Death of Wilhelm Beiglböck
- Bestial Nazi Doctor at Dachau - Nazi Medical Experiments - WW2

2 June 2022

Category: Nazi Doctors

Wilhelm Beiglböck was born on the 10th of October, 1905. In 1933 Beiglböck joined the Nazi Party and in 1934 he joined the SA. From May 1941 he worked as a medical officer of the Luftwaffe – Germain Air Forces. The darkest period of his career is connected to sea water experiments which he conducted from July to September 1944 on inmates at Dachau concentration camp. He tried to find a method to make a sea water drinkable in order to be able to rescue German soldiers of the Nazi Air Force and Navy who would be stranded at sea and would need to find a way to get fresh water to survive.

Since the planned human experiments would be painful and life-threatening, concentration camp prisoners were used as test subjects. As a result, 40 Roma and Sinti prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp were transported to the Dachau camp. The prisoners agreed in exchange for the promise of better food, which was of great importance for starving inmates.

Victim gave Beiglböck a terrible punch

In the end, justice finally caught up with Beiglböck when he was arrested by the allies and tried at the Nuremberg Doctor’s trial. During the trial one of Beiglböck’s Roma objects - Karl Höllenreiner – recognized in Beiglböck the man who had tortured him at Dachau leaving him with poor health for the remainder of his life. Höllenreiner jumped over the barrier of the dock with a mighty leap and gave Beiglböck a terrible punch in the face while shouting "This rascal has ruined my life” . In August 1947, Wilhelm Beiglböck was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. This sentence was later reduced to 10 years and in the end, he served only a few years in prison and was released before Christmas 1951.

Because Beiglböck’s license to practice medicine had not been revoked, he became a chief physician at the Hospital of Buxtehude where he worked between 1952–1963. However, his dark past haunted him until his very end. Wilhelm Beiglböck died at the age of 58 on the 22nd of November 1963 when he was found dead in a stairwell. Circumstances of his death suggest a suicide, but rumors of murder arose due to the threatening letters which he received until the end of his life. The main heir of his fortune was Stille Hilfe – meaning “Silent Help” - an organization for arrested, condemned and fugitive SS members.

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