"Weleda allegedly supplied cream used on prisoners in Dachau by SS doctor" 10 September 2025

The natural cosmetics company Weleda supplied a skin cream to the Dachau concentration camp that went on to be used for human testing, a historian specialising in Nazi Germany has claimed.

Weleda, founded 104 years ago and known worldwide for its holistic remedies, sourced large quantities of medicinal herbs during the Nazi era from an agricultural plantation overseen by the SS in Dachau, southern Germany, according to a major report by Anne Sudrow commissioned by the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site...

The cream was intended for the use of soldiers on the frontline, but Sigmund Rascher, an SS doctor, used the product on prisoners at Dachau between August 1942 and May 1943, the report alleges. The report claims that hypothermia experiments were carried out on up to 300 prisoners and that between 80 and 90 died as a result of being kept in freezing conditions – baths of water containing blocks of ice – for hours on end...

Swiss-based Weleda... responded to Sudrow’s report this week by promising a “complete clarification” of its history...

During her five-year research project, Sudrow, who has published extensively on issues related to the Nazis, says she found close ties between Weleda and the SS-controlled German Research Institute for Nutrition and Food (DVA) from at least 1941 until the end of the second world war.

It was allegedly in return for herb and other plant products from the DVA that Weleda gave Rascher the cream that it had promoted to the Nazi leadership from 1940 as a product which would be useful for the German military, especially on the eastern front, claiming that its use would make amputations from frostbite unnecessary.

Sudrow says her work also shows close personal connections between Weleda and the SS at Dachau. The SS was home to a strong network of anthroposophists, despite some Nazi officials viewing the movement as an ideological threat to the party...

In a statement published on its German-language site, Weleda said: “As Weleda we condemn the atrocities of the Nazi regime in the strongest possible terms. Fascism, antisemitism, racism, or rightwing extremist ideology have no place in our midst.” It added that as a company it was “committed to transparently reviewing our history”, and said it had “already actively provided several renowned historians with full access to our archives over several years”. It pointed to the 2024 publication on its website of a report into its past which it had commissioned from the Society for Corporate History (GUG) in 2023. In this, the cream delivered to the SS by Weleda is mentioned. However, it says it is unclear whether or not Rascher used it for human experiments or whether it had ever been his intention to do so. It said Lippert’s work at Dachau had “in no way been connected to his earlier work at Weleda”. The statement concluded: “We want a complete clarification of our history. Weleda is a cosmopolitan company operating in 50 countries in the world and we stand for tolerance, diversity and humanity.”

Weleda did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.