THE BERGEN-BELSEN MAD SCIENTIST: FRITZ KLEIN (NOVEMBER 24, 1888 TO DECEMBER 13, 1945)

            On this date, December 13, 1945, 11 Nazi War Criminals were all hanged by Albert Pierrepoint in Hamelin Prison, Germany. I will post the information about Dr. Fritz Klein whom I nickname him, The Bergen-Belsen Mad Scientist from Wikipedia and other links.

Fritz Klein at his trial in 1945.

Born	November 24, 1888 Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary
Died	December 13, 1945 (aged 57) Hamelin, West Germany
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Other work	Hanged for atrocities committed at Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz and other concentration camps

Fritz Klein (November 24, 1888 – December 13, 1945) was a German Nazi physician hanged for his role in atrocities at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Life and career

Klein was born in Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary (now Codlea in central Romania). Klein was considered a Volksdeutscher, or ethnic German. He studied medicine at the University of Budapest and completed his military service in Romania, finishing his studies in Budapest after World War I. He lived as a doctor in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania). In 1939 as a Romanian citizen he was drafted into the Romanian army, where after the outbreak of the war with the Soviet Union in 1941 he served as paramedic on the eastern front. In May 1943 Romanian dictator Marshal Antonescu, on a demand from Hitler to release ethnic Germans in the Romanian Army, drafted them into the German army. Hence Klein became a soldier in the Waffen-SS, was listed in the SS-Personalhauptamt, and was posted to Yugoslavia.

On 15 December 1943, he arrived in Auschwitz concentration camp, where at first he served as a camp doctor in the women’s camp in Birkenau. Subsequently he worked as a camp doctor in the Gypsy camp. He also participated in numerous selections ("Selektionen") on the ramp. In December 1944 he was transferred to Neuengamme concentration camp, from where he was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in January 1945. He remained at the camp with commandant Josef Kramer and assisted in handing it over to British troops. Klein was imprisoned and required to help bury all unburied corpses in mass graves. The British Fifth Army Film & Photographic Unit photographed Klein standing in a mass grave in a well-known 1945 photo.

When asked how he reconciled his actions with his ethical obligations as a physician, Klein famously stated:

"My Hippocratic oath tells me to cut a gangrenous appendix out of the human body. The Jews are the gangrenous appendix of mankind. That's why I cut them out."

Klein and 44 other camp staff were tried in the Belsen Trial by a British military court at Lüneburg. The trial lasted several weeks from September to November 1945. During the trial Anita Lasker testified that he took part in selections for the gas chamber. He was sentenced to death and hanged at Hamelin jail by Albert Pierrepoint on December 13, 1945.

Dr Fritz Klein, the camp doctor, standing in a mass grave at Belsen. Klein, who was born in Austro- Hungary, was an early member of the Nazi Party and joined the SS in 1943. He worked in Auschwitz-Birkenau for a year from December 1943 where he assisted in the selection of prisoners to be sent to the gas chambers. After a brief period at Neungamme, Klein moved to Belsen in January 1945. Klein was subsequently convicted of two counts of war crimes and executed in December 1945.

OTHER LINKS:

http://www.bergenbelsen.co.uk/pages/Trial/Trial/TrialDefenceCase/Trial_027_Klein.html