Carl Clauberg

Carl Clauberg (September 28, 1898-August 9, 1957) was a German medical doctor who conducted medical experiments on human beings in Nazi concentration camps during World War Two. He worked with Horst Schumann in X-ray sterilization experiments at Auschwitz concentration camp.

Carl Clauberg was born in 1898 in Wupperhof near Solingen, Germany, into a family of craftsmen. During the First World War he served as an infantryman.

Clauberg studied medicine and eventually reached the rank of chief doctor in University gynecological clinic in Kiel. He joined the Nazi party in 1933 and, possibly because of this, was appointed professor for gynecology at the University of Königsberg. He received the rank of SS-Gruppenführer of the Reserve.

In 1942 he approached Heinrich Himmler and asked him to give him an opportunity to sterilize women en masse for his experiments. Himmler agreed and Clauberg moved to Auschwitz concentration camp in December 1942. Part of the Block number 10 in the main camp became his laboratory.

Clauberg looked for an easy and cheap way to sterilize women. He injected liquid acid into their uterus - without anesthetics. Most of his test subjects were Jewish or Roma women who suffered permanent damage and serious infections. Damaged ovaries were then removed and sent to Berlin for additional research. Sometimes subjects were bombarded with x-rays. Some of the subjects died because of the tests and others were killed so they could be autopsied. Estimates of those who survived but were sterilized are around 700.

According to Baruch Cohen: "...Block 10 was made up of mostly married women between the ages of 20 and 40, preferably those who had not borne children. There was a constant fear in Block 10 of being killed, sterilized, or inseminated by Clauberg. He would often tease the female prisoners that they would all undergo sexual intercourse with a male prisoner chosen especially for this purpose. At least one of the Orthodox Jewish women who heard that Clauberg selected her to be a Block 10 prostitute decided to poison herself. After he inseminated the women, Clauberg would often taunt the strapped-in women by stating that he had inseminated their wombs with animal sperm and that monsters were growing in their wombs. Ultimately, 300 women prisoners were experimented on in Cell Block 10..."

When the Red Army approached the camp, Clauberg moved to Ravensbrück concentration camp to continue his experiments. Soviet troops captured him there in 1945.

After the war in 1948 Clauberg was put on trial in the Soviet Union and received 23 years. Seven years later he was released due to arrangement of exchange of prisoners of war between Soviet Union and West Germany and returned to West Germany, where he boasted of his "scientific achievements". After groups of survivors protested, Clauberg was soon arrested in 1955 and was put on trial. He died of a heart attack in his cell before the trial could start.