20 Facts About Walter Kraemer

Walter Kraemer assisted prisoners with getting medical help, becoming known as the "Doctor of Buchenwald", for which he received from the State of Israel the posthumous title "Righteous among the Nations" in 2000.

Walter Kraemer joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and took part in March 1920 in the fighting in the wake of the Kapp Putsch on the side of the Ruhr Red Army, in which he served as a section commander.

Walter Kraemer worked as district secretary in Krefeld, Wuppertal, Kassel and Hanover.

In May 1932, Walter Kraemer was seriously injured in an attack by Nazi deputy members on the KPD Group.

Walter Kraemer was a member of the German Peace Society.

Walter Kraemer was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for high treason.

Walter Kraemer was held from January 1935 in Hamelyn, Hanover and Hildesheim.

Walter Kraemer was arrested again, and on 15 January 1937, imprisoned at the Lichtenburg concentration camp, and transferred in August 1937 to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Walter Kraemer acquired medical knowledge through self-study on organised patient care and himself led operations by, for example, to ill-treatment by the SS to save the lives of injured inmates or those affected by frozen limbs.

Walter Kraemer was regarded as "a very excellent wound doctor and surgeon".

Walter Kraemer refused to allow Soviet prisoners of war to be released for execution by declaring they had tuberculosis.

In early November 1941, Walter Kraemer was detained, along with his deputy Karl Peix, in the camp lock-up known as "the bunker", then transferred to the satellite camp Goslar.

Walter Kraemer stood for the illegal structures of political prisoners in the camp, which had remained not completely hidden from the SS.

Walter Kraemer knew of the corruption of the camp commandant, Karl-Otto Koch, who had had treatment, in secret, for syphilis.

Walter Kraemer's widow Elisabeth Kraemer, born Lehmann, received from the camp administration an urn containing his ashes, which was buried in November 1941 in Siegen.

Walter Kraemer's death caught the attention of SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Josias, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, who had been successfully treated by Kraemer in the past, leading to the eventual investigation and conviction of Koch for embezzlement and multiple unauthorized murders, including that of Kraemer.

In 1999, Walter Kraemer was posthumously awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial museum Yad Vashem.

In West Germany, Walter Kraemer was largely unknown outside his region of origin, where his biography was controversially received and he remained without honor for a long time.

In November 2014, the Walter Kraemer Square was completed in Siegen District Hospital.

Walter Kraemer recalled the District Administrator Paul Breuer and its active commitment to the designation of the place.