by Arthur Allen
To be sure, Germany: Arthur Felix memo dated Nov. 17, 1941, Kew, FD1/6614; Herbert D. Chalke, “Typhus: Experiences in the Central Mediterranean Force,” British Medical Journal 1, no. 4460 (June 29, 1946): 979.
By the time: Arthur Allen, Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver (New York: Norton, 2007), 141.
But there was: Bartov, Eastern Front, 112.
The number of living: Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, Doc 105, letter from President of the Land Labor Office, Dortmund, Feb. 3, 1942, to the Ruhr Coal Mining District Group.
Thousands more: Bartov, Eastern Front, 107.
Like German soldiers: Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939–1945 (New York: Metropolitan, 2006), 56–59.
In their propaganda: Leo Gruliow, Soviet War-Time Medicine (New York: Russian War Relief, 1942).
At a POW camp: Büttner to Renoldi, Jan. 18, 1942, BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187 Büttner, Anlage 5.
On a single day: Büttner, “Erfahrungsbericht 1. Vierteljahr 1942,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187.
“The local difficulties”: Ibid.
Some units tried to: “Abschrift Nov. 13, 1941,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/414.
One wrote that: Gruliow, Soviet War-Time; Walther and Vierthaler to “Heeresarzt,” Dec. 18, 1941, BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/414.
Typhus seemed to catch: Herbert Assman memo, BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187; Kurt Lydtin, “Anlage 3 zum Kriegstagebuch v. 3 – 20/6/42 am Armeearzt 16,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/188; Lydtin, “Erfahrungen 1. vierteljahr 1942,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/360.
On January 12, 1942: Lydtin, “1942 Okt–Dez Fleckfieber,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/305.
These alarming reports: Von Stochert, “Die psychischen Störungen bei Fleckfieber,” BA-Freiburg, RH1/23/246.
Many German doctors: “Ergebnisse der zweite Beratendentagung Ost,” 11/30–12/3, 1942, BA-Freiburg, RH1/23/246.
The symptoms reminded: Bansi report, 1942, BA-Freiburg, RH 12/23/187.
In recovery, the patients: Brinkmann, Heeresgruppe Mitte, “Erfahrungsbericht, 4. Vtlj 1943,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187; Stochert, “Die psychische.”
To cope with: Bogendorfer, 2nd Army, “March 1, 1944, Mikatowitschi,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187.
The Weil-Felix reaction: Eyer, at Tagung der beratenden Ärzte, 4/13/42, BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/214; Heinrich Zeiss, “Sammelbericht über Kriegserfahrungen der beratenden Hygieniker,” from 1/20/1944, ibid., RH12/23/948; Bieling to O. Qu. Gef., 6/27/1942, Betrift: Fleckfiebererkrankungen bei Schutzgeimpften, ibid., RH12/23/187; Karl Schulze, “Erfahrungsbericht 1.3–30.6.43, ibid., RH12/23/188; Schmitz-Formes, “Erprobung eines neuen Fleckfieber Impfstoffes,” ibid., RH12/23/360.
Not knowing whether: Lydtin, “Tagebuch März 42 bis 7 April,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/305; Bogendorfer, 2nd Army.
Many Wehrmacht doctors: Schmitz-Formes, “Erprobung”; Felix von Bormann, experimental report, BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187; Dr v. Weiss, “Ein Jahr Fleckfieberbehandlung,” dated July 31, 1942, ibid., RH12/23/444.
The German soldiers’ letters: Reichspropagandaleitung memo, Jan. 23, 1942, BA-Berlin, NS18/607.
A memo 12 days: Memo dated Feb. 5, 1942, BA-Berlin, NS18/607.
To combat typhus at the front: Bormann, report.
Germany’s failure: Gerhard Rose, NA, RG238, ser. M1019, roll 60; David Kinkela, DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 18–19; Winfried Süss, Der “Volkskörper’’ im Krieg, Gesundheitspolitik, Gesundheitsverhältnisse und Krankenmord im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1939–1945 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003), 227; W. Forth et al., Men & Fungi: Penicillin Research and Production in World War II Germany (Munich: Zuckschwerdt, 2000); Lukas Straumann, “Nützliche Schädlinge” (PhD diss., University of Zurich, 2005).
In the winter of 1942: Albrecht Hase, “Über Entlausung durch Ameisen sowie über die Wirkung der Ameisensäure auf Kleiderläuse,” Zeitschrift für Parasitenkunde 12 (1942): 665–77.
The more the Germans retreated: Friedrich Hansen, Biologische Kriegsführung im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: Campus, 1993), 114.
During three years: Karl-Heinz Leven, “Fleckfieber beim deutschen Heer während des Krieges gegen die Sowjetunion (1941–1945),” in Sanitätswesen im Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Ekkehart Guth et al. (Herford: E. S. Mittler, 1990), 127–35. See also Alexander Neumann, “Arzttum ist immer Kämpfertum”: Die Heeressanitätsinspektion und das Amt “Chef des Wehrmachtssanitätswesens” im Zweiten Weltkrieg (1939–1945) (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2005), 223.
At the outbreak of war: Weindling, Epidemics, 331–32.
Gildemeister would work: François Bayle, Croix gammée contre caducée: Les expériences humaines en Allemagne pendant la deuxième Guerre mondiale (Neustadt, 1950), 1148–54, 1179–97, 1241–60, 1275; E. Haagen and B. Crodel, “Versuche mit einem neuen getrockneten Fleckfieberimpfstoff,” Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie 151 (1944): 369–73. See also Weindling, “Virologist and National Socialist: The Extraordinary Career of Eugen Haagen,” in Infektion und Institution: Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte des Robert-Koch-Instituts im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Marion Hulverscheidt and Anja Laukötter (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009), 232–49.
Meanwhile, IG Farben: Weindling, Epidemics, 344–45.
The leading scientists mistrusted: Ibid., 331–45. See also Gerhard Rose, NA, RG238, ser. M1019, roll 60, frames 123–46.
The differences were partly: Eyer, “Die Fleckfieberprophylaxe der deutschen Wehrmacht im 2. Weltkrieg,” Wehrmedizin und Wehrpharmazie (1979): 60.
The louse was the: See interrogation of Gen. Gerhard Rose, NA, RG331, box 93; CIOS Report, item 24, file #XXIV-5/3 Institut für Fleckfieber- und Virusforschung des Oberkommandos des Heeres at Roth, Bavaria, 1945; Nov. 1942 meeting notes, BA-Berlin, R86/4153.
Although Gildemeister: Rose interrogation, NA, RG238, frames 138–41.
The army medical chief: Siegfried A. Handloser interview, NA, RG238, ser. M1019, roll 24, 83.
Rose, on the other: Rose interrogation, NA, RG238, frames 138–40.
By the end of 1941: File memo on Reich Interior Ministry Conference on Nov. 29, 1941, “The Fight against Typhus,” HNOC, HLSL 722. See also Hans Arsperger, “Sonderbericht über den Besuch des Institutes für Fleckfieber- und Virusforschung in Krakau,” BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/360, and Eyer, “Fleckfieberprophylaxe,” 56–61.
But Behringwerke: J. Craigie memo, Jan. 1941, Kew, FD1/6614. See also Felicja Meisel-Mikołajczyk, interview by Wójcik.
The Weigl vaccine: Bieling reports from Feb. 1942, BA-Freiburg, RH12/23/187. See also Fleck, Denkstile, 582.
Finally, the shortage: Reichsministerium des Innern, “Akten betreffend Fleckfieber Impfstoff,” Jan. 1942–March 1943, BA-Berlin, R1501/3644.
At the urging of Gildemeister: See HNOC, HLSL 722.
However, other German officials: Demnitz affidavit, HNOC, HLSL 721.
Standartenführer (Colonel) Joachim: Ibid.; Bieber note on meeting, HNOC, HLSL 2235; Bayle, Croix, 1131–32.
Mrugowsky, who was Erwin: Florian Bruns, “Staatshygiene und Menschenversuche: Das medizinische Ethos des Joachim Mrugowsky,” in Medizinethik im Nationalsozialismus: Entwicklungen und Protagonisten in Berlin (1939–1945) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2009), 147.
After being named in 1938: Weindling, Epidemics, 248–50.
Mrugowsky’s staff of 200: Pierre Joffroy, A Spy for God: The Ordeal of Kurt Gerstein, trans. Norman Denny (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).
He was responsible: Weindling, Epidemics, 254–57; Bruns, “Ethos des Joachim Mrugowsky,” 135–47.
As the scholar Paul: Weindling, Epidemics, 255; Gerhard Peters, general: Himmler memo: BA-Berlin R1501/3644; Degesch shipment in Nov 1941: Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, KV-Anklage, Interrogations REP502 VI Nr P25, courtesy of Paul Weindling; Höss decision: Weindling, Epidemics, 294–302, 304–5; Joffroy, Spy for God, 258–66.
The Pasteur scientists Paul: Hél�
�ne Sparrow, “Essais d’immunisation avec le virus murin I de Tunis, introduit par la voie nasale,” Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences 201 (1935): 1441.
Durand brought the vaccine: Paul Giroud and Jean Jadin, “Conceptions actuelles concernant les rickettsioses et leur vaccinations,” Annales de la Société Belge de Médicine Tropicale 3 (1961); Paul Giroud and René Panthier, “Adaption au poumon de lapin des Rickettsies de Typhus Historique,” Annales de l’Institut Pasteur 68 (1942): 381–86; Paul Giroud, “Vaccination against Typhus,” in Medical Research in France during the War (1939–1945), ed. Jean Hamburger (Paris: Flammarion, 1947), 31–37.
Many tricks were: Giroud and Panthier, “Adaption”; PIA, DirMIN1, “Reunion de 27 Fevrier 1942 sur le Typhus Examthématique.”
In January 1942: Hubert Duboc, ed., Barbelés et Typhus (Luneray: Bertout, 1992), 40–44, 123, annexe 1-12.
The Pasteur Institute, rife: See Louis Aublant, speech of Nov. 9, 1979, PIA, box DirMIN1.
To give a flavor . . . French POWs: Trefouel to Ministry of Health, March 7, 1942, PIA, box DirMIN1.
By war’s end, Giroud: “Medical Research in Paris,” Sept. 5, 1944, NA, RG331, box 94, CIOS Medical, item 24; “Minutes of 28 Feb 1942 meeting,” PIA, box DirMIN1; Memo, “Vaccine anti-Rickettsia delivré gratuitement.”
While the typhus vaccine: Weindling, Epidemics, 325–28.
One of the first: Knapp to Fourneau, July 8, 1942, PIA, DirMIN1.
Chapter 9: The Terrifying Clinic of Dr. Ding
There were really two: Dov Levin, The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet Rule, 1939–1941, trans. Naftali Greenwood (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995); Albert Kirrmann, “Buchenwald, la grande ville,” in De l’université aux camps de concentration: Témoignages strasbourgeois (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1947), 67.
Conditions improved: Kogon, Hell, 260–61; Ernst von Salomon The Captive: The Story of an Unknown Political Prisoner (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961), 118–22; David A. Hackett, ed. and trans., The Buchenwald Report (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 207.
The work required skill: Hermann Langbein, Against All Hope: Resistance in the Nazi Concentration Camps, 1938–1945, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Paragon House, 1994), 108.
At times, it went: Hoven interrogation, NA, RG238, ser. M1019, roll 29, frames 360–85.
Given his erratic behavior: “Dienstleistungszeugnis für SS-Unter-scharführer Waldemar Hoven,” June 29, 1939, BA-Berlin, NS19/507; Hoven interrogation, NA, RG238.
Hoven was a rakish: Hackett, Report, 336; Shoah Foundation, 21084 Peter Schenk Sr.
Inmates would sometimes: Kurt Titz and Herbert Froboess testimony in Buchenwald trial, at NA, RG153, box 255, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 4 (folder 10); ibid., box 246, pt. 8; Kurt Sitte testimony in Buchenwald trial, ibid., box 254, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 2 (folder 2), 366–81; Shoah Foundation, 11111 John Berman (wartime name Hans Baermann).
None of this seemed: Christian Bernadac, Les médecins maudits: Dans les camps de concentration, des cobayes humains (Paris: Michel Lafon, 1996), 188.
Hoven was also known: Kogon, Hell, 149; Interrogation of Waldemar Hoven by Iwan Devries, Oct. 22, 1946, HNOC, HLSL 221, 19–32; Fritz Rieckert, Affidavit concerning Hoven’s work at Buchenwald, HNOC, HLSL 675, 20.
“And what supremacy”: Rudolf Gottschalk, affidavit concerning Hoven’s work at Buchenwald, HNOC, HLSL 672, 12.
Arthur Dietzsch: Salomon, Captive, 123–24; Kogon, Hell, 158–60.
In November 1941: Salomon, Captive, 118–22.
Ding had studiously courted: Oskar Hock, Affidavit on SS medical programs, HNOC, HLSL 435, 7. See also, Fritz Kranz, Affidavit on work of Hygiene Institute, HNOC, HLSL 802; Genzken in Bayle, Croix, 1221.
Ding had left: Hygiene Institut der Waffen-SS, Versuche mit Impfstoffen gegen Diphtherie, Fleckfieber, Typhus, Cholera usw 1941–44, BA-Berlin NS33/343 #185.
“Since animal experiments”: Kogon, Hell, 156–57.
Shortly after Block: NA, RG153, box 257, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 7 (folder 2), 3107.
As the nature of: NA, RG153, box 250, v. 1, clemency, pt. 6 (folders 1 and 2).
The sight of a single louse Shoah Foundation, 15132 David Dantus; Hackett, Report, 65–66; Dietzsch testimony, Buchenwald Trial, NA, RG153, box 257, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 7 (folder 2), 3118–19.
Since there was no: Salomon, Captive, 128–32.
After recovering, Ding: Carl Blumenreuter, affidavit concerning Genzken’s responsibilities in the Waffen-SS medical service, typhus vaccine program, Feb. 6, 1947, HNOC, HLSL 449, 36–37; Bayle, Croix, 1191–201.
In November 1942: Salomon, Captive, 128–32; Ernst Klee, Auschwitz: Die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1997), 296–97.
On November 30, 1942: Hoven quoted in Rieckert, affidavit; Dietzsch testimony, HNOC, HLSL 671, 2.
Haas, sensing: Salomon, Captive, 128–32; testimony by Fritz Kirchheimer, NA, RG153, box 255, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 4 (folder 1), 1149; Shoah Foundation, 41857 Jacobus Van der Geest.
While convalescing at home: Salomon, Captive, 133.
Later subjects were: Kogon, Hell, 156–58.
Ding and Dietzsch: Waitz, “Au block 46,” in Témoignages strasbourgeois, 113.
The many vaccines: “Tagebuch der Abteilung für Fleckfieber- u. Virusforschung am Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS” (manuscript), HNOC, HLSL 1547.
In practice, though, many of: Christian Pineau, La simple vérité, 1940–1945 (Paris: René Julliard, 1960), 381–82.
To get the Block 46: Waitz, “Au block 46,” 109–11.
The prisoners were “stuffed”: Yeo-Thomas, Buchenwald trial, NA, RG153, box 254, v. 1, trial rec. (folder 1), 147.
Said a prisoner who: Shoah Foundation, 51743 Henryk Mikols.
Having already stuck: Letter from Dietzsch to Frankfurter Hefte Verlag, IWM, FFEYT3/7.
Stranded in the building: Dietzsch testimony, Buchenwald trial, NA, RG153, box 257, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 7 (folder 1), 3133.
He could more: Max Umschweif testimony, NA, RG153, box 258, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 12, 5513–14.
But he also: Dietzsch testimony, NA, RG153, box 357, v. 1, pt. 7 (folder 2), 3146.
And before long, everyone: Kogon, Hell, 158–60.
One day in the fall: Willy Bahner, NA, RG253, box 256, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 5 (folder1), 1647–49.
By the time the camp: Kogon, Hell, 156–57.
Ding knew: James J. Weingartner, “Law and Justice in the Nazi SS: The Case of Konrad Morgen,” Central European History 16 (1983): 276–94; Konrad Morgen testimony at Buchenwald trial, NA, RG153, box 257, v. 1, trial rec., pt. 7 (folder 1), 2797.
He had already: Morgen affidavit, medical experiments at Buchenwald, HNOC, HLSL 794.
Nothing could have: Kogon, Hell, 156–57.
Despite this, the German: Bayle, Croix, 1173, 1216–38.
The vaccine tests: Ding’s publications—no coauthors were ever listed—include the following: “Zur serologischen und mikrobiologischen Diagnostik des Fleckfiebers,” excerpted in Bulletin of War Medicine 3 (1942–43): 675; “Über das Ergebnis der Prüfung verschiedener Fleckfieber-Vaccinen gegen das klassische Fleckfieber,” Arbeitstagung Ost der beratenden Fachärzte 3 (1943): 108; “Über die Schutzwirkung verschiedener Fleckfieberimpfstoffe beim Menschen und den Fleckfieberverlauf nach Schutzimpfung,” Zeitschrift für Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten 124 (1943): 670–82; “Fleckfieberrezidiv,” Medizinische Klinik 39/40 (1944); “Beitrag zur Frage der Tröpfcheninfektion bei Fleckfieber,” Zeitschrift für Hygiene und Infektionskrankheiten 125 (1944): 431–36.
Typhus was not the only: Shoah Foundation, 51743 Henryk Mikols.
For some of the prisoners: Shoah Foundation, 21884 Peter Schenk; Hoven interrogation, NA, RG238, ser. M1019, roll 29, frames 360–62.
Ding also tested: Stephen H. Lindner, Inside IG Farben: Hoechst during the Third Reich (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 311–33; Klee, Auschwitz, 296–313; Salom
on, Captive, 133; Kogon interview, Nov. 28, 1946, NA, RG238, ser. M1019, roll 36, frame 3582.
As the Block 46: Klee, Auschwitz, 304–5.
Chapter 10: “Paradise” at Auschwitz
As part of this shift: Betty Truck and Robert-Paul Truck, Médecins de la honte: La vérité sur les expériences médicales pratiquées à Auschwitz (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1975), 146.
In November or December: Mieczysław Kieta, “Das Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS und Polizei in Auschwitz,” Die Auschwitz-Hefte (Weinheim: Beltz, 1987), 213–17.
As he wrote: Truck and Truck, Médecins, 146.
In the weeks before: Kieta, “Hygiene-Institut,” 114; Willy Berler, Journey through Darkness: Monowitz, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, trans. Martine Mitrani and Annette Charak (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004), 200–204.
The ten members: Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicles, 1939–1945 (New York: Henry Holt, 1990), 325.
Perhaps Weber wanted: Stanisław Lenz testimony, YVA.
Fleck’s group: Bruno Seeman testimony, Shoah Foundation.
On February 11: Czech, Chronicles, 328, 334; Bruno Seeman testimony.
The men entered: Robert J. Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (London: Macmillan, 1986), 264; Fleck, “Aufenthalt im KZ Auschwitz,” in Denkstile, 487–88.
In March, Fleck and: Arie Ryszard Fleck, YVA O.3/3521.
Ludwik and Ryszard: Fleck, “Aufenthalt,” 488; Fleck, “Wie wir den Anti-Flecktyphus-Impfstoff im Lemberger Ghetto hergestellt haben,” in Denkstile, 511.
However, Ryszard was: Ryszard Fleck testimony.
Fleck’s prewar reputation: Fleck, “Aufenthalt,” 488, and “Wie wir,” 523.
The Lwów scientists’: Czech, Chronicles, 366; Robert Proctor, “Nazi Doctors, Racial Medicine and Human Experimentation,” in The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Perspective, ed. George Annas and Michael A. Grodin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 21; Vera Laska, “The Stations of the Cross,” in Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich, ed. John Michalczyk (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1994), 135–36.