Friedrich Entress

Friedrich Karl Hermann Entress (8 December 1914 – 28 May 1947) was a German camp doctor in various concentration and extermination camps during the Second World War. He conducted human medical experimentation at Auschwitz and introduced the procedure there of injecting lethal doses of phenol directly into the hearts of prisoners. He was captured by the Allies in 1945, sentenced to death at the Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials, and executed in 1947.

Early life Friedrich Entress was born on 8 December 1914 in Posen, a Polish-Prussian province, or 1939.

Second World War

Entress departed to various concentration camps as an SS doctor, Entress participated in selections for the gas chambers. For example, on 29 August 1942 in Auschwitz, he and Josef Klehr selected 746 prisoners to be gassed under the guise of fighting a typhus epidemic.

On the death toll among inmates at Monowitz, where IG Farben had manufacturing facilities, Entress later commented, "The turnover of inmates in Monowitz was enormous. The inmates were weak and malnourished. It should be emphasised that the performance demanded of the inmates was not in accord with their living conditions and nutrition". where he operated in "Block 21" and was paid by the Bayer pharmaceutical subsidiary of IG Farben to test experimental drugs against typhus and tuberculosis (TB).

Experiments included collapsing the lungs of people with TB. Establishing a TB ward, he perfected the technique before killing all those on the ward by injecting lethal doses of phenol directly through the chest wall and into the victims hearts, allowing up to 100 people to be killed each day. He became a key player in the organisation and administration of killings by phenol. The practice may have been used to cover up the results of experimental medical procedures, including surgery, that he and other doctors at the camp carried out despite not having surgical qualifications. In 1942, he gave Bayer associate Helmut Vetter approval to test TB drug Rutenol, an arsenic acid derivative.

Capture and death Entress was taken prisoner in Austria in May 1945. He was transferred to a prison in Gmunden in July. After becoming aware of what he'd done, U.S. officials transferred him to a court they had established in the former Dachau concentration camp to stand trial. Entress was one of 61 defendants in the first mass Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials in 1946. Entress did not testify in his own defense.

The clemency report on the 61 defendants was issued on 30 April 1947. Of those condemned to death, clemency was denied to 49 convicts, including Entress. Having lost their appeals, all but one of the 49 convicts (one person won a last-minute stay of execution, and was hanged separately in June) who were denied clemency were hanged at Landsberg Prison between 27 and 28 May 1947. Entress was hanged on 28 May.