The table of contents of a document from the
subsequent Nuremberg trials prosecution includes titles of the sections that document medical experiments revolving around food, seawater,
epidemic jaundice,
sulfanilamide, blood
coagulation and
phlegmon. According to the indictments at the subsequent Nuremberg Trials, these experiments included the following:
Blood coagulation experiments Sigmund Rascher experimented with the effects of
Polygal, a substance made from
beet and apple
pectin, which aided blood clotting. He predicted that the preventive use of Polygal tablets would reduce bleeding from surgery or
gunshot wounds sustained during combat. Subjects were given a Polygal tablet, shot through the neck or chest, or had their limbs amputated without anesthesia. Rascher published an article on his experience of using Polygal, without detailing the nature of the human trials, and set up a company staffed by prisoners to manufacture the substance.
Bruno Weber was the head of the Hygienic Institution at
Block 10 in Auschwitz and injected his subjects with blood types that differed from their own. This caused the blood cells to congeal, and the blood was studied. When the Nazis removed blood from someone, they often entered a major artery, causing the subject to die of major blood loss. In these experiments, subjects had their bones, muscles and nerves removed without
anesthesia. As a result of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony, mutilation, and permanent disability. gave a deposition about her time at Ravensbrück concentration camp, describing how she was operated on twice. Both operations involved one of her legs and although she never describes herself as having any knowledge as to what exactly the procedure was, she explained that both times she was in extreme pain and developed a fever post-surgery but was given little to no aftercare. Kamińska describes being told that she had been operated on simply because she was a "young girl and a Polish patriot". She describes how her leg oozed pus for months after the operations. Prisoners were also experimented on by having their
bone marrow injected with bacteria to study the effectiveness of new drugs being developed for use in the battlefields. Those who survived remained permanently disfigured.
Freezing experiments presided over by
Ernst Holzlöhner (left) and
Sigmund Rascher (right). The subject is wearing an experimental
Luftwaffe garment.In 1941, the
Luftwaffe conducted experiments with the intent of discovering means to prevent and treat
hypothermia. There were 360 to 400 experiments and 280 to 300 victims, indicating that some victims suffered more than one experiment. "One assistant later testified that some victims were thrown into boiling water for rewarming." Beginning in August 1942, at the Dachau camp, prisoners were forced to sit in tanks of freezing water for up to three hours. After subjects were frozen, they then underwent different methods for rewarming. Many subjects died in this process. Others were also forced to stand naked outside in below freezing temperatures, with many screaming in pain as their bodies froze. In a letter from 10 September 1942, Rascher describes an experiment on intense cooling performed in Dachau where people were dressed in fighter pilot uniforms and submerged in freezing water. Rascher had some of the victims completely underwater and others only submerged up to the head. The
freezing and hypothermia experiments were conducted for the Nazi high command to simulate the conditions the armies suffered on the
Eastern Front, as the German forces were ill-prepared for the cold weather they encountered. Many experiments were conducted on captured Soviet troops; the Nazis wondered whether their genetics gave them superior resistance to cold. The principal locales were
Dachau and
Auschwitz.
Sigmund Rascher, an
SS doctor based at Dachau, reported directly to
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and publicised the results of his freezing experiments at the 1942 medical conference entitled "Medical Problems Arising from Sea and Winter". Himmler suggested that the victims could be warmed by forcing them to engage in sexual contact with other victims. An example included how a hypothermic victim was placed between two naked Romani women.
High altitude experiments by Luftwaffe doctor
Sigmund Rascher, 1942. In early 1942, prisoners at Dachau concentration camp were used by
Sigmund Rascher in experiments to aid German pilots who had to
eject at high altitudes. A
low-pressure chamber containing these prisoners was used to simulate conditions at altitudes of up to . It was rumored that Rascher performed
vivisections on the brains of victims who survived the initial experiment. Of the 200 subjects, 80 died outright, and the others were murdered. In a letter from Himmler to Rascher on 13 April 1942, Himmler ordered Rascher to continue the high altitude experiments and to continue experimenting on prisoners condemned to death. He also ordered specific tests to "determine whether these men could be recalled to life". If someone condemned to death was successfully resuscitated, Himmler stated he should be "pardoned to concentration camp for life".
Sterilization and fertility experiments From about March 1941 to about January 1945,
sterilization experiments were conducted at Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and other places. One prominent scientist in this domain was
Carl Clauberg, who initially X-rayed women to make sure that there was no obstruction to their ovaries. Over the next three to five sessions, he injected caustic substances into their uteruses without
anesthetics. Many died, others suffered permanent injuries and infections, and about 700 were successfully sterilized. The women who stood against him and his experiments or were deemed as unfit test subjects were sent to the gas chambers. Intravenous injections of solutions speculated to contain
iodine and
silver nitrate were similarly successful but had unwanted side effects such as vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and cervical cancer. Those who developed cancer were
vivisected, with their cervixes and wombs removed. Therefore,
radiation treatment became the favored choice of sterilization. Specific amounts of exposure to radiation destroyed a person's ability to produce ova or sperm, sometimes administered through deception. Many suffered severe
radiation burns. The Nazis also implemented X-ray radiation treatment in their search for mass sterilization. They gave the women abdomen X-rays, men received them on their genitalia, for abnormal periods of time in attempt to invoke infertility. After the experiment was complete, they surgically removed their reproductive organs, without anesthesia, for lab analysis. Allegedly, some of the women were raped after they were told the date when they would be killed so that Stieve could study the path of sperm through their reproductive system. However, this has been called into question, as there is no evidence that Stieve ever studied sperm migration, a subject not mentioned in his papers.
Twin research In 1944 doctor
Josef Mengele, who was trained in genetics and anthropology, conducted a large twin study at Auschwitz. According to
Paul Weindling, records show that 582 twins were gathered by Mengele for research purposes. Mengele's interest in twins has been a subject of speculation, with some suggesting he was trying to increase the German birthrate. However, Marwell argues his interest was rooted in the established tradition of
twin studies used to assess heritability of traits. Comparative twin studies were used throughout Nazi Germany for genetic research, and were conducted by Mengele's academic mentor
Otmar van Verschuer in the German population. Mengele also commented that he was researching formation of the human body. Weindling states that a number of "reproductive, surgical and pharmacological experiments" have been misattributed to Mengele, but were actually conducted by other doctors. Wounds inflicted on the subjects were infected with
bacteria such as
Streptococcus,
Clostridium perfringens (a major causative agent in
gas gangrene) and
Clostridium tetani, the causative agent in
tetanus. Circulation of blood was interrupted by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a condition similar to that of a battlefield wound. Researchers also aggravated the subjects' infection by forcing wood shavings and ground glass into their wounds. The infection was treated with sulfonamide and other drugs to determine their effectiveness.
Experiments on homosexuals The Danish endocrinologist
Carl Vaernet developed an artificial male sex gland, a capsule that slowly released testosterone when implanted under the skin. In 1944, Vaernet proposed to deputy Reich SS Physician
Ernst-Robert Grawitz that the capsule could convert homosexual men into heterosexuals. At Buchenwald concentration camp, with encouragement of Heinrich Himmler and the support of camp doctor , Vaernet implanted capsules in at least ten homosexual prisoners. According to notes written by the senior doctor at Buchenwald dated 3 January 1945, at least one man died during the experiment in December 1944 "of heart failure associated with infectious enteritis and general bodily weakness". The hypothesis that circulating hormones determined or cured homosexuality was discredited by later scientific research, and hormonal exposure prior to birth became a far more influential hypothesis. At one point, a group of roughly 90
Roma were deprived of food and given nothing but seawater to drink by
Hans Eppinger, leaving them gravely injured. A Holocaust survivor named Joseph Tschofenig wrote a statement on these seawater experiments at Dachau. Tschofenig explained how while working at the medical experimentation stations he gained insight into some of the experiments that were performed on prisoners, namely those in which they were forced to drink salt water. Tschofenig also described how victims of the experiments had trouble eating and would desperately seek out any source of water, including old floor rags. Tschofenig was responsible for using the X-ray machine in the infirmary and describes how, even though he had insight into what was going on, he was powerless to stop it. He gives the example of a patient in the infirmary who was sent to the gas chambers by Sigmund Rascher simply because he witnessed one of the
low-pressure experiments.
Other experiments had been surgically removed after they were deliberately infected with
tuberculosis at
Neuengamme concentration camp. They were later murdered. In mid-1942 in
Baranowicze, occupied Poland, head injury experiments were conducted in a small building behind the private home occupied by a known Nazi
SD Security Service officer, in which "a young boy of eleven or twelve [was] strapped to a chair so he could not move. Above him was a mechanized hammer that every few seconds came down upon his head." The boy was driven insane from the torture. Inmates were also subjected to various diseases which were given in the form of injections. At the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and serums for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis. From about February 1942 to about April 1945, malaria experiments were performed on over 1,200 inmates in Dachau concentration camp. Healthy inmates had their hands and arms confined in cages filled with
malaria mosquitoes. Upon contracting the disease, they were treated with synthetic drugs, at doses ranging from high to lethal. Other inmates were left with permanent disabilities. In an affidavit, presented at the
Doctors' Trial,
Oswald Pohl called the Dachau malaria experiment's the "largest experiment" and reported it as the cause for his protest to
Heinrich Himmler against such experiments because "
Schilling continually asked for prisoners." From June 1943 until January 1945 at the concentration camps, Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler, experimentation with 'epidemic jaundice' (i.e.
viral hepatitis) was conducted. Test subjects were injected with the disease in order to discover new inoculations for the condition. These tests were conducted for the benefit of the German Armed Forces. Most died in the experiments, whilst others survived, experiencing great pain and suffering. Somewhere between December 1943 and October 1944, experiments were conducted at
Buchenwald to investigate the effect of various poisons. The poisons were secretly administered to experimental subjects in their food. The victims died as a result of the poison or were killed immediately in order to permit
autopsies. In September 1944, experimental subjects were shot with poisonous bullets, suffered torture, and often died. From around November 1943 to around January 1944, experiments were conducted at Buchenwald to test the effect of various pharmaceutical preparations on
phosphorus burns. These burns were inflicted on prisoners using phosphorus material extracted from
incendiary bombs. Some female prisoners of
Block 10 were also subject to electroshock therapy. These women were often sick and underwent this experimentation before being sent to the gas chambers and killed. ==Aftermath==