Heinrich Gross

Heinrich Gross (14 November 1915 – 15 December 2005) was an Austrian psychiatrist, medical doctor and neurologist, a reputed expert as a leading court-appointed psychiatrist, ill-famed for his proven involvement in the killing of at least nine children with physical, mental and/or emotional/behavioral characteristics considered "unclean" by the Nazi regime, under its Euthanasia Program. His role in hundreds of other cases of infanticide is unclear. Gross was head of the Spiegelgrund children's psychiatric clinic for two years during World War II.

A significant element of the controversy surrounding Gross' activities is that after the children had been murdered, parts of their bodies, particularly their brains, were preserved and retained for future study for decades after the murders. It was only on 28 April 2002 that the preserved remains of these murdered children were finally buried.

Heinrich Gross was born in Vienna on 14 November 1915. His parents, Karl and Petronella Gross, were in the wool and knitwear business. His father died before Heinrich was born and his mother placed him in a Catholic boarding school for his early education. He graduated from a public high school in 1934 and received a medical degree in 1939 from the University of Vienna.

In 1932 Gross became a member of the Hitler Youth and joined the Sturmabteilung in 1934. He remained a member throughout the period 1934 to 1938 when these organizations were outlawed in Austria. After Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Gross joined the Nazi Party.

Euthanasia was commonly practiced long before the infamous Nazi concentration camps. The euthanasia program was introduced to the German people as an efficient manner to obtain a Master Race for the Nazi people and an economic relief to families. As Nazi popularity grew and the economy still struggling these options were widely accepted by the German people. Am Spiegelgrund was a youth care facility on the grounds of a mental institution. From the years of 1940 to 1945 it was used for mentally handicapped adults or children. During their stay they suffered numerous forms of torture and up to 800 people were murdered there. Heinrich Gross began in pavilion 15 in November 1940. By 1942 he had killed more children than any other doctor in the hospital. He became the leading psychiatrist and began studying the neurology of mentally handicapped children. With the passing of Aktion T4 the killings increased and Dr. Gross began to harvest the brains of his victims for further study. In 1943 the doctor was called for military service returning pretty regularly for research until his capture in 1945.

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