Hubertus Strughold

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Lore & Background

Hubertus Strughold was born on June 15, 1898, in Westtünnen-im-Hamm, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, the son of school principal Ferdinand Strughold and his wife Anna, née Tillmann. After completing his studies at the Gymnasium Hammonensein in 1918, he studied medicine and natural sciences at the Georg August University of Göttingen, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the Westphalian Wilhelms-University in Münster, earning his doctorate (Dr. phil.) in 1922. He obtained his medical degree (Dr. med. et phil.) from the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg the following year. While continuing his studies at Würzburg, he served as a research assistant to physiologist Dr. Maximilian von Frey and later to Dr. Paul Hoffmann at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, completing his habilitation (Dr. med. habil.) in 1927. After being named an associate professor of Physiology at Würzburg, he collaborated with World War I pilot Robert Ritter von Greim to study the effects of high-altitude flight on human biology. In 1928 he traveled to the United States as part of a two-year research fellowship sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, touring medical laboratories at Harvard, Columbia, and the Mayo Clinic, and conducting research under Professors Carl J. Wiggers at Western Reserve University and Anton Julius Carlson at the University of Chicago. He returned to Germany in late 1929 and resumed teaching at the Würzburg Physiological Institute, becoming a full professor in March 1933. In 1935 Strughold joined the faculty of the Institute of Physiology at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin. Through his association with Robert Ritter von Greim, he became acquainted socially with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and other high-ranking members of the Nazi regime, though he never formally joined the Nazi Party. In April 1935, he was appointed Director of the Berlin-based "Research Institute for Aviation Medicine," operating under Göring's Reich Ministry of Aviation. Under his leadership, the Institute pioneered the study of the physical effects of high-altitude and supersonic speed flight, along with establishing the altitude chamber concept of "time of useful consciousness." Beginning in 1936 he also served as co-editor of the medical journal Luftfahrtmedizin. With the outbreak of war in 1939, the organization was absorbed into the German military and incorporated into the Medical Service of the Luftwaffe as the "Air Force Institute for Aviation Medicine." Strughold was commissioned as an officer in the German Air Force, eventually rising to the rank of Colonel (Oberst). He was elected as a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 1941. In February 1942, SS physician Hauptsturmführer Sigmund Rascher collaborated with Luftwaffe aviation scientists Hermann Becker-Freyseng, Siegfried Ruff, and Hans-Wolfgang Romberg to plan and carry out aeromedical experiments using inmates from the Dachau concentration camp as human test subjects. The study took place in spring and summer 1942, initially focusing on high-altitude experiments. Camp inmates, mostly Polish and Soviet POWs, were locked inside a portable pressure chamber built by the Luftwaffe to simulate freefalling from high altitude without oxygen. Of the 200 test subjects, 80 were killed by the tests outright, with the remainder subsequently executed by the SS. From August 1942 to May 1943, Rascher and the Luftwaffe physicians also conducted "freezing experiments" using 300 live test subjects, where prisoners were made to remain outdoors naked in freezing temperatures or submerged in tanks of freezing water for hours before being immersed in hot, sometimes boiling, water, often with fatal results. In October 1942 Rascher delivered a presentation to a medical conference in Nuremberg detailing his freezing experiments at Dachau to the attendees, Hubertus Strughold and Luftwaffe Surgeon-General Erich Hippke among them. In early 1944 Strughold was named Aviation Medical Consultant to the newly-appointed Chief of the Luftwaffe Medical Service, Generaloberst Oskar Schröder. In July 1944, Schröder initiated a new series of human experiments at Dachau overseen by Dr. Hans Eppinger and Luftwaffe scientists Wilhelm Beiglboeck and Konrad Schäfer, centering on testing new methods of seawater desalination. In the course of the experiment, 90 Romani inmates from Dachau were deprived of food and forced to consume large amounts of salt water or have it injected directly into their veins. Half were then administered a medication called Berkatit and all were made to undergo an invasive liver biopsy without anesthetic, with numerous subjects dying. The extent to which the Dachau experiments may have occurred with either the knowledge or approval of Strughold remains a source of controversy. Following the German defeat in May 1945, Strughold was placed under house arrest by the British Army in Göttingen. He subsequently claimed to Allied authorities that, despite his influential position and attendance at the October 1942 medical conference, he had no knowledge of the atrocities. Strughold was never charged with any wrongdoing. However, a 1946 memorandum produced by the staff of the Nuremberg Trials listed Strughold as one of thirteen "persons, firms or individuals implicated" in the war crimes committed at Dachau. Several Luftwaffe officials associated with his Institute, including his former research assistant Dr. Hermann Becker-Freyseng and his ex-commanding officer Oskar Schröder, were convicted of crimes against humanity at the 1946–1947 Nuremberg Doctor's Trial. During these proceedings, Strughold contributed several affidavits for the defense on behalf of his accused colleagues. In October 1945 Strughold returned to academia, becoming director of the Physiological Institute at Heidelberg University. He also began working for the US Army Air Force, becoming Chief Scientist of its Aeromedical Center located on the campus of the former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research. In this capacity he edited German Aviation Medicine in World War II. In August 1947 Strughold was brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. Along with another former Luftwaffe physician, Richard Lindenberg, he was assigned to the US Air Force base at Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas. It was there that he began conducting some of the first research into the potential medical challenges posed by space travel, in conjunction with fellow "Paperclip Scientist" Dr. Heinz Haber. Strughold coined the terms "space medicine" and "astrobiology" to describe this area of study in 1948. The following year he was appointed as the first and only Professor of Space Medicine at the US Air Force's newly established School of Aviation Medicine (SAM) by its commandant, Colonel Harry G. Armstrong. SAM became one of the first medical establishments dedicated to research on "astrobiology" and the "human factors" associated with crewed spaceflight. Strughold also first described "Mars jars," containers that simulate the atmosphere of Mars.

Reader's Guide

Hubertus Strughold's significance lies in his dual legacy as a foundational figure in space medicine and a controversial figure due to his wartime activities. After being brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip in 1947, he served in high-level scientific posts with the U.S. Air Force and NASA, earning the moniker 'The Father of Space Medicine' for his work on the physical and psychological effects of crewed spaceflight. However, following his death, scrutiny of his World War II role intensified. Evidence emerged of his involvement in Nazi human experimentation at Dachau, including high-altitude and freezing experiments that killed numerous inmates. Although Strughold claimed ignorance of these atrocities, his attendance at a 1942 conference where such experiments were presented, and his association with convicted war criminals, have permanently damaged his reputation. The controversy underscores the ethical complexities of utilizing scientific expertise acquired under oppressive regimes.

Did You Know?

• Hubertus Strughold coined the terms 'space medicine' and 'astrobiology' in 1948.
• He first described 'Mars jars,' containers that simulate the atmosphere of Mars.
• Strughold was listed as one of thirteen 'persons, firms or individuals implicated' in the Dachau war crimes in a 1946 Nuremberg memorandum.
• He attended an October 1942 medical conference in Nuremberg where SS physician Sigmund Rascher presented findings from freezing experiments on Dachau inmates.
• Strughold was brought to the United States in August 1947 as part of Operation Paperclip.

From Westphalia to the Frontier of Aviation Medicine

Hubertus Strughold entered the world on June 15, 1898, in the small Prussian town of Westtünnen-im-Hamm, the son of an elementary school principal and his wife Anna. After finishing secondary school in 1918, he pursued medicine and the natural sciences across three German universities—Göttingen, Munich, and Münster—earning his doctorate in philosophy in 1922 and his medical degree from Würzburg the following year. His early research years were spent as an assistant to the noted physiologist Maximilian von Frey and later Paul Hoffmann at Freiburg, culminating in his habilitation in 1927. A turning point came when he began collaborating with the celebrated World War I aviator Robert Ritter von Greim, investigating how extreme altitude affected the human body. In 1928 a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship carried him to the United States, where he spent two years working in laboratories at Harvard, Columbia, the Mayo Clinic, Western Reserve, and the University of Chicago. He returned to Würzburg in 1929 and was elevated to full professorship by March 1933, his reputation already firmly anchored in the emerging discipline of aviation physiology.

Architect of the Reich's Aviation Medicine Program

In 1935 Strughold moved to the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin, where a social connection through Robert Ritter von Greim—then serving as Hitler's personal pilot—brought him into the orbit of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and other senior figures in the Nazi hierarchy. Notably, Strughold never formally joined the Nazi Party. That same April he was named Director of the newly created Research Institute for Aviation Medicine, a think tank operating under Göring's Reich Ministry of Aviation. Under his leadership the institute rapidly became Germany's leading aeromedical laboratory, pushing forward research into the physiological toll of high-altitude and supersonic flight and formalizing the altitude-chamber concept known as time of useful consciousness. From 1936 he also co-edited the journal Luftfahrtmedizin. Although a civilian, Strughold's work was overwhelmingly funded and directed by the Luftwaffe as part of the regime's pre-war rearmament drive. When war broke out in 1939 the institute was folded into the Luftwaffe's Medical Service, rebranded as the Air Force Institute for Aviation Medicine, and placed under Surgeon-General Erich Hippke. Strughold himself received a military commission, eventually attaining the rank of Colonel, and in 1941 was elected to the prestigious Leopoldina academy.

Shadows at Dachau: The Human Experimentation Files

The darkest chapter of Strughold's wartime record involves the horrific experiments conducted at Dachau concentration camp. In the spring and summer of 1942, SS physician Sigmund Rascher, working alongside Luftwaffe aviation scientists Hermann Becker-Freyseng, Siegfried Ruff, and Hans-Wolfgang Romberg, subjected roughly two hundred camp inmates—largely Polish and Soviet prisoners of war—to simulated high-altitude conditions inside a portable pressure chamber. Eighty of those subjects died during the tests, and the survivors were subsequently executed by the SS. Between August 1942 and May 1943, a further three hundred inmates were used in so-called freezing experiments: stripped naked and left outdoors in bitter cold or submerged in ice-cold water for hours, then plunged into scalding or even boiling water to test rewarming methods for downed pilots. In October 1942 Rascher presented his Dachau findings at a medical conference in Nuremberg, an audience that included Strughold and Luftwaffe Surgeon-General Hippke. By early 1944 Strughold had been appointed Aviation Medical Consultant to the new head of the Luftwaffe Medical Service, Generaloberst Oskar Schröder, who in July of that year authorized yet another round of Dachau experiments.

Operation Paperclip and a Legacy in Ruins

In 1947 Strughold was transported to the United States under Operation Paperclip, the covert program that recruited German scientists and engineers to bolster American defense and research capabilities. Over the following decades he occupied a series of senior scientific positions within the United States Air Force and NASA, where his work on the physical and psychological demands placed on astronauts during crewed spaceflight earned him the enduring title Father of Space Medicine. For much of his American career, that title defined how the public and the scientific community remembered him. Yet after his death on September 25, 1986, the narrative began to unravel. Media investigations and renewed scholarly scrutiny brought his wartime activities in Germany back into the light, and the evidence of his connection to Nazi human experimentation—his attendance at Rascher's Nuremberg presentation, his advisory role under Schröder during the final Dachau studies—dealt a devastating blow to the reputation he had carefully built across the Atlantic. The man celebrated as a pioneer of space physiology could no longer be separated from the shadows of the regime he had served.

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