Ernst-Robert Grawitz
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Professor Dr. Ernst-Robert Grawitz (8 June 1899 – 24 April 1945) was a German physician in Nazi Germany during World War II.
Grawitz was born in Charlottenburg, in the western part of Berlin, Germany.
As Reichsphysician SS and Police, Grawitz advised Heinrich Himmler, commander of the Schutzstaffel (SS), on the use of gas chambers. He carried out brutal medical experiments on Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Due to his own SS rank, Grawitz was administratively responsible for all medical experiments conducted.
Towards the end of World War II in Europe, Grawitz was a physician in German dictator Adolf Hitler's Führerbunker. When he heard that other officials were leaving Berlin in order to escape from advancing Soviet armies, Grawitz petitioned Hitler to allow him to leave. In addition to denying his request, Hitler made a point of humiliating Grawitz in front of several of the female bunker residents for his (perceived) cowardice[citation needed].
Grawitz decided to kill himself along with his family. While eating supper with his wife and two children, he pulled the pins out of two grenades that he held under the table. The explosion blew up his family and himself.
[edit] Portrayal
- In the 1973 movie, Hitler: The Last Ten Days, the scene in which Grawitz asks Hitler to leave Berlin is placed (inaccurately) at the very beginning of the movie, along with real footage from the liberated concentration camps. This is the only scene where he appears, and in another historical inaccuracy, Hitler consents to his request. The role is uncredited.
- Grawitz's dramatic suicide was depicted in the 2004 movie Downfall, where Grawitz is portrayed by Christian Hoening.
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