Hans-Joachim Lang

In June 1943, the anthropologists SS-Hauptsturmführer Bruno Beger from Munich and Hans Fleischhacker from Tübingen selected 86 Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz acting on behalf of the SS research organization "Ahnenerbe", which supported a plan of anatomy professor August Hirt to create a Jewish anatomical skeleton specimen collection.[5] During the German occupation of France, Hirt had been appointed head of the Anatomical Institute at the Reichsuniversität Straßburg (Reichs University of Strasbourg) in 1941.[6]

Twenty-nine women and 57 men from 8 countries were selected from Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz by Beger and Fleischbacker and brought to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, where skull x-rays and blood groups were recorded. On 11th, 13, 17 and 19 August 1943, the camp commander murdered 86 people in the gas chamber built outside the camp by the SS exclusively for poison gas experiments by medical professors on prisoners.[6] The victims were transported by the SS from Natzweiler to the Reichsuniversität Straßburg. With the approach of the Allied troops, these bodies, preserved in formalin, were hidden in the basement of the Anatomy Institute, where they were discovered. On 23 November 1944, Strasbourg was liberated by the U.S. Seventh Army under the command of Gen. Alexander Patch. Three weeks later the French military tribunal began its investigation.[7]

List of victims' numbers recorded by Henri Henrypierre

On 3 January 1945, an article in the London newspaper Daily Mail reported the discovery of 86 bodies in the Anatomical Institute of the Reichsuniversität Straßburg. The "French Office of Investigations of War Crimes" took photographs of the remains [8] and documented the findings of the remains. Evidence collected formed the basis of the subsequent trial of August Hirt by the War Crimes Tribunal in Metz in 1954. The French military, which controlled Strasbourg, gave up trying to identify the victims and buried the bodies in the local Jewish cemetery in a mass grave.[9]

At the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial in 1946, Hirt's anatomy assistant, Henri Henrypierre (or Henripierre) testified that he noted numbers tattooed on the arms of the corpses brought to the Institute, and kept a secret recording of them hidden in the apartment of his romantic interest.[6][10] August Hirt was sentenced to death in absentia at the Military War Crimes Trial at Metz on 23 December 1953, however it was unknown at the time that Hirt had shot himself in the head on 2 June 1945 at Schluchsee, Baden-Württemberg.[6]

While at the Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Dr. Lang, studied the war crimes committed by Auguste Hirt, at the Reichsuniversität Straßburg during the German occupation of France, and attempted to determine the identities of the victims in the Jewish Skeletal Collection. Other than Serge Klarsfeld, who documented his attempts in his book Le Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France no other attempts were previously made to identify these people.[2]

In 1998, Dr. Lang found archives of the Reichsuniversität located at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, including the hand-written copy of the numbers recorded by Hirt's assistant, Henri Henrypierre.[9] Together with archives at Auschwitz concentration camp and Yad Vashem, Lang was able to identify all 86 of the victims' names, and other identifying information including occupations and place of origin.[6] He published the identities and biographies of all 86 victims in the award-winning book Die Namen der Nummern (in German) in 2004.[2] Biographies of the victims are available online[11] and at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website.[12]

In November 2005 the remains of these individuals were buried in the Jewish cemetery of Cronenbourg, on the outskirts of Strasbourg, under the auspices of the Communauté Israélite of Strasbourg, the Consistoire of the Bas-Rhin, and Grand Rabbi Abraham Deutsch. A memorial was erected at the cemetery in December 2005 with the names of the 86 victims, and a memorial plaque listing the names of the victims was placed outside the Anatomy Institute at Strasbourg's University Hospital.[7]

In an article which appeared in the Annals of Anatomy in 2013, Lang said:

The memory of their fate ... does not, as we often hear, give dignity to the victims. These are not the victims who have lost their dignity, but rather those who persecuted. Do not let the perpetrators have the last word.[5]

Bazelon remarked that "The most startling breakthrough [in identifying the victims of Nazi anatomists] comes from German journalist and Tübingen culture professor Hans-Joachim Lang."[9]

Professor Urban Wiesing, at the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine of the University of Tübingen,[13] wrote that: "[T]he book is more than an essay on the moral catastrophe of medicine. It tells not only of a crime, but also writes history in a special way one step further: it gives the victims back their names."[14]

• Lang, Hans-Joachim (1980). Parteipressemitteilungen im Kommunikationsfluß politischer Nachrichten : eine Fallstudie über den Einfluß politischer Werbung auf Nachrichtentexte. (revised doctoral thesis) [Party news releases on the communication flow of political news: a case study on the influence of political advertising messages and texts] (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Peter D. Lang. ISBN 3-8204-6781-5.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (2004a). Die Namen der Nummern: wie es gelang, die 86 Opfer eines NS-Verbrechens zu identifizieren [The names of the numbers: how it was possible to identify 86 victims of Nazi crimes] (first German ed.). Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. ISBN 978-3455094640.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (2009). "Als Christ nenne ich Sie einen Lügner" : Theodor Rollers Aufbegehren gegen Hitler ["As a Christian, I call you a liar": The Theodor Roller revolt against Hitler] (first German ed.). Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. ISBN 978-3-4555-0104-9.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (2011). Die Frauen von Block 10: Medizinische Versuche in Auschwitz [The women of Block 10: Medical experiments in Auschwitz] (first German ed.). Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. ISBN 978-3455502220.

• Lang, Hans-Joachim (11 February 1999). "Richard Schuh, Ihr Leben ist verwirkt!" [Richard Schuh, your life is forfeit!]. Die Zeit (in German). Retrieved 24 March 2016.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (19 August 2004). "Skelette für Straßburg Eines der grausigsten Wissenschaftsverbrechen des "Dritten Reiches" ist endlich aufgeklärt" [Skeletons for Strasbourg: One of the most gruesome crimes of science in the "Third Reich" is finally cleared]. Die Zeit (in German). No. 35. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (5 September 2013). "Ein Freund geblieben: War der einflussreiche Tübinger Politologe Theodor Eschenburg ein Nazi? Wohl kaum – wie neu gesichtete Dokumente zeigen" [One friend remained: Was the influential Tübingen political scientist Theodor Eschenburg a Nazi? Hardly – what newly found documents show]. Die Zeit (in German). No. 37. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (6 January 2010). "NS-Verbrechen Die Spur der Skelette" [Nazi crimes: The trail of skeletons]. Spiegel Online (in German). Retrieved 24 March 2016.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (2014). "Theodor Eschenburg und die deutsche Vergangenheit" [Theodor Eschenburg and the German past]. INDES – Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft (in German). No. 1–2014. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 133–144. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
• Lang, Hans-Joachim (October 2013). "August Hirt and 'extraordinary opportunities for cadaver delivery' to anatomical institutes in National Socialism: a murderous change in paradigm". Annals of Anatomy. 195 (5): 373–80. doi:10.1016/j.aanat.2013.03.013. PMID 23809210.

• Au nom de la race et de la science (In the name of science and race – Strassbourg 1941–1944) at IMDb, documentary directed by Sonia Rolley, Axel and Trancrède Ramonet, duration 55 min. Production France 3 – Temps Noir, April 2013.
• Le nom des 86 (The name of the 86), documentary directed by Emmanuel Heyd and Raphael Toledano, duration 63 min. Production Dora Films sas – Alsace 20 – Télébocal – Cinaps TV, 2014.

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  Hans Joachim Lang in front of the plaque in memory of 86 Jews killed in August 1943 in the gas chamber of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.
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  Monument to the 86 victims at the Cronenbourg Jewish Cemetery near Strasbourg
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  Memorial plaque with the names of the 86 victims at the Cronenbourg Jewish Cemetery
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  Memorial plaque at the Institute of Anatomy, University of Strasbourg
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  Memorial plaque with names of the victims outside of the gas chamber at Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp