Ernst-Robert Grawitz
Ernst-Robert Grawitz | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 8 June 1899 Charlottenburg, Brandenburg, Prussia, German Empire |
| Died | 24 April 1945 (aged 45) Potsdam-Babelsberg, Gau March of Brandenburg, Nazi Germany |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Service |  German Red Cross |
| Rank | SS-Obergruppenführer |
Ernst-Robert Grawitz (8 June 1899 – 24 April 1945) was a German physician and an SS functionary (Reichsarzt, "Arzt" meaning "physician") during the Nazi era. Grawitz funded Nazi programs involving experimentation on inmates in Nazi concentration camps and was part of the group in charge of the murder of mentally ill and physically disabled people in the Action T4 programme. In April 1945 as the Soviet Red Army advanced on Berlin, Grawitz killed himself and his family.
Biography
[edit]Grawitz was born in Charlottenburg, in the western part of Berlin, Germany. As Reichsarzt SS und Polizei (Reich Physician SS and Police), Grawitz was also de facto head of the DRK, the German Red Cross, between 1937 and 1945, changing substantially DRK from its original Red Cross principles.
According to Peter Tatchell, Grawitz met a Copenhagen doctor named Carl Værnet and proposed that Værnet perform research on behalf of the SS into a so-called "cure" for homosexuality which involved experimentation on inmates at Buchenwald concentration camp.[1] Grawitz himself was chief medical officer of the SS and an “enthusiastic experimenter on concentration camp inmates”.[2]
Grawitz was also a part of the group in charge of the murder of mentally ill and physically handicapped people in the Action T4 "euthanasia" programme, including children from 1939.[3] The officials selected the doctors who were to carry out the operational part of the killing programme.[4] In addition, researchers both in and outside the SS wanted to exploit the supply of inmates held in the SS camps and use them for experiments.[5] In order to do so, the interested parties had to apply to Grawitz, who forwarded requests to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler who then gave final approval.[5]
Towards the end of World War II in Europe, Grawitz was a physician in Adolf Hitler's Führerbunker. When he heard that other officials were leaving Berlin in order to escape the advancing Soviet Red Army, Grawitz petitioned Hitler to allow him to leave Berlin; his request was denied. As the Soviet Red Army advanced on Berlin, Grawitz killed himself and his family with grenades at their house in Babelsberg.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Tatchell, Peter (5 May 2015). "The Nazi doctor who experimented on gay people – and Britain helped to escape justice". TheGuardian.com.
- ^ a b Evans, Richard (2009) [2008]. The Third Reich at War, p. 729. ISBN 9780143116714 OCLC 430052029
- ^ Schafft, Gretchen E. (2004). From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich, pp. 159–163. ISBN 9780252074530 OCLC 80764791
- ^ Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, p. 64. ISBN 9780465049042 OCLC 13334966
- ^ a b Weale, Adrian (2012). Army of Evil: A History of the SS, p. 100. ISBN 9780451237910 OCLC 810329254
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- 1899 births
- 1945 deaths
- 1945 suicides
- Holocaust perpetrators
- 20th-century Freikorps personnel
- Aktion T4 personnel
- Deaths by hand grenade
- Familicides
- German Red Cross personnel
- Joint suicides by Nazis
- Kapp Putsch participants
- German eugenicists
- Nazi concentration camp personnel
- Nazis who died by suicide in Nazi Germany
- People from Charlottenburg
- Physicians from Berlin
- Physicians in the Nazi Party
- SS-Obergruppenführer
- Suicides by explosive device