Waffen-SS soldier’s sperm donations prompt search for answers

SVT reports that Walther Frisch, a convinced Nazi and former Waffen-SS soldier, became the sperm donor for 15 people through fertility treatments at Karolinska Hospital in Sweden. The people conceived from his donations are now seeking answers about whether they were part of an ideological racial project.

“Heinrich Himmler said that every SS officer should have at least four children. Are we a result of Nazi ideology?” Swedish donor-conceived person Mats Rydberg asks in a documentary by Danish broadcaster DR.

Frisch, a Dane, had sworn allegiance to Adolf Hitler and joined the Waffen-SS. After the Second World War, he was sentenced to one year in prison for joining Nazi Germany.

Years later, Danish man Thomas Rasmussen learned through a DNA test that he was one of 15 people from four countries conceived through Frisch’s sperm donations at Karolinska. He has since contacted Mats Rydberg and others.

“How the hell can a Danish Waffen-SS soldier be my donor father? It simply doesn’t add up,” Rasmussen says in the documentary.

DR has so far identified 15 people who may have been conceived using Frisch’s sperm. The total number is unknown because it would require further DNA testing.

“Only a few per cent of the population have taken a DNA test, and there are already 15 of us, so there could be well over 100,” Rasmussen says.

Karolinska declined to be interviewed by DR but said in a written statement that the choice of donor was “completely unacceptable and deeply unethical”.