Sadistic Nazi Doctor Fritz Fischer
- Medical Experiments in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp - WW2

6 July 2022

Category: Nazi Doctors

Fritz Fischer was born on the 5th of October 1912 in Berlin. In February 1934 he joined the SS and in 1937 he joined the Nazi Party. After he completed his studies of medicine in 1936 and received his doctorate in 1938, he became a surgeon. World War 2 started on the 1st of September 1939. Two months later on the 1st of November 1939, Fischer became a member of the Waffen-SS which was the military branch of the SS. He was assigned as the assistant surgeon to the Hohenlychen Sanatorium where injured or convalescing SS-men were treated.

In 1940, Fritz Fischer became troop physician of the SS Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler which was an elite division-sized unit during World War II. After he was seriously wounded during fighting on the Eastern Front, Fischer was posted back to Hohenlychen Senatorium and worked in the nearby camp hospital of the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Here he actively participated in the surgical experiments carried out on concentration camp inmates, mostly Polish female prisoners condemned to death, without their consent.

Medical Experiments At Ravensbrück

At Ravensbrück, Fritz Fischer and his colleague Herta Oberheuser became the assistants of Karl Gebhardt, who had been sent to Ravensbrück to conduct medical experiments on inmates in treating infections with sulfonamide which was an early antibiotic. In May 1943 Fisher left the concentration camp and went to the front. In August 1944 he was wounded and as with his concentration camp victims, had his right arm amputated.

After the war, the unethical and inhumane medical experiments which Fritz Fischer had conducted, were uncovered, and he finally faced justice for his crimes. He was arrested and tried at the Nuremberg Doctors' trial where he was one of the few accused doctors who showed signs of remorse over his actions and openly talked about how he felt badly for operating on healthy young women.

In summer 1947 the military tribunal found Fritz Fischer guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization, the SS and sentenced him to life imprisonment. However, his life sentence lasted only a few years. In 1952 his sentence was reduced to 15 years and in 1954 Fischer was released for good behavior. In 2003, when he died at the age of 90, he was the last known living of those charged at the Doctors' Trial. There were no tears shed for Fritz Fischer.

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