Karl Gebhardt

Karl Gebhardt (November 23rd, 1897 - June 2nd, 1948) was a Médecin Nazi, the personal doctor of Heinrich Himmler and one of the principal coordinators and authors of the medical experiments on the prisoners of the concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz.

Gebhardt was born with Haag in Oberbayern, in Bavaria. In 1919 it begins its studies in medicine with Munich; it is entitled in 1935 and the following year becomes professor associated with Berlin. As of 1937 it teaches the orthopedic Chirurgie.

Its career within the Nazi party starts when it adheres to the Parti national-Socialist German workers on May 1st, 1933. It joined the Schutzstaffel (S) later two years and becomes doctor as a chief of the sanatorium of Hohenlychen in the Uckermark, a private clinic for patients reached of Tuberculose which it transforms into orthopedic private clinic; later, during the war, cellei-Ci becomes in its turn a hospital for the Waffen-SS . In 1938 one appoints it personal doctor of Heinrich Himmler.

Milked Gebhardt Albert Speer at the beginning 1944 for tiredness and an inflated knee. It kills almost its patient and is replaced by another doctor. Himmler saw Speer like a rival.

Gebhardt will have the ranks of Gruppenführer in the S and of Generalmajor in the Waffen S .

Having ordered or having done them itself, it is directly responsible for the majority of the surgical experiments on prisoners of the concentration camps, particularly with the district of the women with Ravensbrück (which was close to Hohenlychen), like in Auschwitz.

During the war, it occupies some time the presidency of the German Red Cross.

It takes refuge a few days with the Führerbunker at the time of the last days of the Bataille of Berlin. Joseph and Magda Goebbels arrives there on April 22nd, 1945 with their children. Gebhardt, as a president of the Red Cross, speaks in Goebbels about the possibility of quiter Berlin with the children; this one will refuse and the children will be killed by their mother using capsules of Cyanure a few days later. Gebhardt itself leaves Führerbunker on April 22nd.

After the war, Gebhardt one of twenty-three is shown Procès of the doctors, held in front of the international military Tribunal of Nuremberg. Declared guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, he is condemned to died on August 20th, 1947. He is hung with the prison of Landsberg, in his native Bavaria, on June 2nd, 1948.

References

Card on Karl Gebhardt
Text of the German Red Cross on the presidency of Gebhardt
Silke Schäfer; ''Zum Selbstverständnis von Frauen im Konzentrationslager. Das Lager Ravensbrück'' ; Technischen Universität Berlin ; 2002; page 131
Freya Klier; Die Kaninchen von Ravensbrück . Droemer-Knaur, München 1995,
Alexander Mitscherlich, u.a. (Hrsg.); Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit . Fischer, Frankfurt/M. 1997,
Peter Witte, u.a.; Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 . Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1999

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