Hans Conrad Julius Reiter was born on February 26, 1881 in Reudnitz near Hessen in Germany. He studied medicine at Leipzig, Wroclaw and received a doctorate from Tübingen on the subject of tuberculosis. After receiving his doctorate, he went on to study at the hygiene institute in Berlin, the Pasteur Institute in Paris and St. Mary's Hospital in London where he worked with Sir Almroth Wright for two years.

First World War

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During the First World War, Hans Reiter worked as a military physician on the Western Front and in the Balkans, where he served in the 1st Hungarian Army. It was here that he first studied and identified the disease Reactive Arthritis, previously known as Reiters Syndrome.

1918 - 1939

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After the war ended, Reiter became chief of the hygiene department at Rostock. Hans Reiter was a political man, and an enthusiatic supporter of the Nazi regime. His career was further boosted when, in 1932, he signed an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. In 1933 he was made department director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Experimental Therapy. In 1936, his meteoric rise continued when he was made director of the health department of Mecklenberg-Schwerin and received an honorary professorship in Berlin. With Johann Breger he wrote a book on racial hygiene - 'Deutsches Gold, Gesundes Leben - Frohes Schaffen' (German Gold, Healthy Life - Glad Work). He was also a strong supporter of Hitler's, at the time medically progressive, anti-smoking campaign. Hans Reiter was a talented teacher who was popular with his students. He also lauded abroad with an honorary membership of the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

Second World War

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As a member of the SS during the Second World War, Hans Reiter designed Typhoid inoculation experiments that killed more than 250 prisoners at concentration camps like Buchenwald. He also took part in enforced sterilizations and euthanasia. After the Nazi's were defeated, he was arrested by the Red Army in Soviet Union occupied Germany and tried at Nuremberg where he was found guilty of his involvement of the deaths of hundreds of inmates at Buchenwald. He was interned at an American prisoner of war camp.

Late Life

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After his release, Reiter went back to work in the field of medicine and research in rheumatology. He died, aged 88, in 1969 at his country estate near Hessen.

Controversy

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In 1977, appalled by his war crimes, a group of doctors began a campaign for the term 'Reiters Syndrome' to be abandoned and renamed 'Reactive Arthritis'. Now, in 2005, this campaign is beginning to pay off and the term 'Reiters Syndrome' is increasingly anachronistic.

1881 births | 1969 deaths | People convicted in the Nuremberg Trials | German physicians

Hans Reiter | Hans Reiter