A committee of the Schleswig-Holstein Parliament started an investigation today into the “scandalous background” of the case of Dr. Werner Heyde, who served on the Nazi “euthanasia staff” until 1941. During the postwar Nuremberg doctors’ trials for war crimes, Dr. Heyde had been charged in absentia with the murder of many political and Jewish concentration camp inmates.
He was arrested recently in Flensburg, where he had built up a medical practice and served as official medical advisor to Flensburg courts under an assumed name, Fritz Schwade, The decision to name the committee followed sharp criticism in the Schleswig-Holstein Parliament by Social Democrats who charged that government officials had known about Heyde’s past and had not opposed his appointment as court medical advisor. Heyde is now in Wuerzburg prison awaiting trial.
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