Nazi medicine: inhuman experiments on humans. Auschwitz concentration camp: experiments on women

Josef Mengele was born on March 6, 1911, a German doctor who conducted medical experiments on prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Mengele personally engaged in the selection of prisoners arriving at the camp, conducted criminal experiments on prisoners, including men, children and women. Tens of thousands of people became its victims.

Horrible experiments of Dr. Mengele - Nazi "Dr. Death"

"Death Factory" Auschwitz (Auschwitz) more and more overgrown with terrible glory. If in the rest of the concentration camps there was at least some hope of surviving, then most of the Jews, Gypsies and Slavs staying in Auschwitz were destined to die either in gas chambers, or from overwork and serious illnesses, or from the experiments of a sinister doctor who was one of the first persons meeting new arrivals at the train.

Auschwitz was known as a place where experiments were carried out on people.

Participation in the selection was one of his favorite "entertainments". He always came to the train, even when it was not required of him. Looking perfect, smiling, happy, he decided who would die now and who would go for experiments. It was difficult to deceive his keen eyes: Mengele always accurately saw the age and state of health of people. Many women, children under 15, and the elderly were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Only 30 percent of the prisoners managed to avoid this fate and postpone the date of their death for a while.

Dr. Mengele has always accurately seen the age and health of people

Josef Mengele craved power over human destinies. It is not surprising that Auschwitz became a real paradise for the Angel of Death, who was able to exterminate hundreds of thousands of defenseless people at a time, which he demonstrated in the very first days of work in a new place, when he ordered the destruction of 200,000 gypsies.

The chief physician of Birkenau (one of the inner camps of Auschwitz) and the head of the research laboratory, Dr. Josef Mengele.

“On the night of July 31, 1944, there was a terrible scene of the destruction of the gypsy camp. Kneeling before Mengele and Boger, women and children begged for mercy. But it did not help. They were brutally beaten and forced into trucks. It was a terrible, nightmarish sight, ”surviving eyewitnesses say.

Human life meant nothing to the Angel of Death. Mengele was cruel and merciless. Is there a typhus epidemic in the barracks? So we send the whole barrack to the gas chambers. This is the best way to stop the disease.

Josef Mengele chose who to live and who to die, who to sterilize, who to operate

All the experiments of the Angel of Death boiled down to two main tasks: to find an effective way that could influence the reduction in the birth rate of races objectionable to the Nazis, and by all means to increase the birth rate of the Aryans.

Mengele also had his associates and followers. One of them was Irma Grese, a sadist who works as a warden in the women's block. She enjoyed tormenting the prisoners, she could take the lives of prisoners only because she was in a bad mood.

The head of the labor service of the women's unit of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Irma Grese, and his commandant, SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Josef Kramer, under British escort in the courtyard of the celle prison, Germany.

Josef Mengele had followers. For example, Irma Grese, who can take the lives of prisoners because of a bad mood

Josef Mengele's first task to reduce the birth rate was to develop the most effective method of sterilization for men and women. So he operated on boys and men without anesthesia and exposed women to x-rays.

To reduce the birth rate of Jews, Slavs and Gypsies, Mengele proposed the development of an effective method for sterilizing men and women.

1945 Poland. Auschwitz concentration camp. Children, prisoners of the camp, are waiting for their release.

Eugenics, if we turn to encyclopedias, is the doctrine of human selection, that is, the science that seeks to improve the properties of heredity. Scientists making discoveries in eugenics argue that the human gene pool is degenerating and this must be fought.

Josef Mengele believed that in order to breed a pure race, it is necessary to understand the reasons for the appearance of people with genetic "anomalies"

Josef Mengele, as a representative of eugenics, faced an important task: in order to breed a pure race, one must understand the reasons for the appearance of people with genetic "anomalies". That is why the Angel of Death was of great interest to dwarfs, giants and other people with genetic abnormalities.

Seven brothers and sisters, originally from the Romanian town of Roswell, lived in the labor camp for almost a year.

When it came to experiments, people had their teeth and hair pulled out, extracts of cerebrospinal fluid were taken, unbearably hot and unbearably cold substances were poured into their ears, and terrible gynecological experiments were performed.

“The most terrible experiments of all were gynecological. Only those of us who were married passed through them. We were tied to a table, and systematic torture began. They introduced some objects into the uterus, pumped out blood from there, opened up the insides, pierced us with something and took pieces of samples. The pain was unbearable."

The results of the experiments were sent to Germany. Many learned minds came to Auschwitz to listen to Josef Mengele's lectures on eugenics and experiments on midgets.

Many learned minds came to Auschwitz to listen to reports by Josef Mengele

"Twins!" - this cry was carried over the crowd of prisoners, when the next twins or triplets timidly clinging to each other were suddenly discovered. They were kept alive, taken to a separate hut, where the children were well fed and even given toys. A cute smiling doctor with a steely look often came to them: treated them with sweets, drove around the camp in a car. However, Mengele did all this not out of sympathy and not out of love for the children, but only with the cold expectation that they would not be afraid of his appearance when the time came for the next twins to go to the operating table. "My guinea pigs" called the twin children the merciless Doctor Death.

Interest in twins was not accidental. Mengele was worried about the main idea: if every German woman instead of one child immediately gives birth to two or three healthy ones, the Aryan race can finally be reborn. That is why it was very important for the Angel of Death to study to the smallest detail all the structural features of identical twins. He hoped to understand how to artificially increase the birth rate of twins.

In experiments on twins, 1500 pairs of twins were involved, of which only 200 survived.

The first part of the twin experiments was harmless enough. The doctor had to carefully examine each pair of twins and compare all their body parts. Centimeter by centimeter measured arms, legs, fingers, hands, ears and noses.

All measurements Angel of Death scrupulously recorded in the table. Everything is as it should be: on the shelves, neatly, accurately. As soon as the measurements were over, the experiments on the twins moved into another phase. It was very important to check the body's reactions to certain stimuli. For this, one of the twins was taken: he was injected with some dangerous virus, and the doctor observed: what will happen next? All results were again recorded and compared with the results of the other twin. If a child became very ill and was on the verge of death, then he was no longer interesting: he, while still alive, was either opened or sent to the gas chamber.

Josef Mengel in his experiments on twins involved 1500 pairs, of which only 200 survived

The twins received blood transfusions, transplanted internal organs (often from a pair of other twins), injected coloring segments into the eyes (to test whether brown Jewish eyes could become blue Aryan). Many experiments were carried out without anesthesia. Children screamed, begged for mercy, but nothing could stop Mengele.

The idea is primary, the life of "little people" is secondary. Dr. Mengele dreamed of turning the world (in particular, the world of genetics) with his discoveries.

So the Angel of Death decided to create Siamese twins by sewing gypsy twins together. The children suffered terrible torment, blood poisoning began.

Josef Mengele with a colleague at the Institute of Anthropology, Human Genetics and Eugenics. Kaiser Wilhelm. Late 1930s.

Doing terrible deeds and conducting inhuman experiments on people, Josef Mengele everywhere hides behind science and his idea. At the same time, many of his experiments were not only inhumane, but also meaningless, not carrying any discovery to science. Experiments for the sake of experiments, torture, pain.

The families of Ovits and Shlomovits and 168 twins waited for the long-awaited freedom. The children ran to meet their rescuers, crying and hugging. Is the nightmare over? No, he will now haunt the survivors for life. When they feel bad or when they are sick, the ominous shadow of the insane Doctor Death and the horrors of Auschwitz will again appear to them. It was as if time had turned back and they were back in their 10 barracks.

Auschwitz, children in a camp liberated by the Red Army, 1945.

The Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many have lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will consider the concentration camps of the Nazis and the atrocities that took place on their territories.

What is a concentration camp?

Concentration camp or concentration camp - a special place intended for the detention of persons of the following categories:

• political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
• prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).

The concentration camps of the Nazis were notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Contained there, mostly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system.

Life in the camp

Humiliation and bullying for the prisoners began already from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water and a fenced-off latrine. The natural need of the prisoners had to celebrate publicly, in a tank, standing in the middle of the car.

But this was only the beginning, a lot of bullying and torment was being prepared for the Nazi concentration camps objectionable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.

The conditions of detention can be judged from the letters of the prisoners: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry ... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured ...”, “Shooted, flogged, poisoned with dogs, drowned in water, beaten with sticks, starved. Infected with tuberculosis ... strangled by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. Burned ... ".

The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was later used in the German textile industry. Doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, from whose hand thousands of people died. He investigated the mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they transplanted organs from each other, transfused blood, sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. He did sex reassignment surgery.

All fascist concentration camps became famous for such bullying, we will consider the names and conditions of detention in the main ones below.

Camp ration

Usually the daily ration in the camp was as follows:

• bread - 130 gr;
• fat - 20 gr;
• meat - 30 gr;
• cereals - 120 gr;
• sugar - 27 gr.

Bread was handed out, and the rest of the food was used for cooking, which consisted of soup (given out 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150-200 gr). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for workers. Those who for some reason remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a serving of bread.

List of concentration camps in different countries

Nazi concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. The list of them is long, but we will name the main ones:

• On the territory of Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
• Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
• France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
• Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
• Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
• Czechoslovakia - Kunta-gora, Natra, Glinsko;
• Estonia - Pirkul, Parnu, Klooga;
• Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
• Latvia - Salaspils.

And this is not a complete list of all the concentration camps that were built by Nazi Germany in the pre-war and war years.

Salaspils

Salaspils, one might say, is the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because, in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept there. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and functioned from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).

Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and massacred, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.

Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were herded into gas chambers and then their corpses were burned. It was sent to medical research, during which more than 100,000 people died. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. The torture of children here was a routine affair that proceeded according to a schedule with meticulous records of the results.

Experiments on children

The testimonies of witnesses and the results of investigations revealed the following methods of extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beatings, starvation, arsenic poisoning, injection of dangerous substances (most often for children), performing surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (only for children), executions, torture, useless severe labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity has seen in the New Age. Such an attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.

Children did not stay long with their mothers, usually they were quickly taken away and distributed. So, children under the age of six were in a special barracks, where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died in 3-4 days. In this way, the Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year. The bodies of the dead were partly burned, and partly buried in the camp.

The following figures were given in the Act of the Nuremberg trials “on the extermination of children”: during the excavation of only a fifth of the territory of the concentration camp, 633 children's bodies aged 5 to 9 years were found, arranged in layers; a platform soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children's bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.

Salaspils is truly the most terrible concentration camp of the Nazis, because the atrocities described above are far from all the torments to which the prisoners were subjected. So, in winter, the children brought in barefoot and naked were driven to the barracks for half a kilometer, where they had to wash in ice water. After that, the children were driven to the next building in the same way, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. At the same time, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. All who survived after this procedure were also subjected to arsenic etching.

Infants were kept separately, they were given injections, from which the child died in agony in a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children per day died from the experiments. The bodies of the dead were taken out in large baskets and burned, thrown into cesspools or buried near the camp.

Ravensbrück

If we start listing the women's concentration camps of the Nazis, then Ravensbrück will be in the first place. It was the only camp of this type in Germany. It held thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were kept, Jews accounted for about 15 percent. There were no written instructions regarding torture and torture; the overseers chose the line of conduct themselves.

Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Also, the clothes indicated racial affiliation. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in the post-war years, 2-3 refugee families lived in them) about three hundred prisoners were kept, who were placed on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were driven into these cells, who had to sleep seven of them on the same bunk. There were several toilets and a washbasin in the barracks, but there were so few of them that the floors were littered with excrement after a few days. Such a picture was presented by almost all Nazi concentration camps (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).

But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and hardy, fit for work, were left, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.

Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared already at the end of the war. The ashes from the crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.

Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barracks called the "infirmary", German scientists tested new drugs, first infecting or crippling the test subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered for the rest of their lives from what they suffered. Experiments were also conducted with the irradiation of women with X-rays, from which hair fell out, skin was pigmented, and death occurred. Genital organs were excised, after which few survived, and even those quickly grew old, and at 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out by all concentration camps of the Nazis, the torture of women and children is the main crime of Nazi Germany against humanity.

At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there, the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks for the settlement of refugees. Later, Ravensbrück turned into a stationing point for Soviet military units.

Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald

The construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, who became the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the "hellish" concentration camp.

The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately outside the gates began "Appelplat" (parade ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite the office was located, where the camp leader and the officer on duty lived - the camp authorities. Deeper were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were arranged in the rest.

The Nazi concentration camps left behind a terrible memory, their names still cause fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. The crematorium was considered the most terrible place. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot, and the body was sent to the oven.

Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number in German, which they had to learn in the first day. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.

Continuing to describe the concentration camps of the Nazis, let us turn to the so-called "small camp" of Buchenwald.

Small Camp Buchenwald

The "Small Camp" was the quarantine zone. Living conditions here were, even in comparison with the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when the German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiègne camp were brought to this camp, mostly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were placed in tents. The closer 1945 was, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the "small camp" included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in the concentration camps of the Nazis was not only specially planned or for scientific purposes, the very life in such a place was torture. 750 people lived in the barracks, their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread, the unemployed were no longer supposed to.

Relations among the prisoners were tough, cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. It was a common practice to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The clothes of the deceased were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions, infectious diseases were common in the camp. Vaccinations only exacerbated the situation, as injection syringes were not changed.

The photo is simply not able to convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. Witness accounts are not for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to take a step forward - there were not so many experimental people in any country in the world. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, those inhuman sufferings that these innocent people endured.

Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated and organs were cut out, sterilized, castrated. They tested how long a person is able to withstand extreme cold or heat. Specially infected with diseases, introduced experimental drugs. So, in Buchenwald, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed. In addition to typhoid, the prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.

Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the "Buchenwald witch" for her love of sadism and inhuman abuse of prisoners. She was more feared than her husband (Karl Koch) and the Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshade". The woman owes this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of the killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.

The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945 by the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and ran the camp for two days until the American soldiers approached.

Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)

Listing the concentration camps of the Nazis, Auschwitz cannot be ignored. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead have not yet been clarified. Most of the victims were Jewish prisoners of war, who were destroyed immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers.

The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name has become a household name. Above the camp gates were engraved the following words: "Work sets you free."

This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:

• Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
• Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called the death camp;
• Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.

Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived in the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. So, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. Gas "Cyclone B" was used. For the first time, the terrible invention was tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners with a total number of about nine hundred people.

Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments began on women and men for sterilization and castration.

Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners were kept working in factories and mines. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. About ten thousand prisoners were kept here.

Like any Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with the outside world were forbidden, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.

On the territory of Auschwitz, five crematoria were continuously operating, which, according to experts, had a monthly output of approximately 270,000 corpses.

On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated by Soviet troops. By that time, about seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year before that, mass murders in gas chambers (gas chambers) began in the concentration camp.

Since 1947, a museum and a memorial complex dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi Germany began to function on the territory of the former concentration camp.

Conclusion

For the entire duration of the war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. They were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It's hard to imagine what these people went through. But not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps was destined to be demolished by them. Thanks to Stalin, after their release, when they returned home, they received the stigma of "traitors". At home, the Gulag was waiting for them, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity was replaced by another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.

Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after their release was not advertised and hushed up. But the people who survived this simply should not be forgotten.

Next, we invite you, in the company of one blogger, to go on a terrible tour of the Nazi death camp Stutthof in Poland, where German doctors conducted their terrible experiments on people during the Second World War.

The most eminent German doctors worked in these operating rooms and X-ray rooms: Prof. Karl Klauberg, Dr. Karl Gebhard, Sigmund Rascher and Kurt Plötner. What brought these luminaries of science to the tiny village of Sztutowo in eastern Poland, near Gdansk? Here are heavenly places: picturesque white beaches of the Baltic, pine forests, rivers and canals, medieval castles and ancient cities. But the doctors didn't come here to save lives. They came to this quiet and peaceful place in order to do evil, cruelly mocking thousands of people and conducting savage anatomical experiments on them. No one came out alive from the hands of professors of gynecology and virology ...

The Stutthof concentration camp was created 35 km east of Gdansk in 1939, immediately after the Nazi occupation of Poland. A couple of kilometers from the small village of Shtutovo suddenly began active construction of watchtowers, wooden barracks and stone guard barracks. During the war years, about 110 thousand people ended up in this camp, of which about 65 thousand died. This is a relatively small camp (compared to Auschwitz and Treblinka), but it was here that experiments were carried out on people, and in addition, Dr. Rudol Spanner produced soap from human bodies in 1940-1944, trying to put things on an industrial footing.

From most of the barracks, only the foundations remained.

But part of the camp has been preserved and you can fully feel the tin for what it is.

Initially, the regime of the camp was such that the prisoners were occasionally even allowed to meet with relatives. In these rooms. But very quickly, this practice was stopped and the Nazis came to grips with the destruction of prisoners, for which, in fact, such places were created.

Comments are superfluous.

It is generally accepted that the most terrible thing in such places is the crematorium. I do not agree. Dead bodies were burned there. Much worse is what the sadists did to people who were still alive. Let's take a walk to the "hospital" and see this place where the luminaries of German medicine saved the unfortunate prisoners. I said this sarcastically about "rescued". Usually relatively healthy people got to the hospital. Doctors didn't want real patients. Here people were washed.

Here the unfortunate relieved themselves. Notice what the service is - there are even toilets. In barracks, toilets are just holes in the concrete floor. In a healthy body healthy mind. Fresh "sick" were prepared for medical experiments.

Here, in these offices, at different times in 1939-1944, the luminaries of German science worked hard. Dr. Klauberg enthusiastically experimented with the sterilization of women, this topic has fascinated him throughout his adult life. The experiments were carried out with the help of x-rays, surgery and various drugs. During the experiments, thousands of women were sterilized, mostly Poles, Jews and Belarusians.

Here they studied the effect of mustard gas on the body and looked for ways to cure it. For this purpose, the prisoners were first placed in gas chambers and gas was launched into it. And then they brought them here and tried to treat them.

Carl Wernet worked here for a short period of time, devoting himself to finding a way to cure homosexuality. Experiments on gays began late, in 1944, and were not brought to any obvious result. Detailed documentation has been preserved of his operations, as a result of which a capsule with a "male hormone" was sewn into the inguinal region of homosexual prisoners of the camp, which was supposed to make them heterosexuals. They write that hundreds of ordinary male prisoners, in the hope of surviving, pretended to be homosexuals. After all, the doctor promised that the prisoners cured of homosexuality would be set free. As you understand, no one escaped alive from the hands of Dr. Vernet. The experiments were not completed, and the test subjects ended their lives in the gas chamber in the same place, next door.

While the experiments were being carried out, the subjects lived in more acceptable conditions than other prisoners.

However, the close proximity to the crematorium and the gas chamber, as it were, hinted that there would be no salvation.

A sad and depressing sight.

Ashes of prisoners.

The gas chamber, where at first they experimented with mustard gas, and since 1942 they switched to Zyklon-B for the consistent destruction of concentration camp prisoners. Thousands died in this little house across from the crematorium. The bodies of those who died from the gas were immediately dumped in the crematorium furnace.

There is a museum at the camp, but almost everything there is in Polish.

Nazi literature in the museum at the concentration camp.

Plan of the camp on the eve of its evacuation.

Road to nowhere...

The fate of the fascist fanatic doctors developed in different ways:

The main monster, Josef Mengele fled to South America and lived in Sao Paulo until his death in 1979. In the neighborhood of him, sadistic gynecologist Karl Vernet, who died in 1965 in Uruguay, quietly lived his life. Kurt Pletner lived to a ripe old age, managed to get a professorship in 1954, and died in 1984 in Germany as an honorary veteran of medicine.

Dr. Rascher was himself sent by the Nazis in 1945 to the Dachau concentration camp on suspicion of treason to the Reich, and his further fate is unknown. Only one of the monster doctors suffered a well-deserved punishment - Karl Gebhard, who was sentenced to death by the Nuremberg court and was hanged on June 2, 1948.

We can all agree that the Nazis did terrible things during World War II. The Holocaust was perhaps their most famous crime. But in the concentration camps, terrible and inhuman things happened that most people did not know about. Camp inmates were used as test subjects in many experiments that were very painful and usually resulted in death.

blood clotting experiments

Dr. Sigmund Rascher performed blood clotting experiments on prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. He created a drug, Polygal, which included beets and apple pectin. He believed that these pills could help stop bleeding from battle wounds or during surgical operations.
Each subject was given a tablet of the drug and shot in the neck or chest to test its effectiveness. The limbs were then amputated without anesthesia. Dr. Rascher created a company to produce these pills, which also employed prisoners.

Experiments with sulfa drugs

In the Ravensbrück concentration camp, the effectiveness of sulfonamides (or sulfanilamide preparations) was tested on prisoners. Subjects were given incisions on the outside of their calves. The doctors then rubbed the mixture of bacteria into the open wounds and stitched them up. To simulate combat situations, glass fragments were also brought into the wounds.
However, this method turned out to be too mild compared to the conditions at the fronts. To simulate gunshot wounds, blood vessels were tied off on both sides to cut off blood circulation. Then the prisoners were given sulfa drugs. Despite the advances made in the scientific and pharmaceutical fields through these experiments, the prisoners experienced terrible pain that led to severe injury or even death.

Freezing and Hypothermia Experiments

The German armies were ill-prepared for the cold that they faced on the Eastern Front and from which thousands of soldiers died. As a result, Dr. Sigmund Rascher conducted experiments in Birkenau, Auschwitz and Dachau to find out two things: the time required for the body temperature to drop and death, and methods for reviving frozen people.
Naked prisoners were either placed in a barrel of ice water, or driven out into the street in sub-zero temperatures. Most of the victims died. Those who only fainted were subjected to painful resuscitation procedures. To revive the subjects, they were placed under lamps of sunlight, which burned their skin, forced to copulate with women, injected with boiling water or placed in baths of warm water (which turned out to be the most effective method).

Experiments with firebombs

For three months in 1943 and 1944, Buchenwald prisoners were tested for the effectiveness of pharmaceutical preparations against phosphorus burns caused by incendiary bombs. The test subjects were specially burned with a phosphorus composition from these bombs, which was a very painful procedure. Prisoners were seriously injured during these experiments.

sea ​​water experiments

Experiments were conducted on Dachau prisoners to find ways to turn sea water into drinking water. The subjects were divided into four groups, whose members went without water, drank sea water, drank sea water treated according to the Burke method, and drank sea water without salt.
Subjects were given the food and drink assigned to their group. Prisoners who received some form of seawater eventually suffered from severe diarrhea, convulsions, hallucinations, went insane, and eventually died.
In addition, the subjects were subjected to needle biopsy of the liver or lumbar punctures to collect data. These procedures were painful and in most cases ended in death.

Experiments with poisons

In Buchenwald, experiments were carried out on the effects of poisons on people. In 1943, poisons were secretly administered to prisoners.
Some died themselves from poisoned food. Others were killed for the sake of an autopsy. A year later, poisoned bullets were fired at the prisoners to speed up data collection. These test subjects experienced terrible torment.

Experiments with sterilization

As part of the extermination of all non-Aryans, Nazi doctors conducted mass sterilization experiments on prisoners from various concentration camps in search of the least laborious and cheapest method of sterilization.
In one series of experiments, a chemical irritant was injected into the reproductive organs of women to block the fallopian tubes. Some women have died after this procedure. Other women were killed for autopsies.
In a number of other experiments, prisoners were subjected to intense X-ray radiation, which led to severe burns on the abdomen, groin and buttocks. They were also left with incurable ulcers. Some test subjects died.

Bone, muscle and nerve regeneration and bone grafting experiments

For about a year, experiments were carried out on the prisoners of Ravensbrück to regenerate bones, muscles and nerves. Nerve surgeries included the removal of segments of nerves from the lower limbs.
Bone experiments included breaking and repositioning bones in several places on the lower extremities. Fractures were not allowed to heal properly as doctors needed to study the healing process and also test different healing methods.
Doctors also removed numerous fragments of the tibia from the test subjects to study bone regeneration. Bone grafts included transplanting fragments of the left tibia to the right and vice versa. These experiments caused unbearable pain and severe injuries to the prisoners.

Experiments with typhus

From the end of 1941 until the beginning of 1945, doctors conducted experiments on the prisoners of Buchenwald and Natzweiler in the interests of the German armed forces. They were testing vaccines for typhus and other diseases.
Approximately 75% of test subjects were injected with trial typhoid vaccines or other chemicals. They were injected with a virus. As a result, more than 90% of them died.
The remaining 25% of the test subjects were injected with the virus without any prior protection. Most of them did not survive. Physicians also conducted experiments related to yellow fever, smallpox, typhoid, and other diseases. Hundreds of prisoners died, and more prisoners suffered unbearable pain as a result.

Twin experiments and genetic experiments

The purpose of the Holocaust was the elimination of all people of non-Aryan origin. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals and other people who did not meet certain requirements were to be exterminated so that only the "superior" Aryan race remained. Genetic experiments were carried out to provide the Nazi Party with scientific proof of the superiority of the Aryans.
Dr. Josef Mengele (also known as the "Angel of Death") had a strong interest in the twins. He separated them from the rest of the prisoners when they entered Auschwitz. The twins had to donate blood every day. The real purpose of this procedure is unknown.
The experiments with twins were extensive. They were to be carefully examined and every centimeter of their body measured. After that, comparisons were made to determine hereditary traits. Sometimes doctors performed mass blood transfusions from one twin to the other.
Since people of Aryan origin mostly had blue eyes, experiments were carried out to create them with chemical drops or injections into the iris of the eye. These procedures were very painful and led to infections and even blindness.
Injections and lumbar punctures were done without anesthesia. One twin deliberately contracted the disease, and the other did not. If one twin died, the other twin was killed and studied for comparison.
Amputations and removals of organs were also performed without anesthesia. Most of the twins who ended up in the concentration camp died in one way or another, and their autopsies were the last experiments.

Experiments with high altitudes

From March to August 1942, the prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp were used as test subjects in experiments to test human endurance at high altitudes. The results of these experiments were to help the German air force.
The test subjects were placed in a low pressure chamber, which created atmospheric conditions at altitudes up to 21,000 meters. Most of the test subjects died, and the survivors suffered from various injuries from being at high altitudes.

Experiments with malaria

Over the course of more than three years, more than 1,000 Dachau prisoners were used in a series of experiments related to the search for a cure for malaria. Healthy prisoners were infected by mosquitoes or extracts from these mosquitoes.
Prisoners who contracted malaria were then treated with various drugs to test their effectiveness. Many prisoners died. The surviving prisoners suffered greatly and were mostly disabled for the rest of their lives.

On August 20, 1947, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ruled in the Doctors' Case: 16 out of 23 people were found guilty, seven of them were sentenced to death. The indictment refers to "crimes that included murder, atrocities, cruelty, torture and other inhuman acts." The author of the Fleming project, Anastasia Spirina, sorted out the archives of the SS and what exactly the Nazi doctors were convicted of.

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Auschwitz concentration camp

From a letter from former prisoner W. Kling dated April 4, 1947 to Fraulein Frowein, sister of SS Obersturmführer Ernst Frowein, who from July 1942 to March 1943. was in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp deputy first camp doctor, and later - SS Hauptsturmführer and adjutant of the imperial medical leader Conti (hereinafter, in italics, excerpts from the book “SS in Action”):

“The fact that my brother was an SS man is not his fault, he was dragged in. He was a good German and wanted to do his duty. But he could never consider it his duty to participate in these crimes, which we have only now learned about.”

I believe in the sincerity of your horror and in the no less sincerity of your indignation. From the point of view of real facts, it should be stated: it is undoubtedly true that your brother from the Hitler Youth organization, in which he was an activist, was “drawn” into the SS. The assertion of his "innocence" would only be true if it happened against his will. But this, of course, was not the case. Your brother was a "National Socialist". Subjectively, he was not an opportunist, but, on the contrary, he was convinced, of course, of the correctness of his ideas and actions. He thought and acted the way hundreds of thousands of people of his generation and origin thought and acted in Germany.”…” He was a good surgeon and loved his specialty. He also possessed a quality that in Germany - because of its rarity among uniform wearers - was called "civic courage". “…”

I read in his eyes and heard from his lips that the impression these people made on him first made him confused. All of them were more intelligent, treated each other more comradely, often in a terribly difficult situation showed themselves to be more courageous than the drunkards around him - the SS men. “...” In the prisoner, he saw - “in private” - “a good fellow.” ...” It was clear that beyond this line, SS officer Frowine, devoted to his “Führer” and his leaders, would discard delicacy. Here came the splitting of consciousness.”…”

Who put on the SS uniform, he signed up as a criminal. He hid and strangled everything human that was once in him. For Obersturmführer Frowine, this unpleasant side of his activity was just a “duty”. It was the duty of not only the “good”, but also the “best” German, for the latter was in the SS.

From a letter by W. Kling

Fight against infectious diseases

Since animal experiments do not allow a sufficiently complete assessment, experiments should be carried out on humans.

In October 1941, block 46 was created in Buchenwald with the name “Testing station for typhus. Department for the Study of Typhus and Viruses" under the direction of the Institute for Hygiene of the SS Troops in Berlin. Between 1942 and 1945 more than 1000 prisoners were used for these experiments, not only from the Buchenwald camp, but also from other places. Prior to arriving at Block 46, no one knew that they would become test subjects. Selection for experiments was carried out according to the application sent to the office of the camp commandant, and the execution was handed over to the camp doctor.

Block 46 was not only a place for experiments, but, in fact, a factory for the production of vaccines against typhoid and typhus. Bacterial cultures were needed to make vaccines against typhus. However, this was not absolutely necessary, since such experiments are carried out at institutes without growing cultures of bacteria themselves (researchers find typhoid patients from whom blood can be taken for research). Here it was completely different. In order to keep the bacteria in an active state, in order to constantly have a biological poison for subsequent injections, rickettsia cultures were transferred from the sick to the healthy by intravenous injections of infected blood. Thus, twelve different cultures of bacteria were preserved there, designated by the initial letters Bu - Buchenwald, and go from “Buchenwald 1” to “Buchenwald 12”. Four to six people were infected in this way every month, and most of them died as a result of this infection.

The vaccines used by the German army were not only produced in block 46, but were obtained from Italy, Denmark, Romania, France and Poland. Healthy prisoners, whose physical condition through special nutrition was brought to the physical level of a Wehrmacht soldier, were used to determine the effectiveness of various typhus vaccines. All experimental persons were divided into control and experimental objects. The experimental subjects were vaccinated, while the control subjects, on the contrary, were not vaccinated. Then, according to the corresponding experiment, all objects were subjected to the introduction of typhoid bacilli in various ways: they were injected subcutaneously, intramuscularly, intravenously and by scarification. The infectious dose was determined, which could cause infection in the experimental subject.

In block 46 there were large boards where tables were kept, on which the results of a series of experiments with various vaccines and temperature curves were entered, by which it was possible to trace how the disease developed and how much the vaccine could contain its development. Each had a medical history.

After fourteen days (the maximum incubation period), people from the control group died. Prisoners who received different vaccines died at different times, depending on the quality of the vaccines themselves. As soon as the experiment could be considered completed, the survivors, in accordance with the tradition of block 46, were eliminated by the usual method of elimination in the Buchenwald camp - by injection of 10 cm³ of phenol into the region of the heart.

In Auschwitz, experiments were carried out to determine the existence of natural immunity against tuberculosis, the development of vaccines, and chemoprophylaxis was practiced with drugs such as nitroacridine and rutenol (a combination of the first drug with potent arsenic acid). A method such as the creation of an artificial pneumothorax was tried. At Neuegamma, a certain Dr. Kurt Heismeier sought to disprove that tuberculosis was an infectious disease, arguing that only an "exhausted" organism was susceptible to such an infection, and most of all the susceptibility was in the "racially inferior organism of the Jews." Two hundred subjects were injected with live Mycobacterium tuberculosis into the lungs, and twenty Jewish children infected with tuberculosis had their axillary lymph nodes removed for histological examination, leaving disfiguring scars.

The Nazis solved the problem of tuberculosis epidemics radically: from May 1942 to January 1944. all Poles who were found to have open and incurable, according to the decision of the official commission, forms of tuberculosis were isolated or killed under the pretext of protecting the health of the Germans in Poland.

From about February 1942 to April 1945. Dachau researched treatments for malaria on more than 1,000 prisoners. Healthy prisoners in special rooms were bitten by infected mosquitoes or injected with mosquito salivary gland extract. Dr. Klaus Schilling hoped in this way to create a vaccine against malaria. The antiprotozoal drug Akrikhin was studied.

Similar experiments were carried out with other infectious diseases, such as yellow fever (at Sachsenhausen), smallpox, paratyphoid A and B, cholera and diphtheria.

Industrial concerns of that time took an active part in the experiments. Of these, the German concern IG Farben (one of whose subsidiaries is the now existing pharmaceutical company Bayer) played a special role. Scientific representatives of this concern traveled to concentration camps to test the effectiveness of new types of their products. During the war, IG Farben also produced tabun, sarin and Zyklon B, which was mainly (about 95%) used for pest control purposes (elimination of lice - carriers of many infectious diseases, the same typhus), but this did not prevent it from being used for destruction in gas chambers.

To help the military

People who still reject these human experiments,

preferring that because of this the valiant German soldiers

died from the effects of hypothermia, I regard them as traitors and traitors to the state, and I will not hesitate to name these gentlemen in the appropriate authorities.

Reichsfuehrer SS G. Himmler

Experiments for the air force began in May 1941 at Dachau under the auspices of Heinrich Himmler. Nazi physicians considered "military necessity" sufficient justification for monstrous experiments. They justified their actions by saying that the prisoners were sentenced to death anyway.

Dr. Sigmund Rascher supervised the experiments.

A prisoner during an experiment in a pressure chamber loses consciousness and then dies. Dachau, Germany, 1942

In the first series of experiments on two hundred prisoners, the changes that occur with the body under the influence of low and high atmospheric pressure were studied. Using a hyperbaric chamber, scientists simulated the conditions (temperature and nominal pressure) in which the pilot finds himself when the cockpit was depressurized at altitudes up to 20,000 m. blood in the form of air bubbles. This led to blockage of the vessels of various organs and the development of decompression sickness.

In August 1942, experiments on hypothermia began, caused by the question of rescuing pilots shot down by enemy fire in the icy waters of the North Sea. The experimental persons (about three hundred people) were placed in water with a temperature of +2° to +12°C in full winter and summer pilot equipment. In one series of experiments, the occipital region (the projection of the brainstem, where the vital centers are located) was outside the water, while in another series of experiments, the occipital region was immersed in water. The temperature in the stomach and rectum was measured electrically. Deaths occurred only if the occipital region was subjected to hypothermia along with the body. When the body temperature during these experiments reached 25 ° C, the subject inevitably died, despite all attempts to save.

There was also the question of the best method of rescuing the supercooled. Several methods have been tried: heating with lamps, irrigating the stomach, bladder and intestines with hot water, etc. The best way turned out to be placing the victim in a hot bath. The experiments were carried out as follows: 30 undressed people were outdoors for 9-14 hours, until the body temperature reached 27-29°C. Then they were placed in a hot bath and, despite partially frostbitten hands and feet, the patient was completely warmed up within no more than one hour. There were no deaths in this series of experiments.

A victim of a Nazi medical experiment is immersed in ice-cold water at the Dachau concentration camp. Dr. Rusher oversees the experiment. Germany, 1942

There was also interest in the method of warming with animal heat (heat of animals or humans). The experimental persons were supercooled in cold water of various temperatures (from +4 to +9°C). Extraction from the water was carried out when the body temperature dropped to 30°C. At this temperature, the subjects were always unconscious. A group of test subjects were placed in a bed between two naked women, who were supposed to cuddle as closely as possible to a chilled person. Then these three persons covered themselves with blankets. It turned out that warming with animal heat proceeded very slowly, but the return of consciousness occurred earlier than with other methods. Once they regained consciousness, people no longer lost it, but quickly assimilated their position and clung closely to naked women. Subjects whose physical condition allowed for sexual contact warmed up noticeably faster, a result comparable to warming up in a hot bath. It was concluded that rewarming severely chilled people with animal heat can be recommended only in those cases in which no other rewarming options are available, and also for weak individuals who do not tolerate massive heat supply, for example, for infants, who are better all are warmed near the mother's body with the addition of warming bottles. Rascher presented the results of his experiments in 1942 at the conference “Medical problems arising at sea and in winter”.

The results obtained during the experiments remain in demand, since the repetition of these experiments is impossible in our time. Dr. John Hayward, an expert in hypothermia, stated: "I don't want to use these results, but there are no others and there won't be others in the ethical world." Hayward himself conducted experiments on volunteers for several years, but he never allowed the body temperature of the participants to fall below 32.2 ° C. The experiments of Nazi doctors made it possible to achieve figures of 26.5 ° C and below.

From July to September 1944, experiments were conducted on 90 gypsy prisoners to create methods for desalination of sea water, led by Dr. Hans Eppinger. Subjects were deprived of all food and given only chemically treated seawater following Eppinger's own method. The experiments caused severe dehydration and subsequently organ failure and death within 6-12 days. The gypsies were so deeply dehydrated that some of them licked the floors after they had been washed to get a drop of fresh water.

When Himmler discovered that the cause of death for most SS soldiers on the battlefield was blood loss, he ordered Dr. Rascher to develop a blood coagulant to inject into German soldiers before they went to war. At Dachau, Rascher tested his patented coagulant by observing the speed of drops of blood oozing from amputated stumps on living and conscious prisoners.

In addition, an effective and quick method of individual killing of prisoners was developed. At the beginning of 1942, the Germans carried out experiments on the introduction of air into the veins with a syringe. They wanted to determine how much compressed air could be injected into the bloodstream without causing an embolism. Intravenous injections of oil, phenol, chloroform, gasoline, cyanide, and hydrogen peroxide have also been used. Later it was found that death occurred faster if phenol injections were made in the region of the heart.

December 1943 and September-October 1944 distinguished themselves by conducting experiments to study the effect of various poisons. In Buchenwald, poisons were added to prisoners' food, noodles or soup, and the development of a poisoning clinic was observed. In Sachsenhausen, experiments were carried out on five death row prisoners with 7.65 mm bullets filled with aconitine nitrate in crystalline form. Each subject was shot in the upper left thigh. Death occurred 120 minutes after the shot.

Photo of a burn with a phosphorus mass

The phosphorus-rubber incendiary bombs dropped on Germany inflicted burns on the civilian population and soldiers, the wounds from which did not heal well. For this reason, from November 1943 to January 1944, experiments were carried out to test the effectiveness of pharmaceutical preparations in the treatment of phosphorus burns, which were supposed to alleviate their scarring. To do this, the experimental subjects were artificially inflicted burns with a phosphorus mass, which was taken from an English incendiary bomb found near Leipzig.

Between September 1939 and April 1945, at different times, experiments were carried out in Sachsenhaus, Natzweiler and other concentration camps to investigate the most effective treatment for wounds caused by mustard gas, also known as mustard gas.

In 1932, IG Farben was tasked with finding a dye (one of the main products produced by the conglomerate) that could act as an antibacterial drug. Such a drug was found - prontosil, the first of the representatives of sulfonamides and the first antimicrobial drug before the era of antibiotics. Subsequently, it was tested in experiments by the director of the Bayer Institute of Pathology and Bacteriology, Gerhard Domagk, who in 1939 received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Photograph of the scarred leg of Ravensbrück survivor, Polish political prisoner Helena Hegier, who was subjected to medical experiments in 1942.

The effectiveness of sulfonamides and other drugs as a treatment for infected wounds was tested on people from July 1942 to September 1943 in the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. Wounds deliberately inflicted on the test subjects were contaminated with bacteria: streptococci, gas gangrene and tetanus. To avoid the spread of infection, blood vessels were tied off from both edges of the wound. To simulate the wounds received as a result of hostilities, Dr. Hertha Oberheuser placed wood chips, dirt, rusty nails, glass fragments in the wounds of the experimental subjects, which significantly worsened the course of the wound and its healing.

Ravensbrück also carried out a series of experiments on bone grafting, muscle and nerve regeneration, futile attempts to transplant limbs and organs from one victim to another.

The SS doctors we knew were executioners who discredited the medical profession to the point of impossibility. All of them were cynical killers of a huge mass of people. Rewards and promotions were made according to the number of their victims. There is not a single SS doctor who, while working in concentration camps, received his awards for his actual medical activity.

From a letter by W. Kling

Who the hell was leading or seducing whom? "Fuhrer", devil or some god?

Is it true that "outside" no one knew about these crimes inside and outside the walls of the camps? The unpretentious truth is that millions of Germans, fathers and mothers, sons and sisters, did not see anything criminal in these crimes. Millions of others understood this quite clearly, but pretended not to know anything,

and they succeeded in this miracle. Those same millions are now horrified by the murderer of the four million, [Rudolf] Hess, who calmly declared before the court that he would have destroyed his closest relatives in the gas chamber if he had been ordered to.

From a letter by W. Kling

Sigmund Rascher was captured in 1944 on charges of deceiving the German nation and transferred to Buchenwald, from where he was later transferred to Dachau. There he was shot in the back of the head by an unknown person a day before the camp was liberated by the Allies.

Herta Oberhauer was tried in Nuremberg and sentenced to 12 years in prison for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hans Epinger committed suicide a month before the Nuremberg trials.

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