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Doctors and Patients in Wartime

In a POW Camp with a Leica: Dr Hugo Lill

Medical exam at Stalag VI C Bathorn in Hoogstede. The supervising German doctor is Hugo Lill (2nd from right), flanked by two French doctors in white coats, undated (1940/41). Photographer unknown | <span class=prov>Hugo Lill Collection © LWL Media Centre for Westphalia, Münster</span>
Medical exam at Stalag VI C Bathorn in Hoogstede. The supervising German doctor is Hugo Lill (2nd from right), flanked by two French doctors in white coats, undated (1940/41). Photographer unknown | Hugo Lill Collection © LWL Media Centre for Westphalia, Münster

Hugo Lill (1910–99), a native of Rheine in Westphalia, worked as a POW camp doctor at Stalag VI C Bathorn in Hoogstede from August 1940 to April 1941 before moving to Stalag 326 (VI K) Stukenbrock, both in northwest Germany. In total, more than 300,000 Soviet prisoners of war would be interned at Stalag 326. A great many of them were used as forced labour, be it in mining, industrial plants, workshops, or agriculture. The names of 11,000 deceased prisoners are documented for this camp, but the total number is likely to be many times higher. 

At both camps, Lill used his Leica III portable camera to take a great number of pictures, or had them taken by someone else—mostly using colour slide film. After the war, he ran his own medical practice in Rheine.

Soviet POW, selected for forced labour in the mines, undergoing medical assessment by Hugo Lill (2nd from left) at Stalag 326 Stukenbrock, August 1942. Photographer unknown | <span class=prov>Hugo Lill Collection © LWL Media Centre for Westphalia, Münster</span>
Soviet POW, selected for forced labour in the mines, undergoing medical assessment by Hugo Lill (2nd from left) at Stalag 326 Stukenbrock, August 1942. Photographer unknown | Hugo Lill Collection © LWL Media Centre for Westphalia, Münster
Full-page photo montage on “Nazi workplace health management” printed in <i>Der Schulungsbrief</i>, 6/2 (1939), unpag. (between p. 60 and 61)<span class=prov></span>
Full-page photo montage on “Nazi workplace health management” printed in Der Schulungsbrief, 6/2 (1939), unpag. (between p. 60 and 61)
Collage of photo cut-out and drawing, entitled “When the staff doctor is in flight…” Black-and-white print on Agfa Lupex paper, 12 × 16 cm. The photo shows Dr Joachim Beese, who was stationed in Norway in 1942 as part of the German Luftwaffe’s Reconnaissance Squadron 1.(F)/124. | <span class=prov>Private collection of Ulrich Prehn, 2009</span>
Collage of photo cut-out and drawing, entitled “When the staff doctor is in flight…” Black-and-white print on Agfa Lupex paper, 12 × 16 cm. The photo shows Dr Joachim Beese, who was stationed in Norway in 1942 as part of the German Luftwaffe’s Reconnaissance Squadron 1.(F)/124. | Private collection of Ulrich Prehn, 2009

New Tasks and Positions: Company Doctor, Camp Doctor, Emergency Services

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the medical profession underwent increasing militarization. Doctors’ training focused more and more on military medicine topics. Air-raid emergency services also gave them a new field of work. Ever since the 1939 invasion of Poland and the expansion of German-controlled territory, doctors had been faced with a wide range of new tasks. In the occupied countries, they established a German healthcare system and worked as military doctors, medical examiners, and workplace doctors, or at forced labour camps and POW camps. By working against alleged malingerers and idlers, they helped reduce sick leaves and thus ensure an efficient use of the labour force.

Among Wehrmacht doctors too, there was a wide range of duties: they handled all kinds of war injuries, fought against infectious diseases, carried out military medical research, and conducted physical examinations. Meanwhile, strained hospital capacities led to increasing conflicts with the civilian healthcare system.

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