Nazi Doctors

When the Nordhausen facility was liberated by the American Army, US specialists began to appropriate and seize the design documents of the rockets and shiped the parts, materials and captured scientists to the United States. Wernher von Braun himself would approach the US Military, who employed over 100 former Nazi scientists as part of Operation Paperclip. The Soviets were also sucessful in capturing hundreds of Nazi scientists associated with the V-2 program and both countries now began a race to develop the technology for use with placing the first humans into space. These scientific ambitions were the result of thousands of concentration camp inmates, who were worked to death in the development of the rockets as well as the civilians who died in Hitler’s desire for vengeance.

It would be the concentration camps, set-up by the Nazi Government to imprison all perceived enemies of the Third Reich which would ultimately be the primary locations for the majority of abuses, murders and medical experimentation perpetrated by the doctors, dentists and physicians. Within each facility the Concentration Camp Inspectorate established five departments, each with a specific function to ensure there was a clearly defined system of administration, of which the Medical Service ironically, played a significant role in the abuse of the camp population. Department I consisted of the command staff, which included the camp commandant and Department II was the Political Department which consisted of the camp Gestapo. Department III were the Protective Custody officers, Department IV came under the camp administration and lastly, Department V was the Medical Service.

The SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (W.V.H.A) oversaw the Medical Service Department within each concentration camp. SS-Standartenführer Dr. Enno Lolling was the chief of amtsgruppe DIII of the WVHA, which was the Office for Sanitation and Camp Hygiene based in Oranienburg. In this position as Chief Physician at the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, Dr. Lolling supervised all concentration camp doctors and was responsible for the allocation and transfer of medical personnel within the camp system. He also received the professional evaluations and monthly reports from the camp physicians. Although he was the senior physician, Lolling was subordinate to SS-Obergruppenführer Dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz who was the Reichsarzt SS und Polizei (Reich Physician of the SS and Police), as well as head of the German Red Cross.