Prof. Carl Clauberg, who subjected thousands of Jewish women in the Auschwitz extermination camp to agonizingly painful medical experiments, has been transferred to a prison cell from the Neustadt Psychiatric Clinic, after the physician in charge refused to declare him unable to stand trial on psychiatric grounds.
Dr. Clauberg was placed under arrest two weeks ago by the public prosecutor here, on suspicion that he was preparing to flee abroad to escape possible criminal prosecution A preliminary investigation has been opened against him on the basis of a complaint filed by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which charges him with deliberately harming women inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The prosecutor has pointed out that the investigation would be lengthy and difficult.
During the Nazi era, Dr. Clauberg was a gynecologist in Upper Silesia and an officer in the SS. He approached SS chief Heinrich Himmler with the request that Jewish women in concentration camps be made available to him for experiments on a method of sterilization he was developing. Himmler obligingly put the notorious “Experimental Building No. 10” in Auschwitz at his disposal. There, Prof. Clauberg maltreated Jewish girl prisoners and injected them with an acid that caused severe internal burns. In a letter to Himmler, he boasted that his method made it possible for him to “treat” a thousand women in a single day.
After the war, he was held in a Soviet PW camp. Together with other Germans released by Russia six weeks ago, he was given a hero’s welcome as well as a cash grant of $1,500 and many other benefits. In an interview with “Sueddeutsche Zeitung,” the Munich daily which then was the only paper in Germany to draw attention to his record, he spoke proudly of the “scientific merit” of the experiments he carried on at Auschwitz. Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck survivors who can offer first-hand testimony about Clauberg’s operations are asked to communicate with the Jewish Central Council at 49. Fischerstrasse, in Duesseldorf.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
