Nazi Medical Experiments

Throughout history, doctors have produced many great wonders and cured many diseases that at one time were considered deadly but during World War II many German doctors conducted thousands of unconsented medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. The experiments could be split up into three categories. Experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of military personnel, developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military encountered, and the final category was to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview. The article describes a type of experiment that was part of the first section here, “the German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude
experiments, using a low-pressure chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. (UHMM article). Many of the altitude tests were then followed with freezing experiments to figure out a successful treatment for hypothermia. The experiments were conducted just in case any German pilots were forced to crash land into the freezing waters. The experiments had two main goals: to see how long it would take for a body temperature to drop and to see if they could resuscitate a frozen victim. Prisoners were often thrown into ice baths which then followed extreme heating methods such as throwing them into a bath of boiling water. They also would strap them down to a table and leave them outside to die. Scientists also tried out many ways to make seawater potable which resulted in people dying from bacteria and dehydration.
The experimentation in the second category was aimed at testing medicine and treatments for illnesses and injuries which German military encountered.
In the article it says,“in the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis”(Nazi Medical Experiments ushmm). The Ravensbruck camp conducted bone grafting experiments to test the efficiency of the newly developed sulfa (sulfanilamide) drugs. They would inject the victim with bacteria and then inject the medicine to see if it could cure the person. The Natzweiler and Sachsenhausen camp prisoners were subjected to mustard gas and phosgene to figure out and test possible antidotes. The final category of medical experiments was to further Nazi racial goals. The most infamous were the experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. “Mengele conducted medical experiments mostly on twins. He also directed serological experiments on Roma (Gypsies), as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, in order to determine how different "races" withstood various contagious diseases” (Nazi Medical Experiments ushmm). A series of sterilization experiments were primarily tested at Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. Scientists at the two concentrations camps tested many methods in their effort to develop a cheap and
easy way to sterilize Jews,Gypsies, and others. Methods included various drugs, surgery,and forms of x-rays. Radiation quickly became the preferred method which led to serious burns on the victims.
Within the camps, German scientists were also doing twin experiments to show the similarities and differences in the genetics of twins as well as to see if the human body could be manipulated.
The central leader of these experiments was Mengele who performed experiments on nearly 1,500 sets of imprisoned twins in Auschwitz. Twins as young as five would be killed after the experiments and their bodies dissected. They tried many things to try and manipulate people's bodies such as injecting chemicals into the eyes to try and change their color. Mengele also performed sex changes,blood transfusions, injections with lethal germs and removal of organs and limbs on the twins. These men completely reversed the meaning of a doctor from helper and healer to murderer and destroyer. These men showed us just how terrifying medicine can become if it gets into the wrong hands and minds. They brought into reality just what a mad scientist is and just how deranged he can become if given the right
motivation.