Drug shortage and networks of medical crime: Herbert Siggelkow (1906–1976), chief pharmacist of the Nazi concentration camps

Our understanding of pharmacists as Nazi perpetrators remains rather vague. Considerable research has examined the Nazification and transformation of German pharmaceutical research, practice, and education between 1933 and 1945. The names of several SS pharmacists who served in concentration camps are also known. Yet little is known about their actual practices and their concrete involvement in medical crimes. What tasks did pharmacists perform in the concentration camps, what scope of action did they have, and in which perpetrator networks were they embedded? This article addresses these questions through the biographical example of Herbert Siggelkow (1906–1976), chief pharmacist of the concentration camps. Drawing on extensive archival records, we reconstruct the biography of Siggelkow, who, already as a grammar school student, had joined a völkisch-nationalist paramilitary association and, in 1932, the Nazi Party and the SS. We then analyze his responsibilities, individual scope of action, and involvement in medical crimes across the various settings of his service in the Waffen-SS and within the concentration camp system. As camp pharmacist at Dachau and Sachsenhausen and as chief pharmacist of the concentration camp medical service, Siggelkow shared responsibility for both the individual and the structural medical neglect of inmates. In fact, he was among the very few who had precise knowledge of the extent of medical shortages throughout the entire camp system. Through the distribution of poisons, he facilitated the systematic killing of sick and incapacitated prisoners by injection, while the provision of drugs and equipment for the camp research stations sustained the criminal practice of coerced human experimentation. We demonstrate that, over the course of his service, Siggelkow operated within markedly varying but generally limited scopes of action. While he had initially used his individual latitude clearly to the detriment of prisoners, his demeanor shifted markedly as hopes of a German victory waned. However, as part of a multi-professional perpetrator network, he bore substantial co-responsibility for atrocious medical crimes committed in the camps.