Dr. Claus Schilling Signed Document - Dachau

Dr. Claus Schilling Signed Document - Dachau
Typed document from Dachau concentration camp writtenby Dr. Claus Schilling , at the time of writing Dr. Claus Schilling headed aprivate institute in Dachau concentration camp. The letter reads :K.L Dachau K.L. Dachau on 27.4.44Dept. V Station "M"Prof.Dr. SchillingTo theHygiene Institute of the Waffen-SSHyg.-bact. Investigation BodyBerlin-ZehlendorfSpanish avenue 10Attached is the report on V no. VI (2nd issue) for informationSigned Prof.Dr.C. SchillingClaus Karl Schilling (5 July 1871 – 28 May 1946), also recorded as KlausSchilling, was a German tropical medicine specialist who participated in theNazi human experiments at the Dachau concentration camp during World War II.Though never a member of the Nazi Party and a recognized researcher at theRobert Koch Institute before the war, Schilling participated in unethicaland inhumane experiments on captive human subjects under both Fascist Italyand Nazi Germany. From 1942 to 1945, Schilling's research on malaria andattempts at fighting it using synthetic drugs culminated in humanexperimentation on over a thousand camp prisoners at Dachau, of whomhundreds died.Sentenced to death by hanging at the Dachau camp trial after the fall ofHitler's Germany, he was executed for his crimes against the Dachauprisoners in 1946.Born in Munich on 5 July 1871, Schilling studied medicine in his nativecity, receiving a doctor's degree there in 1895. He was a professor ofparasitology at the University of Berlin and a member of Malaria Commissionof the League of Nations. Within a few years, Schilling was practicing inthe German colonial possessions in Africa. Recognized for his contributionsin the field of tropical medicine, he was appointed the first-ever directorof the tropical medicine division of the Robert Koch Institute in 1905,where he would remain for the subsequent three decades.Italian researchUpon retirement from the Robert Koch Institute in 1936, Schilling moved toBenito Mussolini's Fascist Italy, where he was given the opportunity toconduct immunization experiments on inmates of the psychiatric asylums ofVolterra and San Niccolò di Siena. The Italian authorities were concernedthat troops faced malaria outbreaks in the course of the Italo-EthiopianWar. As Schilling stressed the significance of the research for Germaninterests, the Nazi government of Germany also supported him with afinancial grant for his Italian experimentation.Dachau experimentsSchilling returned to Germany after a meeting with Leonardo Conti, theNazis' Health Chief, in 1941, and by early 1942 he was provided with aspecial malaria research station at Dachau's concentration camp by HeinrichHimmler, the leader of the SS. Despite negative assessments from colleagues, Schilling would remain in charge of the malaria station for the duration ofthe war.Czech priest, Friedrich Hoffman, testifies at the trial of former camppersonnel and prisoners from Dachau concentration camp. In his hand he holdsrecords showing that hundreds of priests died at the camp after beingexposed to malaria during Nazi medical experiments.Although in the 1930s Schilling had stressed the point that malaria researchon human subjects could be performed in an entirely harmless fashion, theDachau subjects included prisoners who were injected with synthetic drugs atdoses ranging from high to lethal. They had been exposed to malariamosquitos in cages strapped to their hands or arms so as to ensure infectionwith the parasite. Of the more than 1,000 prisoners used in the malariaexperiments at Dachau during the war, between 300 and 400 died as a result;among survivors, a substantial number remained permanently injured. A numberof priests imprisoned by the Nazis were killed during the experiments.In the course of the Dachau Trials following the liberation of the camp atthe close of the war, Schilling was tried by a U.S. General Military Court, appointed at 2 November 1945, in the case of The United States versus MartinGottfried Weiss, Wilhelm Rupert, et al. The defendants, 40 doctors andstaff, were charged and convicted of offenses of the violations of laws andusages of war in that they acted in pursuance of a common design, didencourage, aid, abet, and participate in the subjection of Allied nationalsand prisoners of war to cruelties and mistreatments at Dachau ConcentrationCamp and its subcamps. According to the testimony of August H. Vieweg, thepatients used in the malaria experiments were Poles, Russians, andYugoslavs. At that time there was no formal code of ethics in medicalresearch to which the judges could hold the accused Nazi doctorsaccountable. The "scientific experiments" exposed during the trials led tothe Nuremberg Code, developed in 1949 as a ten-point code of humanexperimentation ethics.The tribunal sentenced Schilling to death by hanging on 13 December 1945.His execution took place at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg am Lech on 28 May1946. The execution was filmed by military personnel, who recordedSchilling's ascending the gallows and his hanging, along with a coffinmarked "Dr Schilling, Claus.This Typed document from Dachau measures 145mm x 210mm