Hohenlychen Sanatorium significant person Karl Gebhardt
The Hohenlychen Sanatorium was a complex of sanatoriums in Lychen, Uckermark district (a bit north of Berlin), Germany, that was in use from 1902 to 1945. The complex was originally built in 1902 to house tubercular children. By the 1930s the Hohenlychen Sanatorium had become one of the main medical facilities of the Schutzstaffel, where injured or convalescing SS-men were treated.Third Reich use
Many preeminent SS doctors trained or were stationed at Hohenlychen, the most infamous being SS-Gruppenführer Doctor Karl Gebhardt, who was sentenced to death for war crimes. In 1935, Gebhardt was appointed Medical Superintendent of Hohenlychen Sanatorium, which he changed from a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients into an orthopedic clinic. At Hohenlychen Sanatorium, Gebhardt started the first sports medicine clinic in Germany and developed sports programs for amputees and other disabled people. Gebhardt was also appointed to the Deutsche Hochschule für Leibesübungen (German College for Physical Education) in 1935, where he became the first professor of sports medicine in Berlin. Hohenlychen Sanatorium became the sports sanatorium for the Third Reich and served as the central hospital for the athletes who participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics. In the final days of the Third Reich, April 1945, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler left Berlin for Hohenlychen. In 1942 women were brought in from Ravensbrück concentration camp to have experiments performed on them.