THE HUNT FOR NAZI CONCENTRATIONCAMP DOCTOR CARL VAERNET
Carl Peter Vaernet (1893- 1965)
Photocopy below of the letter to Prague SS-Liutenant Gerke
from 25. february 1944 about Carl Vaernet
from Himmler, Berlin , Prinz Albrect Strasse 44:
Berlin, 25 February 1944
Prinz Albrecht Strasse 44
Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police
carbon copy
To the head of the State Police Office, Prague
SS Liutenant Colonel Dr. Gerke, Prague
Dear Comrade Gerke!
The Reichsführer SS(Heinrich Himmler) brought to Germany some time ago the Danish medical Researcher Dr. Carl Vaernet so that he might work, unhindered and uninfluenced, on an extreme important experiment. I have been entrusted by the Reichsführer SS to accomodate the wishes of Dr. Vaernet and [he] informed me that Dr. Vaernet is to be assisted in the most generous matter. A position was created for Dr. Vaernet at the Deutsche Heilmittel Co. by the Central Office for Economy and Administration in cooperation with the Ss Reich Surgeon General.
Dr. Vaernet will relocate to prague on 26 February 1944 and reside in a hotel, together with his famiily of six. Because his research work will last at least one year, hotel lodging´s cannot be considered a definitive solution- especially since Vaernet does not intend to return to Denmark and vishes to send his children to a German school in Prague. I would therefore be especially grateful if you could assist me in finding an appropriate fully furnished apartment for Dr. Vaernet. Following consultation with the Central Office for Economy and Administration, Staff B, SS Liutenant Col. Dr Hoffmann assumes the payment of rent via Deutsche Heilmittel GmbH.
The original document of the above is in the Buchenwald Archive, Signatur 50-3-35, and is reprinted in facsimile in Wolfgang Röll, Homosexuelle Häftlinge im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald (Weimar: Weimardruck, 1991), 37. This and the next document were translated from German by Patricia Heberer and Sybil Milton.Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
