Tag: Karl Gebhardt

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The Naked Heroine

First of all, my apologies to Mr. Izbicki, author of The Naked Heroine (see recommended reading below). I racked my brain trying to come up with a catchy title for this blog and I always returned to the title of his 1963 book, The Naked Heroine. It’s sort of like one of my more popular blogs, Cyndi Lauper and the Naked Princess. (Click here to read the blog.) As you all know, sex sells.

One of my prior blogs was about Josephine Baker (An African American in Pre-WWII Paris, click here to read). Josephine was an entertainer and stripper in Paris during the interwar period (the years between the two World Wars) and she became an international celebrity in those twenty years. During the German occupation of France, Josephine worked for the French Resistance collecting sensitive Nazi information from the German officers with whom she hobnobbed. Today, you will meet a young lady like Josephine but who structured her career in somewhat the reverse order. Lydia was first a French résistant and then after the war, spent the rest of her life taking off her clothes at the Folies Bergère and other popular clubs around Europe.

Lydia de Korczak Lipski wears the Legion of Honor on her military uniform. Photo by anonymous (c. March 1960). Cleveland Plain Dealer. Author’s collection.
Lydia de Korczak Lipski wears the Legion of Honor on her military uniform. Photo by anonymous (c. March 1960). Cleveland Plain Dealer. Author’s collection.

Besides being strippers and résistants, Lydia and Josephine shared one other attribute: they were both highly decorated French war heroines. Read More The Naked Heroine

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Extermination Camp Doctors

During the historical examination of the Holocaust, the concentration camps, and the Nazi war crimes, much of the focus seems to be on the Nazis rather than their victims either individually or collectively (with the exception of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust). Perhaps this is done deliberately. The more we know about how the Nazis rose to power, the policies they enacted to stay in power, and above all, the crimes they committed might help us to understand how this could happen again. Most importantly, it will ensure we don’t forget and hopefully, stay vigilant for modern-day political abuses of power and similar policies that slowly erode democracy and individual freedoms (e.g., anti-Semitism, racism, calls for denouncements, elimination of the free press, arrests and imprisonment for anti-government positions, etc.).

One group of Nazis that has been well documented are the concentration camp doctors. These men and women are the Schutzstaffel, or SS doctors who performed medical experiments on camp inmates, participated in the sorting process, and committed crimes against humanity. They included Karl Brandt (1904−1948; executed), Herta Oberhauser (1911−1978; 20 years-released in 1952), Josef Mengele (1911−1979, drowned), Karl Gebhardt (1897−1948; executed), and Viktor Brack (1904−1948; executed), to name just a few.

SS-Gruppenführer Karl Gebhardt, doctor at KZ Ravensbrück and KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gebhardt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. Photo by Kurt Alber (c. 1944). Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S73523/CC-BY-SA 3.0. PD-CCA-Share Alike 3.0 Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
SS-Gruppenführer Karl Gebhardt, doctor at KZ Ravensbrück and KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gebhardt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. Photo by Kurt Alber (c. 1944). Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S73523/CC-BY-SA 3.0. PD-CCA-Share Alike 3.0 Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
Nuremberg defendant, Dr. Herta Oberheuser, stands to receive her sentence at the Doctors’ Trial. Photo by anonymous (20 August 1947). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo #41017. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Nuremberg defendant, Dr. Herta Oberheuser, stands to receive her sentence at the Doctors’ Trial. Photo by anonymous (20 August 1947). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo #41017. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Dr. Karl Brandt, defendant in the Nuremberg trial known as the “Doctors’ Trial.” Brandt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. Photo by anonymus (c. 1946-47). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PD-Author release. Wikimedia Commons.
Dr. Karl Brandt, defendant in the Nuremberg trial known as the “Doctors’ Trial.” Brandt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. Photo by anonymus (c. 1946-47). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PD-Author release. Wikimedia Commons.

Today, we are going to examine a different group of concentration camp doctors: the doctors who were prisoners. Read More Extermination Camp Doctors