Inside of the concentration camps, a number of doctors performed horrific experiments
onto a large amount of prisoners.
The Nazi doctors were responsible for scores of unethical and forced examinations and procedures
with many shrouded in Nazi ideology and eugenics.
Some of the most evil doctors would never face justice, including the Angel of Death
Josef Mengele.
Inside of different camps there were many different doctors who worked, and very few
were responsible for any medical advancements.
Also many doctors were involved in selections in which people were sent to their deaths
inside of the gas chambers.
After the war a number were brought to trial, and some were sentenced to death and executed
for their crimes against humanity.
Join us today as we look at the executions of the doctors of the Third reich, remember
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Inside of camps such as Auschwitz and Mauthausen, prisoners were forced into participating in
some experiments, and they did not volunteer to do so, and did not consent to the procedures
that took place.
Many of them were done without anaesthetic and resulted in deaths, disfigurement and
severe disability and trauma that lasted a life time.
Many other prisoners were simply killed with quick injections so that autopsies could take
place with doctors studying their remains.
There were huge amounts of procedures that took place, Mengele inside of Auschwitz took
part in experiments on 15000 sets of twins, with around 200 people surviving his studies.
They were subject to amputations, infection with certain diseases, and mengele even tried
to change the colours of their eyes.
One of his most disturbing experiments was an attempt to create conjoined twins.
If one twin died from anything, then the other was killed.
But as mentioned, Mengele would never face justice for his crimes.
Inside of Ravensbruck, experiments took place with bone, muscle and other experiments taking
place.
Some people had their bones muscles and nerves removed without anaesthetic, and many suffered
permanent disability.
They even tried to transplant limbs from prisoners to soldiers from the Eastern Front who had
lost limbs in battle.
The Luftwaffe, the German Air Force also got involved in experiments.
They conducted many experiments as did other doctors about hypothermia and also freezing.
Some prisoners were subject to freezing cold conditions, and then were thrown into boiling
water for reheating.
At Dachau, some prisoners were forced into freezing water for hours, and then when frozen
were tried to be rewarmed and then they died from this.
They did this to try and simulate conditions for the soldiers on the Eastern Front, and
hundreds died from these specific experiments.
Other experiments took place with Malaria, where prisoners were injected with the disease,
and also with other diseases such as Jaundice with most of the prisoners dying in the experiments.
Further disturbing experiments occurred, for example from July 1944 to September 1944,
experiments were conducted at dachau to see if sea water could be drinkable.
Prisoners were deprived of all food and only given filtered sea water.
Many of these people were badly injured and got sick from dehydration, being forced to
lick mopped floors to get drinking water.
Around 300,000 patients at Auschwitz and Ravensbruck and other camps were also sterilised in experiments
to target specific people and populations from reproducing.
The Nazis even used X-ray radiation treatment for mass sterilisation.
Prisoners at Dachau were also forced into high altitude experiments, with 200 subjects
used to simulate altitudes of up to 68,000 feet.
The huge variety of experiments were conducted inside of many different camps, and many prisoners
were tricked into participating.
Within the trials, thousands of people were killed and affected for the rest of their
lives by what happened to them with regards to human experimentation.
Himmler would state that, ‘These researches can be performed by us with particular efficiency
because I personally assumed the responsibility for supplying asocial individuals and criminals
who deserve only to die from concentration camps for these experiments.’
Many prisoners were murdered for post mortals, and were left for dead being afflicted for
life.
The Japanese also conducted human experimentation, but after the Second World War had come to
an end, the Doctors trial took place bringing a number of high profile medical staff involved
in the practice to justice.
The Doctors trial that began on the 9th December 1946 placed 23 defendants on trial involved
in human experimentation and mass murder.
Many had been involved in the Aktio T4 programme where disabled and mentally ill patients were
killed.
The trial lasted until the 20th August 1947, and 20 of the 23 were medical doctor, and
7 were sentenced to death.
7 also were acquitted and the others received prison sentences from 10 years to life imprisonment.
The accused had four charges brought infant of them, with the 1st being conspiracy to
commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, the second being war crimes including performing
experiments without the subjects consent on prisoners of war in the court of which experiments
the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities and other
inhuman acts.
Also planning and performing the mass murder of prisoners of war.
The third charge was Crimes against humanity and the fourth was membership of a criminal
organisations the SS.
Viktor Brack, was a member of the SS who had been involved in the Aktion T4 programme,
and he had organised the killings of mentally ill and sailed people.
He also was involved in gassing people in vans at concentration camps, claiming that
his work as a humane measure for incurable sick people, and he was sentenced to deal
in the doctors trials.
One of the most senior doctors tried was Karl Brandt who was the escort doctor of Adolf
Hitler, and he also administered the Aktion T4 programme.
Brandt ordered many different experiments, and its claimed that many of the experiments
were approved by him as he was a senior figure, and also Brandt suggested the method of killing
during the euthanasia program.
Another doctor was Rudolf Brandt who played a role in securing the remains of 86 victims
for the Jewish skeleton collection, and he was involved in killing Jews for their remains
which were then preserved.
Karl Gebhardt was the doctor also to Heinrich Himmler, and he was involved in many experiments.
He was interested in treating infection, and at Ravensbruck he deliberately infected prisoners
with gangrene and sepsis, and then his staff gave no medical care to the people.
Many got very sick and died from his experiments, and he even tried to transplant limbs from
camp victims to German soldiers who were wounded.
Waldemar Hoven was a doctor at Buchenwald, and he was involved in administering phenol
injections into prisoners, and also he was involved in typhus experiments.
He was arrested after even giving a phenol injection to an SS officer, and was sentenced
to death by the NAzis but was released as the Nazis suffered a shortage of doctors.
Joachim Mrugowasky was a bacteriologist who conducted experiments on humans at Sachsenhausen.
He tested typhus vaccines, biological warfare agents and poisoned bullets onto prisoners,
and also administered many lethal injections.
Wolfram Sievers was the director of the Institute for military scientific research, and he conducted
many experiments on different subjects.
All of these men were found guilty during the Doctors Trial, and were then sentenced
to death.
Many more doctors in other trials were sentenced to death for example Claus Schilling, who
worked in other camps.
These people were condemned following their trials which took place at different times.
Their executions took place in Landsberg Prison, and were executed on the 2nd June 1948.
Despite carrying out work in the concentration camp, many of the condemned of the doctors
trial were found guilty of being involved in the euthanasia programmes too.
On the 2nd June 1948, each of the condemned were led from their cells out into the courtyard
of Landsberg Prison where a gallows had been created.
They were joined by a priest who remained with them until their last moments, and then
were also accompanied by scores of US military policemen.
They were led into the courtyard where their identity was then confirmed before they were
helped up the stairs of the gallows.
The condemned’s arms and legs were secured and then they were led up the stairs and handed
over to the executioner.
The executioner then quickly checked their arms and legs, before he placed a black hood
over their head, and the noose before quickly pushing the lever and the trapdoor opened,
with the condemned then plunging to their deaths.
Inside of the concentration camps, scores of medical experiments were carried out, and
also many of them remain lost today after records were destroyed as the war came to
an end.
Sadly many of the victims never had their stories told as they were killed.
Today many of the crimes of the doctors of the third reich, remain untold.
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