SS MEDICAL DOCTORS.

This file refers to the Reichsartzhauptamt, the Main Office which controlled the SS Medical Doctors employed by the organisation. The SS Medical Service was one of several Reichs State Medical Services. The Army(OKH), Navy(OKM) and Air Force(OKL), had their own and each Chief Medical Officer (CMO) was responsible to the respective heads of the OKH (Field Marshal von Brauchitsch until December 1941 then Hitler after that date),OKM (Grand Admiral Erich Raeder until 1943 then Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz after that date) and OKL (Reich Marshal Hermann Goering), who were in turn reponsible to the chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces-the OKW or Obercommando der Wehrmacht who was Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel.

The SS Medical Service was headed by Grawitz (Reichs Physician-SS)which was directly responsible to Reichsfuhrer SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler.The Waffen-SS had a subordinated Medical Service headed by Genzken. Although the W-SS technically came under the command of the Wehrmacht in field operations it had the best of both facilities!

It must be remembered that just after WW2 there was a lot said about SS Doctors. In fact, apart from the notorious Dr.Josef Mengele (The Angel of Death), and the half dozen or so chiefs of the SS Medical Service, they played a small roll in the overall so-called experiments and deaths of persons!

Most SS Doctors were assigned to duties in the field and to concentration camps as medico's and were generally of lieutenant and captain rank. Many of these unfortunate men were caught up in the Nazi system and were constrained in their abilities to practice medicine in accordance with their hypocratic oath commandments 'Primum non nocere' (Never to do harm), to save human life. Some were executed after WW2 because the thinking of the time was that they helped cause the thousands of inmate deaths in the camps that they were assigned to! Dr. Klein was one who as the camp medico in Belsen was considered equal to the Commandant and fit to be done away with. He had only been in the camp a couple of months before liberation!

There is a very good article entitled "Doctors Trial" which sets out the prosecution of the Nazi doctors in Nuremberg in December 1946 which can be read at:
Click here