THE DOCTOR DEATH OF DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP: DR. KLAUS KARL SCHILLING (5 JULY 1871 TO 28 MAY 1946)

On this date, 28 May 1946, the Doctor Death of Dachau Concentration Camp, Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, was executed by hanging at Landsberg Prison. I will post the information about this Doctor of Death from Wikipedia.

Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling

Born	5 July 1871 Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Died	28 May 1946 (aged 74) Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria , West Germany
Nationality	German
Occupation	Tropical medicine, Medical research

Claus Karl Schilling (born 5 July 1871 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany; died 28 May 1946 in Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, West Germany), also recorded as Klaus Schilling, was a German tropical medicine specialist, particularly remembered for his infamous participation in the Nazi human experiments at the Dachau concentration camp during World War II.

Though never a member of the Nazi Party and a recognized researcher before the war, Schilling became notorious as a consequence of his enthusiastic participation in human research under both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. From 1942 to 1945, Schilling's research of malaria and attempts at fighting it using synthetic drugs resulted in over a thousand cases of human experimentation on camp prisoners.

Sentenced to death by hanging after the fall of Hitler's Germany, he was executed for his crimes against the Dachau prisoners in 1946.

Defendant Dr. Klaus Schilling takes the stand in the Dachau trial. Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany

Biography

Born in Munich on July 5, 1871, Schilling studied medicine in his native city, receiving a doctor's degree there in 1895. Within a few years, Schilling was practicing in the German colonial possessions in Africa. Recognized for his contributions in the field of tropical medicine, he was appointed the first-ever director of the tropical medicine division of the Robert Koch Institute in 1905, where he would remain for the subsequent three decades.

Italian research

Upon retirement from the Robert Koch Institute in 1936, Schilling moved to Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy, where he was given the opportunity to conduct immunization experiments on inmates of the psychiatric asylums of Volterra and San Niccolò di Siena. (The Italian authorities were concerned that troops faced malarial outbreaks in the course of the Italo-Ethiopian War.) As Schilling stressed the significance of the research for German interests, the Nazi government of Germany also supported him with a financial grant for his Italian experimentation.

Dachau experiments

Schilling returned to Germany after a meeting with Leonardo Conti, the Nazis' Health Chief, in 1941, and by early 1942 he was provided with a special malaria research station at Dachau's concentration camp by Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS. Despite negative assessments from colleagues, Schilling would remain in charge of the malaria station for the duration of the war.

Although in the 1930s Schilling had stressed the point that malaria research on human subjects could be performed in an entirely harmless fashion, the Dachau subjects included experimentees who were injected with synthetic drugs at doses ranging from high to lethal. Of the more than 1,000 prisoners used in the malaria experiments at Dachau during the war, between 300 and 400 died as a result; among survivors, a substantial number remained permanently damaged afterward.

In the course of the Dachau Trials following the liberation of the camp at the close of the war, Schilling was tried by an American tribunal, with an October 1945 affidavit from Schilling being presented in the proceedings.

The tribunal sentenced Schilling to death by hanging on December 13, 1945. His execution took place at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg am Lech on May 28, 1946. See Schilling execution

Dr. Klaus Schilling on the witness stand, 7 December 1945 [PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauTrials/KlausSchilling.html]

PLEASE SEE THIS VIDEO TO WATCH THE HANGING OF THOSE SENTENCED TO DEATH AT THE DACHAU TRIALS:

VIDEO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uSYHYr3Ts

Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, a physician who infected over one thousand prisoners with malaria in his experiments at the Dachau camp, defends himself at the trial of former camp personnel and prisoners from Dachau. In his appeal in English after cross examination, Schilling explained, "I have worked out this great labor. It would be really a terrible loss if I could not finish this work. I don't ask you as a court, I ask you personally to do what you can; to do what you can to help me that I may finish this report. I need only a table and a chair and a typewriter. It would be an enormous help for science, for my colleagues, and a good part to rehabilitate myself." His voice then broke and he cried.

The Dachau concentration camp trial opened on November 2, 1945 in Dachau, Germany. Forty individuals who had participated in the operation of the Dachau concentration camp were charged with the murder and mistreatment of foreign nationals imprisoned there. Among those charged were Martin Gottfried Weiss, the camp commandant from 1942-1943; Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, an SS physician who was brought to Dachau to find a method of immunizing people against malaria; and three former prisoners. The trial lasted from November 15 to December 13, 1945, with seventy witnesses called for the prosecution and fifty witnesses called for the defense. All forty defendants were found guilty, with thirty-six being sentenced to death by hanging (including Weiss and Schilling), one sentenced to hard labor for life, and three sentenced to hard labor for ten years. A few of the sentences were reduced after a review board determined the defendants were involved to a lesser degree than originally believed, but most were upheld. Those sentenced to death were hanged on May 28-29, 1946 at Dachau.

Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, a physician who infected over one thousand prisoners with malaria in his experiments at the Dachau camp, defends himself at the trial of former camp personnel and prisoners from Dachau.