Born: July 16, 1896
Died: August 8, 1969
“Verschuer should be considered not as a collaborator, but one of the most dangerous Nazi activists of the Third Reich.” –the Commission in charge of rebuilding the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft.
Von Verschuer was a human biologist and geneticist (apparently!). His area of concern was racial hygiene and twins research. In 1944, he received authorization from Heinrich Himmler to work at the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where he was teamed up with one of his most famous subordinates – Josef Mengele.
Von Verschuer has been implicated in Mengele’s criminal research. Not only was Verschuer aware of experimental details, he even collaborated with and encouraged Mengele to further monstrosities.
“My assistant, Dr. Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) has joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmführer and camp physician in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Anthropological investigations on the most diverse racial groups of this concentration camp are being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsführer [Himmler]; the blood samples are being sent to my laboratory for analysis.” –excerpt of 1944 letter from von Verschuer to German Research Council.
Apparently, Von Verschuer had quite the collection of eyeballs. He was interested in people whose eyes were of a slightly different colour than the other. If you were unfortunate enough to have two different eyes (??), you would’ve been murdered and your eyes removed. Of special interest were the eyes of twin children.
This abhorrent collection of eyes was never found. The popular belief is that von Verschuer had the collection destroyed in an effort to prevent implications in war crimes / crimes against humanity. Von Verschuer also destroyed many of the documents which linked him to Mengele. These must’ve been important, valuable scientific documents to have been so easily destroyed. At the end of the war, von Verschuer was tried as a ‘Nazi fellow traveler’, fined 600 marks and set free.
We live in a strange civilization. Here’s a man who promoted, fostered, and administered over some of the worst crimes imaginable, but he had something to offer to science, so he was absolved of his guilt. I wonder if this absolved his conscience?!
He died in a car accident in 1969. None of his public eulogies made any mention of his criminal Nazi past. Among his greatest crimes was the quasi-scientific legitimization he lent to Nazi racism.
February 4, 2009 at 3:36 pm |
Hi! I’m doing a project about Josef Mengele and had to found some info about Otmar von Verschuer as well and i found your text and it was very good. Which are your sources? I do not know if taking a blog in my essay is very good…. Thank you!
February 15, 2009 at 11:49 pm |
600marks was a big fine against a man who left a wealth of information about eye problems Cataracts, Premature Blindness etc. albeit discovered through the methods used, and in no way do i condone those methods, but the allies took all yhat information and used it. the disgusting and vile thing is, the methods used to do this as in the modern day volunteers are used. maybe bit like the volunteers from all over europe that signed up to hitlers army to defeat communism but also with their manpower to extend the war.
February 15, 2009 at 11:59 pm |
sarah from sweden please do not use this biggoted mans ramblings for your project. he is so full of venom he is not telling the truth. if u want truth try the Nuremberg trials site i am sure you will find more accurate info there. if u look at this persons ramblings on each page there is nothing but hatred and a one sided view !!!! how is that educational ? this person wants u to believe all that he says yet he speaks with ignorance and hatred. an honest writer on this subject would give an entirely impartial point of view.
February 20, 2009 at 12:36 am |
Me? Full of venom? Not telling the truth? I don’t think so. But I wouldn’t think so because I am myself and understand truth is very subjective. We all have a special version of the truth. I would definitely check out any information regarding the Nuremberg trials. However, keep in mind, that everyone on trial at Nuremberg was fighting for their life – definitely not the circumstances under which the truth has been known to prevail, particularly when the truth does not set you free.
If you read the Nuremberg information -particularly the court transcripts- you not only have to versed in the history but you have to be able to pick through the little half truths used to legitimate lies.
Again – truth has as many faces as there are mouths speaking it.
March 22, 2009 at 6:40 pm |
Hang on a minute all of you.
Present day facts.
1) A BRITISH Catholic priest denies that the gas chambers ever existed based on a so called expert testimony of a a professional “gas chamber constructer”.
2) Aribert Heim SUPPOSEDLY died in 1992 of cancer, in Egypt.
3) Nazi’s will forever deny all atrocities even though one, who is possibly STILL alive, ADMITTED as recently as the 1990’s that he should have killed more of them because “they deserved it”.(Alois Brunner)
4. Millions of living witness statements from 1946 onwards, written, taped, recorded and stored in one way or another have helped capture and try many many exnazi’s from the 2nd world war.
My conclusion? As a neutral non jewish Englishman living in safety?
1) It happened. My father KNEW it as early as 1942. Intelligence. then he went there and saw it. Also many many thousands of other troops that liberated the camps. It happened, FACT. The Catholic priest needs banishing to an island in the middle of nowhere inparticular.
2)Aribert Heims lawyers have been claiming money for a man that was alive up to 2001. Duh….even I can work that one out. Either his lawyer comitted perjury or his son did by clkaiming the money as he was supposedly dead!
3) Brunner? Been hidden by the Syrians for years…he helped them plan things AGAINST the Isrealis many many years ago. And the Syrians dont particularly like the isrealis do they? Brunner if still alive, is protected in the same way Mengele was in South America. Damned shame Mossad didnt get him in those letter bombs. Only a few fingers and an eye. Shame.
4)Ive heard of mass hysteria, but mass confession to something that never happened? In different places? Take a look at the newly opened files once owned by Stasi in Berlin. MILLIONS of names. They didnt all commit mass suicide!
Finally. Josef Fritzel is as we write being tried on crimes the great majority of us call inhuman. We cannot, most of us, comprehend his motives nor his ability to do what he did. But he did those things. The German SS and co DID kill the jews, in an awful fashion. On Hitlers orders. Carried out by maniacs.
We cannot deny this. To do so would be tantamount to saying that Josef Fritzel didnt rape his own daughter 3000 times, father 7 children by her and keep her imprisoned for over 20 years. Please people, Lets get it straight.
It happened. Humanity has a duty to look itself in the face and admit it. We arent all made for being angels. Some are simply, PURE EVIL.
They exist today. They existed then. Just let us get on with getting the sick animals and deal with them. The facts are there well enough. Germans themselves admit it happened. They are ashamed of it too. They were also ashamed to admit that they rode the tidal wave of Hitler and his thugs. It isnt easy being shown up to being a follower of such a man. But they did, and their shame is right too. But it could so easily have been the followers of the Kmher Rouge, Pol Pot etc. Or Idi Amin, or Robert Mugabe.
Tha madmen exist. Their ideologies were and ARE put into practice. Dont lets argue if it happened…it did and still does, in different guises.
No doubt some genius will make a fortune in 30 years time discovering that Josef Fritzel was framed. Yeah, and Im a Giant Panda.
I once asked my wise old father, when I was a young lad many years ago the eternal question, referring to the near extinction of the European Jewish Race. Why did it happen?
He said this…
As long as there are human beings, as long as we CLAIM to have a greater intelligence than any other life form on this or any other planet, occasional xenophobic maniacs will appear. First on the horizon, then, by will of the oppressed, come closer to the centre of world political life. When this influence is backed by those who are in need of a leader, then, and only then, has the composition of power been adequately gained for its effect to be put into force. No leader, ever, could have done any amount of good or evil without a body of backing.
In Hitler’s case, the SS became the face of terror to implement his evil ideas. The ideology behind the ideas was simple enough, but without mass backing, it could never have been done. Why? Beacause some humans thirst on power. The higher up one achieves status within an organisation, the greater the influence on those below.
He added this, which I found very interesting, and a great leveller…
You DO of course realise that the higher echelons of the Nazi regime all distrusted each other? Himmler, Goering, Kaltenbrunner, Hess, the whole bumch of them, were all scared of being usurped. BY EACH OTHER. And that was the power struggle within the power struggle. Hitler deliberately changed his favoured men from time to time to create exactly that situation. It enabled him to keep the optimal position safe, or relatively so, by letting those below him continually watch their backs. That way, they all HAD to remain faithful. Near the end of course, they found out that Hitler was no war genius at all, and the fractions started to occur against his militaristic policies. Plus the fact that they realised he was starting to lose his mind.
So summing up… yes…it will always happen. The trick we “normal” humans have to keep doing is quite simple.
Cut out the infection in the blackhead BEFORE it becomes a boil. Then multi-headed boil, cyst or even a cancerous lump.
Either that or drain out the pus at regular intervals.
Saw today that Josef Fritzel has just changed his plea and admitted to every charge.
I think he saw that trying the “my mother showed me no love and I have always been a loner” ploy didnt really wash.
It didnt work at Nuremburg either…”I was only following orders”.
It never will. One part of our intelligence development we can be thankful for is simply lovely…
Pull the other one, its got bells on it.
Seems I’m not a Giant Panda after all.
April 3, 2009 at 2:24 pm |
Yes, terrible acts were committed by the Nazis (NOT all Germans) during WWII. But we need to stop using this era as an excuse/whipping block to IGNORE other mass murders/murderers throughut the world. How about the United States- you know, so humane, the “saviour” of all mankind. From what I can tell, the American Government, albeit US Army, etc, etc, etc, has exterminated/tacitly assisted in the murder of millions of NATIVE AMERICANS (read: the Original Americans), millions of African Americans, encouraged/stood by our friend/ally Mr. Stalin, as he exterminated millions upon millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans, et al. Study the liquidation of the Danube Swabians, for example, which amounts to the original “ethnic cleansing.” These millions represent substantially More Millions than those murdered in third reich concentration camps. Yet where is the debate, the fury over all of this?
Truth be known (and I you study honest history), Many centuries before Adolph Hitler, in fact, centuries BEFORE there was even a Germany, there was a so-called “Jewish Problem” in Europe. And “who” was responsible for this?
Generally speaking , I read more negative information than positive about the Germanic peoples. How about something positive? if it were not for Werner von Braun, Willy Ley, et al (the same scientists who built the V1 and V2 rockets for Hitler) America would Not have a rocket/missle program. That’s precisely Why they were brought here – to help build US Up, no mater what they’ve done in the past. What about all the great artists, musicians, conductors, who established our symphony orchestras, concert halls, etc. What about some of the world’s greatest philosophers, not to mention scientists?
And how about the FIRST written protests against slavery, from German Mennonites in PA, long before there was a America?
Yet, the American wasteland ( TV) still, to this day, portrays Germans as a sort of “Col Klink.”
Enough with the ignorance! We’re in the 21st century…Yes, human beings still have the same complexities, penchant for evil, et al, but the 20th century is behind us.
I personally have family members (Lutheran Christians ) who refused WWII service to Hitler, as MILLIONS of Germans did. They were sent to hard labor/read: concentration camps (northern Norway, for example) for years of punishment and excruciating pain, many never to return.
If people, including some who are Jewish, don’t like Germans, why then are they supporting Germany so well, buying Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi. The list goes on and on and on and on, yet speaking out Both sides of their mouths.
And how about the 1000,000’s of LOYAL German- Americans who were interred in work/concentration camps right here in America (the land of the free) during WWII??? And some held captive on Ellis Island for NO reason, unexplained, All information “buried” by the US Goverment, some to this day???
it’s easy to point a finger at another group of people if you’re the “victor.” But it’s Not nearly as easy to point that same finger at the “victor’s” doorstep, to begin cleaning up our own atrocities, exterminations, liquidations, inhumane, immoral, behaviors.
There’s an old quote, “pride goeth before the fall.” Fine…………………
June 21, 2009 at 5:03 am |
Let’s not compare one thing to another. The organization of the Nazi camps, the cruel industrial process is what is important to note. Other people suffered in other ways, and yes, those crimes should be studied too. But there is something especially insane about the organized extermination of millions involving trains, timetables, poison gas, that is diabolically interesting.
Also, no one has explained why the Germans did these things. Did they really believe in ’subhumans’, and that they were never going to lose the war and be punished?
The deaths of people during slavery and the time of Indians occurred without all these modern means.
Plus, the Germans blindly followed Hitler , whereas slavery and the murder of the Indians occurred for very different motives, and not out of a ‘cult’ like following of one guy.