The Sanitätswesen ("medical corps") was one of the five divisions of a Nazi concentration or extermination camp organization during the Holocaust.
This division was subordinate to the chief physician of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate (CCI), called after 1937, the Leitender Artzt ("head doctor").
According to Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höss, their non-medical tasks were:[1] Moreover, the doctors had the opportunity, and in some cases, were assigned, to conduct "medical research".
The camp doctors were allocated SS medics as ancillary staff, who served as nurses in the infirmary.
For example, in East Germany, Hermann Voss became a prominent anatomist and in West Germany, Eugen Wannenmacher became a professor at the University of Münster and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, who had been Josef Mengele's mentor and sponsor, was allowed to continue his medical practice.
The experiments they conducted have been cited in medical journals and sometimes republished with no reference or disclaimer as to how the research data were obtained.