Danish Nazi became donor father to at least 15 children
Monday 10th August 2026 on 07:45 in
Denmark
Danish public broadcaster DR has revealed that Walther Frisch, a committed Nazi and former Waffen SS soldier, became the biological donor father of at least 15 children through fertility treatments at Karolinska Hospital in Sweden during the 1960s.
Thomas Rasmussen is one of 15 people from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Germany who have discovered through DNA testing that Frisch was their donor father.
“How the hell can a Danish Waffen SS soldier be my donor father? It simply does not make sense,” Rasmussen says in DR’s documentary series The mystery of the Danish Nazi donor.
Frisch had sworn allegiance to Adolf Hitler as a Waffen SS soldier. After the Second World War, he was sentenced to one year in prison for joining the Germans.
Rasmussen has been in contact with his Swedish half-brother Mats Rydberg. Both are deeply puzzled that a man in his late 40s with a conviction linked to his Nazi past could become a sperm donor in Sweden.
“Heinrich Himmler said that every SS officer should have at least four children. Are we the result of Nazi ideology?” Rydberg asks.
The number of children may be much higher
It is impossible to know how many children Frisch fathered, as DNA testing is required to identify them. Rasmussen says that because only a small percentage of the population has taken a DNA test and 15 children have already been identified, the total could be well over 100.
No records found in the archives
The donor-conceived people are also questioning how Frisch was selected. Neither Karolinska Hospital nor Sweden’s national and regional archives contain documentation about the sperm donations.
“It cannot be true that there is no documentation. It looks like a deliberate production. It simply does not add up,” Rasmussen says.
Karolinska Hospital has declined to be interviewed about the case. The hospital told DR that it has no information about Frisch and said it would be “completely unacceptable and deeply unethical” if the donor had been selected for ideological reasons.