page_title: Hans Reiter (physician)
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Hans Reiter (physician) / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Zum Beitrag: Begegnung mit Buchenwald - Ernst Jende gibt das Vermächtnis weiter ADN-ZB / Ludwig / 25.8.1983 / Stacheldrahtzaun und Wachturm des ehemaligen faschistischen Konzentrationslagers Buchenwald auf dem Ettersberg bei Weimar. Die Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald besteht im September 25 Jahre und wurde in dieser Zeit von mehr als zehn Millionen Menschen aus aller Welt besucht. (Zu diesem Thema gehören die Fotos 1983-0825-300 bis 303N!)
context_page_description: Hans Conrad Julius Reiter was a German Nazi physician and war criminal who conducted medical experiments at the Buchenwald concentration camp. He wrote a book on "racial hygiene" called Deutsches Gold, Gesundes Leben - Frohes Schaffen.
  Reiter was born in Reudnitz, near Leipzig in the German Empire. He studied medicine at Leipzig and Breslau, and received a doctorate from Tübingen on the subject of tuberculosis. After receiving his doctorate, he went on to study at the hygiene institute in Berlin, the Pasteur Institute in Paris and St. Mary's Hospital in London, where he worked with Sir Almroth Wright for two years. Reiter was also known for implementing strict anti-smoking laws in Nazi Germany.
context_section_description: Reiter was a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) during World War II and participated in medical experiments performed by the Nazis. After the Nazis were defeated, he was arrested by the Red Army in Soviet Union-occupied Germany and tried at Nuremberg. During his detention, he admitted to knowledge of involuntary sterilization, euthanasia, and the murder of mental hospital patients in his function as the gatherer of statistics and acting as "quality control" officer, and to helping design and implement an explicitly criminal undertaking at Buchenwald concentration camp, in which internees were inoculated with an experimental typhus vaccine, resulting in over 200 deaths. He gained an early release from his internment, possibly because he assisted the Allies with his knowledge of germ warfare.
caption: Watchtower at the memorial site Buchenwald, in 1983
exif: {}