After the end of the Second World War, a number of war crimes trials took place in which the
perpetrators of the Holocaust were brought to justice.
Only a very small percentage of concentration camp guards and staff ever were sentenced
for their crimes, and still today a very small few are being processed by the courts, but
the defendants are in their 90s.
There was one man who was brought to trial in 1946 at the age of 74, who was involved
in sadistic medical experiments at Dachau.
Claus Schilling was never a member of the Nazi Party, but despite this he was sentenced
to death as a war criminal and as a man who committed crimes against humanity.
He was regarded as a recognised researcher at the Robert Koch Institute before the outbreak
of World War 2.
But as the conflict began he indulged in sadistic human experiments that caused huge suffering
and death.
Join us today as we look at, ‘The VENGEFUL Execution of Claus Schilling - Dachau’s
Doctor Death.’
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Claus Schilling was born in Munich on the 5th July 1871, and as a young man he studied
medicine at University in his home city, before he received a doctorate at the age of 24.
He then became a professor of parasitology at the University of Berlin, and became a
member of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations.
However he then became an international doctor and was practicing medicine in areas of Africa
colonised by the Germans.
He was interested in tropical medicine, and malaria and how to stop this and he began
to become celebrated in this field.
He in 1905 before the First World War worked inside of the Robert Koch Institute as the
first director of Tropical Medicines, and he remained here in this position for over
three decades.
Whilst inside of the university he developed new ideas and theories, however he then retired
in 1936.
At the time in Germany, Hitler had come to power but he was attracted to one of Nazi
Germany’s greatest allies.
Schilling moved to Fascist Italy as he was presented with the opportunity to conduct
experiments on prisoners of psychiatric institutions in Mussolini’s country.
Mussolini and his army were beginning to get worried about malaria that caused problems
within the Italian Army who were fighting the Italo-Ethiopian War.
Schilling began to conduct a number of experiments on these patients with the hope of helping
the Italians restrict problems associated with malaria.
He was rewarded by the Nazis for helping their allies research solutions to their problems,
and the Nazis gave him financial grants, in the hope that his work would also benefit
Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
Following a meeting with the Nazi’s Health Chief, Leonardo Conti, Schilling came back
to his homeland in 1941 and he then began to work again on malaria research.
But instead of carrying out disturbing experiments on psychiatric patients, his research and
work would take him into the concentration camp system.
Inside of Dachau, Schilling was given a special malarial research station, and it was Himmler
himself who allowed him inside of the camp to conduct this work.
Many of his colleagues would criticise Schilling, but he remained in charge of the department
throughout the whole of the war.
In the 1930s, Schilling had stated that malaria research could be done in a harmless fashion
on human subjects, however at Dachau his experiments were sadistic and unethical.
At the camp, prisoners were drafted into the unit and they were injected with a number
of synthetic drugs at different doses.
Some were given high doses of different drugs, and others were given lethal amounts which
would often leave them in a catatonic state or even dead.
After these injections, the patients were then exposed to malaria in a rather bizarre
and sadistic way.
They had cages filled with malarial mosquitos strapped to their hands and arms to make sure
they were then infected by the parasite.
The scale of the medical trials were huge, and more than 1000 prisoners were deliberately
infected with malaria, a deadly disease for Schilling’s research.
Claus Schilling’s supposed research resulted in between 300 to 400 of these prisoners being
killed and a number of them were affected for the rest of their lives by his work, being
permanently injured.
During Schilling’s experiments, a number of priests who had been incarcerated inside
of Dachau were executed and killed by his experiments.
Dachau itself was a camp where over 180,000 prisoners would pass through the gates, but
over 41,000 were killed there.
It was a brutal camp were there was much fear and terror, with constant floggings and public
executions forcing the prisoners to fall into line.
Other forms of punishment included the standing cells, but Schilling’s work helped to contribute
to the terror.
After the liberation of Dachau, Schilling was arrested and at this point he was around
the age of 73.
He was an elderly man by the standards of other defendants in war crimes trials, but
regardless of not joining the Nazi Party he was placed on trial.
During the dachau trials he was tried by a US military court, and along with 39 other
defendants who worked at Dachau he was brought in front of a judge.
The proceedings began on the 15th November 1945, and Schilling and the other defendants
all pleaded not guilty.
Over the course of the trial, a number of witnesses and former prisoners came forward
to testify about the evil inside of dachau, including the terrible living conditions,
the executions and punishments and also the medical experiments that took place there.
Claus Schilling was seen as a slightly obscure defendant as at the age of 74 he was the oldest
defendant, and despite not being a Nazi Party member or member of the SS he was lumped in
with the other war criminals.
Schilling said not deny that he had carried out, and he admitted that he had done this
in the interest of science, and that the suffering of the prisoners was done purely to advance
medicine.
Because of this, he even shockingly asked the court to allow him to finish his research
and to write down his experiments.
He said that he had nothing to do with Dachau itself and the evils that emerged inside the
camp, and claimed that he did it purely for science.
He stated, ‘"I have worked out this great labor.
It would be really a terrible loss if I could not finish this work.
I don't ask you as a court, I ask you personally to do what you can; to do what you can to
help me that I may finish this report.
I need only a table and a chair and a typewriter.
It would be an enormous help for science, for my colleagues, and a good part to rehabilitate
myself.”
After this he cried begging to finish his work to regain his reputation.
Schilling before hand lets remember was a well respected international professor, but
inside the Nazi Regime he became just another barbaric war criminal.
The courtroom sentenced Claus Schilling to death, rejecting his pleas.
It was heard that the prisoners he used were from Poland, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia,
and at the time there was no formal code of ethnics regarding medical research that the
doctor could be held accountable to.
But it was clear that he was involved in the mistreatment of prisoners and that his actions
led to the deaths of hundreds.
On the 13th December 1945, Claus Schilling was sentenced to death by hanging, and his
execution took place on the 28th May 1946.
He was held inside of Landsberg Prison and this would be the place where he would be
executed.
Inside the courtyard of the prison a large gallows had been set up, and it was on these
gallows where hundreds would be executed on.
The gallows took the lives of many Nazi war criminals and Claus Schilling would be one
of those.
He was led out of his prison cell and was flanked by US Army guards and many prison
officers who looked on in the courtyard.
He was also accompanied by a priest who went with him to his death.
Schilling then had his identity confirmed before he made his way up the steps and was
handed over to the executioner, He had his arms tied behind his back before an executioner
placed a black hood over his head, and then the noose which was attached to the gallows.
Schilling was then shuffled over the trapdoor, before very quickly the executioner pulled
the lever and schilling plunged through the structure and to his death.
After his execution, doctors confirmed his death and his remains were then placed in
a coffin marked Dr Schilling, Claus.
Despite never joining the Nazi Party or the SS, Claus Schilling was treated like other
Nazi War criminals.
He was a man who claimed for his research that it was necessary to kill hundreds of
innocent people which was ridiculous to consider.
During the course of his work in Dachau, over 1000 prisoners were deliberately infected
with a dangerous disease that could kill, and they were also injected with a variety
of medications that were lethal.
He was 74 when he went to the gallows at Landsberg Prison, and his execution remains a compelling
one, and one that is different to other Nazi war criminals.
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