Subordinated to Schroeder as Chief of the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe were the following defendants: Rose, who was consulting medical officer on hygiene and tropical medicine; Weltz, who was chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Munich; Becker-Freyseng, a consultant for aviation medicine in Schroeder’s office; Ruff, the chief of the Institute for Aviation Medicine in the German Experimental Institute for Aviation in Berlin; Romberg, Ruff’s chief assistant, who toward the end of the war attained the position of a department head at the Institute; Schaefer, who, in the summer of 1942, was assigned to the staff of the Research Institute for Aviation Medicine in Berlin to do research work on the problem of sea emergency; and Beiglboeck, a Luftwaffe officer who performed medical experiments on concentration camp inmates at Dachau in July 1944 for the purpose of determining the potability of processed sea water.
Under Schroeder’s jurisdiction as Chief of the Luftwaffe Medical Service was the Medical Academy of the Luftwaffe at Berlin.
SS Medical Service. One of the most important branches of the Nazi Party was the Schutzstaffel of the NSDAP, commonly known as the SS. Heinrich Himmler was chief of the SS with the title of Reichsfuehrer SS, and on his personal staff, serving in various and sundry official capacities was the defendant Rudolf Brandt.
The SS maintained its own medical service headed by a certain Dr. Grawitz, who held the position of Reich Physician SS and Police.
Medical Service of the Waffen SS. The SS branch of the Nazi Party, in turn, was divided into several components, of which one of the most important was the Waffen, or Armed, SS. The Waffen SS was formed into military units and fought at the front with units of the Wehrmacht. Such medical units of the Waffen SS as were assigned to the field, became subordinated to the Medical Service of the Army, which was supervised by Handloser.
The Chief of the Waffen SS Medical Service was the defendant Genzken. His immediate superior was Reich Physician SS and Police Grawitz.
Six other defendants in the dock were members of the Medical Service of the SS, under Grawitz, namely; Gebhardt, who in 1940 became surgical adviser to the Waffen SS and who in August 1943 created and took over the position of chief clinical officer of the Reich Physician SS and Police; Mrugowsky, who became Chief of the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen SS under Genzken in November 1940, and when the Institute was taken from Genzken’s supervision on 1 September 1943 and placed under direct subordination to Grawitz, remained as chief; Poppendick, who in 1941 was appointed Chief Physician of the Main Race and Settlement Office in Berlin and who in 1943 also became chief of the personal staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police; Hoven, who from the beginning of 1941 until July 1942, served as the assistant, and from then to September 1943, as chief physician at the Buchenwald concentration camp; Fischer, an assistant physician to the defendant Gebhardt; and finally the defendant Oberheuser, who in December 1940 became a physician at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp, and thereafter, from June 1943 until the end of the war, served as an assistant physician under the defendant Gebhardt at Hohenlychen.
Civilian Medical Service. Throughout the war the Civilian Medical Services of the Reich were headed by a certain Dr. Leonardo Conti. Conti had two principal capacities (1) he was the State Secretary for Health in the Ministry of the Interior of the Government; in this capacity he was a German civil servant subordinated to the Minister of the Interior—first Wilhelm Frick and later, Heinrich Himmler; (2) he was the Reich Health Leader of the Nazi Party; in this capacity he was subordinated to the Nazi Party Chancellery, the Chief of which was Martin Bormann. In his capacity as Reich Health Leader, Conti had as his deputy the defendant Blome.
Reorganization of Wehrmacht Medical Service. In 1942 a reorganization of the various medical services of the Wehrmacht was effected. By a Fuehrer decree of 28 July 1942, Handloser became Chief of the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, while at the same time retaining his position as Chief Physician of the Army and Army Medical Inspector. Under the decree referred to, Handloser was given power and authority to supervise and coordinate “all tasks common to the Medical Services of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS and the organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht.” He was also commanded “to represent the Wehrmacht before the civilian authorities in all common medical problems arising in the various branches of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS and organizations and units subordinate or attached to the Wehrmacht” and “to protect the interests of the Wehrmacht in all medical measures taken by the civilian authorities.”
Handloser thus became supreme medical leader in the military field, as was Conti in the civilian health and medical service.