Wilhelm Franz Josef Beiglböck (10 October 1905 – 22 November 1963) was an internist Nazi physician and held the title of Consulting Physician to the German Luftwaffe during World War II. In the 1947 Doctors' Trial, he was tried and convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for conducting human experimentation involving seawater on prisoners at Dachau concentration camp; he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, but his sentence was commuted to 10 years and he was released in 1951. He was found dead in a stairwell in 1963.
Education and war crimes
Beiglböck attended Stiftsgymnasium Melk and studied medicine at the University of Vienna. During his studies there, he became active in Wiener Burschenschaft Moldavia. First, he worked as an assistant at the Medical University Clinic in Vienna for Franz Chvostek junior and afterwards for Hans Eppinger.
From 1933, he was a member of the Nazi Party and, from 1934, of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi paramilitary organization, in which he was promoted to the rank of SA-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel). In 1939, he made his habilitation and, in 1940, he became chief doctor under Eppinger. From May 1941, Beiglböck worked as a Stabsarzt (medical officer) in the Luftwaffe. In 1944, he became an extrabudgetary professor at the University of Vienna. During the war, he performed human experimentation involving seawater on inmates at Dachau concentration camp.
Trial
left|frame|Wilhelm Beiglböck pleading "not guilty" at the [[Doctors' Trial.]]
After the war, Beiglböck was arrested by the British, who then transferred him to U.S. custody. He was a defendant in the Nuremberg Doctor's Trial. During his trial, one of his surviving victims, Karl Höllenreiner, rushed at him with a knife. Höllenreiner was sentenced to 90 days in prison for contempt of court but was released on probation four days later. Beiglböck was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Beiglböck's sentence was commuted to 10 years in January 1951, and he was released from prison that December.
In early 1947, the Vienna prosecution initiated proceedings against Beiglböck because of war crimes, mistreatment, and violation of human rights. The Vienna proceedings ended in October 1947.
Release and post-war career
Since Beiglböck's license to practice medicine had not been revoked, he was allowed to resume working as a doctor. After his release, he was controversially given a temporary job at the University of Freiburg hospital. Beiglböck then worked at the Buxtehude Hospital, where he became the head physician of the internal medicine department.
The German Society of Internal Medicine (DGIM) campaigned for Beiglböck's rehabilitation. A three-member commission was formed to address Beiglböck's conviction. Multiple other prominent DGIM members sought to exonerate him via expert opinions and statements. The expert opinions relied on the standards established by the Nuremberg trials. However, all but one of the experts assumed that the test subjects had been volunteers. The experts claimed no deaths or long-term damage had occurred among the test subjects, and that Beiglböck had acted with the best medical intentions. The opinions were based entirely on files submitted to the experts by Beiglböck's attorney. None of the experts had seen any of the test subjects themselves, and most of them had never met Beiglböck.