Hertha Oberheuser is a German doctor convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal. She served in the concentration camps Auschwitz and Ravensbrück from 1940-1943.
In 1937, Oberheuser received a medical education in Bonn, specializing in a dermatologist. Soon after, she joined the NSDAP, and later served as a doctor in the German Girls Union. In 1940, Herth was appointed as assistant Karl Gebhard, who was the personal physician of Heinrich Himmler.
War crimes
Oberheuser and Gebhard arrived in the Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1942 to conduct medical experiments on prisoners. They conducted a series of experiments contrary to medical ethics, for example, the treatment of targeted infected wounds with sulfanilamide, bone and muscle transplants. These experiments were conducted on 86 women.
In another series of experiments, healthy children were selected, who were euthanized by various injections, and their corpses were opened and thoroughly analyzed. To simulate the battle wounds of German soldiers, Oberhuiser examines the effect of materials, such as wood, nails, glass, on living tissues.
Hertha Oberhäuser was the only woman in the doctors’trial in Nuremberg who sentenced her to 20 years in prison - later, her sentence was reduced by 5 years.
