Experiments on humans conducted by Nazi Germany

I. Disclaimer

This article does not aim to cover all experiments, as a (somewhat) complete list could be found on Wikipedia. [1] It merely elaborates on some of the most prominent, and fascinating, among them.

II. Together forever: Twins

Like numerous others conducted inside the Nazi concentration camps, numerous experiments mostly carried out on Jewish twins, were to demonstrate the superiority of heredity over the environment and find ways to increase the Aryan (in particular, the German) population.

The studies and experiments started out with twins, selected from the rows of incoming prisoners. These twins got transferred to a separate barrack, away from other quarters, and kept alive (barely) inside there to be administered for experiments. These studies included, but were not limited to:

- Injection of dyes into their eyes in an effort to change their colours.

- Infect one twin with a disease and monitor both of them closely. If the infected twin survived, they would be released back into the barrack. If not, their twin would be killed to forge a legitimate excuse for doctors to perform autopsies on dead bodies and compare the differences.

- Artificially create Siamese twins, by literally connecting their organs and arteries together, never with any anaesthesia. Most screamed in agony for several days before eventually succumbing to the death of gangrene - their body cells died from bacterial infection.

An X-ray of Siamese twins.

A survivor of one of the experiments, Madame Eva Mozes-Kor published her personal account of it. Infected with an unknown deadly germ by Josef Mengele, she struggled on the brink of death itself for 2 whole weeks, falling in and out of consciousness, with no food, no medication, no water, the only power to propel her was to reunite with her twin, Miriam. Needless to say, if she failed to overcome the disease, her twin would also be killed immediately. [2]

III. Like father, like no one: Sterilization

The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring passed on 14th July 1933, which legalized the involuntary sterilization of people with diseases claimed to be hereditary (Wikipedia). In essence, this law propelled the eradication of “inferior” human races (which, in the context of that time, were mostly Jews) and purification of the “superior” Aryan species. [3]

A Nazi high school biology book poster. The caption reads: "A hereditarily ill person costs 50.000 reichsmarks on average up to the age of sixty."

In concentration camps, namely Auschwitz-Birkenau, such laws were used to justify the experiments to make chosen prisoners infertile. Methods of sterilization, (tested without consent, obviously) included:

- Injecting solutions said to contain iodine and silver nitrate into women’s cervixes to block their fallopian tubes. Though successful, this method came with side effects of vaginal bleeding, cervical cancer, etc.

- Performing X-ray radiation sessions on women’s abdomens and men’s genitalia. This method permanently destroyed one’s ability to produce ova or sperm and caused severe radiation burns.

After confirmed sterilization, the genitals were surgically removed, without anesthesia, for lab analysis. Sometimes women were raped, and killed, before the removal of the genitals, to track the flow of semen.

IV. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: Invincibility

With endless streams of prisoners flowing into concentration camps, the doctors had numerous chances to infect selected ones with diseases, condition them to the environmental challenges and altitude pressure faced by German soldiers. To name a few, there were:

- Immunization experiments, where prisoners were injected with diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, etc. in order to extract serums - the cure for such diseases - from the patient’s bodies. Coincidentally(?) the fundamentals behind such experiments were the same as those of modern vaccination: To stimulate the body to remember the attack of the disease and react in time in the next evasion. [4] Needless to say, in such times safety regulations did not exist, thus the death rate was immeasurably high.

- “The ice bucket challenge”: prisoners, most of the time naked, were submerged in ice lakes, or left outside in the freezing snow, for several hours, then brought inside to be rewarmed. The successful methods, it was hoped, could be used to treat hypothermia. No use - in one instance, the method used was throwing the half-dead bodies into boiling water. Captured Soviet prisoners were often used for such experiments as well, to identify whether their genes gained an advantage in surviving harsh winters.

A cold water immersion experiment. I cannot see where is the body.

- Altitude tests: A low-pressure chamber was utilised to stimulate the condition of altitude 21,000m up. In one instance, the prisoner suffered from cramps before falling unconscious, breathing three times per minute then stopped breathing. Turning blue and foaming at the mouth, he was soon dead. An autopsy was performed an hour later.

A victim loses consciousness during a depressurization experiment at Dachau by Luftwaffe doctor Sigmund Rascher, 1942.

V. The final verdict

“I hope that what was done to me will never happen again to another human being. [...] Scientists should continue to do research. But if a human being is ever used in the experiments, the scientist must make a moral commitment never to violate a person’s human rights and dignity. [...] The scientists of the world must remember that the research is being done for the sake of mankind and not for the sake of science; scientists must never detach themselves from the humans they serve.” [5]

Ah, wise words.