Nazi Medical Experiment Essay

During World War II many German physicians did deadly and painful experiments on people from the concentration camp. Most of the experiments consisted of Freezing and Hypothermia, Genetics, Infectious Diseases, Interrogation and Torture, Killing and Genocide, High Altitude, Pharmacological, Sterilization, Surgery, and/or Traumatic Injuries (“Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine”). All medical experiments were sorted out into three categories (“NAZI MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS”).

Many brutal atrocities were committed during the Holocaust by the Nazi party against anyone they viewed as “unpure”. This included the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Afro-Germans, Slavs, communists, the handicapped, and the mentally disabled. These groups were targeted, stripped away of their rights and citizenship, and then sent to concentration camps. Some of these camps were death camps; created for the sole purpose to annihilate these groups of people, mainly the Jews. At these camps, the prisoners were tortured, starved, brutally killed, and experimented on. In this research paper, I am going to discuss some of the medical experiments that were

The last very excruciatingly painful experiment was the interrogation and torture experiments. These experiments were supposed to test people’s limits, endurance, and existence. They simulated extremely high altitudes with and without oxygen. Theses experiments were executed in Dachau concentration camp. There were four experiments conducted slow falling with and without oxygen, and falling with and without oxygen.

The chapter on Nazi medical experiments in Chalmers’ book is one of the most fascinating chapters because it examines the different types of techniques that the Nazi’s used to sterilize men and women. Chalmers explains that women were particularly subject to medical experiments because the Nazis were obsessed with destroying inferior races and wanted to perfect the art of sterilization so no more undesirable elements would be born (Ibid 123). However, both men and women were subject to Nazi medical experiments like medical injections, X-Rays, and chemicals, which resulted in burnt skin, abnormalities, and death. Among these experimentations many chemical companies, doctors, and University professors supported the experiments being done on

During the Holocaust, the Nazis carried out many unethical medical experiments on patients without regard for their survival. Prisoners were forced to be subjects in various studies against their will. The Nazis’ victims went through indescribable pain as they were forced through high-altitude, freezing, tuberculosis, sea water, sulfanilamide, poison, and transplant experiments. Through these tragic Holocaust experiments, scientists and doctors discovered treatments used today for high-altitude sickness, hypothermia, contagious diseases, dehydration, poisoning, and war wounds.

"The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it." This is a quote by the Angel of Death himself, a man who brought medical advancements and discoveries to the Nazi society. Throughout the Holocaust there have been many experiments for the better of medicine and the disregard of its patients. These experiments had no regard to the patient's' well being and partly due to the hate of the victims but mainly due to the medical breakthroughs that brought forth. The holocaust in retrospect was very beneficial to the medical and experimental society as a whole.

The ignoble experiments of the nazi regime included exposure to freezing/ hypothermia, tests on the genetics of an individual, exposure to infectious diseases, undergoing of interrogation and torture, most effective and inexpensive methods of killing/ mass genocide, exposure to conditions resembling high altitude, pharmacological tests, sterilization of an individual, the undergoing of different surgeries, and inflicting traumatic injuries on the patent undergoing the experiment. The experiments done by nazis on prisoners were in an effort to find ways to cure burns, hypothermia, infections, and ways to mass exterminate the jews in the most cost efficient way possible.

The Nuremberg Doctor’s trial of 1946 involves human experimentation performed by the Nazi doctors. These physicians were accused of conducting torturous “experiments” with concentration camp inmates. During these studies, physicians conducted treatments that were not permitted and caused severe injuries to the participants, and in some cases, participants died as a result of this. Prisoners were left to freeze to study more on hypothermia. Later, during December 9th, 1946 to August 20th, 1947 representatives establish a Nuremberg trial to prosecuted these doctors for the atrocities that they committed and 23 out 15 were found guilty. As a result, the Nuremberg code was created to

The victim would be placed beneath sun lamps, which were so hot, the skin would burn. They would then freeze and reheat the victim, repeatedly. Another revival technique was irrigation; the victim would have boiling hot water irrigated throughout their bladder, intestines and stomach. All patients died from this technique. They would also submit to high altitude changes. They would be locked in a low-pressure chamber until their lungs would explode. These experiments would help the doctor to determine the limits of the human body.

Many claim that doctors were only advancing science, and others claim the horrid acts that were committed were done because of the hatred towards the Jewish people. Regardless of which fact is inevitably true, both situations caused cruel and inhuman treatment to the Jews, and ultimately led to their deaths at the camps. A civilian doctor named Carl Clauberg was famous for his sterilization experiments. The procedure involved injections to the cervix to destroy the fallopian tubes, and then often the victims were gassed and left for dead (Winik 9). When the Jews arrived on transports, Nazi doctors immediately determined who would be gassed and who would go to a work camp (Winik 8). In Auschwitz, Nazi doctors presided over the murder of most of the one million victims of that camp. “Doctors consulted actively on how best to keep selections running smoothly, on how many people to permit to remain alive to fill the slave labor requirements” … “and on how to burn the enormous numbers of bodies that strained the facilities of the crematoria (Gutman 303). In the book, “Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp,” Yisrael Gutman offers a summary of the events that took place at Auschwitz:

First, they created the Nuremberg Code to set laws of experimentation. For example, it says ,” But the Nuremberg Code - like other codes that would come after it - wasn't law. It was a list of recommendations.” Another example, it says,” Those who did not know about it often thought of it as “ The Nazi Code, “ something that applied to barbarians and dictators, not to American doctors.” These pieces of textual evidence show how the Nuremberg Code was a list of recommendations that only applied to barbarians and dictators but wasn't law in the U.S.

The Holocaust in World War II is one the many cases of genocide. Millions of people were killed, or injured during the war. People were held in places called concentration camps. In the camps, people were dehumanized. They were treated like animals, and hurt. Sometimes they were even put through unethical treatments and medical experiments. Medical experiments are often talked about during times of war, as most of the time they are unethical, and a crime against humanity, as in the case of the experiments during the Holocaust. The medical experiments, and the trials that followed were the first trials for the crimes against humanity. The medical experiments of the Holocaust were a horrendous crime against humanity because they needlessly slaughtered

During the holocaust prisoners of concentration camps were faced with evil, torture and death every day. Some of the prisoners in these camps were selected for Nazi medical experiments. Nazi doctors performed several different human experiments on prisoners throughout the Holocaust. A specifically horrific experiment was the twin experiments. This experiment was performed by Dr. Joseph Mengele and several of his assistants in Auschwitz. He is known for performing some of the most inhumane experiments during the holocaust.

Because of this, some of the doctors wanted to see if they could find a cure for diseases. Many of the doctors truly wanted to find cures that could help the human population as a whole. In that case, they felt it was okay if the prisoners died to help the free people. One of the medical experiments that was performed was by a doctor, Hermann Goering, and some of his colleagues. The experiment was mainly based on how the human body's temperature changes, “The inmates [of concentration camps] were subjected to cruel experiments; victims were immersed in cold water until their body temperature was reduced to. 28° C., when they died immediately.” ( Mellanby This experiment was very cruel and should never have been done on a human being. Statistically, the average human body temperature is 98.6°F or 37.0 °C. These people took the prisoners’ bodies down to 28°C, as stated before, which is a 9° difference. You may say 9° is not that much, but it mattered and it caused these people their lives. Other medical experiments done by the Goering