Name Carl Clauberg Role Medical doctor | ||
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Died August 9, 1957, Kiel, Germany | ||
Carl clauberg holocaust project
Carl Clauberg (28 September 1898 – 9 August 1957) was a German gynecologist who conducted medical experiments on human subjects (mainly Jewish) at Auschwitz concentration camp. He worked with Horst Schumann in X-ray sterilization experiments at Auschwitz concentration camp.
Contents
- Carl clauberg holocaust project
- Carl clauberg nazi human experimentation
- Early life
- Medical Career
- Human experiments at Dachau
- POW 1945 1955
- Medical career arrest and death 1955 1957
- Clauberg test
- References
Carl clauberg nazi human experimentation
Early life
Carl Clauberg was born in 1898 in Wupperhof (now part of Leichlingen), Rhine Province, into a family of craftsmen.
Medical Career
During the First World War he served as an infantryman. After the war he studied medicine and eventually reached the rank of chief doctor in the University gynaecological clinic. He joined the Nazi party in 1933 and later on was appointed professor of gynaecology at the University of Königsberg. He carried out research on female fertility hormones (particularly progesterone) and their application as infertility treatments, obtaining a Habilitation for this work in 1937. He received the rank of SS-Gruppenführer of the Reserve.
Human experiments at Dachau
In 1942 he approached Heinrich Himmler, who knew of him through treatment of a senior SS officer´s wife and asked him for an opportunity to perform mass sterilizations on women for his experiments. Himmler agreed and in December 1942 Clauberg moved to Auschwitz concentration camp. His laboratory was in a part of the Block 10 in the main camp. Clauberg´s goal was to find an easy and cheap method to sterilize women. He injected formaldehyde preparations into their uteruses—without anesthetics. His test subjects were Jewish and Gypsy women who suffered permanent damage and serious infections. Some of the subjects died because of the tests. Estimates of those who survived the sterilizations are around 700.
POW, 1945-1955
When the Red Army approached the camp, Clauberg moved to Ravensbrück concentration camp to continue his experiments on Romani women. Soviet troops captured him there in 1945.
After the war in 1948, Clauberg was put on trial in the Soviet Union and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In 1955, he was released (but not pardoned) by the Soviet Union, with the final group of about 10,000 POWs and civilian internees.
Medical career, arrest and death, 1955-1957
He returned to West Germany, where he was reinstated at his former clinic based on his prewar scientific output. Bizarre behavior, including openly boasting of his "achievements" in "developing a new sterilization technique at the Auschwitz concentration camp", destroyed any chance he might have had of staying unnoticed. In 1955, after public outcry from groups of survivors, Clauberg was arrested and put on trial. He died of a heart attack before the trial could start.
Clauberg test
The Clauberg test is an obsolete bioassay to assess progestational activity based on the conversion of proliferative endometrium to secretory endometrium in immature rabbits.