Hermann Voss

Christian Heinrich Emil Hermann Voss (October 13, 1894 – January 19, 1987) was a German anatomist. Well known as a medical academic and textbook author he was also notorious for his experiments during the Third Reich.

Early life The son of a manor lessee, Voss was born in Berlin but raised in Warnkenhagen and Malchin. He studied variously at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Heidelberg University and the University of Rostock before completing his doctorate in 1919, including a spell away from study in the army during the First World War as an army doctor.

Voss became assistant anatomist at his Rostock alma mater in May 1919. Voss joined the Nazi Party in 1937, initially only to help advance his career which he felt was being held back by his lack of involvement in the party. By this time Voss had become a convinced follower of the Nazi Weltanschauung, with his diaries revealing a strong current of anti-Semitism and anti-communism.

Whilst in this role he made a deal with the local Gestapo allowing them to use his incinerators in return for the use of some of the bodies of those executed by hanging or decapitation. Voss also had a sideline selling the skulls and death masks of Jews and Poles, with the Naturhistorisches Museum's curator Josef Wastl being his leading customer for this particular service. Along with colleagues such as Robert Herrlinger Voss undertook preparation work for this trade as soon as the victims had been killed.

He would subsequently move to West Germany in retirement and died in Hamburg in 1987 at the age of 92.