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 15,754 documented victims, of various nationalities and age groups, although the true number is believed to be more extensive. Many survived, with only a quarter of documented victims killed. Survivors generally experienced severe permanent injuries.[1]

"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 [49,000 ft] 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,[2] including the twin experiments of Josef Mengele.[3] Aribert Heim conducted similar medical experiments at Mauthausen.[4]

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.

  1. ^ Weindling, Paul; von Villiez, Anna; Loewenau, Aleksandra; Farron, Nichola (2016). "The victims of unethical human experiments and coerced research under National Socialism". Endeavour. 40 (1). Elsevier BV: 1–6. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2015.10.005. ISSN 0160-9327. PMC 4822534. PMID 26749461.
  2. ^ "Nazi Medical Experimentation". US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 23 March 2008.
  3. ^ Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. p. 505. ISBN 978-0-374-11825-9.
  4. ^ "Nazi 'Doctor Death' found refuge in Cairo, died in 1992". France 24. 4 February 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2021.

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