Victor Capesius was a Romanian-German pharmacist who played a significant and notorious role during World War II as an SS officer and the chief pharmacist at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Born on February 7, 1907, in Reussmarkt, Transylvania (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Romania), Capesius studied pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca and Vienna, later working for Bayer, a subsidiary of IG Farben. Before the war, he had a relatively ordinary life, but his trajectory took a dark turn when he joined the SS in 1943.
In December 1943, Capesius was assigned to Auschwitz, where he became the chief pharmacist. He was responsible for managing the camp’s medical supplies, including lethal drugs like Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide used in the gas chambers to kill millions of Jews and other prisoners. Capesius’s role was not just administrative; he actively participated in the selection process, deciding who would be sent to the gas chambers and who would be subjected to forced labor or medical experiments. His knowledge of pharmaceuticals made him a key figure in the horrific medical experiments carried out by Nazi doctors like Josef Mengele.
Capesius’s actions at Auschwitz highlight the intersection of science and atrocity, showing how a professional with specialized knowledge could be co-opted into the machinery of genocide. His involvement in the Holocaust was characterized by a chilling detachment; he saw his duties as technical tasks rather than moral decisions. This was starkly evident in how he justified his actions during his post-war trial, claiming that he was merely following orders and had little choice in his actions.
After the war, Capesius went into hiding but was eventually captured in 1946. He was tried as a war criminal during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials (1963–1965), where he was convicted of aiding and abetting in the murder of at least 2,000 people. Despite the overwhelming evidence, Capesius received a relatively light sentence of nine years in prison, of which he served only two. After his release, he lived quietly in West Germany until he died in 1985.
Capesius remains a potent symbol of how ordinary professionals can be transformed into perpetrators of extraordinary evil. His story serves as a reminder of the potential for complicity and the moral responsibility individuals bear, even in the face of overwhelming authority.
Sources
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34481538/
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