View source for Helmut Poppendick

{{Short description|WW2 SS Doctor & war criminal}}
{{more citations needed|date=February 2013}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name              = Helmut Poppendick
| image             = Helmut Poppendick.jpg
| image_size        = 220px
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1902|01|06|df=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Hude, Lower Saxony|Hude]], [[Grand Duchy of Oldenburg]], [[German Empire]]
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|1994|01|11|1902|01|06|df=y}}
| death_place       = [[Oldenburg (city)|Oldenburg]], [[Lower Saxony]], [[Germany]]
| occupation        = [[Doctor (title)|Doctor]]
| conviction        = [[Schutzstaffel|Membership in a criminal organization]]
| criminal_penalty  = 10 years imprisonment; commuted to [[time served]]
| criminal_status   = [[Deceased]]
| organization      = [[File:Flag Schutzstaffel.svg|23px|border]] [[Schutzstaffel]]
| trial             = Doctors' Trial
}}
'''Helmut Poppendick''' ({{Birth date|1902|01|06|df=y}}<ref name=":0">''Nuremberg Trials Project: A Digital Document Collection'', [http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/pflip.php?caseid=HLSL_NMT01&docnum=849&numpages=1&startpage=1&title=Affidavit.&color_setting=C "Helmut Poppendick Affidavit, 14 January 1947", Harvard Law School Library Item No. 849.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081025145958/http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/pflip.php?caseid=HLSL_NMT01&docnum=849&numpages=1&startpage=1&title=Affidavit.&color_setting=C |date=25 October 2008 }}</ref> – {{Death date|1994|1|11|df=y}}) was a [[List of Nazi doctors|Nazi physician]] in the [[SS]] during [[World War II]]. After the war he was a defendant in the 1947 [[Doctors' Trial]] and accused of [[War crime|war crimes]] relating to [[Nazi human experimentation|human experimentation]]; he was acquitted on these charges, but convicted for his SS membership and sentenced to 10 year imprisonment. He was released in 1951.

== Education and Nazi activities ==
Poppendick studied medicine from 1919 to 1926 in Göttingen, [[Munich]], and [[Berlin]]. Poppendick received his medical license on 1 February 1928. Then, he worked for four years as a clinical assistant at the First Medical Clinic of Charité in Berlin. From June 1933 to October 1934 he was the assistant medical director at Virchow Hospital in Berlin.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Nuremberg - Transcript Viewer - Transcript for NMT 1: Medical Case |url=https://nbg-02.lil.tools/transcripts/1-transcript-for-nmt-1-medical-case?seq=11226 |access-date=2022-10-31 |website=nbg-02.lil.tools}}</ref>

He was an internist and worked in the Medical Doctorate, as Chief of the Personal Staff of the ''Reich'' Physician SS and Police.

In 1935, he completed training as an expert for "[[Racial hygiene|race hygiene]]" at the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology]], Human Genetics and Eugenics. After this, he became the adjutant of the ministerial director [[Arthur Gütt]] at the ''Reich'' Ministry of the Interior. He was also the Chief of Staff at the SS Office for Population Politics and Genetic Health Care, which in 1937 became the SS Main Race and Settlement Office. Poppendick was departmental head and staff leader of the Genealogical Office.

At the beginning of World War II, he was drafted as an adjutant to a medical department of the army and took part in the attack on Belgium, France and the Netherlands. In November 1941, Poppendick was accepted into the ''Waffen-SS''. In 1943, [[Ernst-Robert Grawitz]] of the ''Reich'' Physician SS appointed him to lead his personal staff. Poppendick joined the [[NSDAP]] in 1932 (party member No. 998607) and the [[SS]] (No. 36345). He reached the rank of ''[[Oberführer]]'' in the SS.<ref name=":0" />

== War crimes, Doctors' Trial, and release ==
Poppendick was implicated in a series of [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experiments done on concentration camp prisoners]], including the medical experiments done in [[Ravensbrück concentration camp]]. At the American Military Tribunal No. I on 20 August 1947, he was acquitted from being criminally implicated in medical experiments. However, the court ruled in several instances, there was substantial evidence that Poppendick was aware of illegal human experimentation taking place. Poppendick was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for being a member of the SS, which had been deemed a criminal organization by the [[International Military Tribunal]].<ref name=":1" />

On 31 January 1951, Poppendick's sentence was commuted to time served, and he was released from prison the next day. Later on, Poppendick managed to get his medical services paid by insurance, in Oldenburg.

==See also==
*[[Doctors' Trial]]
*[[Nazi human experimentation]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Poppendick, Helmut}}
[[Category:1902 births]]
[[Category:1994 deaths]]
[[Category:Nazi Party officials]]
[[Category:Physicians in the Nazi Party]]
[[Category:Nazi human subject research]]
[[Category:SS-Oberführer]]
[[Category:People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]]
[[Category:People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals]]
[[Category:Waffen-SS personnel]]


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