Nazi Human Experimentation – World History

Table of Contents

MONSTERS

Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on large numbers of prisoners, including children, by Nazi Germany in its concentration camps in the early to mid 1940s, during World War II and the Holocaust.
Chief target populations included Romani, Sinti, ethnic Poles, Soviet POWs, disabled Germans, and Jews from across Europe.
Typically, the experiments resulted in death, trauma, disfigurement or permanent disability, and as such are considered examples of medical torture. After the war, these crimes were tried at what became known as the Doctors’ Trial.

EXPERIMENTS

Experiments on twins : Experiments on twin children in concentration camps were created to show the similarities and differences in the genetics of twins, as well as to see if the human body can be unnaturally manipulated.
The central leader of the experiments was Josef Mengele, who from 1943 to 1944 performed experiments on nearly 1,500 sets of imprisoned twins at Auschwitz. About 200 people survived these studies.
Often times, one twin would be forced to undergo experimentation, while the other was kept as a control. If the experimentation reached the point of death.

Bone, muscle, and nerve transplantation experiments : From about September 1942 to about December 1943 experiments were conducted at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Armed Forces, to study bone, muscle, and nerve regeneration, and bone transplantation from one person to another.
Sections of bones, muscles, and nerves were removed from the subjects without use of anesthesia. As a result of these operations, many victims suffered intense agony, mutilation, and permanent disability.
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 battle fields.

Freezing experiments :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 some victims suffered more than one experiment.
Another study placed prisoners naked in the open air for several hours with temperatures as low as −6 °C (21 °F). 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.

Malaria experiments : From about February 1942 to about April 1945, experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp in order to investigate immunization for treatment of malaria. Healthy inmates were infected by mosquitoes or by injections of extracts of the mucous glands of female mosquitoes. Over 1,200 people were used in these experiments and more than half died as a result.Other test subjects were left with permanent disabilities.
Immunization experiments : 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.

Epidemic jaundice : From June 1943 till January 1945 at the concentration camps, Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler, experimentation with epidemic jaundice was conducted. The test subjects were injected with the disease in order to discover new inoculations for the condition.
Mustard gas experiments : At various times between September 1939 and April 1945, many experiments were conducted to investigate the most effective treatment of wounds caused by mustard gas. Child victims of Nazi experimentation show incisions where axillary lymph nodes had been surgically removed after they were deliberately infected with tuberculosis.

Sea water experiments : From about July 1944 to about September 1944, experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp to study various methods of making sea water drinkable. These victims were subject to deprivation of all food and only given the filtered sea water.
At one point, a group of roughly 90 Roma were deprived of food and given nothing but sea water. They were so dehydrated that others observed them licking freshly mopped floors in an attempt to get drinkable water.

Sterilization and fertility experiments : The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Defective Progeny was passed on 14 July 1933, which legalized the involuntary sterilization of persons with diseases claimed to be hereditary: weak-mindedness, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, insanity, blindness, deafness, and physical deformities.
The law was used to encourage growth of the Aryan race through the sterilization of persons who fell under the quota of being genetically defective.Within four years, 300,000 patients had been sterilized.
Intravenous injections of solutions speculated to contain iodine and silver nitrate were successful, but had unwanted side effects such as vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and cervical cancer.

Another distinctive feature of both the Porajmos and the Holocaust was the extensive use of human subjects in medical experiments.
The most notorious of these physicians was Dr. Josef Mengele, who worked in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
His experiments included placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change their eye color by injecting chemicals into children’s eyes and various amputations and other brutal surgeries.