Hans Eppinger chaired the DGIM from 1941 until his death in 1946. His unconventional waywardness and critical spirit did not prevent him from following the NSDAP and leading the seawater drinking experiments at Dachau concentration camp.
The Catholic Hans Eppinger was born in Prague on January 5, 1879, and grew up in Graz from 1882. His father was pathology professor Hans Eppinger Senior (1846-1916), and his mother was Anna Marterer. Hans Eppinger married Georgine Zetter in Klagenfurt in 1908. The marriage produced two daughters. Their daughter Maria married Arthur Rühl, professor of medicine in Prague.1
Having been specially trained by his father, Eppinger received his doctorate in Graz in 1902, where he also habilitated in 1907. He was "conferred the venia legendi for Vienna" in 1908, and his other teachers included Friedrich Kraus, Ludolf von Krehl, Franz Hofmeister, Richard Paltauf, and Carl von Noorden. He remained active in Vienna from 1908 to 1926, initially as an assistant under Carl Harko von Noorden and Karel Frederik Wenckebach. He first worked as an unpaid intern at the I Medical Clinic in 1908, then became a paid intern in 1911, and was appointed adjunct professor in 1914 and professor (extraordinarius) in 1918. He received a call to the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in 1926. From here he moved to Cologne in 1930 and to the I. Medical University Clinic in Vienna in 1933. According to his own account, he found himself on appointment lists to Strasbourg (1915, Polyclinic, primo loco), Halle (1919, Polyclinic), Rostock (1921, successor to Martius, primo loco), Königsberg (successor to Schittenhelm, secundo loco), Leipzig (successor Strümpell), Prague (successor Jaksch, primo loco), Frankfurt (successor Bergmann, secundo loco), Berlin (successor Kraus, tertio loco), and Graz (successor Lorenz, primo loco). He participated in World War I on the side of Austria as a physician assigned to the Army High Command. He received the Franz Joseph Order.
Loud and Boisterous
Hans Dietlen was succeeded as DGIM chairman by a very different character, Hans Eppinger. Eppinger was loud and boisterous, but he gained the greatest attention with his clinical and academic work – though controversial – and was one of the leading internists. Eppinger was not held in high renown during his first Viennese phase from 1908 to 1926. Although as a 50-year-old he would have been "the logical successor" to Karel Frederik Wenckebach when the latter retired in Vienna in 1929, a stalemate arose in the college of professors responsible for the appointment, so that the succession remained unresolved until 1933.2 Eppinger's "brusque and inconsiderate manner" remained an obstacle.3
From Cologne to Vienna in 1933
After the National Socialists came to power, Eppinger, who had in the meantime moved from Freiburg to Cologne, requested an urgent summons to his Austrian homeland. He traveled to Vienna and was able to write to the Cologne dean on February 6 from the Hotel Regina that he had received the "official appointment to succeed Wenckebach."4 The personnel matter quickly attracted attention in Cologne. The Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer (centre), who was on the verge of being deposed, was immediately informed.5 The "Kölner Lokal-Anzeiger" commented that it would be "a great loss" if Eppinger "accepted the call to Vienna."6
The Nazis pushed for Eppinger's swift removal after rumors of "Jewish ancestry" circulated. The Medical Clinic in Cologne was briefly occupied and Eppinger was prevented from entering.7 Konrad Adenauer's successor as Lord Mayor, Günter Riesen (NSDAP), made it clear at the beginning of April that Eppinger should "move to Vienna before the beginning of the summer semester" and the dean should "do everything in his power to promote his final graduation to Vienna," since Eppinger "for various reasons of professional and personal nature must expect his leave of absence for May 1st."8
Eppinger was appointed head of the I Medical Clinic in Vienna on May 1, 1933 and was retroactively relieved of his duties in Cologne on June 9, 1933.9 He had been described as "one of the scientifically most important internists in Germany" by Werner Richter, one of the university reformers in the Berlin Ministry of Culture, three years earlier.10 Now Eppinger had de facto been expelled due to his presumed "non-Aryan" ancestry.11 Officially, however, the minister expressed his "appreciation" for what he had accomplished in Cologne.12
How hasty the move was, becomes apparent in the thank-you note of Eppinger's wife to Dean Friedrich Bering, the director of the dermatology clinic; he had sent her a floral greeting on behalf of some colleagues.13 "I am so sorry," she wrote from Cologne on April 30, "that I will not be able to see you all here with us again to say goodbye. I had planned it so nicely. A little cozy May punch in our garden, with the lilacs blooming more beautifully than ever this year. Too bad, too bad!"14
Collaboration with Jewish Colleagues
In Vienna, Eppinger repeatedly made negative comments about his former places of work, Freiburg and Cologne, and according to the recollections of the pathologist Herwig Hamperl, he later declared "full of pride [...] that he had only given an inaugural lecture in Vienna."15 He did not believe in a longer lasting dangerous influence of the National Socialists in Europe: "A movement that turns against Jews and the Catholic Church cannot last," he declared to his colleague Julius Bauer, who was later forced to emigrate.16 Unconcerned, he researched and published, also together with his assistants Hans Kaunitz and Hans Popper, who were soon persecuted as Jews. The latter had come to Eppinger's attention through his publications and had already invited him to Freiburg for a three-month research stay.17 In Vienna, he poached him from Rudolf Maresch at the Institute of Pathology.18
With "the two Hanses," Eppinger published a paper on "Die seröse Entzündung" (The Serous Inflammation), appropriated "to the old Viennese medical school on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the General Hospital" in 1935.19 Eppinger's underlying idea that jaundice was due to nutritional deficiencies or food poisoning and not to a viral infection proved to be wrong, but the Viennese researches gave science many an impetus.20 Eppinger consolidated his scientific reputation with his opus magnum "Die Leberkrankheiten" in 1937, which he dedicated to the Society of Physicians in Vienna for its centennial celebration.21 He was always present at the Society's events at the Billrothhaus.22 His reputation continued to grow far beyond Vienna. Paul Martini declared him the "most imaginative internist" of his time in his memoirs as late as 1964.23
"Moral Insanity"
Eppinger's Viennese opponents may nevertheless soon have regretted having finally agreed to his appeal. "Half Faustus, half Mephisto," he was quickly regarded as "a man whose scientific abilities could be admired but in no way relied upon."24 His "experimental furor" and mental state approaching "moral insanity" were constant topics of conversation among colleagues.25 The list of his procedures that were humanly inappropriate, contrary to morality, or even criminal in conduct, is long: He treated patients, assistants, and coworkers "like inanimate commodities."26 He soon terminated a chemist whom he had persuaded to move with him from Cologne to Vienna with the words, "I don't need you anymore."27 In the library of the Vienna Society of Physicians, he cut pages of interest to him out of books and, as the first and only member of the College of Professors in Vienna, received a library ban.28 He also removed "reviews of his work that were not agreeable to him" by tearing them out of generally accessible journal collections. 29 When he needed specimens for his research, he visited the pathology department together with Popper and, in an unobserved moment, "unceremoniously cut off the scrotum together with its contents" of a torso preserved in formalin; in the publication, a "Javanese Professor X.Y. was thanked for providing the examination material[s]."30 Eppinger often performed the liver biopsy, which at that time was still fraught with complications, for purely scientific reasons and without the patients' consent.31 He opened the radial artery of patients, although there was no medical reason to do so.32 Anyone who called jaundice an infectious disease (which was correct, but not in line with Eppinger's opinion) would not pass an examination with Eppinger, while the opposite was true in Franz Hamburger's nearby pediatric clinic.33 He urinated "unabashedly" in sinks at the clinic. 34 He "spat unerringly on patients [from the hospital elevator] walked through the clinic in broad daylight dressed in nothing but a short nightgown," legitimized himself to a police officer with "the business card of a patient who was summoned hereupon", broke open laboratory cabinets of others, "defiled" the premises of a colleague he hated, and "stole the head nurse's favorite cat for experimental purposes, while granting unusual privileges to his own flea-ridden dog in the clinic."35 He reacted coldly after deaths possibly attributable to his therapies; he dissected his daughter, who died of diphtheria, in his own home.36
Genius
At the same time, Eppinger, who never publicly showed so much as a smile and had no sense of humor, had genius about him.37 In his research, he focused on biochemical analysis and "thus became the father of functional pathology," the "study of the altered activity of organs under disease conditions." 38 He recognized diseases in passing.39 The Communists called Eppinger to Moscow to have him examine Stalin. He was introduced to Stalin and a double. Eppinger could only guess who was actually Stalin. One of the two was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.40 Other notables such as members of the Ribbentrop family and King Boris of Bulgaria also sought Eppinger's advice.41
NSDAP Accession Prior to Austria's "Anschluss"
In the run-up to the annexation of Austria, Eppinger underestimated the danger of National Socialism, although he had also had negative experiences with the Nazi regime in Cologne five years earlier. Eppinger wholly supported "the National Socialist 'seizure of power' in Austria."42 He became a member of the NSDAP (No. 6164614) in February 1937, which was still banned in Austria at the time. Paul Martini later reported that he had pointed out to his Viennese colleague in a conversation "that the Austrians" – unlike some Germans in 1933 – "would run into their doom with eyes open." Eppinger, however, believed that it would be possible to keep the worst National Socialists away from "leading positions." His counterpart "could only laugh at him at so much naiveté."43
When Hans Popper was acutely threatened after Hitler's invasion in March 1938, Eppinger was once again confident: "In a week the whole spook will be over," he allegedly told his assistant. 44 Popper, who was about to complete his habilitation, managed to escape by plane in mid-1938, initially to Prague.45 Eppinger allowed him to take a fluorescence microscope with him, which Popper used for his research that he would take up soon again in Chicago.46
Eppinger, the "Sonderführer" (civil experts drafted into the military), also did not always conduct himself to the satisfaction of the NSDAP towards the outside world. He wore his party uniform casually, buttoning neither his coat nor the top collar button: "A Prussian officer would have been struck dead if he had met him in this getup."47
Eppinger has often been described as politically naive or even apolitical. His unemotional manner may have contributed to this assessment. Ferdinand Hoff described Eppinger as a man who presented even important facts "with the tired nonchalance" of some Austrians.48 Regarding the war situation he declared
"[t]he situation as hopeless, but not serious" in the fall of 1944, according to Hoff's recollections.49 The fact that Eppinger was aware of political currents at an early stage and countered them with a healthy dose of opportunism is described by his temporary assistant Willi Raab, who fled to the USA in 1939: He "stiffened before every official functionary in almost comical deference and strove to establish secretly advantageous connections in every political group, especially also among the National Socialists, who were important for the future. This earned him the designation 'the Je-nachdem-okrat' (a democrat as the case may be)." 50The Vienna War Congress
In view of the "Anschluss" of Austria, which had taken place the year before, the leadership of the DGIM decided in the spring of 1939 to hold the 53rd Congress, planned for 1941, in Vienna rather than in Wiesbaden, as was usually the case.51 At the same time, Hans Eppinger was appointed to the board so that he would be able to preside over the congress as director of the Vienna Medical University Hospital Vienna I.52 The war, however, led to a postponement. In 1941 and 1942, the DGIM decided to cancel on fairly short notice in each case. Finally, the 53rd Congress actually took place in Vienna at the end of October 1943. It was now not a great German event of joy, but expressly a "war congress" in the city, which was still comparatively safe from air raids. Also due to the war, there were no new appointments to the committees. Thus Eppinger retained the chairmanship until after the end of the Second World War.
As chairman of the DGIM and president of "his" wartime congress in Vienna, Eppinger demonstrated a political self-confidence that might be described as naive, but which undoubtedly testifies to a certain courage. In his opening speech, there is repeated talk of the burdens of war, less of confidence in victory. At the same time, he claimed for physicians in a "higher sense [...] soldierly inner attitude and a sense of responsibility toward a new time."53 Physicians had already been "in the midst of the battle" before 1939 and today had to "think decades ahead." 54 This was not mere rhetoric; the guests of honor who were welcomed, among them "Reichsgesundheitsführer" (Reich health leader) Leonardo Conti and the president of the "Reichsgesundheitsamt" (Reich board of health) Hans Reiter, had to recognize more than once that Eppinger put the interests of internal medicine before ideological considerations.55
When faced with the space still controlled by the Wehrmacht at the end of 1943, "a slight shudder" gripped Eppinger, when he thought of future "medical tasks."56 In his view, "experienced physicians" belonged in the new "responsible posts."57 But the medical faculties were no longer able to train good physicians in sufficient numbers. Eppinger addressed this openly and attacked the National Socialist study reforms.58 Eppinger clothed his own reform idea in National Socialist ductus. In order to promote talented physicians who could "one day assume a leadership role," he said, one should be allowed to give them preference – even over "a personality who, bland and well-behaved, has made ample use of the printer's ink through the years."59
Seawater Drinking Experiments at Dachau Concentration Camp
Soon after the Vienna War Congress, Eppinger and his assistant Wilhelm Beiglböck became perpetrators in the Nazi system of injustice. They bore responsibility for human experiments designed to make seawater drinkable and to give life-saving advice to those in distress at sea. Underlying this was the experience that soldiers who had been adrift at sea for days could be rescued seemingly unharmed, but then died.60
A meeting was held at the Luftwaffe Technical Office in Berlin on May 20, 1944. It was attended by a group of 14 ministry officials, physicians, and military officers to "discuss the drinking of seawater" and decide on experiments on concentration camp prisoners in Dachau.61The meeting participants appointed "Professor Eppinger, Vienna," as the first member of a "commission to determine the conditions of the series of experiments still to be carried out." He was briefed at a first "commission meeting" in Berlin on May 25, 1944.62
Attempts to exonerate Eppinger come to nothing. Eppinger repeatedly visited Dachau concentration camp.63 Evidence shows that he once appeared together with Kurt Plötner, who was there as a researcher of the SS ancestral heritage, another time to inspect the experimental setup.64 To claim that Eppinger had "no longer been involved in any way" in the experiments, as Heribert Thaler did as late as 1993, is false.65
The Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler himself approved the human experiments with concentration camp prisoners.66 40 Roma and Sinti with the prisoner designation ASR ("Arbeitsscheu Reich") were subsequently taken from Buchenwald to Dachau as test subjects.67
According to testimony during the Nuremberg medical trial, all of the test subjects initially received "full airman rations" (3000 calories) for ten days. After that, one group had to starve and thirst, while the other groups had been allowed to eat the Luftwaffe's sea rations. One group had to drink half a liter of seawater with a chemical additive every day, another a whole liter. Another group had to drink seawater treated according to a second procedure. A control group was allowed to consume ordinary drinking water in any amount.68
The Witness Karl Höllenreiner
One of the 40 concentration camp prisoners transferred from Buchenwald to Dachau, Karl Höllenreiner, described the experiment from the victim's perspective in 1947: "About the beginning of August 1944, I and the other 39 Gypsies of this group arrived in Dachau. [...] During these experiments I had terrible thirst attacks, felt very ill, lost a lot of weight and in the end, I got a fever and felt so weak that I could no longer stand on my feet. [...] During the experiments, most of the Gypsies received liver and spinal cord punctures. I myself received a liver puncture and know from my own experience that these punctures were terribly painful. Even today, when the weather changes, I feel severe pain where the liver puncture was performed. [...] About between the first and second week of the experiments, all the Gypsies were carried out of the sickroom into the courtyard on stretchers covered with white cloths. Here the naked bodies were photographed [...]. Shortly after the photographs were taken, numbers were tattooed onto our chests. [...] Of the original 40, one, as already mentioned, endured the experiments for only a few days. Three were so close to death that they were carried out the same evening on stretchers, covered with white cloths. I never heard from these three again."69 Clear evidence of the death of people "during the experiments or in their aftermath" has not yet been found.70 However, three of those maltreated during the human experiment died during the Nazi era.71
Suicide After Witness Summons
Hans Eppinger took his own life in 1946. In addition to private strokes of fate, the Dachau drinking water experiments will have depressed Hans Eppinger following the close of the Nazi era. His nimbus as Stalin's doctor only helped him to a limited extent during the Russian occupation. Eppinger was no longer allowed to enter the clinic; he could only use a nearby private hospital. To Heribert Thaler, he appeared "aged and deeply depressed" at a meeting on August 28, 1945. His son and grandson were dead, as was his German shepherd, which used to lie under his desk at the clinic.72 He hoped to return to "his" clinic and turned down an offer to move to Moscow.73 The Soviet occupiers appreciated and used Eppinger's medical skills. In his memoirs, Herwig Hamperl describes a scene in which Eppinger is taken from his private lunch table by a Soviet officer and his wife complains, "Again and again they take my husband, don't tell one where they are taking him, and when he will return. Always one must tremble with these unpredictable Russians that one day they will keep him entirely."74
At the same time, the Western Allies set their sights on Eppinger. Flight Sergeant Charles Ernest Ippen, sent to Vienna to investigate medical crimes, was tipped off about Eppinger by the dean of Vienna's medical faculty, Leopold Arzt.75
Despite this, Eppinger was still making plans for the future. He considered setting up a home for those suffering from infections in Grossgmain, and negotiated with the Salzburg state government on the matter. He hoped to be able to pursue "special questions" in village seclusion.76 It did not come to that. In case of his arrest, he always carried cyanide with him. After receiving the summons to the Nuremberg medical trial, he took his own life – possibly not out of shame and fear, but because "a life without animal stables and laboratories" was uninteresting to him.77
Compared to other human experiments, in which many people lost their lives and yet attracted little attention from a wider public, Eppinger's and Beiglböck's experiments are still known today and remain a topic of discussion.78