“SPIEGEL” report
Natural cosmetic company Weleda had close connections to the SS during Nazi times
According to “SPIEGEL in the Nazi era, Weleda delivered a cream for human trials to the Dachau concentration camp and maintained close contacts with the SS and their biodynamic agriculture.
According to a report by the “Spiegel”, the natural cosmetics company Weleda had close connections to the SS in the Nazi era. This was therefore particularly true for cooperation in the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. According to the report on Saturday, Weleda provided a cream, among other things, which was presumably used for human trials.
Weleda is known for anthroposophical remedies and biodynamic agriculture. According to “Spiegel”, the company moved into medicinal herbs from an agricultural complex in the period of National Socialism, which was operated by the SS in Dachau according to biodynamic methods. KZ prisoners were used there as forced laborers. The magazine referred to a still unpublished study by historian Anne Sudrow on behalf of the Dachau memorial.
Weleda says: Unclear whether cream was used for human experiments
Sudow shows that there were generally close connections between the anthroposophy scene in Germany, biodynamic Demeter agriculture and the SS during National Socialism. In Dachau, the SS-own German Experimental Institute for Nutrition and Meals (DVA) operated a “plantation” that had served to research and use biodynamic agricultural methods.
According to the report, Weleda ordered products directly from the DVA during the Nazi era. Conversely, the company delivered a frost protection cream that the SS doctor Sigmund faster in Dachau used to use for human trials. Rascher, even Waldorf student and anthroposopher, carried out experiments in prisoners in the concentration camp in order to examine the effect of hypothermia and antifreeze. Numerous people died.
According to “Spiegel”, Sudrow shows in her analysis that there were also close connections between Weleda and the SS in Dachau. Former Weleda employees had played a central role in the “plantation” set up there. The former director of the medicinal plant garden of Weleda, Frank Lippert, has worked for the SS since 1941 and also benefited from the forced labor of the prisoners during research. He continued to contact Weleda.
According to “Spiegel”, Weleda mentions the cream delivered to the SS in its company history. There, however, it is that it is unclear whether it used it faster to use it for human trials or whether that was his intention at all. The activity of the gardener Lippert in the Dachau concentration camp was “in no connection to his earlier work at Weleda”, it was also called there.
AFP
RW
Source: Stern
