Helmut Kunz Helmut Kunz ( 26 September 1910 – 1976 ) was an SS dentist who , after the suicide of Adolf Hitler , was ordered to administer anesthetic to the six children of Joseph Goebbels before they were killed . Early years . Kunz was born in Ettlingen , Germany . He first studied law , then dentistry . He wrote his doctoral thesis on " studies of dental caries among school children as related to their feeding in infancy " . In 1936 , he opened a dental practice in Lucka , south of Leipzig . He also joined the SS , unit " Sturm 10 / 48 " . SS career . In 1939 , Kunz was a member of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf . In 1941 he was seriously injured and assigned to the Waffen - SS medical office in Berlin as a junior assistant of the Dentist - General . In late April 1945 he was assigned to the Reich Chancellery . Killing the Goebbels children . Unlike many other leading Nazis by April 1945 , Joseph Goebbels showed his strong support for Hitler by moving himself and his family into the Vorbunker , that was connected to the lower Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery gardens in central Berlin . Magda Goebbels was Kunz ' s first patient in the Chancellery . She had developed an abscess under a bridge in her lower jaw . On 27 April 1945 , Magda took Kunz aside to ask his help in killing her children . After meeting the children , he left and returned to his duty post at the Chancellery . On 1 May , Magda telephoned and requested he come to the Vorbunker . Once there , she told him that Hitler was dead and there were groups attempting to break - out of the Soviet ring but , the Goebbels had decided it was time to die . Magda and her husband , Joseph Goebbels insisted that Kunz help them . According to Kunz , he injected the Goebbels children with morphine which Magda obtained from Dr . Ludwig Stumpfegger to render them unconscious before cyanide capsules were administered . Capture and later life . Kunz returned to work at the emergency casualty station , where he remained until taken prisoner by Soviet Red Army troops on 2 May . Dr . Werner Haase , along with two nurses , Erna Flegel and Liselotte Chervinska were captured with him at that time . He spent ten years in Russian captivity , then returned to Münster . In 1955 , a former Waffen SS sergeant and prisoner of war , Harri Mengershausen , implicated Kunz in the children ' s deaths . In his testimony , Kunz said that he injected the children with morphine but it was Magda Goebbels , ( the mother of the children ) , who slipped the children cyanide pills . This contradicts the testimony of Oberscharführer Rochus Misch , a member of Hitler ' s Führerbegleitkommando bodyguard and head of communications in the Führerbunker and statements by Goebbels State Secretary in the Propaganda Ministry , Werner Naumann . Naumann and Misch both stated it was actually Hitler ' s surgeon SS Dr . Stumpfegger who mixed a sweetened narcotic drink to put the Goebbels children into a deep sleep before Magda Goebbels placed cyanide capsules into their mouths . The German courts refused to convict Kunz , and he remained in dental practice , highly regarded until his death . He died in Freudenstadt in 1976 , and is buried in the Städtischer Friedhof ( municipal cemetery ) division R , double grave 10 / 11 . References . Rochus Misch interview with the BBC http : / / news . bbc . co . uk / 2 / hi / europe / 8234018 . stm