Carl Værnet

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Infamous Nazi doctor Carl Værnet who conducted medical experiments on gay prisoners.

Dr. Carl Peder Værnet (April 28, 1893 - November 25, 1965) was a Danish SS major and a doctor at Buchenwald concentration camp. He experimented extensively with hormones and possibly ways to try to 'cure' homosexuality by injecting synthetic hormones into men's groins.^[1] His research was under the authority of Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.

He had trained as a doctor in Copenhagen and set up his first practice there. He took further courses in Germany, France and Netherlands where he acquired a special interest in hormone treatments. Although he had joined the Danish Nazi Party in the late 1930's, his medical career waned due to the dubious quality of his research and also because he was considered a collaborator in his native country. In order to further his hormone research, he was introduced to the leading SS doctor Ernst Grawitz by the opera tenor singer, Helge Rosvaenge. He was then introduced to Heinrich Himmler and given a medical post in Prague in early 1944.

Between June and December 1944, Carl Værnet experimented on 17 male inmates at Buchenwald who were forced to undergo an operation with an artificial gland. Although none of the inmates died as a direct result of his research, at least two contracted infections which proved fatal. There is no evidence that any of the inmates were castrated. His research proved inconclusive and he quickly lost favour with his Nazi paymasters.

After the war he was arrested in Copenhagen and interrogated at Alsgades School. Although the Danish authorities wanted to press charges of his SS involvement, he feigned heart trouble and managed to escape. Furthermore it appears he tried to sell the hormone research to DuPont in 1946. He later fled to Brazil and then Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he died in 1965.