19. There Was No Shortage of Horrible Nazi Doctors
Josef Mengele is probably the best-known evil Nazi doctor, but an equally horrible colleague of his who wrote another dark chapter in Nazi medical horrors was Doctor Walter Schreiber (1893 – 1970). A medical student when WWI began in 1914, Schreiber voluntarily enlisted in the German army. He was wounded early in the conflict, and after his recovery resumed his studies, then served as a military doctor until the war’s end.
After the war, he became a professor of biology and hygiene, and gained renown as one of the world’s foremost experts on epidemics. In the Nazi era, Schreiber introduced the use of lethal phenol injections “as a quick and convenient means of executing troublemakers“. During WWII, he rose to the rank of major general in the Wehrmacht Medical Service. He was also a member of the Reich Research Council, and in that capacity, he conducted cruel and sadistic medical experiments upon prisoners.