Hans Wilhelm Munch

Hans Wilhelm Münch was a German Nazi Party member who worked as an SS physician during World War II at the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1943 to 1945 in German occupied Poland. He was acquitted of war crimes at a 1947 trial in Kraków, where many inmates testified in his favour. He was nicknamed The Good Man of Auschwitz for his refusal to assist in the mass murders there. He developed many elaborate ruses to keep inmates alive, such as faking medical experiments and giving false diagnoses. He also helped some prisoners escape and smuggled food and medicine into the camp. Münch was born on May 14, 1911, in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, Germany. He studied medicine at the University of Tübingen and the Munich University. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Waffen-SS in 1943. He was sent to the Hygiene Institute of the Waffen-SS in Raisko, near Auschwitz, where he conducted bacteriological research. He also worked alongside the infamous Josef Mengele, who was the same age and also came from Bavaria. Münch claimed that he never participated in the "selections" at the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where incoming prisoners were sorted into those who could work, those who would be experimented on, and those who would be killed in the gas chambers. He also claimed that he never killed anyone or performed any harmful experiments on humans. After the war, Münch was arrested by the Polish authorities and tried for war crimes at the Auschwitz trial in Kraków. He was charged with participation in experiments with human material leading to the death of the test persons. However, he was acquitted of all charges, as many former prisoners testified that he had saved their lives and treated them humanely. He was the only person acquitted of war crimes at the trial. He returned to Germany and worked as a practicing physician in Roßhaupten in Bavaria. He married Gertrud Münch in 1939 and had four children with her. She died in 1974. In his later years, Münch suffered from Alzheimer's disease and made several public remarks that appeared to support Nazi ideology and deny the Holocaust. He was tried for inciting racial hatred and similar charges, but was never sentenced, as all courts ruled that he was not of sound mind. He died on January 27, 2001, in Roßhaupten, Bavaria, Germany. He was buried there without any Nazi symbols or honors.