April 28, 2002 - Heinrich Gross - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Vienna apologizes for World War II deaths of disabled children.Between 1940 and 1945, children with mental and physical disabilities were sent to the Am Spiegelgrund children's clinic in Vienna, Austria. There, the Nazi program known as "Lebensunwertes Leben," or life unworthy of life, experimented on them before killing them with overdoses of barbiturates. More horrifying, the clinic kept the brains of at least 789 of the children to continue research on them until 1998. The director of the clinic, Dr. Ernst Illing, was hanged as a war criminal in 1946, but Dr. Heinrich Gross managed to return to the clinic in 1948 after being merely detained by the Russians. He built up his practice and reputation as a renowned neurologist and received the state medal for services to Austria. In 1979, a doctor named Werner Vogt accused Gross of involvement in the hideous experiments, but instead of believing Vogt, officials convicted Vogt of slander. Gross’ complicity was eventually revealed and Vogt was freed, but it took until 1998 for the government to gather the evidence it needed to lay charges against Gross, who was by then in his mid-80s and found unfit to stand trial. Vienna officials held a ceremony to bury the final remains of the children and apologize to the families of those killed on April 28, 2002. Although Austria continues to suffer criticism for an unwillingness to admit wrongs during the Nazi regime, the government did take back Gross’s state medal that same year. Gross died in Vienna on December 15, 2005 at the age of 90.

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