During World War II, a large number of German doctors conducted inhumane and often deadly experiments on thousands of prisoners in concentration camps without their consent. Unethical medical testing that took place during the Third Reich can be divided into three groups. The first group consisted of experiments intended to improve the survival rates of Axis military personnel. The second category involved experimentation with pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses encountered by German military personnel in the field. Lastly, the third group focused on advancing the racial and ideological beliefs of the Nazi worldview through medical experimentation. One of the SS physicians who performed these pseudo-medical tests at Auschwitz was Professor Dr. Carl Clauberg.
Carl Clauberg conducted sterilization experiments in the camp by using Block No. 10 in the Main Camp. The block housed several hundred Jewish women from different countries, staying on the second floor in two spacious rooms. Clauberg devised a non-surgical method of mass sterilization which involved the insertion of a specially prepared chemical irritant into the female reproductive organs, leading to severe inflammation. This inflammation caused the closure and blockage of the fallopian tubes within a few weeks. Unfortunately, some of Clauberg’s subjects died during these experiments, while others were deliberately killed to conduct autopsies. Another doctor named Dr. Horst Schumann was also involved in these activities.
Both Clauberg and Horst Schumann had a common objective – to discover an efficient way to sterilize a significant number of people. This would aid the Third Reich in their systematic annihilation of conquered nations through scientific practices. In one of the Birkenau barracks, Schumann received authorization to utilize equipment for “X-ray sterilization.” At intervals, a specific group consisting of Jewish male and female prisoners were selected for experiments that involved exposing the women’s ovaries and men’s testes to X-rays.
In a series of experiments, Schumann conducted tests using various radiation levels and time intervals to determine the most effective dosage. The subjects suffered severe burns on their stomach, groin, and buttocks due to radiation exposure, resulting in persistent sores that did not heal. Many subjects died from complications. The outcomes of the experiments aimed at sterilization using X-rays were unsatisfactory. In an article titled “The Effect of X-Ray Radiation on the Human Reproductive Glands,” sent to Himmler in April 1944, Schumann expressed a preference for surgical castration as it was faster and more reliable.
Josef Mengele, a Ph.D. holder and medical doctor, closely collaborated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Genetics, and Eugenics. His research focused on various subjects including twins, dwarfism physiology/pathology, individuals with different-colored irises, and the causes/treatments of noma – a disease known as “water cancer” affecting the cheek. This disease was prevalent among residents of the Gypsy Camp but previously rare in Europe.
Mengele primarily conducted experiments in his laboratory located in the “Gypsy Family Camp,” specifically on Gypsy children. Following Mengele’s orders, children affected by noma were euthanized for pathological investigations. It is worth mentioning that organs (including entire heads) from these children were preserved and sent to various institutions such as Austria’s Medical Academy in Graz.
Mengele started selecting dwarves and individuals with physical peculiarities from Jewish transports arriving at Birkenau for extermination. He also targeted those from the Jewish “Theresienstadt Family Camp” in Birkenau and from a section called Mexico (Sector BIII). In the initial stage of his experiments, Mengele put twins and people with physical disabilities through medically focused examinations on living organisms. These examinations, which were often long, painful, and exhausting, greatly affected starving and frightened children who made up the majority of the twins.
The subjects were photographed, plaster casts were made of their teeth and jaws, and their fingerprints and toeprints were taken. Once the examinations of a pair of twins or a dwarf were completed, Mengele ordered their death through phenol injection to proceed with the next stage of his experiments, which involved comparing internal organs during autopsies. Anatomical specimens deemed “scientifically” intriguing were preserved and sent to the Berlin-Dahlem Institute for further examination. Dr. Johann Paul Kremer
The execution of prisoners was accompanied by research on the effects of starvation on the human body, specifically regarding liver atrophy (“braune Atrophie”). This research occurred at Auschwitz Concentration Camp under the supervision of SS-Obersturmführer Johann Paul Kremer, who held positions as a medical doctor and professor at the University of Münster, where he specialized in anatomy and human genetics. Within the main camp’s Block No. 28 clinic, Kremer evaluated prisoners seeking admission to the hospital. Many of these individuals were in an extremely weakened state, nearing death from starvation. Kremer decided to administer lethal phenol injections to most of them. He handpicked prisoners whom he deemed ideal for experimentation and, just before their deaths, questioned them about personal details, such as their weight prior to arrest and recent medication usage, as they lay on the autopsy table awaiting injection. On certain occasions, Kremer even ordered photographs to be taken of these prisoners.
Autopsies were performed on the bodies of Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoners Friedrich Entress, Helmuth Vetter, and Eduard Wirths. Slides were made of their liver, spleen, and pancreas for Kremer. These SS physicians carried out trials of new medications and drugs, such as B-1012, B-1O34, B-1O36, 3582, P-111, rutenolu, and peristonu, on prisoners from the camp who were suffering from contagious diseases. The commission for these trials came from IG Farbenindustrie, specifically the Bayer firm. Many of these prisoners had been deliberately infected. Prof. Dr. August Hirt was involved in these operations.
In 1942, SS-Hauptsturmführer Prof. Dr. August Hirt, the chairman of the anatomy department at the Reich University in Strassburgu, gathered a group of Jewish skeletons for the Ahnenerbe Foundation. With permission from Himmler, Hirt selected prisoners from Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The group included 79 Jewish men, 30 Jewish women, 2 Poles, and 4 “Asians” (likely Soviet POWs). SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Bruno Beger, who arrived in Auschwitz in the first half of 1943, conducted biometric measurements and collected personal data from the selected prisoners. By June 15, 1943, Beger completed his work after the prisoners were quarantined. Some of those chosen by Beger were sent to Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp in July and early August, where they were killed in a gas chamber. Hirt received the victims’ corpses for his skeleton collection, which aimed to demonstrate the superiority of the Nordic race through anthropological studies.
References
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Holocaust Encyclopedia
Jesse Nickelson, EdD
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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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