nazi human experimentation nazi human experimentation nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on prisoners by nazi germany in its concentration camps mainly between 1942 and 1945. there were at least 15,754 documented victims from a variety of nationalities and age groups, although the plurality were young adults at the time of the experiment. although most victims survived, many suffered disability as a result. part of a series onnazism organizations national socialist germanworkers' party (nsdap) sturmabteilung (sa) schutzstaffel (ss) geheime staatspolizei (gestapo) hitler youth (hj) deutsches jungvolk (dj) league of german girls (bdm) national socialist german doctors' league national socialist german students' league (nsdstb) national socialist league of the reich for physical exercise (nsrl) national socialist flyers corps (nsfk) national socialist motor corps (nskk) national socialist women's league (nsf) combat league of revolutionary national socialists (kgrns) history early timeline hitler's rise to power machtergreifung german rearmament nazi germany religion in nazi germany adolf hitler's cult of personality enabling act of 1933 night of the long knives nuremberg rallies anti-comintern pact kristallnacht world war ii the holocaust tripartite pact denazification nuremberg trials neo-nazism ideology fascism totalitarianism führerprinzip authoritarian democracy houston stewart chamberlain gleichschaltung arthur de gobineau hitler's political views mein kampf the myth of the twentieth century militarism national socialist program new order preussentum und sozialismus propaganda religious aspects strasserism symbolism women in nazi germany racial ideology antisemitism aryan race blood and soil völkisch movement an essay on the inequality of the human races eugenics nazi racial theories the foundations of the nineteenth century greater germanic reich heim ins reich lebensraum master race the passing of the great race racial policy of nazi germany völkisch equality volkskörper final solution concentration camps deportations doctors' trial extermination camps genocide ghettos human experimentation labour camps pogroms racial segregation people adolf hitler joseph goebbels hermann göring martin bormann kurt daluege richard walther darré anton drexler dietrich eckart adolf eichmann gottfried feder hans frank wilhelm frick rudolf hess reinhard heydrich heinrich himmler hans lammers joachim von ribbentrop karl dönitz ernst röhm alfred rosenberg arthur seyss-inquart albert speer gregor strasser otto strasser julius streicher nazism outside of germany american nazi party nordic resistance movement aria party (persia) arrow cross party (hungary) azure party (persia) national socialist bulgarian workers party german american bund german national movement in liechtenstein greek national socialist party south african gentile national socialist movement hungarian national socialist party nasjonal samling (norway) national movement of switzerland national socialist movement in the netherlands national socialist bloc (sweden) national socialist league (uk) national socialist movement of chile national socialist movement(united states) national socialist party (romania) national socialist workers' party of denmark national unity party of canada nazism in brazil nationalist liberation alliance (argentina) ossewabrandwag (south africa) sumka tsagaan khas (mongolia) world union of national socialists lists bibliography of adolf hitler nazi ideologues nazi party leaders and officials nazi party members speeches given by adolf hitler ss personnel related topics beefsteak nazi glossary of nazi germany hitlers zweites buch category germany portal nazi physicians and their assistants forced prisoners into participating; they did not willingly volunteer and no consent was given for the procedures. typically, the experiments were conducted without anesthesia and resulted in death, trauma, disfigurement, mutilation, or permanent disability, and as such are considered examples of medical torture. "a jewish prisoner in a special chamber responds to changing air pressure during high-altitude experiments. for the benefit of the luftwaffe, conditions simulating those found at 15,000 meters in altitude were created in an effort to determine if german pilots might survive at that height." at auschwitz and other camps, under the direction of eduard wirths, selected inmates were subjected to various experiments that were designed to help german military personnel in combat situations, develop new weapons, aid in the recovery of military personnel who had been injured, and to advance nazi racial ideology and eugenics, including the twin experiments of josef mengele. aribert heim conducted similar medical experiments at mauthausen. after the war, these crimes were tried at what became known as the doctors' trial, and revulsion at the abuses perpetrated led to the development of the nuremberg code of medical ethics. the nazi physicians in the doctors' trial argued that military necessity justified their experiments, and compared their victims to collateral damage from allied bombings. experiments 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 gunshot wounds sustained during combat or surgery. 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 were 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. 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. 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. on 12 august 1946, a survivor named jadwiga kamińska 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 battle fields. those who survived remained permanently disfigured. experiments on twins experiments on twin children in concentration camps were created to show the superiority of heredity over the environment in determining phenotypes and to find ways to increase german reproduction rates. 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. the twins were arranged by age and sex and kept in barracks between experiments, which ranged from amputations, infecting them with various diseases, and injecting dyes into their eyes to change their color. he also attempted to create conjoined twins by sewing twins together, causing gangrene and, eventually, death. often, one twin would be forced to undergo experimentation, while the other was kept as a control. if one twin died from experimentation, the second twin would be brought in to be killed at the same time. doctors would then look at the effects of experimentation and compare both bodies. if the first twin survived, mengele would dissect their bodies. freezing experiments a cold water immersion experiment at dachau concentration camp 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. "exitus" (death) table compiled by sigmund rascher attempt no. water temperature body temperature when removed from the water body temperature at death time in water time of death 5 5.2 °c (41.4 °f) 27.7 °c (81.9 °f) 27.7 °c (81.9 °f) 66' 66' 13 6 °c (43 °f) 29.2 °c (84.6 °f) 29.2 °c (84.6 °f) 80' 87' 14 4 °c (39 °f) 27.8 °c (82.0 °f) 27.5 °c (81.5 °f) 95' 16 4 °c (39 °f) 28.7 °c (83.7 °f) 26 °c (79 °f) 60' 74' 23 4.5 °c (40.1 °f) 27.8 °c (82.0 °f) 25.7 °c (78.3 °f) 57' 65' 25 4.6 °c (40.3 °f) 27.8 °c (82.0 °f) 26.6 °c (79.9 °f) 51' 65' 4.2 °c (39.6 °f) 26.7 °c (80.1 °f) 25.9 °c (78.6 °f) 53' 53' another study placed prisoners naked in the open air for several hours with temperatures as low as −6°c (21°f). besides studying the physical effects of cold exposure, the experimenters also assessed different methods of rewarming survivors. "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. 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. approximately 100 people are reported to have died as a result of these experiments. high altitude experiments a victim loses consciousness during a depressurization experiment at dachau 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 68,000 feet (21,000 m). 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 5 april 1942 between rascher and heinrich himmler, rascher explains the results of a low-pressure experiment that was performed on people at dachau concentration camp in which the victim was suffocated while rascher and another unnamed doctor took note of his reactions. the person was described as 37 years old and in good health before being murdered. rascher described the victim's actions as he began to lose oxygen and timed the changes in behavior. the 37-year-old began to wiggle his head at four minutes; a minute later rascher observed that he was suffering from cramps before falling unconscious. he describes how the victim then lay unconscious, breathing only three times per minute, until he stopped breathing 30 minutes after being deprived of oxygen. the victim then turned blue and began foaming at the mouth. an autopsy followed an hour later. 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 and to "determine whether these men could