author, Steven Carlino
The Holocaust will forever be known as a travesty of human kind. Even more sinister than the killings of the Holocaust were the experiments performed by Nazi and SS doctors inside the closed confines of the concentration camps of eastern Europe. The atrocities and experiments of Nazi doctors are one of the most unknown facts of the Holocaust. Nazi medicine became a distinct "program" within the Nazi empire, different from the implementation of the "Final Solution". The majority of experiments performed by Nazi doctors were primarily based on racial ideology. For many of the doctors, it was there job to provide scientific evidence that the Aryan race was physically superior to the other races of the world. Many experiments were performed to gain knowledge of conditions that German soldiers might encounter in the fields of war.
The Hippocratic Oath known to doctors around the world requires adherents to "do no harm" to their patients. Nazi doctors swore an oath to Hitler, as the Fuhrer, and to the Reich. They were required to do what was necessary to "cleanse the Fatherland" or to "search for truth in medicine." There is a common theme that all Nazi doctors were mentally deranged. This is not true, most of the Nazi doctors believed that they were doing the right thing. Nazi doctors as a rule, were not killing by their own authority, but rather they were obeying the laws of Nazi Germany, which could determine the method of death.
The beginning of Nazi medical experiments have their foundation in the euthanasia campaigns of 1938. In Mein Kampf, and other speeches, Hitler spoke of handicapped and mentally ill individuals as racial degenerates. Lists were compiled of handicapped and mentally ill individuals to be killed in one of six German euthanasia institutes. Code-named T4 (Tiergartenstasse 4) the euthanasia campaign perfected murder routines that would later be used in the concentration camps during the war. In less than two years from 1939-1941 this program was responsible for 70,000 murders. Operation of the T-4 program was suspended in 1941 due to negative public opinion. It was Nazi doctors that were responsible for performing the murders. In October 1939, Hitler wrote a brief authorization to the head of the chancellery Philip Bouhler and Professor Karl Brandt, allowing them to widen the powers of selected doctors, who at their discretion grant "incurable" patients a merciful death. The Nazi’s turned conventional value systems upside down. They placed humans at the same level as the animals on which they conducted their medical and biological experiments.
Dr. Josef Mengele is perhaps the most infamous and notorious of the Nazi doctors. In January 1942 Mengele joined the Waffen SS. Along with the SS, Mengele made his way far into Soviet territory. He won an Iron Cross for his valor and bravery, for saving and rescuing German soldiers at the front. After various promotions, Mengele made his way to Auschwitz in May 1943. Mengele was known as a workaholic. While other doctors only did what was required of them, Mengele was always willing to take on additional responsibilities. He flourished in Auschwitz, to the point that many inmates mistakenly believed he was the chief physician. Mengele is perhaps best known for his work with twins.
The "angel of death" as Mengele was known, would wait for new trains to arrive at Auschwitz, so he could pick out sets of twins to perform genetic studies. Mengele was interested in testing twins’ responses in different situations to judge whether or not their reactions were identical. After three weeks of agonizing medical experiments the twins would be killed and dissected organ by organ. Experiments conducted on twins were outlandish. These experiments included forcing twins to stand with their arms lifted for hours so photographs to compare their armpit hair, could be taken. Twins also received enemas so they could later receive lower gastric intestinal examinations. All experiments were performed without anesthesia, during rather painful experiments when the individuals would cry in pain, Dr. Mengele would just order that the victim be gagged.
Many of the most gruesome allegations of the Holocaust are attributed to Mengele’s violent temper and fits of uncontrollable rage. One of the most gruesome allegations to surface after the war is the allegation that Mengele had 300 children burned alive in an open fire. This event was witnessed by many inmates. While there are thousands of gruesome allegations attributed to the actions of Mengele, every one has been seconded my eyewitness testimony.
Most experiments performed by Nazi doctors were conducted on a racially motivated basis. Other experiments included infecting patients with diseases, such as, jaundice, malaria, and typhus. Concentration camp victims were also subjected to more torturous experiments including freezing temperatures, torture at high altitudes and ingesting sea water.
Freezing and hypothermia experiments were conducted at the request of the Nazi high command. Thousands of German soldiers were dying on the Soviet front, due to freezing conditions. Experiments were performed to simulate conditions that German troops would meet during the cold winters of Soviet Russia. At Auschwitz, the experiments were conducted by Dr. Sigmund Rascher, who reported directly to Heinrich Himmler. These experiments were divided into two parts: how long it would take a body to freeze to death and to find out how long it would take to resuscitate a victim. The two main methods of determining how long it takes a body to freeze consisted, first of, placing a naked individual into an icy bath, and second, by strapping a naked individual to a stretcher outside in the cold. It was learned by Nazi doctors that a victim died when the body temperature dropped to 25 degrees Celsius.
Most experiments conducted within concentration camps were based on genetics. Racially motivated science and thinking was not just confined to Germany. This thinking was world wide in scope, but Germany took action to implement these non-scientific ideas. The Nazi party wished to gain propaganda to prove that all other races were inferior. Most genetic experiments turned out to be promotional fraud. The two major sets of experiments were to refine the Aryan race and then to conclude particular defects of the Jews, Gypsies, and others.
By 1942 the Germans were aware of their deteriorating labor force. Many Nazi officials realized that there were millions of well fit Jews who could work in munitions and labor camps. Instead of eradicating all of the Jews, some officials saw the benefits of using Jews for the German war effort. If Jews were used en masse, this meant they would have to be sterilized, so there would not be future Jewish generations. In these horrifying experiments doctors sterilized prisoners using unsafe and unhygienic methods. Seeking to develop inexpensive and fast methods of sterilization, thousands of women were sterilized with uterine injections, x-rays, and chemotherapy. Himmler and other Nazi officials believed the research would be used to sterilize large populations of conquered areas after the war. At Auschwitz the primary aim of medical experiments was to find the fastest way of sterilizing large numbers of Jews. In the following excerpt of June 23, 1942 SS-Oberfuehfrer Brack writes to Heinrich Himmler.
"According to my impression there are at least 2-3 million men and women well fit for work among the approximately 10 million European Jews....the question of labor, I am of the opinion that these 2-3 million should in any case be taken out and kept alive. Of course this can only be done if they are in the same time rendered incapable of reproduction...[c]astration by means of x-ray is not only relatively cheap, but can be carried out on many thousands in a short time."
The best and brightest doctors and academics in Germany were thrown into research work dealing with different Nazi medical experiments, including work with sterilization. In the following letter Professor Clauberg describes his sterilization research to Himmler.
"The method I contrived to achieve the sterilization of the female organism without operation is as good as perfected. It can be performed by a single injection made through the entrance of the uterus in the course of the customary gynecological examination known to every physician."
Many experiments that were performed seem extremely ludicrous. To the Nazi’s these experiments were vital to scientific discover and to enhance the Wehrmact. The following is an excerpt from a letter from SS-Untersturmfuehrer Rascher to Heinrich Himmler. The letter deals with low-pressure experiments conducted at the concentration camp at Dachau.
"There third experiment of this type took such an extraordinary course that I called an SS physician of the camp as a witness, since I had worked on these experiments all by myself. It was a continuous experiment without oxygen at a height of 12km. Conducted on a 37 year old Jew in good general condition. Breathing continued up to 30 minutes. After 4 minutes the experimental subject began to perspire and to wiggle his head, after 5 minutes cramps occurred, between 6 and 10 minutes breathing increased in speed and the experimental subject became unconscious; from 11 to 30 minutes breathing slowed down to three breaths per minute, finally stopping altogether."
Other ridiculous experiments include using sun lamps, internal irrigation, and hot baths. In the sun lamp experiment victims were placed under sun lamps so hot that it would eventually burn the skin. Internal irrigation consisted of entering blistering hot water into the stomach of frozen victims. The hot bath experiment involved placing victims in hot water and slowly increasing the temperature of the water. In almost all cases the experiments ended in death to the victim.
Many of the Nazi doctors were persecuted at the Nuremberg trials, as war criminals after the war. The lawyers at the international tribunal presented documentary evidence against the doctors that proved their facilitation and performance of inhuman medical experiments on prisoners against their will. The Reich-Surgeon of the SS was Joachim Mrugowsky. Mrugowsky was put on trial at Nuremberg and testified in his own defense. In his defense Mrugowsky claimed that the experiments were only being done because Russian troops were using chemical warfare against German soldiers. He claimed that knowing the probable results of chemicals used by the Russians, were vital to the German war effort. On August 20, 1947 Mrugowsky and nine other Nazi doctors were sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials.
The medical experiments performed by Nazi doctors are incomprehensible to many people. How did the perpetrators decide it was just to perform unnecessary and lethal experiments to unwilling victims? As doctors they should have had moral and ethical aspirations to save lives not to end lives. Many of the doctors felt that they were saving lives. There medical research would be used to further German knowledge and save the Aryan citizens of the Reich. Some doctors argued after the war that they had no choice in performing these experiments. They claimed that they were under orders from the state government. Most doctors did not value Jewish, Russian, and Polish lives as they valued German lives. The persecuted victims were put in the same category with animals used for scientific experiments. By uncovering the truth, behind these horrendous medical experiments, we can hope that doctors in the future will always live up to their Hippocratic Oath, "to do no harm."