Heinz Baumkötter

Who is Heinz Baumkötter?

Heinz Baumkötter was an SS-Hauptsturmführer and concentration camp doctor in Mauthausen, Natzweiler-Struthof and Sachsenhausen, who conducted medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.

Baumkötter was tried in the Sachsenhausen trials by a Soviet military tribunal in 1947 in a trial held in the former city hall in Berlin-Pankow. Among his co-defendants were the former commandant of Sachenhausen Anton Kaindl, the record keeper Gustav Sorge and the Blockfuhrer of the punishment block Kurt Eccarius. At the trial Baumkötter was asked what his duties were at the trial:

The Prosecutor: "What position did you have at Sachsenhausen?"

Baumkötter: "I had to personally attend or to send a subordinate to the executions, to punishments, to shootings, hangings or gassings… to make the list of sick detainees and of those unfit for work, who were to be transferred to other camps and, lastly, I had to make experiments in accordance with the orders received."

The Prosecutor: "How many detainees were sent for extermination in other camps on your orders?"

Baumkötter:: "About 8,000 detainees were sent off on the basis of the lists I made."