Dr. August Hirt Signed Document - Natzweiler

Dr. August Hirt Signed Document - Natzweiler
This typed document/letter is from the Anatomisches Institut derReichsuniversitat Strassburg dated 23 June 1944. It is addressed to HerrnProf. Hagen Strassburg Hygien. Institut , it is signed by Dr. August Hirtand the document reads :Anatomical Institute of the Reichsuniversitat StrassburgStrassburg dated 23 June 1944.It is addressed to Prof. Hagen Strassburg Hygien. Institute.Dear colleague!According to a telex from Dr. Brandt (Office A) I inform you that theworking lunch and the subsequent viewing will not take place on June 28th, but now on June 29th at 12.30 p.m.Heil Hitler Dr. A. HirtAugust Hirt (28 April 1898 – 2 June 1945) was an anatomist with Swiss andGerman nationality who served as a chairman at the Reich University inStrasbourg during World War II. He performed experiments with mustard gas oninmates at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and played a lead rolein the murders of 86 people at Natzweiler-Struthof for the Jewish skeletoncollection. The skeletons of his victims were meant to become specimens atthe Institute of anatomy in Strasbourg, but completion of the project wasstopped by the progress of the war.He was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and in 1944, an SS-Sturmbannführer(major).From 1 April 1936 Hirt was associate director of the Institute of anatomy atUniversity of Greifswald. On 1 October 1938, he obtained the same post atGoethe University. At the beginning of the Second World War he was an SSmedical chief (from August 1939 to April 1941). During this time the Battleof France took place, resulting in the fall of France and its occupation byGerman forces, and Hirt participated in the battle. He then became directorof the new Institute of anatomy at the Reichsuniversität Straßburg.The Ahnenerbe under the Third Reich was a society that organised "medicalexperiments" on prisoners. Hirt conceived and directed one called the Jewishskeleton collection, which was begun but not completed as intended. He alsoperformed experiments on cadavers and collected human skulls. He wasappointed director since 1941 of the Institute of Anatomy in Strasbourg. Hewanted to create a collection of skulls of "Judeo-Bolsheviks", as part ofhis research on race. According to him, the Jewish race was on the point ofextinction and he wished to gather a collection of them while there wasstill time. Hirt sent his project to Heinrich Himmler. Hirt wrote of thisproject: "There are important collections of skulls of nearly all the racesand peoples. Except for the Jews, of which science has so few skulls, so itis not possible to draw any meaningful inferences. The war in the East givesus the opportunity to fill the gap. We have the opportunity to acquire atangible scientific document by procuring the skulls of Jewish-Bolshevikswho embody the disgusting but characteristic subhuman."Hirt conceived the project to go beyond a collection of skulls, to acollection of Jewish skeletons and so presented his research plan toHimmler. He approved the project so that Hirt could begin his "medicalexperiments." Working with the Ahnenerbe division, Wolfram Sievers, BrunoBeger, Hans Fleischhacker and Hirt together collected people from among theAuschwitz inmates in order to create an anatomical specimen collectionspecifically of Jews. Hirt proposed to use the small-scale gas chamber atNatzweiler-Struthof to murder the people selected, keeping their corpsesintact, and then have their corpses shipped immediately to the AnatomicalInstitute in Strasbourg for the casts and skeletons he wanted for thiscollection.Hirt directed that 115 persons be selected for measurements: 79 Jewish men, 30 Jewish women, 2 Poles, and 4 "Asians". They were selected among theinmates in August 1943 at Auschwitz by his assistants, the anthropologistsBruno Beger and Hans Fleischhacker. The group was quarantined to protectthem from a typhus epidemic in the camp. Measurements were taken of theselected inmates at Auschwitz. Of those initially selected, it is believedthat 89 persons (60 men and 29 women) were sent to Natzweiler-Struthof.Three men died en route, leaving 86 people.Natzweiler-Struthof campThese 86 people were sent to Natzweiler-Struthof on 30 July 1943. They werefed reasonably well to improve their appearance for the body casts. Theywere divided into four groups and successively gassed by Josef Kramer, on11, 13, 17, and 19 August 1943. Their bodies were returned to Hirt at theanatomical laboratory of the Reich University in Strasbourg for preparationas an anthropological display, taking body casts and preparing theskeletons.In September 1944, the rapid approach of the Allies led to the project beingabandoned and Himmler ordered the destruction of all traces of thiscompromising collection. That order was not completed, nor had the castsbeen taken or the skeletons been prepared. The Allies found corpses andpartial remains preserved in formalin for eighty-six bodies upon theliberation of Strasbourg. The corpses were buried 23 October 1945 in themunicipal cemetery of Strasbourg-Robertsau before being transferred in 1951to the Jewish cemetery of Strasbourg-Cronenbourg. The names of the victimswere not known, and the purpose for their presence at the AnatomicalInstitute were not known. Some information was learned in post-war trials asto the project proposed by Hirt.August Hirt fled Strasbourg in September 1944, hiding in Tübingen insouthern Germany across the river from Alsace. Hirt committed suicide on 2June 1945, aged 47, at Schluchsee, Baden-Württemberg, in the Black Forest.His suicide was not known when he was tried in absentia at the Military WarCrimes Trial at Metz on 23 December 1953 for his war crimes. His death wasfinally confirmed in the mid-1960s when the Israeli secret service had hisbody exhumed, and an Israeli pathologist conclusively identified the bones.Some of his records prepared for the trial are in possession of the USNational Archives, including the list of identification numbers tattooed onthe prisoners at Auschwitz and "Photocopies of certificates of proof ofancestry, in connection with research on prisoners in theKonzentrationslager Natzweiler, ...Feb. 9-Nov. 3, 1942. Partial copies ofslips for the admittance of prisoners into the KonzentrationslagerNatzweiler, medical examinations on prisoners, and a death certificate, Dec.9, 1942-Aug. 9, 1944. Feb. 9, 1942-Aug. 9, 1944".This Typed letter measures 210mm x 145mm