⁶ to sterilise Jews using X-rays. However, the proposal was not accepted because Hitler was against it. In spite of this, Brack continued to work on his plan and presented a new proposal to Himmler (Document No. 203):

The experiments in this field have been completed. The following results may be established as certain and scientifically well-grounded. If the respective persons are to be permanently infertile, this can be done using large doses of X-rays, which cause castration with all of its consequences. High X-ray doses destroy the internal secretions in the ovary or testicle. Medium doses bring about only temporary infertility. The after-effects involved are, for instance, loss of menstruation, menopausal symptoms, changes in the pilosity [hair on the subject’s head and body], metabolic changes etc. Attention must be paid to these after-effects.

The dosage may be applied in various ways, and exposure to the radiation may proceed with no symptoms. The stereotactic radiation dose required for men is 500-600 R, and 300-350 R for women. Basically, the irradiation time may be determined as 2 minutes for men and 3 minutes for women, using the top beam intensities and thin filters at a medium distance. It should be noted that the X-rays will cause [other] injuries unless the rest of the body is not covered with a suitable lead screen. If the intensity of the X-rays is too high, burns ranging in severity will appear on the skin within the next days or weeks. A practical way to carry out the procedure would be to make the designated persons stand in front of a window to answer questions or fill out a form which would take 2-3 minutes to complete. The administrator sitting behind the window would operate the equipment designed to service the window and activate the apparatus, that is two tubes (the radiation beam must be applied bilaterally). Thereby, an apparatus fitted with tubes of this kind could sterilise an average of 150-200 persons per day, so twenty such devices could sterilise about 3-4 thousand persons per day. In my opinion, a larger number of designated persons per day would not be required.

I can only give a rough estimate for the cost of such an apparatus: it would be in the region of 20-30 thousand [reichs]marks for the double-tube system. In addition, there would be the cost of the conversion of the building, because the staff would need to have the right protection.

To sum up, we may say that with today’s X-ray technology and research, it would be possible to conduct mass X-ray sterilisation. However, it seems impossible to conduct the operation in a way which would prevent interested parties from discovering sooner or later that they had been sterilised or castrated with the use of X-rays.”⁷

The letter was dated March 1941.

On 23 June 1942, Viktor Brack wrote another letter⁸ to Himmler⁹ on X-ray sterilisation. In his opinion, of 10 million European Jews, there were 2-3 million who were capable of work. They should be kept alive and sterilised. According to him, the cheapest and least time-consuming way to sterilise them would be the X-ray method (Document No. 205).

A few years later, in 1944, Brack again wrote to Himmler, informing him that he was still working on X-ray sterilisation. From this letter we learn that he was working with Dr Schumann on the problem (Document No. 208¹⁰). “Enclosed for the Reichsführer SS is a copy of Dr Schumann’s paper on the effect of X-rays on the human reproductive glands.” At one point, Himmler had commissioned Brack to carry out sterilisation experiments, putting suitable “material” in Auschwitz at his disposal. In his conclusion, Schumann writes that male castration using X-rays is a fairly difficult or uneconomical procedure. He adds that surgical castration takes only 6-7 minutes and is therefore surer and faster than X-ray castration. Schumann writes that he will be continuing his research.

Dr Schumann and his activities call for a detailed discussion.

Horst Schumann¹¹ was born in Halle on the River Saale on 1 May 1906. On 18 July 1933 he graduated from the local university, earning the doctor’s degree in Medicine. In the autumn of 1939, he was appointed head of the institution for “the incurably ill” in Grafeneck Castle (Württemberg), where the “mercy killing” operation was practised. On J4 January 1940, Dr Horst Schumann took an oath to keep everything that happened in connection with his appointment at Grafeneck strictly confidential. His task was to conduct the “euthanasia” programme which was being implemented at the time in various centres all over Germany. Under the programme carried out during the Second World War, about 200 thousand men, women and children were murdered. They were killed purportedly on the grounds of incurable disease. Dr Schumann took the oath absolutely on a voluntary basis, as the records of the Nuremberg Tribunal show.

Dr Schumann passed death sentences on a mass scale—on average 70 a day—on the “patients” sent to his “institution.” Of 4 thousand patients referred to Grafeneck, there were only 24 cases of the patient not being sent to the gas chamber (according to the statement made by nurse P. Kneissler before the Nuremberg Tribunal; Document No. 470¹²). When Grafeneck was closed down, Dr Schumann was appointed head of another institution of the same kind at Pirna.

During his work in these institutions, Dr Schumann used the name “Dr Klein” to sign documents; presumably he was well aware that the operation of killing he was conducting was a criminal activity. In August 1941, when the euthanasia operation was officially suspended by Hitler, Dr Schumann continued to conduct it for a time in various concentration camps. He sat on “medical boards” whose task was to select debilitated, weak and sick concentration camp inmates and send them to the gas chambers. At this time, these medical boards pursued their activities in the concentration camps at Buchenwald, Gross-Rosen, Flossenbürg, Neuengamme, Niederhagen, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen, and Auschwitz. The total number of prisoners killed in this way is estimated at about 10 thousand (Reference 5).

The Finger—A Death Selection. Artwork by Marian Kołodziej. Photo by Piotr Markowski. Click the image to enlarge.

On 28 July 1941, a special medical board arrived in Auschwitz on orders issued by Himmler, of which the camp’s management had been notified. All the chronically ill and disabled prisoners were told to report for a medical examination. Purportedly, they were to be sent to a “sanatorium” or alternatively to another camp for treatment or a less demanding job. The “medical board” selected 575 prisoners out of the group it examined. They left Auschwitz escorted by Rapportführer Hössler,¹³ who took them to Königstein mental hospital, Saxony. On his return to Auschwitz, he reported to Höss¹⁴ that the prisoners had been taken to the bath-house and gassed with carbon monoxide. This was probably the beginning of Schumann’s work in Auschwitz, since he was on the “medical board” (Reference 6).

Himmler had been making plans in 1941-1942 to use Auschwitz as a location for sterilisation experiments. As we learn from a letter sent by Reichsarzt SS Grawitz¹⁵ to Himmler on 29 May 1941, a proposal had been put forward by Prof. Clauberg¹⁶ to set up a research centre in Königshütte or its environs for his experiments to design a non-surgical method to sterilise women (Reference 5). On the following day, Grawitz sent Himmler a list of doctors authorised to carry out sterilisation experiments by the Clauberg method. Clauberg, von Wolff, Erhard, and Günther, all physicians and professors of medicine, were on this list (Reference 5).

But it was not until mid-1942 that Auschwitz became a venue for “sterilisation experiments.”

On 30 May 1942, Prof. Clauberg wrote to Himmler, offering to conduct sterilisation experiments on Auschwitz prisoners and asking for the allocation of facilities in the camp for this purpose (References 5). On 7 July 1942, Himmler had a conference with SS-Brigadeführer Prof. Gebhardt,¹⁷ SS-Brigadeführer Glücks,¹⁸ and SS-Brigadeführer Prof. Clauberg, during which he promised to make Auschwitz available to Prof. Clauberg for his sterilisation experiments on human subjects and animals. Himmler also said he wanted to be informed about the results of the experiments to implement them for the sterilisation of Jewish women. Another point on the agenda was the choice of a method for male sterilisation, which was to be made on consultation with Prof. Hohlfelder, an X-ray specialist. It was a secret conference, and Himmler bound attendees to keep the matters discussed confidential (Reference 6). By this time, Himmler was already considering the use of prisoners as a workforce to man Germany’s war industry but to prevent them from procreating. He wanted a cheap and fast method, for application on a mass scale.

The story of Prof. Clauberg’s experiments in Auschwitz is well-known and work has been published on it (e.g. by Jan Sehn and Władysław Fejkiel). I mention it here because the records show that it was connected with the X-ray sterilisation experiments. Not so many records have survived of the work done by Dr Schumann, who arrived in Auschwitz in November 1942. At that time, there was a “women’s X-ray sterilising station” in Block 30 in Birkenau. Later this block was converted into a dental surgery.

Block 30 was a wooden barrack on the premises of the women’s hospital in Birkenau. It consisted of a dormitory for the prisoners working in the unit and a waiting room leading to an X-ray hall equipped with two Siemens X-ray machines. Opposite the X-ray machines there was a cubicle screened off with plates of lead and with a small window on its front face. Dr Schumann used the cubicle to switch on his X-ray machines.

The day’s work schedule in Block 30 was as follows (according to the statement made by survivor Sonja Fischmann, the clerk for the block (Reference 7):

The day before a session, Dr Schuman notified the camp’s employment office to send a hundred young and healthy men or women to his block on the following morning. In the morning, the block senior reported with the prisoners.

At first, neither the staff of the experimental block nor the prisoners who were sent there realised what the aim of Schumann’s “experiment” was. Rumours went round that, for instance, it was connected with typhus, of which there was an epidemic raging in the camp at the time. All the work in the block was kept strictly secret. That was why it was out of bounds to SS-men as well as to prisoners, and the staff working there slept in.

When Dr Schumann arrived, Sonja Fischmann reported the arrival of the prisoners, their number and nationality.

The prisoners had to strip in the waiting room. Next, their prison numbers were taken down on a list which was later used to call them up one at a time and take them to the X-ray room.

There were two different portable seats for men and women. They were attached to the X-ray machines. Prisoners were told to stand in a special way between the machines, sideways to Dr Schumann’s cubicle. Then Dr Schumann switched on the beam. The “treatment” took just a couple of minutes, so a large number of prisoners could be sterilised in a few hours. The aim of irradiating them with an X-ray beam was to destroy their reproductive organs. Yet apart from that, later there were after-effects of the radiation, burns and suppurations which emerged especially on the abdominal tissue. As far as I recall, often the women had nausea and vomited soon after being irradiated. I asked Dr Schumann if I could help them, for instance give them some water. But I was not allowed to.

When the “treatment” was over, the prisoners were taken back to their blocks.

Dr Schumann was about 35 at the time and always wore a Luftwaffe airman’s uniform. His conduct was cold and “correct.” He never showed any signs of human feelings in his attitude to prisoners.

I was in Block 30 from November 1942 to February 1943. Dr Schumann’s subsequent experiments were moved to Block 10, where I spent the time from March to April 1943.

That marks the end of what Sonja Fischmann from Vienna had to say (Reference 7).

Another statement, made before the Nuremberg Tribunal (Document No. 819¹⁹), describes Dr Schumann’s work in Birkenau from a victim’s point of view:

I had been on roadworks for four weeks when suddenly one evening our Blockführer said, “All the Jews aged between 20 and 24 and able to work are to report!” I didn’t report. Twenty men were chosen and told to report to the doctor the following day. They returned on the same day and had to go back to work straightaway. No one knew what had been done to those twenty people. A week later, another twenty Jews aged 20-24 were chosen, but this time the names were read out in alphabetical order. I was one of the first. We were taken to the women’s camp in Birkenau. There, we saw a tall doctor in a grey air force uniform. We were told to strip and our reproductive organs were put into a device for 15 minutes. The device warmed up the reproductive organs and the surrounding area very much, after which these parts went dark. When it was over, we had to go back to work at once. Over the next few days, most of us started to get a suppuration coming from the sexual organs and had a lot of trouble with walking. Nevertheless, we had to continue working until we dropped of exhaustion. Those who broke down were sent to the gas.

With me, all I had was a bit of secretion, but it never became festering.

After about a fortnight, around October 1943, 7 men from our group were taken to Auschwitz I. We had to walk all the way. We all had big problems with walking because of the pain in our reproductive organs. We arrived in the prisoners’ hospital of Auschwitz I, Block 20 [this information is erroneous, it was Block 21—Editor’s note], where we were operated. We were given an injection in the lower back, which anaesthetised the lower part of our body leaving the upper part normal. We had both testicles removed. There was no preliminary semen examination. I was able to watch the whole procedure in the glass of the surgical lamp. No one was asked for his consent prior to the operation. We were just told, “you’re next,” after which we were sent straight up to the operating table without another word. The man in charge of the Auschwitz sterilisation and castration experiments was Dr Schumann.

The witness spent the next three weeks in the prisoners’ hospital in Auschwitz and managed to avoid being selected for the gas chamber. Thereafter, he returned to his job as a prisoner on hard labour.

Dr Schumann conducted surgery on the male guinea pigs to remove their testicles following their irradiation with X-rays.²⁰ The entries preserved in the register kept in the operating theatre, which is now preserved in the State [Auschwitz-Birkenau] Museum, show that Schumann conducted some of the operations himself (Reference 8). On 25 May 1943 “Lt. Schumann performed two Casus explorativus—Amputatio testis sin. [experimental cases for the removal of the left testicle] on prisoner No. 114179 and prisoner No. 114137” [we know the names of these prisoners—Editor’s note]. They had arrived in Auschwitz on 10 April 1943 in an RSHA transport of about 2,750 Jewish people from the ghetto in Thessaloniki. 537 men from this group were registered with camp numbers from 114094 to 114630, and 246 women with numbers from 40537 to 40782. The rest were killed in the gas chambers (Reference 6). From other records we know that in early December 1942, SS doctors had sterilised 200 young male prisoners in the prisoners’ hospital in Birkenau by irradiating their testicles with X-rays (Reference 6). On 16 December 1943, SS doctors carried out 90 castrations in the prisoners’ hospital. Some of the prisoners who had been castrated died, and some were gassed (Reference 6). The report dated 16 December 1943 says that 90 surgeries were conducted in the surgical ward of the prisoners’ hospital in Auschwitz I for the amputation of testicles, 10 oophorectomies (removal of the ovaries), and one for the removal of a Fallopian tube. They were all recorded as casus explorativa (experimental cases). There were six other surgeries of the reproductive organs for which there is no information whether they were connected with the experiments (References 8 and 9).

Dr Robert Levy, a surgeon who was a prisoner in Birkenau and appeared as a witness [before the Nuremberg Tribunal], said in his statement that in September 1943 about a hundred young Polish people who had lived in the environs of the city of Oświęcim were selected for sterilisation. After a few months, some of them came to see him complaining of circulatory disorders in the abdomen. In their interview, they said that in September they had been sterilised and castrated a month later. They had one or both testicles removed. Following the irradiation, they had developed ulcerations, skin inflammations, and festering wounds which were hard to heal. Many of them were sent to the gas chambers. Dr Levy thinks that their testicles were removed to examine the radiation effects under the microscope. He also believes that these people had been irradiated with doses of various intensities to determine which dosage was the best to achieve the required outcome (Document No. 602²¹ and Reference 4).

On average, Dr Schumann irradiated about 30 persons during a session, and conducted two or three such sessions per week.

According to the testimony of Sonja Fischmann and other witnesses, Schumann worked not only in Birkenau but also in Auschwitz I, where other women prisoners who were victims of Schumann’s experiments were accommodated in Block 10, the experimental facility. The statements and testimonies given by the next two witnesses, whose personal data and records are kept by the court in Frankfurt-am-Main, speak of a group of young Jewish girls from Thessaloniki among the other women prisoners designated for the gynaecological experiments in Block 10. They were subjected to experiments conducted by German air force physician Dr Schumann, who irradiated their ovaries with X-rays. A few weeks later, these victims were operated in the main camp of Auschwitz. They had a laparotomy of the abdominal cavity and one of their ovaries was removed. After a few weeks, once the wound had healed, the procedure was repeated for the removal of the second ovary. The aim of the operation was to observe the changes that occurred in the ovaries after a certain time following irradiation.

Dr Eduard de Wind,²² an Auschwitz survivor (No. 150822), born in The Hague on 6 February 1916, testified on the Block 10 experiments. He said the following about Schumann’s X-ray sterilisations:

The victims of the X-ray experiments were fifteen girls aged 17-18 (these observations were done from March 1943 to August 1944—Editor’s note). The experiments were performed as follows: The girls had electrodes attached to their abdomen and buttocks and were subjected to ultrashort radiation focused on their ovaries, which were destroyed. Serious burns and ulcerations developed on their abdomen and buttocks because inappropriate doses of radiation were used. One of the girls died of these injuries. The others were transferred to the prisoners’ hospital in Birkenau. After three months, they were sent back to Auschwitz, where they had two check-up operations. Their reproductive organs were removed and their condition was examined. The girls’ appearance started to change, they now looked very old. This was probably due to the fact that they had been deprived of the glands which produce sex hormones. Their surgical wounds did not heal for months on end, and some of these girls died (Reference 10).

Many prisoners did not survive these experiments. Some were sent back to Birkenau and had to resume work when the tests on them were over. Physically weak and left with a mental breakdown due to the experiments, several committed suicide or died because they were unable to cope with the hard labour they were expected to do. Those who were not fit for work at all had to die from a phenol injection or in the gas chamber. Nevertheless, a few victims of Schumann’s experiments survived the Nazi German concentration camps.

In October 1945, Dr Matarasso of Thessaloniki examined thirteen of Schumann’s male and female guinea pigs. Here is a summary of his results:

Women

F.S., aged 20, unmarried. Irradiated with X-rays, operated three months later. Current condition: no period, spells of dizziness, excessive perspiration, heart palpitations, pollakiuria, neuralgia.

E.A., aged 22, married. Irradiated with X-rays, operated a week later. Has lost her period. Current condition: spells of dizziness, excessive perspiration, pollakiuria.

L.B., aged 20, unmarried. Irradiated with X-rays, operated four months later. Has lost her period. Current condition: disorders due to loss of menstruation, frequent spells of dizziness, fits of flushing and excessive perspiration.

R.A., aged 20, unmarried. Irradiated with X-rays, subsequently operated by Dr Schumann; the wound festered. Bedridden for three months. Has lost her period. Has frequent headaches, and has become nervous and overexcited.

D.C., aged 21, married for 3 months at the time of this medical examination. Operated five months after being irradiated. Has lost her period. Current complaints: has become nervous and gets fits of flushing, excessive perspiration, frequent heart palpitations and pollakiuria.

F.C., aged 20, unmarried. Irradiated with X-rays, operated one month later. Has lost her period.

D.V., aged 19, married a short time before the medical examination. Irradiated with X-rays three times and subsequently operated. Bedridden for three months following the infection of her surgical wound. Has lost her period. Current condition: disorders due to loss of menstruation, spells of dizziness, red flushes, heart palpitations and pollakiuria.

Men

A.F., aged 21. Irradiated with X-rays. Had one testicle castrated 40 days later. Result: semen with numerous immotile sperm.

A.G., aged 27. Had one testicle irradiated with X-rays, while the other testicle was screened off with a lead shield. Medical examination on 17 Sept. 1945 in Thessaloniki: no sperm observed.

M.E., aged 21. Irradiated with X-rays. Had one testicle castrated. Medical examination on 21 Sept. 1945 in Thessaloniki: no sperm observed.

D.S., aged 30. Irradiated with X-rays. Had one testicle castrated. Medical examination on 9 Oct. 1945 in Thessaloniki: no sperm observed.

H.M., aged 20. Bilateral castration (first testicle removed in July 1943, second testicle removed in September 1943). Current condition: no facial hair, slightly enlarged breasts, sexual neurosis.

S.A., aged 24. Irradiated with X-rays. Had one testicle castrated. Medical examination on 9 Oct. 1945 in Thessaloniki: no sperm observed.

In his final remarks, Dr Matarasso wrote that all the patients he examined were under a heavy mental strain (quoted after Reference 5).

An incomplete set of data for the number of women in Block 10 in Auschwitz I designated for the sterilisation and castration experiments has been used to compile a chart showing the number of victims. However, these figures are not only for Schumann’s victims, but also for Prof. Clauberg’s and Dr Wirths’ victims.²³

The in-camp resistance group operating in Auschwitz knew of the experiments going on in Auschwitz I. In April 1943, it sent a secret message out of the camp which said that Block 10 was due to be used for experiments on castration, sterilisation, and artificial insemination. “The project is being carried out under the auspices of the Waffen SS Central Institute for Hygiene in Berlin. The women are already here” (Reference 11). A secret message dated May 1943 reads,

Today I’m writing about Block 10 in Auschwitz. There is a Hyg. Lab. Unterstelle der Waffen SS Süd-Ost²⁴ experimental station there. Apart from a few laboratory rooms, they have a group of about 200 Jewish women and 15 Jewish men there. In general, they are interested in artificial insemination, castration, and sterilisation. It is a top secret project, and the windows are blacked out. So far, a series of women have been castrated, and so have the 15 boys, who had specimens of their sperm taken. That project is on “test-tube babies.” Nearly all the Jewish women come from Greece, but even that is liable to change. They have not been put on the general register of prisoners. Presumably, they are considered dead as far as roll calls are concerned... The outcome of these experiments will be nothing but corpses. People in the camp are very sad about it all, but no one has any concrete facts on the matter. . . . (Reference 11)

Yet another kite, this time dated May 1943, says

The Berlin SS Institute of Hygiene is conducting numerous interesting experiments in the prisoners’ hospital and women are being used as guinea pigs . . . (Reference 11)

Another kite dated 30 June 1943 gives the following information:

. . . 64 German Jewish women arrived in Block 10 yesterday and are waiting for their guinea pig experiments. . . . (Reference 11)

These are some excerpts from the kites the resistance movement [in the camp] sent to Kraków,

When Auschwitz was about to be evacuated in connection with the approach of Soviet forces, Block 10 was closed down and the women prisoners in it were evacuated.

From Document 865 of the Nuremberg records we know that in 1944 Schumann arrived in Ravensbrück, where he continued his experiments on sterilisation and castration, this time on Roma children (Reference 4). The doings of Dr Horst Schumann are frequently mentioned in the records of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, in which physicians guilty of crimes against humanity appeared before the American Military Tribunal.

When those guilty of the Grafeneck mass murders were being dealt with in Tübingen, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Dr Horst Schumann. However, since the German police did not find him, the trial against the executors of the “euthanasia programme,” which was held in June and July, proceeded without Dr Schumann’s attendance. It was only later discovered that he had been living in Germany at the time with his family and had even been using his real name. He and his family did not leave Germany until much later, using legal documents. He was working as a physician in Sudan at least from 1956. As soon as the government of the German Federal Republic submitted an application for Schumann’s extradition, ge moved to Nigeria. He has been living in Ghana since 30 June 1960, and is working as a physician in that country’s Ministry of Health, and also holds a doctor’s appointment in Kete Krachi.²⁵

In 1961, the German Federal Republic submitted another request for Schumann’s extradition. However, as the German Federal Republic does not have an agreement with Ghana for the extradition of criminals, all the German efforts came to nothing. Another effort which brought no effect was the appeal a group of Austrian survivors made to the government of Ghana on 2 April 1962, which stated that it was inadmissible for a man who had brought such infamy on the doctor’s vocation should be serving as a physician in the Ghanaian health service.

On 14 June 1961, Dr Horst Schumann forfeited the doctor’s degree which the University of Halle had conferred on him. In the interest of “social hygiene,” Dr Schumann should be put on trial (Reference 5).

Alongside the X-ray sterilisation and castration experiments, there were also experiments conducted to induce infertility using pharmacological methods. The Nuremberg Trial brought these crimes to light. Certain chemical substances contained in a plant called caladium seguinum administered orally or by injection were to bring about permanent infertility both in men as well as in women some time after application²⁶ (Dr Madaus, Document No. 035, 4).

Prof. Carl Clauberg’s sterilisation experiments which are well-known and have been described in numerous publications were also conducted in Block 10 in Auschwitz. They may be summed up in the report this “scientist” sent to Himmler on 7 June 1943 (Document No. 212²⁷):

The method I have invented for the non-surgical sterilisation of the female body is nearly ready. It consists of one intrauterine injection and may be administered by practically any physician who can perform a gynaecological examination. I have written that it is “nearly ready,” which means that 1) it only needs some minor adjustments, 2) it can be implemented in our regular eugenic sterilisations already now instead of surgery and can replace surgery. As regards the question you put to me nearly a year ago, Reichsführer, how long it would take to sterilise a thousand women by this method, today I can give you the following prospective answer. If the results of my research continue along the same line as what I have had up to now (and there is no reason to suppose that they will not), then right now we are not far from the time when one properly trained physician working in an appropriately equipped facility with about ten ancillary staff (this number of ancillary staff corresponds to the required rate of treatment) will probably be able to perform hundreds of sterilisations, if not a thousand, in one day.

The ethical and legal bounds of the sterilisation experiments carried out by Horst Schumann and his colleagues on Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners constitute a drastic breach of all the standards applicable in medical experiments. It was the demented fascist ideology that devised and lay at the roots of this crime. Its victims were to be first the Jewish people and the conquered Slavic nations. The prisoners who were subjected to these sterilisation and castration experiments were the very first victims of a grand plan designed “scientifically” to exterminate the conquered nations.

***

Translated from original article: Kłodziński, Stanisław. “Z zagadnień ludobójstma. „Sterylizacja” i kastracja promieniami Roentgena w obozie oświęcimskim. Dr Horst Schumann.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1964.

1. In 1933, Nazi Germany launched its eugenic policy by passing Das Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, generally known as the Sterilisation Law), which introduced the forced sterilization of certain individuals with physical and mental disabilities. There were nine of these conditions: hereditary “mental retardation,” schizophrenia, maniacal-depressive disorders, hereditary epilepsy, Huntington’s disease, hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, serious growth disorders, and chronic alcoholism. In no other country was there such a broad sterilization programme as in Germany, where over 400 thousand persons were sterilized by the end of the War. In addition to the sterilization law, in 1935 Nazi Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws, which prohibited marriage and sexual relations between “Aryans” and persons with Jewish roots (this meant anyone who had just one Jewish grandparent). The German medical professions regarded the Nuremberg Laws as part and parcel of the public health provisions to improve the condition of the German nation in the wake of the First World War. In the context of the postwar economic crisis, new issues such as “national efficiency” and the elimination of “useless eaters and life unworthy of living” entered the German discussion on eugenics. Experts brought in arguments based on biology to rationalize limiting the range of social welfare and health services available to persons perceived as a burden to society or genetically defective. The concept of “life unworthy of living” (lebensunwertes Leben) first appeared in the title of a scientific paper “Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwertes Leben,” (Licence to destroy life unworthy of living) by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche. Binding and Hoche claimed that some of the persons suffering from mental disorders or disorders of the central nervous system were “a burden to society” and “mentally dead, empty human shells.” Hoche saw the killing of such individuals as “socially useful.” The doctrine of life unworthy of living became a key part of Nazi German propaganda, leading up to and becoming an important component of the Holocaust. https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/law-for-the-prevention-of-offspring-with-hereditary-diseases^a
2. In the rest of this article, I use the term “X-ray sterilisation” in the way it was understood in Germany, meaning irreversible castration conducted by means of X-rays.^b
3. Alongside mandatory sterilisation and castration, Nazi Germany implemented a programme of enforced euthanasia codenamed Aktion T4 (from the address of its Berlin headquarters, Tiergartenstrasse 4). T4 was conducted on the territory of Germany including the annexed parts of Poland from 1 September 1939 to 24 August 1941 and was the first Nazi German campaign of mass murder using gas chambers. The term T4 is sometimes misapplied to cover all the German atrocities involving the killing of the disabled and mentally ill committed in 1933–1945. In 1941 Hitler officially suspended the euthanasia programme, but in reality the killings, “wildcat euthanasia,” continued in German welfare institutions for mental patients (and were practised for a time even after Allied forces arrived). They were carried out by doctors and medical personnel. Research shows that the medical professions of Nazi Germany joined in the efforts to “cleanse the nation of maladjusted individuals” and carefully planned and carried out a secret operation in which over 200 thousand persons were killed. Initially, when the concentration camps were still being built and were not yet ready to conduct mass murder, attempts were made to find a method to reduce the growing numbers of prisoners. The success of the euthanasia programme convinced the Nazi authorities that mass murder was technically viable. The SS asked those who had carried out T4 for help. In the spring of 1941, the T4 euthanasia centres started a new gas chamber project. Concentration camp inmates qualified by SS physicians as “sick” were sent to T4 centres and killed by the doctors employed there in a programme codenamed 14f13, in the course of which some 20 thousand persons were murdered. Postwar statistics say that the percentage of individuals with schizophrenia in Germany has not changed and is still 1% of the population.^a
4. For instance, SS-Gruppenführer Hofmann said that persons of mixed race should be given the choice of either submitting to sterilisation or going to the gas chamber.^b
5. The English version of Document 426 of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial given in the main part of this article is my translation of the Polish version in Kłodziński’s article, which in turn is based on a quotation from the book by Mitscherlich and Mielke. Below I quote the original English translation of the transcript of the statement made by Brack in German during the Doctors’ Trial. This translation was made by the translators commissioned by the Tribunal, and may be accessed online in the documents published by Harvard University Law School: “THE STERILIZATION PROGRAM. 16. In 1941, it was an ‘open secret’ in high party circles that the powers that be intended to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Germany and the occupied countries. I and my collaborators, especially Dr Hevelmann and Blankenburg, considered this intention of the party leaders not worthy of the German nation and mankind. Therefore, we decided to find another solution to the Jewish problem which would tend to be less radical than complete extermination of a race. . . .” https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1710-affidavit-concerning-the-nazi?q=426#p.7^c
6. Philipp Bouhler (1899–1945) SS-Obergruppenführer, a Reichsleiter (National Leader) and Head of the Chancellery of the Führer of the Nazi Party. Played a key role in the organisation of T4 and 14f13. Apprehended by US forces in May 1945 and committed suicide in Allied detention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Bouhler^c
7. This passage is my translation of Kłodziński’s Polish text; for the original German letter and its English summary made for the Nuremberg Tribunal, see the relevant pages online in the Harvard University Project, at https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1245-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=203#p.1 and https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1244-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=evidence:%22NO-203%22#p.1^c Himmler wanted a quick, cheap sterilization method which could be carried out on a mass scale and unnoticed by the persons sterilized.^a
8. See the Harvard University Project online for the photostat of the original document, its German typescript and its English translation for the Nuremberg Tribunal, at https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1252-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=23+June+1942#p.1, https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1253-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=23+June+1942#p.1, and https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1254-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=23+June+1942#p.1^c
9. Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945), was Reichsführer, i.e., he held the highest rank in the SS. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler
10. In fact, Document 208 was not signed by Brack but sent by one of his associates, most probably Schumann. See the Harvard University Project online for the photostat of the original document, its German typescript and its English translation for the Nuremberg Tribunal, at https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1264-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=208#p.1, https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1265-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=208#p.1, and https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1266-letter-to-heinrich-himmler?q=208#p.1. The passage in the text of this article is my translation of the passage in Kłodziński’s article.^c
11. Horst Schumann, born 1 May 1906 in Halle. Doctor of medicine, member of the Nazi Party, lieutenant in the Luftwaffe and SS Sturmbannführer, head of the euthanasia centres at Grafeneck (Würrtemberg), and Sonnenstein near Pirna. Lasik, Aleksander. 1993. "Obsada osobowa słuzby zdrowia SS w obozie koncentracyjnym Oświęcim-Brzezinka w larach 1940-1945," Zeszyty Oświęcimskie^a
12. See the affidavit made by Pauline Kneissler on 24 October 1946, in the records of the Nuremberg Doctors’ trial published online by Harvard University. German original and typescript: https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1768-affidavit-concerning-the-euthanasia?q=author:%22Pauline+Kneissler%22#p.1 and https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1770-affidavit-concerning-the-euthanasia?q=author:%22Pauline+Kneissler%22#p.1 (English translation).^c
13. Franz Hössler (1906–1945) was an SS officer working in the concentration camps (Auschwitz, Mittelbau, and Bergen-Belsen). After the War he was apprehended by the Allies, charged with war crimes in the Bergen-Belsen Trial, convicted, sentenced to death and hanged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_H%C3%B6ssler^c
14. Rudolf Höss (1901–1947) commandant of Auschwitz. Introduced Zyklon B for use in gas chambers. Höss was hanged in 1947 following a trial before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Höss^c
15. SS Obergruppenführer Ernst-Robert Grawitz (1899–1945). Reich Physician of the SS and Police, head of the German Red Cross. Involved in experiments on concentration camp inmates, especially in the children’s camp in Łódź.^c
16. Carl Clauberg (1898–1957). German professor of medicine, war criminal. Took a key part in the pseudo-medical sterilisation experiments carried out on Auschwitz inmates. A considerable amount of historical research has been done on Clauberg, including articles on this website (English versions forthcoming) and, most recently, two papers delivered at the 4th international conference Medical Review Auschwitz: Medicine Behind the Barbed Wire (2022). See Czesław Głlowacki, "Records of Carl Clauberg’s criminal experiments" (Polish version originally published in 1976); Hans-Joachim Lang, “Carl Clauberg’s forced sterilizations in Auschwitz: New findings . . .," (2022); and Knut Ruyter, “Prosecutuing evil: the case of Carl Clauberg . . .” (2022).^c
17. Karl Franz Gebhardt (1897–1948), German professor of medicine and war criminal. Conducted pseudo-medical experiments on Auschwitz and Ravensbrück inmates. Tried by the Nuremberg Tribunal, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and executed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Gebhardt^c
18. Richard Glücks (1889–1945), SS-Gruppenführer, concentration camp inspector supervising the pseudo-medical experiments and the use of Zyklon B gas in the gas chambers. Committed suicide after the War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gl%C3%BCcks^c
19. Affidavit of Chaim Balitzki for the Nuremberg Tribunal, online in the Harvard University Project, https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1970-affidavit-concerning-the-sterilization?q=819#p.1 (German original) and https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/documents/1971-affidavit-concerning-the-sterilization?q=819#p.1 (English translarion) The version in the main body of this article is my translation of Kłodziński’s Polish text.^c
20. The patients had one or both testicles removed. If they were castrated unilaterally, the other testicle was amputated after one or two months. An analogous procedure was carried out on the women. The removed organs were sent as specimens to the Breslau Anatomopathological Institute. The men and women who were no longer needed for the experiments were sent back to Birkenau, where they either died of disease, exhaustion, or hunger, or were sent to the gas chamber.^a
21. For Dr Levy’s testimony delivered before the Nuremberg Tribunal at the Doctors’ Trial, see the online transcript of the English translation (Dr Levy made his testimony in French) in the Harvard University Project files at https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/transcripts/1-transcript-for-nmt-1-medical-case?seq=578&q=Dr.+Robert+Levy.^c
22. Dr de Wind testified before the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland, not (as far as I know) before the Nuremberg Tribunal. I have translated his testimony as it appears in Polish in Kłodziński’s article, which is presumably the transcript held in the Polish archives (now in the IPN Institute of National Remembrance). Most probably, Dr de Wind delivered his testimony in his native language (Dutch) or perhaps German, and it was translated into Polish at the time for the Polish Tribunal.^c
23. From the incomplete data extant for the number of inmates in Block 10, we can obtain a rough estimate of the number of inmates who left the block in particular months. For instance, 49 women left Block 10 in May 1943, another 95 left in June, 8 in October, 16 in November, and 3 in December. Some must have died, others were killed in the gas chambers or died of their wounds or hard labour.^a
24. e., an external unit of the SS institute for hygiene research, which was located in the Raisko sub-camp, some 5 km (3 miles) away from the main camp of Auschwitz. https://www.auschwitz.org/historia/podobozy/raisko^c
25. After the War, Horst Schumann and his family settled in Halle, where he practised in sports medicine under his real name. In 1947 a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with his “euthanasia” activities in Grafeneck. He was not recognised until a few years later, when he applied for a gun licence. He fled Germany, probably to Japan, and subsequently evaded justice living in Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana. He worked as a physician in Ghana’s Ministry of Health until 1966, when he was handed over to the German authorities. Unfortunately, owing to his health, the proceedings against him were never completed. He was released from prison but stayed under police surveillance until his death. He died in 1983 in Frankfurt-am-Main.^a
26. Dr Madaus had discovered that the drug “caladium seguinum” extracted from a North-American plant (Schweigrohr) when taken or injected produced sterilization. See the records of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/transcripts/1-transcript-for-nmt-1-medical-case?seq=526&q=caladium+seguinum online in the Harvard University Project at https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/transcripts/1-transcript-for-nmt-1-medical-case?seq=526&q=caladium+seguinum.^c
27. The English text in this article is my English translation of the letter as cited in Kłodziński’s article. For the original English translation of this letter in the records of the Doctors’ Trial, as cited by Counsel for the Prosecution, see the Harvard University Project online at https://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/transcripts/1-transcript-for-nmt-1-medical-case?seq=588&q=212.^c
28. This item is the Polish edition of Glanville Williams’ book, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law (First edition: New York,: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957).^c
29. English editions: Doctors of Infamy: The Story of the Nazi Medical Crimes. (First Edition: New York: Henry Schuman, 1949); and The Death Doctors (First Edition: London: Elek Books, 1962).^c
30. English edition: Auschwitz Chronicle 1939–1945 (New York: Henry Holt, 1990).^c
31. These records are now kept in the archives of the IPN (Institute of National Remembrance).^c

a—notes by Maria Ciesielska, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; b—original notes translated from Polish; c—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project.

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