Heinz Baumkötter

Heinz Baumkötter (February 7, 1912 in Burgsteinfurt, Province of Westphalia – April 21, 2001 in Münster) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer and concentration camp doctor in Mauthausen, Natzweiler-Struthof and Sachsenhausen, who conducted medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.[1]

Heinz Baumkötter
Mugshot
Military service
Allegiance Nazi Germany
Branch/service Schutzstaffel
RankHauptsturmführer

Baumkötter was tried in the Sachsenhausen trials by a Soviet military tribunal in 1947 in a trial held in the former city hall in Berlin-Pankow. Among his co-defendants were the former commandant of Sachsenhausen Anton Kaindl, the record keeper Gustav Sorge and the Blockfuhrer of the punishment block Kurt Eccarius. At the trial Baumkötter was asked what his duties were at the trial:

The Prosecutor: "What position did you have at Sachsenhausen?"

Baumkötter: "I had to personally attend or to send a subordinate to the executions, to punishments, to shootings, hangings or gassings… to make the list of sick detainees and of those unfit for work, who were to be transferred to other camps and, lastly, I had to make experiments in accordance with the orders received."

The Prosecutor: "How many detainees were sent for extermination in other camps on your orders?"

Baumkötter: (after meditating for a long time): "About 8,000 detainees were sent off on the basis of the lists I made."

Sentenced to life imprisonment at Vorkuta Gulag coal mines. Was released in 1956 when Russia released remaining German POWs. He was re-arrested by the West German police in July the same year. On the 19th of February, a court sentenced him to eight years in prison. The court took into consideration his stint in the Gulag as sufficient punishment and released him.

References
  1. "Those Were the Days": The Holocaust Through the Eyes of the Perpetrators and Bystanders, by Ernst Klee, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1991; published in the USA under the title "The Good Old Days": The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, Old Saybrook, CT, Konecky and Konecky, 1991 ISBN 1-56852-133-2


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