Poppendick, Helmut.

Born 6.1.1902 in Hude. Internist. Medical Doctorate, Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reich Physician SS and Police. Defendant in the Medical Trial. Poppendick passed his school-leaving examinations in 1919 at the Oberrealschule in Oldenburg and studied medicine from 1919 to 1926 in Gottingen, Munich, and Berlin. He completed his state medical board examinations in 1926 and, on 1.2.1928, received his medical license. Afterwards Poppendick worked for four years as a clinical assistant. primarily at the First Medical Clinic of Charité in Berlin. In 1932, he became a certified specialist in internal medicine. Poppendick worked several months as an emergency doctor for the city of Berlin in Berlin East. Then, from June 1933 to October 1934 he was the assistant medical director at Virchow Hospital in Berlin. The following year he completed training as an expert for "race hygiene" at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics and Eugenics. After this, he became the adjutant of the ministerial director Arthur Gutt at the Reich Ministry of the Intcrior. He was also the chief of staff at the SS Office for Population Politics and Genetic Health Care, which in 1937 became the SS Main Race and Settlement Office. There Poppendick was departmental head and staff leader of the Genealogical Office. When this office was taken into the Reich Physician SS on 1.8.1939, Poppendick was retained as a main department head. At the beginning of the war, he was drafted as an adjutant to a medical department of the army and took part in the attack on Belgium France and the Netherlands. In January, 1941, he was released from the Medical Inspectorate of the German Army to join the Reich Physician SS, where he was promoted to head of scientific services in 1941. In November 1941, Poppendick was accepted into the Waffen SS. In 1943. Ernst Grawitz of the Reich Physician SS appointed him to lead his personal staff. Poppendick joined the N5DAP and the SS in 1932 (Pg. No. 998.607 and SS No. 36.345). He ended his SS career at the rank of Colonel. Because of his high position. Poppendick was implicated in a series of involuntary medical experiments done on concentration camp prisoners. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the American Military Tribunal No. I in August 1947, however was released already in February 1951. Poppendick managed to receive his approval to get his medical services paid by insurance, in Oldenburg.