Johann Kremer

Johann Paul Kremer (26 December 1883 – 8 January 1965) was a German professor, physician and war criminal.

He was a professor of anatomy and human genetics at Münster University who joined the Wehrmacht on 20 May 1941. He served in the SS in the Auschwitz concentration camp as a physician from 30 August 1942 to 18 November 1942. A member of the NSDAP, he was involved in Nazi human experimentation on the prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was sentenced to death in the Auschwitz Trial, but this sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was released in 1958.

Life prior to Auschwitz Kremer was born in Stellberg. He studied in Heidelberg, Strassburg as well as Berlin; he received his philosophy degree in 1914 and his medical degree in 1919. He also studied natural science and mathematics. He was the assistant surgeon at the surgical clinic of the University, Charité, the ward of internal diseases of the Municipal Hospital Berlin-Neukölln, the surgical clinic of the University of Cologne and prosector in the Institutes of Anatomy in Bonn and Münster. He became Dozent of anatomy in 1929 and was promoted there in 1936 to be professor in commission. At the same time, he was commissioned to lecture on the science of human hereditariness. He also did some writing: he mentions two articles that he wrote in the diary he kept, the first being "Inherited or Acquired? A Noteworthy Contribution to the Problem of Hereditariness of Traumatic Deformations" and the second titled "New Elements of Cell and Tissues Investigations". The experiments conducted by SS doctors were done for three main reasons: 1) to research methods to improve the health and survivability of soldiers; 2) to lay the groundwork for post-war scientific research; and 3) to carry out the dictates of the racial policies of the Nazi Party. Some experiments were also done at the behest of pharmaceutical companies and medical institutes, for the doctors' own research interests, and to benefit the doctors' personal careers. |sign=|source=

Trial and conviction After the war, Kremer was arrested by British troops and sent to an internment camp in Neuengamme. He was later extradited to Poland. Kremer was tried in the Auschwitz trials at the sitting of the Supreme Court National Tribune in Kraków throughout November and December 1947. Based on the contents of his diary and his own confessions, Kremer participated in fourteen gassings as well as multiple public executions and special actions, also known as gassings.