Execution of Waldemar Hoven
- German Nazi Doctor - Nazi Medical Experiments - World War 2

18 March 2022

Category: Nazi Doctors

Waldemar Hoven was born on 10 February 1903 in Freiburg, then part of the German Empire. He completed his medical studies after the outbreak of the war in 1939 and became a physician for the SS. His worst crimes are connected with Buchenwald Concentration camp where he was known as “the Beautiful Waldemar”. His specialty at Buchenwald were deadly medical experiments on camps’ inmates. He was involved in experiments regarding typhus and the tolerance of serums containing phenol and Evipan. Hoven was responsible for hundreds of ordered and also self-carried-out killings which were documented after the end of the war.

Arrested by the Nazis

In 1943 Hoven was arrested by the Nazis but not for the medical experiments he conducted on the inmates. Allegedly he was a lover of Ilse Koch, the camp commandant’s wife, who was being investigated together with her Husband Otto due to corruption. To protect his lover Ilse Koch, Hoven was accused of killing an SS man named Köhler. Hoven was imprisoned for 18 months and sentenced to death by SS judge. However, he was pardoned due to the prevailing shortage of doctors and released from prison on April 2, 1945.

In the end, justice finally caught up with Hoven when he was arrested again, this time by the allies, at the end of the WW2. Waldemar Hoven was convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization - the SS. In summer 1947 a tribunal sentenced Hoven to death by hanging. The verdict was carried out on 2 June, 1948 in Landsberg Prison.

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