Hoven, Waldemar

Hoven, Waldemar, born 10-02-1903 in Freiburg, the son of an Oberpostassistenten, Peter Hoven, visited Denmark, Sweden, the United States, and France, between the years 1919 and 1933, returning in 1933 to Freiburg, because his brother had died, and where he completed his high school studies. His brother had a sanatorium and he worked temporary for him as an administrator, till 1925. He then attended the Universities of Freiburg and Munich. In 1934, he joined the SS, no 244.594. In 1939, he concluded his medical studies and became a physician for the SS.

 Hoven rose to the rank of Hauptsturmführer  in the Waffen SS^.Hoven was involved in the administration of medical experiments regarding typhus and the tolerance of serum containing phenol, and which led to the deaths of many inmates. He was also involved in Nazi euthanasia programs, during which people who were considered useless eaters were killed, along with Jewish people who were considered unfit for work. Till January 1945 he used 998 prisoners for his “examinations”. He worked under Dr. Erwin Ding-Schuler  , Ding-Schuler a German surgeon and an officer in the Waffen-SS, who attained the rank of Sturmbannführer. Ding Schuler is notable for having performed experiments on inmates of the Buchenwald concentration camp, he committed suicide in American captivity, age 32, on 11-05-1945 in Freising.

Hoven was arrested by the Nazis in 1943, accused of giving a lethal injection of phenol to an SS officer who was a potential witness in an investigation against Ilse Koch, with whom Hoven was rumoured to be having an affair. Ilse Koch-Köhler was married to SS Standartenfùhrer, Karl Otto Koch   the commandant of Buchenwald. The “Hangman of Buchenwald” was Martin Sommer   an SS Hauptscharfführer who served as a guard at the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. According to Morgen, Sommer had a secret compartment underneath the floor under his desk. He kept his private instruments of torture concealed within this compartment such as the needles he used to kill his victims after he was done torturing them, he would inject them with carbolic acid, or inject air into their veins causing their death by embolism. On occasions, after private late night torture sessions Sommer would hide his victim’s bodies under his bed until he could dispose of them in the morning. He was taken captive by the Red Army and was detained as P.O.W. until 1950 when his prisoner status was upgraded to war criminal. Sommer was released from Soviet captivity in 1955 as part of the negotiations conducted on behalf of Soviet held German prisoners by Konrad Adenauer. SS Hauptsturmfùhrer, Josef Mengele   infamous for performing human experiments on camp inmates in Auschwitz, including children, for which Mengele was called the “Angel of Death”. In July 1958 in Bayreuth (see Winifred Wagner)

    district court he was ultimately convicted of 25 deaths and received a life sentence. Upon appeal the case was upheld in May 1959 by the Federal Court. Sommer died age 73, on 07-06-1988, in Schköhen. Karl Otto Koch was executed by firing squad on 05-04-1945, age 47, one week before American allied troops arrived to liberate the camp. Waldemar Hoven was convicted and sentenced to death, although he was released in March 1945 due to the Nazi shortage of doctors. The judge who condemned Hoven was  the SS judge whom the course of justice earned him the nickname “The Bloodhound Judge”. Georg Konrad Morgen,

 Morgen was born on the 08-06-1908 in Frankfurt am Main, the son of a railroad worker. He chose a career in the legal profession and graduated from the University of Frankfurt and the Hague Academy of International Law, and became a judge in Stettin. After the war, Morgen continued his legal career and died on 04-02-1982, age 72.

 Waldemar Hoven was arrested again at the end of World War II by the Allies and put on trial as a defendant at the Doctors’ Trial , a part of the larger Nuremberg Trials. Hoven was found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization. Hoven was sentenced to death and hanged on 02-06-1948, age 45, at Landsberg prison in Bavaria and is buried on the Spöttinger cemetery in Landsberg, the prison cemetery, between many other war ciminals as Dr. Joachim Mrugowsky, SS-Oberführer und Leiter des Hygiene-Instituts der Waffen-SS. Also SS Standartenführer, Adjudant from Reichsführer Himmler, Rudolf Brandt, SS Obergruppenführer, Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of Mecklenburg, Karl Hildebrandt, SS Hauptscharfführer, head of the Crematoria of Auschwitz, Otto Moll,  SS Brigadeführer, Kommandant of Einsatzgruppe B, Erich Naumann, the organizer of the Euthanasia Programme, Action T4, Victor Brack, and SS Obergruppenführer, Oswald Pohl. All the bronze plates are removed from the crosses now, as the population of Landsberg protested against the mixed graveyard with murders and their victims.. An employee of the Landsberg prison administration guided me around with detailed papers.