The search is on to find the family of a Cork man whose body was experimented on by Nazis. 

Patrick O’Connell was originally from Castlemartyr, near Youghal, in County Cork but left Ireland to join the British Army. 

After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was sent to France where he was captured and sent to various Prisoner of War camps. 

Following his death, his brain was cut out of his body before he was buried and for years scientists experimented on it. 

Eight decades on, the German National Academy of Sciences hope to find Mr O’Connell’s family. 

Speaking to Moncrieff, the academy’s Project Coordinator Dr Aisling Shalvey said they were “extremely surprised” the brain belonged to an Irish person. 

“Ireland was neutral during World War Two, so it was really not expected that we would ever find anything to do with Ireland,” she said. 

“Actually it was a colleague of mine based in Oxford who saw his name - Patrick O’Connell - and thought straight away there has to be some Irish connection there and he was right.” 

June 1940 - Soldiers from the British Expeditionary Force fire at low flying German Stuka dive bombers.

The academy has since found his service records with the British Army and learned that he had served in C Company, 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers and had been sent to France in October 1939. 

“We know he was captured by the Germans in Arras in 1940,” Dr Shalvey said. 

“Then he was brought to a Prisoner of War camp in June, then he was sent to another camp in July 1940. 

“Then sent to a work camp near Bromberg near Poland where he worked for some time. 

“Then he ended up in Berlin in another camp.” 

Death and experimentation 

Dr Shalvey said the story of his imprisonment was “not straightforward” but his Army records do offer further clues about why he died. 

The records detail that he suffered from tuberculosis as a child - a disease which very often proved fatal. 

“Back in the day it was difficult to be fully cured of tuberculosis,” Dr Shalvey said.

“It seems to be then that once he ended up in these Prisoner of War camps where the conditions were really brutal, he had a flare up of tuberculosis and it seems that that spread to his brain and was the eventual reason why he died.” 

When Mr O’Connell died, his family were informed and they arranged for a headstone to be erected on his grave. 

However, they were not informed that his body had been cut up before burial. 

“We do know that his body was not complete, his brain had been retained for research in a German research institute up until the post-war era,” Dr Shalvey said. 

“So, they were actually still conducting experiments even after the war had ended and the family were none the wiser.” 

It is actually not known where his brain currently is; Mr O’Connell might have been researched on in Berlin to begin with - but it is now thought he might be in Frankfurt. 

“It’s trying to chase up all these possible little research connections,” she said. 

“It’s a long process.” 

Wherever his remains are, the German National Academy of Sciences is keen to get in contact with his family and have asked anyone in Youghal who might have met him to get in touch with him.

Main image: Hitler in the Reichstag. Picture by: Alamy.com