Horst Schumann | |
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| Born | (1906-05-01)1 May 1906 |
| Died | 5 May 1983(1983-05-05) (aged 77) |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Luftwaffe Schutzstaffel |
| Service years | 1939–1945 |
| Rank | SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) |
| Unit | Auschwitz |
Horst Schumann (1 May 1906 – 5 May 1983) was anSS-Sturmbannführer (major) and medical doctor who conductedsterilization andcastration experiments atAuschwitz and was particularly interested in the mass sterilization ofJews by means ofX-rays.Hors d'atteinte, a book by Frédéric Couderc, published in France by Les Escales and Pocket, reveals the extent of Schumann's crimes and his life as a fugitive in Africa.
Schumann was born on 1 May 1906 inHalle an der Saale. His father, Paul Schumann, was also a doctor. Schumann entered theNazi party in 1930 and joined theSturmabteilung in 1932.[citation needed] In 1933, he received his medical degree after producing a thesis entitled "Frage der Jodresorption und der therapeutischen Wirkung sog. Jodbäder" ("The Question of Iodine Absorption and the Therapeutic Effects of so-called Iodine Baths"). He started his career as an assistant doctor in the Surgical Clinic of the clinic ofHalle University.[citation needed]
From 1934, Schumann was employed in the Public Health Office inHalle. He was recruited to the air force as a physician in 1939. He joined theAktion T4 Euthanasia program in early October 1939, after a meeting with Dr.Viktor Brack in Hitler's chancellery.[citation needed] In January 1940, Schumann became head of theGrafeneck euthanasia centre in Württemberg, where mentally ill people were gassed withcarbon monoxide in the first gas chamber. In the early summer of 1940, he was ordered to theSonnenstein Euthanasia Centre. Schumann also belonged to a commission of doctors called "Action 14f13", who transferred weak and sick prisoners fromAuschwitz,Buchenwald,Dachau,Flossenbürg,Gross-Rosen,Mauthausen,Neuengamme and Niederhangen concentration camps to the euthanasia killing centers.[citation needed]
On 28 July 1941, Schumann arrived inAuschwitz. He worked at Block 30 in the women's hospital, where he set up an X-ray station in 1942. Here men and women were forcibly sterilized by being positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two X-ray machines, the rays aiming at their sexual organs. Most subjects died after great suffering, or were gassed immediately because the radiation burns from which they suffered rendered them unfit for work. Schumann "...chose his test persons himself. They were always young, healthy, good-looking Jewish men, women and girls who looked like old people afterwards.[citation needed] The parts of the body that were treated with the rays experienced severe radiation burns and suppuration (i.e. discharge of pus). Men's testicles and women's ovaries were then surgically removed and sent toBreslau for histopathological examination.[1] Part of Schumann's control tests, to check whether the radiation had worked, was the so-called semen check: a stick covered with a rubber hose was inserted into the rectum of the victim and the glands stimulated until ejaculation occurred so that the ejaculate could be tested for sperm..."[2] Both kinds of samples were sent to the University ofBreslau (todayWrocław) for examination.
Schumann selected some of the women inBlock 10 in the main camp of Auschwitz. In this Block Jewish women had been imprisoned for human experiments. To control the radiation on women, prisoner doctors (Dr. Maximilian Samuel, Dr. Wladislaw Dering) had to remove an ovary.[3]
Schumann also performedtyphus experiments by injecting people with blood from typhus patients and then attempting to cure the newly infected subjects. Schumann left Auschwitz in September 1944 and was appointed to theSonnenstein Clinic inSaxony which had earlier been converted into a military hospital.[citation needed]
While serving as a military doctor on the Western Front, he was captured by the Americans in January 1945. He was released from captivity in October 1945. In April 1946, he began to work as a sports doctor for the city ofGladbeck. An application for a license for a hunting gun led to his identity being exposed in 1951, so the German Democratic Republic issued an arrest warrant. According to his own statement, Schumann served as a ship's doctor for three years and because he did not have a German passport, he applied for one in Japan in 1954 and received it under his own name. Schumann then fled, first toEgypt and eventually settled inKhartoum inSudan as head of a hospital. He was forced to flee from Sudan in 1962 after being recognized by an Auschwitz survivor. Then he went to Ghana, where he received the protection of the head of state,Kwame Nkrumah, until Nkrumah was overthrown.[4]
In 1966, Schumann was extradited fromGhana toWest Germany where the trial against him was opened inFrankfurt on 23 September 1970. Charged with killing 30,000 Jews, Schumann admitted to killing as many as 80,000 Jews, saying "I have no numbers".[4][5] However, Schumann was released from prison on 29 July 1972 due to his heart condition and generally deteriorating health. He died on 5 May 1983, 11 years after he had been released. AsRobert Jay Lifton has observed "...Schumann has great importance for us because of what he did – intense involvement in both direct medical killing and unusually brutal Auschwitz experiments – and what he was – an ordinary, but highly Nazified man and doctor..."[6]
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