Russian children's forced blood donation for Wehrmacht

[Eddy Marz]

Great michael, thanks. Can you direct me onto any further reading on this ?

[Annelie]

I would be interested to know what it says on the middle stone of the Memorial to the children?

[michael mills]

Hello Eddy,

I have not read anything in particular on this specific topic, the allegation that blood was forcibly taken from Belorussian and Polish children.

I have read a biography of Julius Streicher, in which it was related that Streicher tried to ban blood transfusions from non-Germans to Germans on ideological grounds, namely that such transfusions would "poison" the pure "Aryan blood" of Germans. The book relkated how Streicher's radical proposal was opposed by the German medical profession, led by Hitler's own physician Karl Brandt, with the argument that the word "blood" in National Socialist ideology was used purely metaphorically, and had no relationship to the actual biological substance. That argument won out, Streicher's proposal was rejected, and accordingly there was never any ban on the use of blood from non-Germans being used for transfusions to German soldiers.

Because of my having read that book, I could instantly see that the claim that the Wehrmacht was secretly offending against a ban on the use of non-German blood was historically false. I could also see the historical falsehood of claim that the reason for the lack of German documentation of the alleged taking of blood from Slavic children was due to a need to keep the procedure compeletly secret because it was an offense against National socialist ideology.

For example, in the link posted by you in your initial post, a certain Vincent Frank-Steiner made this claim:

Medical personnel indoctrinated in Nazi race theory knew of the “risks” they run of mix Slavic with Arian blood. The loss in manpower could be reduced by transfusing “inferior” Slavic children’s blood to wounded German combatants - a typical dilemma between ideology and experience. Transfusing Slavic blood to Arian military had to be kept as a strict secret by the Wehrmacht, particularly from the SS.

From my reading of the book on Streicher, I could tell that that claim was historically false.

My analysis is based simply on a critical reading of the material posted by you and by Poleshuk. That critical reading showed that there were two different stories about the alleged taking of blood from Slavic children that directly contradicted each other:

1. The original Soviet propaganda story, which seems to have begun in 1943. This story is found in the post by little grey rabbit on Saturday 10 December and in Poleshuk's second post of Sunday 11 December. This story had a number of variants; in some the children are Russians or Poles, in otrhers they are Jewish, but the commone element is that the Germans were already taking blood in 1943, and perhaps earlier.

2. The second story seems to be peddled more recently by a number of German activists in our time, possibly in an attempt to resurrect the discredited wartime Soviet propaganda. This story is found in your initial post which started this thread (where the story is peddled by the Vincent Frank-Steiner referred to above), and in Poleshuk's second post of Sunday 11 (peddled in a video by Guido Knopp, a sensationalist publicist who seems to believe any bizarre claim made about German activities during the Second World War). According to this story, the Wehrmacht started using the blood of Slavic children in the summer of 1944, due to a lack of blood for transfusions resulting from the massive defeat of Army Group Centre in Belorussia.

The two stories are clearly in contradiction to each other.

If the first story is true, then the Wehrmacht was using children's blood as early as 1943, and therefore the second, more recent story is false.

If the second story is true, it means that in 1943 the Soviet Government invented a false story about the blood of Russian children being used by the Wehrmacht for transfusions, then lo and behold one year later the Wehrmacht really did start using childrenn's blood. Such a chain of events beggars belief, and suggests that this second story, obviously designed as a more rational version of the Soviet wartime propaganda, is most likely false.

My own provisional conclusion, subject to the revelation of further evidence one way or the other, is that both stories are false. The first story is Soviet wartime propaganda, a pure invention, later adopted by Jewish propaganda. The second story is an attempt by German political activists in the present day to resurrect and refurbish the wartime propaganda story by giving it a plausible rational basis, which however actually contradicts the wartime propaganda.

Eddy, I suggest you refer back to the link you included in your first post. You will see that the lurid claims made by Vincent Frank-Steiner are immediately refuted by one Sebastian Stopper of the Humboldt Univerity in Berlin. Stopper says this:

Regarding the overwhelming strength of the Red Army by summer 1944 the German armies at the Eastern Front found themselves in a hopeless situation. Every able bodied German still in the Reich had to be freed to serve and every soldier was needed directly in the front lines. Under these circumstances the already launched measures regarding the mobilization of the Soviet civilian population for the German war efforts were intensified even further. Also teenagers and children now were sent westwards in order to strengthen the working force of the Reich’s armaments industries or worked for the Wehrmacht on the spot in the occupied areas. Special transfer camps were installed where a selection of kids had to await further employment. Until today in Belarus one can hear the assertion that these already malnourished children were forced to donate blood in German military hospitals, because it was needed for the medical treatment of German soldiers at the Eastern Front. In fact the Wehrmacht was supplied with means of blood replacement and native blood out of her own ranks in quantities that filled the demand. The kids had not been concentrated in camps to serve as blood donors, but were sent to Belarus education villages in order to experience national-socialist indoctrination. The Soviet myth about the under-aged blood donors and the blood donation camps as the peak of a barbaric "fascist" occupation sprang from a misunderstanding of German intentions that were rooted in the national-socialist ideology.

Stopper's explanation seems to me far more rational than the claims by Frank-Steiner and Knopp.

Frank-Steiner refers to the "recent testimony of survivors", and the video by Guido Knopp posted by Poleshuk actually includes interviews with three elderly Belarusians (two women, one man) who claim to have had had blood taken from them in camps for children in Poland.

It is entirely possible, even likely, that in the scenario described by Stopper, the children taken to transfer camps had blood samples taken from them for the purpose of determining whether they were carrying various infectious diseases.

Two of the interviewees, one woman and one man, made much of the fact that they had "saved the lives of German soldiers by donating their blood". Perhaps they are touting for German pensions?

I suggest that in our approach to these sensational claims, we divest ourselves of any Sunday-School mentality, resist any emotional reaction ("oh those poor children"), and limit our analysis to cold, hard facts.

[Eddy Marz]

Well, that's a great help anyway. Thanks alot.
Eddy

[poleshuk]

http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=23474

Slavic children were kept in special camps for the sole purpose of delivering blood to wounded German soldiers and officers in military lazarettos. More than a dozen such camps have been named and recognised by sources and witnesses; towards the end of WWII some of the “Vampire Camps of the Wehrmacht” were transferred to Germany. The children were collected on the street or taken by force from their parents. Depending on the rarity of their blood group they had to deliver blood once a week, or even more frequently. The age-limit was from 5 years (often lower) till puberty. The withdrawal of blood is remembered by the victims as a coarse procedure that caused considerable pain. After blood withdrawal, the children were given candy – but no nourishing sustenance. When the children inmates of these camps were bled dry, they were disposed of by gas-wagon or shut. Very few survived.

[poleshuk]

http://www.seminaireshoah.org/Slavic-ch ... _a243.html

Slavic children forced to donate their blood for wounded enemy soldiers: Vampire camps of the Wehrmacht - Article de Vincent C. FRANK
...
Evidences of the events
Despite the strong reasons for keeping secret and not speaking about the topic some evidence could be collected. They origin from very different sources which together give further authenticity and evidentiary value:
• 17 names of such camps all over Eastern Europe include 2 transferred to Germany. It might well be that on the retreat of the Army different locations refer to the same lazaretto.
• Two such former camps have recent memorials: Krashnyi Berek in Belorussia and Kretinga in Lithuania.
• In recent years some survivors from different camps had the chance to tell their story to journalists. They spoke of about 3000 children inmates in their camp, those who died being replaced. They confirm the taking of blood as extremely painful. In some cases it was drawn from the heels and usually at a frequency of once a week. Children with rare blood had to deliver more often and there is one report that in a case of need all the blood of the victim was taken.
• Two short documentaries were aired by ZDF last year. This leading German television company had them broadcast after midnight. No repetition.
• Two German historians known for their work on the medical services of the army told me that they never saw any documents on my topic in any German archives but that they think such handling to be very possible and fitting the time quite easily.
• Lots of information can be found in Eastern Europe, be it contemporary or later, and be it in personal memories or evidence in court matching. All support the events. Together they give a mosaic with blank spaces still but without relevant contradictions. They leave no doubt of the general fact. One victim reports that a nurse was ordered to watch outside the room and to let nobody enter while the blood was taken. Other children report that during their transport to the camp the guards told them about their destiny and that they will have to deliver blood until they die. Cases of transfusion from vein to vein are reported but no answer is given to the questions whether the receiver was conscious and able to recognise the donor. If he was unconscious this might be an explanation he never learned to whom he has to thank for blood and life.
• In scientific literature my attention was brought to only one short mentioning.
• A book on the ghetto of Vilnius reports an engine driver telling having brought some thirty Jewish children to the military hospital in Krakow for having taken their blood and their skin for wounded German soldiers – up till now the only mentioning of Jewish children.
...
Contrary to the United States, Great Britain and even in Switzerland not participating in the war there was no blood collection service in Germany. The German physicians’ main task was to send the soldiers back to the front as quickly as possible – the practice preferred too early as better than too late.

[little grey rabbit]

Thanks for the details on forced skin donations by the Germans. A new one on me.

The big story in the English language press was the supposed child blood donation centers in Odessa, April 1944
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gz ... lood&hl=en
After that the press seemed to lose interest.

As far as I am concerned forced child blood donations is at least as credible as mass homicidal gassings.
But perhaps thats just me.

Anyway the details that Poleshuk suggest there is either something very odd about German attitudes to Slavs, or some very odd attitudes to historical practice rattling around in the Slavic communities.

[michael mills]

I think one might well question the sanity of this Vincent Frank-Steiner character.

It is obvious that he is obsessed with this story, even though he admits that he has been told by TWO German historians of the medical services of the army that they never saw any documents on this topic in the archives.

One crucial question is: Given that the allegation of the Germans taking blood from Russian and/or Jewish children was given a lot of publicity during the war, including in the American press, why was it not investigated fully at war-crimes trials after the war?

The most obvious answer is that the Soviets knew the allegation was untrue, since they had invented it, and the Western Allies guessed that it was untrue, so both parties were too embarrassed to bring up charges that would make them look ridiculous.

The Vincent Frank-Steiner character says that two short documentaries were aired by ZDF last year after midnight (one was the Knopp video linked by Poleshuk), and not repeated. One can guess why they were not repeated; the German television companies obviously had doubts about their credibility.

Frank Steiner also claims that there was no blood collection service in wartime Germany, unlike the United States, Britain and Switzerland. Is that in fact true? It is an allegation that deserves further study, although it seems odd that a country with such advanced science, technology and medicine as Germany would not have a blood collection service.

Belief in vampires was once a common superstition among the primitive peasants of Eastern Europe. It appears that there are still primitive peasants in Belarus and Ukraine who cling to that belief.

[michael mills]

Here is a link to Frank-Steiner's full article on his homepage:

http://www.falsifikation.ch/sites/kinderlager-e.html

It is a paper presented on September 30th, 2010 at the International Multidisciplinary Conference „Children and War“ by the Universities of Salzburg and Wolverhamp­ton at the University of Salzburg, Austria 30th September – 2nd October 2010.

He quotes a letter from Dr Bernhard Chiari of the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt Potsdam, in which Chiar basiclly tells him to make love elsewhere. Chiari makes this comment:

Meiner persönlichen Einschätzung nach gibt es neben den von Ihnen aufgeführten Gründen, die für die Richtigkeit der Erzählungen sprechen, auch gewichtige Argumente gegen die These von Zwangsblutspenden von Kindern. Bemüht man sich um die Ausklammerung emotionaler Aspekte, so standen der Wehrmacht und den zivilen Besatzungsverwaltungen zahlreiche Personengruppen (Angehörige der einheimischen Hilfsverwaltungen, Hilfspolizei, zur Zwangsarbeit rekrutierte Personen, Häftlinge u.a.) zur Verfügung, die man mehr oder weniger freiwillig zur Blutspende hätte heranziehen können. In den faschistischen Jugendorganisationen, die es in allen besetzten Gebieten der UdSSR gab, hätten zahlreiche junge Erwachsene vermutlich zu einem erheblichen Anteil tatsächlich freiwillig Blut gespendet und so zum deutschen Sieg im "Feldzug gegen den Bolschewismus" beigetragen hätten. Hilfswillige der Wehrmacht schließlich bildeten ebenfalls ein "Reservoir" von Blutspendern. Die "Arbeit" der deutschen Behörden war trotz Menschenverachtung und Zynismus in diesen Dingen doch immer sehr rational: warum sollte man also auf die Gruppe der Kinder zurückgreifen, die aus medizinischen Gründen - moralische und ethische Überlegungen hätten demgegenüber sicher keine Rolle gespielt - am ungeeignetsten zum Blutspenden waren?

My translation:

In my own estimation there are, beside the reasons listed by you which speak for the correctness of the stories, also weighty arguments against the thesis of the forced blood donation by children. If one tries hard to exclude emotional aspects, the Wehrmacht and the civilian occupation authorities had access to numerous groups of persons ( members of the native auxiliary administrations, auxiliary police, persons recruited for forced labour, prisoners etc) who could have been brought in more or less voluntarily to donate blood. In the fascist youth organisations which existed in all occupied areas of the Soviet Union, numerous young adults would presumably have donated blood in a genuinely voluntary way and thereby have contributed to the German victory in the "campaign against Bolshevism". Finally Wehrmacht auxiliaries also constituted a "reservoir" of blood donors. The 'work" of the German authorities was always very rational in these matters, despite contempt for humans and cynicism: so why should the group of children be resorted to, who for medical reasons - moral and ethical considerations by comparison would certainly not have played any role - were the least appropriate for donating blood?

I think Chiari's response to Frank-Steiner says it all.

[Eddy Marz]

Great. Thanks Michael and everyone. Chiari sure brings it down a few notches (it was my hunch, but I had absolutely no data and didn't really know where to look).

[wm]

If one tries hard to exclude emotional aspects, the Wehrmacht and the civilian occupation authorities had access to numerous groups of persons ( members of the native auxiliary administrations, auxiliary police, persons recruited for forced labour, prisoners etc) who could have been brought in more or less voluntarily to donate blood. In the fascist youth organisations which existed in all occupied areas of the Soviet Union, numerous young adults would presumably have donated blood in a genuinely voluntary way and thereby have contributed to the German victory in the "campaign against Bolshevism". Finally Wehrmacht auxiliaries also constituted a "reservoir" of blood donors.

It is interesting but unfortunately misleading.
Wounded soldiers were concentrated in thousands in field hospitals but German auxiliaries were serving all over the occupation zone, so the number of donors available to a field hospital was minuscule when compared to the needs arising after a major battle. There were not that many of them around.
And don't forget you cannot send your auxiliaries to hospital during a battle there are badly needed at their posts.

It was said that the German army medical system was very primitive, unchanged since the First World War and it is believable. At that time shelf life of blood was several days using the Rous-Turner solution. There were a few new developments at the end of the thirties in in the Soviet Union and the United States, and both had large networks of blood banks during WWII but it seems Germany missed the boat in this case.

So a German hospital didn't have a blood bank and the only source of blood available were fellow wounded soldiers. I don't know if the story of Russian child blood donation centers is true or not but the need was there. People like Clauberg, Oberheuser or Mengele would not hesitate to create such a center locally, even if without clear orders from the top.

[michael mills]

wm,

Can you please provide some evidence for your claim that the German army medical system was very primitive, and that German hospitals did not have blood banks.

I give more credence to the opinion of Dr Chiari, a recognised historian at a prestigious German research institute.

It is not enough to insinuate that Clauberg, Oberheuser and Mengele would have set up centres for collecting blood for children. You need to demonstrate that they were involved in providing blood transfusions to wounded German soldiers.

Clauberg was a civilian, and was never attached to military medical services. Mengele was a military doctor with the SS-Wiking Division, and presumably had occasion to administer blood transfusions, but nowhere in the extensive literature on him have I seen any suggestion that he took blood from children for that purpose.

I know you think that Germans are capable of absolutely anything, even a little vampirism, but we need proof, not insinuations.

[michael mills]

Hereis a link to an article on the history of blood transfusions:

http://www.ibms.org/go/nm:history-blood-transfusion

It does not say anything about the German military system of blood transfusions during the Second World War, but it does say this about the Spanish Civil War:

The Spanish Civil War gave rise to a fresh approach to blood transfusion, hastened by the threat of large numbers of civilian and military casualties. There was a major initiative to increase the number of blood donors and to establish large-scale blood banks to ensure adequate supplies.

Given that the German military was involved in the Spanish Civil War, it seems hard to believe that, having experienced the use of blood banks during a war it was involved, it would have neglected to introduce the same measures back home in Germany.

[michael mills]

Here is some information about German use of blood tranbsfusions during the Second World War:

http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs ... apter1.htm

THE GERMAN EXPERIENCE IN WORLD WAR II

When the blood program originated in Germany is not entirely clear. A civilian program was set up in 1940 by an administrative law which permitted donations of only Aryan blood and which provided for payments of 10 marks for the first 100 cc. and 5 marks for each additional 100 cc. (43).

The military procurement program was apparently an outgrowth of this civilian program. The Laboratory for Blood Transfusion in Berlin, which directed the military program, was disrupted by heavy bombings, and all the evidence suggests that the supply of blood was insufficient and that containers and technical equipment were in short supply.

Donors included medical personnel, nursing sisters, staff assistants, and slightly wounded men. An endeavor was always made to rule out tuberculosis, malaria, and syphilis in donors, but serologic examinations were seldom practical and the donor's statement that he had not had syphilis usually had to be accepted. Blood groups entered in the soldiers' pay books were frequently incorrect, and new determinations had to be made before each transfusion. If this was not possible, a test injection of 10 cc. of blood was made.

The German experience with preserved blood was chiefly between 1940 and 1942. There were so many serious reactions that medical officers lost interest in it. Those who reported satisfactory results were usually in favorable positions, along the lines of transportation. Some medical officers had never seen preserved blood used in the field without "deleterious" chills. Plasma and serum were seldom used, although officers who used captured U.S. stocks of plasma were enthusiastic about it.

Special report-After the German surrender in Italy on 1 May 1945, an unusual opportunity arose to study German management of battle casualties


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23

(44). On the instruction of the Fifth U.S. Army Surgeon, Lt. Col. (later Col.) Howard E. Snyder, MC, visited a number of German medical installations, including the equivalents of U.S. field, base, and convalescent hospitals. In his report, which is included in detail in another volume of this historical series (44), Colonel Snyder emphasized that observers could not judge the standards of German medical practice in the first years of the war in the light of what they found in May 1945, after the total collapse of the Army, nor could they judge the quality of German medical practice elsewhere in Europe in the light of what they found in Italy.

The German management of shock and hemorrhage was thus in sharp contrast to the U.S. practices, by which plasma was always available, and was used in the quantities indicated, in all forward medical installations, while banked blood was available in adequate quantities in field hospitals adjacent to division clearing stations. The extreme pallor of many of the wounded observed in German hospitals, and the moderate pallor of most of the others, supported the deduction that they had received little if any blood.

Note than "Aryan" means specifically "non-Jewish". In National Socialist ideology, all non-Jewish Europeans were "Aryans".

From the same source, this information about the Spanish Civil War:

The Spanish Civil War (30-31), which ended in January 1939, almost 3 years before the United States entered World War II, proved conclusively, and for the first time in military history, the practicability of supplying wounded men in forward medical installations with stored blood secured from a civilian population. Franco's armies, following the practice of the German Army (p. 22), supplied blood at fully equipped medical centers in the rear. The Republic Army Medical Corps supplied it at advanced medical units in the field.

[michael mills]

http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/medmu ... icine.html

Blood serum unit
Germany

Since most wounds during the War were caused by bombs, not bullets, medical personnel needed new technologies to cope with severe cases of shock. While doctors in World War One successfully used blood transfusions in the treatment of shock, they were unable to collect and transport sufficient quantities of blood.

The problem of preserving and storing large quantities of blood was not solved until it was discovered that plasma and serum could be separated from whole blood, combined with other human samples, dried, and then reconstituted with sterile water when needed. If sealed under a vacuum, it was possible to store dried plasma or serum for an indefinite period. This proved very valuable in wartime.

This German unit of serum was confiscated from a hospital by Major A. L. Bauer. It is accompanied by a certificate dated June 1, 1944 that verifies that "the trophy value exceeds any training, service or scrap value."

So the Germans did store serum.