Trial and Execution
During the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, Gebhardt stood trial in the Doctors' Trial (9 December 1946–20 August 1947), along with 22 other doctors. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death on 20 August 1947. He was hanged on 2 June 1948, in Landsberg Prison in Bavaria.
Two of Gebhardt's assistants were also tried and convicted at Nuremberg. Fritz Fischer worked in the hospital of the Ravensbrück concentration camp as a surgical assistant to Gebhardt, and participated in the surgical experiments carried out on the inmates. He was initially condemned to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 15 years in 1951 and he was released in March 1954. Fischer subsequently regained his medical license and resumed his career at the chemical company Boehringer Ingelheim, where he remained employed until his retirement. He died in 2003 at the age of 90.
Herta Oberheuser was another of Gebhardt's assistants at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was the only female defendant in the Doctors' Trial, where she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She was released in April 1952 and became a family doctor in Stocksee, Germany. She lost her position in 1956 after a Ravensbrück survivor recognized her, and her medical license was revoked in 1958. She died on 24 January 1978 at the age of 66.
Read more about this topic: Karl Gebhardt
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