Occupation Physician Role Physician | Name Carl Vaernet | |
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Died November 25, 1965, Buenos Aires, Argentina | ||
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Carl Peter Værnet (April 28, 1893 – November 25, 1965) was a Danish physician, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer (major) and a medical research officer at the Buchenwald concentration camp. He experimented extensively with hormone therapy as a possible means of overriding homosexuality or bisexuality in men. Værnet injected testosterone and other synthetic hormones into the testicles of live human test subjects. His research was under the authority of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Following the war Værnet escaped prosecution for war crimes by fleeing to South America.
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Life
Værnet had trained as a physician at the University of Copenhagen and set up his first practice in the city. He took further courses in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, where he developed a special interest in hormone treatments. Although he had been a member of the Danish Nazi Party since the late 1930s, his private medical career only began to be affected after the German-occupation during World War II as he came to be considered a collaborator in his native country. In order to further his hormone research, he was introduced to SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz, chief physician of the SS and Police services, by the operatic tenor Helge Rosvaenge. He would later meet with the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, and was given a prominent medical post with the SS in Prague in early 1944.
Between June and December 1944, Carl Værnet experimented on 17 male inmates at Buchenwald who were forced to undergo an operation with an artificial gland. Although none of the inmates died as a direct result of his research, at least two contracted infections which proved fatal. His research proved inconclusive and he quickly lost favour with his Nazi benefactors.
After the war, he was arrested in Copenhagen and interrogated at Alsgades School. Although the Danish authorities wanted to press charges of his SS involvement, he feigned heart trouble and escaped. It appears he tried to sell the hormone research to DuPont in 1946. He later fled to Brazil and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he died in 1965.
