Strasbourg Anatomical Institute SS. Bottom of german science
Hearth Initiative
One of the key figures in the creation of a monstrous collection of skeletons of Jews, Slavs and Asians was the anthropologist and anatomist August Hirt. The future war criminal was born in 1898, in German Mannheim, and with the beginning of World War I enlisted in the army. There, Hirt received a gunshot wound to the upper jaw, which forever left a characteristic scar on his face. After receiving the Iron Cross and demobilization, a brilliant scientific career awaited him - in 1922, Hirt defended his thesis, and three years later, his doctoral thesis. The scientist taught for some time at the prestigious and native University of Heidelberg, until in 1933 he joined the SS. Then he managed to work in the anatomical institute of the University of Greifswald, and from the beginning of the Second World War for two years he was the chief military doctor of the SS. Hirth had good relations with both the top of the SS and the functionaries of the semi-mystic organization Anenerbe. It is not known for certain whether the doctor sincerely believed in the racist theory of the Third Reich, or it was his opportunistic maneuvers, but in 1941, the peak of his career happened - Haupschturmbannführer SS Hirt became the head of the SS Anatomy Institute in the Strasbourg Reich University.
Anatomical Institute of Strasbourg now
Like many doctors of fascist Germany, Professor Hirt at the institute conducted experiments on living people. In his jurisdiction was the study of the effect of mustard gas on humans and animals. In one of the series of experiments, the doctor overdid it and inhaled a decent portion of poison. Than, by the way, earned even greater trust from the patron of the Ahnenerbe project, Wolfram Sievers.
In addition to directing terrible research, Hirt taught anatomy at the medical faculty of the Reichs University, using the bodies of prisoners of war from a nearby hospital as students' manuals. At the same time, the professor even complained about the lack of corpses and in the summer of 1942 of the year he demanded new “textbooks”. Among them were several dozen (if not hundreds) of Soviet prisoners of war bodies from the Mutzig camp. Many of them died of natural death from inhuman conditions of detention, and many were killed for Hirt students ... The anatomical department of the medical faculty received the bodies of prisoners of war until the end of May 1944, that is, in fact, before the release of Strasbourg. By this time, the Allies had found sixty bodies in exhausted condition in the tanks of the “anatomka”, which they wrote about in the reports:
“The origin of these corpses is well known. These are Russian prisoners of war who died in the Myutzig camp and transported in an open way to the civilian hospital of Strasbourg. The bodies are exhausted: an autopsy revealed that pulmonary tuberculosis was the cause of death. ”
Augustus Hirt
At the beginning of 1942, Hirt, whose hands were already stained with blood, addressed a completely secret letter directly to Heinrich Himmler asking for assistance in one very important issue. According to another version, the professor first wrote to his immediate boss, Wolfram Sievers, and he had already redirected the request to Himmler. The message wrote that the Holocaust that the Nazis perpetrated, according to Hirt, would eventually lead to the complete destruction of the Jewish race of "subhumans", and this created certain difficulties for the science of the future. German science at that time did not have enough skulls and skeletons of Jews, so for future generations of Germans it is necessary to create a more extensive collection. This chilling initiative found a response in the SS manual.
Collection of skeletons
Augustus Hirth, for reasons that were known only to him, asked Himmler to hand over to him the corpses of Bolshevik Jewish commissars as the most unpleasant for the Nazi. But in the majority such unfortunates did not even reach the concentration camp - they were shot on the spot. To work on the search for victims attracted the well-known German anthropologist SS man Bruno Beger, who became famous for his relatively innocent expedition to Tibet. Now, along with Hans Fleischaker, a doctor of science from Goethe University in Frankfurt, he had to decide which prisoner of Auschwitz was to become an exhibit of the Hirt collection. 115 prisoners were selected, including 79 male Jews, 30 women, 4 Asians, and 2 Poles. After a careful selection, 86 of them were sent to the French camp of Nachweiler-Struthof, located in 50 kilometers from Strasbourg. It was very important to deliver people alive, as the transportation of the corpses could have made them unusable.
Memorial plaque at the University of Strasbourg. About Soviet prisoners of war is not a word ...
In the summer of 1943, the unfortunate people got into the quarantine zone of the camp and lived in it relatively well. Eyewitnesses even recall that the rest of the convicts were jealous of newcomers, as they were not forced to work. A big problem was the method of killing selected prisoners. The fact is that Hirt insisted on the preservation of the soft tissues of the bodies and especially of the skeleton. Therefore, we had to build a miniature gas chamber in the vicinity of the camp - its own in the National Weyr-Struthof or did not work, or the executioners did not want to attract too much attention. It was the only one in stories gas chamber built for a one-time action to destroy people. It is not known whether the anthropologist Bruno Beger participated in the executions, but he previously took blood samples from the doomed and even took X-rays. Like most of the “Anenerbe” functionaries, Beger escaped full punishment and spent only a few months after the war behind bars. Professor Fleischhacker was generally acquitted, and he continued to engage in scientific activities in post-war Germany. According to the results of the Nuremberg process, only Wolfram Sievers was hanged out of a gang of "Anenerbe". SS Shturmbanführer, Professor August Hirt, shot himself somewhere in the forests of France after the Allied forces captured Strasbourg.
Wolfram Sievers, Chef "Anenerbe"
"True Aryan" Bruno Beger, and remained without retribution
Return to the Strasbourg Anatomical Institute of Summer 1944 of the year. This story with a collection of skeletons has become known thanks in large part to Henri Eripière, the French assistant to Professor Hirt. Leave behind the brackets of this narrative the very fact of the work of a French doctor in the occupation regime. When the first bodies of the prisoners of Auschwitz arrived at the anatomical department, Eripier remarked:
“The first batch we received included the corpses of 30 women. The bodies were still warm. The eyes were open and glistened. Red, bloodshot, they crawled out of orbit. Traces of blood were visible only around the nose and around the mouth. But no signs of rigor mortis were observed ... "
The French accomplice of the German anatomists managed to rewrite the individual numbers of the slain, which they had suffered in Auschwitz. Later it helped in the identification of the victims.
Hirt, obviously, overestimated the capabilities of his institute and the team of butchers - the anatomical department could not cope with the processing of the corpses that came to him. Most of the bodies were only dismembered and in disorder laid out in tanks. In this state, the Allied forces found the failed collection of Professor Hirt. Until now, most of the photographs of what they found in the Strasbourg hell are not widely available.
Concentration Camp Nazveiler-Struthof
Echoes of August Hirt's horrific activities still surface in news tapes. So, in 2017, in Strasbourg, twelve boxes with anatomical preparations made by a killer professor were found at once.
Nazism, not only for many years, plunged the country into the abyss of bloody madness, but also deprived Germany of the most advanced science. Nine Nobel laureates for one reason or another left the country, finding a second home in the United States, Britain and Switzerland. Many researchers believe that this did not allow the Third Reich to create its own nuclear weapon. And created the conditions for the prosperity of such monsters as Professor August Hirt.
- Evgeny Fedorov
- en.wikipedia.org, ru.wikipedia.org
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