Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will look at the Nazi concentration camps and the atrocities that happened on their territories.
What is a concentration camp?
A concentration camp or concentration camp is a special place intended for the detention of persons of the following categories:
- political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
- prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).
Nazi concentration camps became notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Mainly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system were kept there.
Life in the camp
Humiliation and abuse for prisoners began from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water or a fenced-off latrine. Prisoners had to relieve themselves publicly, in a tank standing in the middle of the carriage.
But this was only the beginning; a lot of abuse and torture were prepared for the concentration camps of fascists who were undesirable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.
The conditions of detention can be judged from the prisoners’ letters: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured...”, “They shot me, flogged me, poisoned me with dogs, drowned me in water, beat me to death.” with sticks and starvation. They were infected with tuberculosis... suffocated by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. They burned..."
The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was then used in the German textile industry. The doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, at whose hands thousands of people died. He investigated mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they received organ transplants from each other, blood transfusions, and sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. Had sex reassignment surgery.
Everyone became famous for such bullying fascist concentration camps, the names and conditions of detention in the main ones we will consider below.
Camp diet
Typically, the daily ration in the camp was as follows:
- bread - 130 gr;
- fat - 20 g;
- meat - 30 g;
- cereal - 120 gr;
- sugar - 27 gr.
Bread was handed out, and the rest of the products were used for cooking, which consisted of soup (issued 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150 - 200 grams). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for working people. Those who, for some reason, remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a portion of bread.
List of concentration camps in different countries
Fascist concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. There are a lot of them, but let’s name the main ones:
- In Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
- Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
- France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
- Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
- Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
- Czechoslovakia - Kunta Gora, Natra, Hlinsko;
- Estonia - Pirkul, Pärnu, Klooga;
- Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
- Latvia - Salaspils.
And this is not a complete list of all concentration camps that were built by Nazi Germany in the pre-war and war years.
Salaspils
Salaspils, one might say, is the most terrible Nazi concentration camp, because in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept there. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and operated from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).
Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and exterminated en masse, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.
Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were herded into gas chambers and then their corpses were burned. It was used for medical research, which killed more than 100,000 people. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. Torture of children was a routine activity here, carried out according to a schedule with the results carefully recorded.
Experiments on children
Testimony of witnesses and results of investigations revealed the following methods of extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beating, starvation, arsenic poisoning, injection of dangerous substances (most often to children), surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (only from children), executions, torture, useless heavy labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity had seen in modern times. Such an attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.
Children did not stay with their mothers for long and were usually quickly taken away and distributed. Thus, children under six years of age were kept in a special barracks where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat it, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died within 3-4 days. The Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year in this way. The bodies of the dead were partly burned and partly buried on the camp grounds.
The Act of the Nuremberg Trials “on the extermination of children” contained the following numbers: during the excavation of only a fifth of the concentration camp territory, 633 bodies of children aged 5 to 9 years, arranged in layers, were discovered; an area soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children’s bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.
Salaspils is truly the most terrible Nazi concentration camp, because the atrocities described above are not all the tortures that the prisoners were subjected to. Thus, in winter, children brought in were driven barefoot and naked to a barracks for half a kilometer, where they had to wash themselves in icy water. After this, the children were driven in the same way to the next building, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. Moreover, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. Everyone who survived this procedure was also subjected to arsenic poisoning.
Infants were kept separately and given injections, from which the child died in agony within a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children died from experiments per day. The bodies of the dead were carried out in large baskets and burned, dumped in cesspools or were buried near the camp.
Ravensbrück
If we start listing Nazi women's concentration camps, Ravensbrück will come first. This was the only camp of this type in Germany. It could accommodate thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war it was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were detained; Jews numbered approximately 15 percent. There were no prescribed instructions regarding torture and torment; the supervisors chose the line of behavior themselves.
Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Race was also indicated on clothing. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in the post-war years, 2-3 refugee families lived in them) there were approximately three hundred prisoners, who were housed on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were herded into these cells, all of whom had to sleep on the same bunks. The barracks had several toilets and a washbasin, but there were so few of them that after a few days the floors were littered with excrement. Almost all Nazi concentration camps presented this picture (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).
But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and resilient, fit for work, were left behind, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.
Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared towards the end of the war. Ashes from crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.
Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barracks called the “infirmary,” German scientists tested new drugs, first infecting or crippling experimental subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered from what they had endured until the end of their lives. Experiments were also conducted with irradiating women with X-rays, which caused hair loss, skin pigmentation, and death. Excisions of the genital organs were carried out, after which few survived, and even those quickly aged, and at the age of 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out in all Nazi concentration camps; torture of women and children was the main crime Nazi Germany against humanity.
At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there; the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks to accommodate refugees. Ravensbrück later became a base for Soviet military units.
Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald
Construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, becoming the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the “hellish” concentration camp.
The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately behind the gate began the “Appelplat” (parallel ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate there was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite there was an office where the camp fuehrer and the officer on duty - the camp authorities - lived. Deeper down were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were set up in the rest.
The Nazi concentration camps left behind a terrible memory; their names still evoke fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. The crematorium was considered the most terrible place. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot and the body was sent to the oven.
Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number German, which had to be learned in the first 24 hours. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.
Continuing to describe the Nazi concentration camps, let us turn to the so-called “small camp” of Buchenwald.
Small camp of Buchenwald
The “small camp” was the name given to the quarantine zone. The living conditions here were, even compared to the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiegne camp were brought to this camp; they were mainly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were housed in tents. The closer 1945 got, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the “small camp” included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in Nazi concentration camps was not only specially planned or with scientific purpose, life itself was torture in such a place. 750 people lived in the barracks; their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread; those who were not working were no longer entitled to it.
Relations among prisoners were tough; cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. A common practice was to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The dead man's clothes were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions, infectious diseases were common in the camp. Vaccinations only worsened the situation, since injection syringes were not changed.
Photos simply cannot convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. The stories of witnesses are not intended for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to step far forward - no other country in the world had such a number of experimental people. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, the inhuman suffering that these innocent people endured.
Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated, organs were removed, and they were sterilized and castrated. They tested how long a person could withstand extreme cold or heat. They were specially infected with diseases and introduced experimental drugs. Thus, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed in Buchenwald. In addition to typhus, prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.
Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the “Witch of Buchenwald” for her love of sadism and inhumane abuse of prisoners. They feared her more than her husband (Karl Koch) and Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshaded". The woman owed this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.
The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945, at the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and controlled the camp for two days until American soldiers approached.
Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)
When listing Nazi concentration camps, it is impossible to ignore Auschwitz. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead remain unclear. The victims were mainly Jewish prisoners of war, who were exterminated immediately upon arrival in gas chambers.
The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name became a household name. Above the camp gates were engraved the following words: “Work liberates.”
This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:
- Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
- Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called a death camp;
- Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.
Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived at the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. Thus, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. The gas used was Cyclone B. The terrible invention was first tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners totaling about nine hundred people.
Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments on sterilization and castration began on women and men.
Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners working in factories and mines were kept. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. Approximately ten thousand prisoners were held here.
Like any Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with the outside world were prohibited, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.
Five crematoria operated continuously on the territory of Auschwitz, which, according to experts, had a monthly capacity of approximately 270 thousand corpses.
January 27, 1945 Soviet troops Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated. By that time, approximately seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year earlier, mass murders in gas chambers (gas chambers) began in the concentration camp.
Since 1947, a museum and memorial complex began to function on the territory of the former concentration camp, dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of fascist Germany.
Conclusion
During the entire war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. These were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It’s hard to even imagine what these people went through. But it was not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps that they were destined to endure. Thanks to Stalin, after their liberation, returning home, they received the stigma of “traitors.” The Gulag awaited them at home, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity gave way to another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.
Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after release was not advertised and kept silent. But people who have experienced this simply should not be forgotten.
In 1947, there were 23 doctors in the dock at Nuremberg. They were tried for turning medical science into a monster that was subservient to the interests of the Third Reich.
January 30, 1933, Berlin. Professor Blots Clinic. An ordinary medical institution, which competing doctors sometimes call the “devil’s clinic.” Alfred Blots is not liked by his medical colleagues, but they still listen to his opinion. It is known in the scientific community that he was the first to study the effects of poisonous gases on the human genetic system. But Blots did not make the results of his research public. On January 30, Alfred Blots sent a congratulatory telegram to the new Chancellor of Germany, in which he proposed a program of new research in the field of genetics. He received the answer: “Your research is of interest to Germany. They must be continued. Adolf Gitler".
What is "eugenics"?
In the 20s, Alfred Blots traveled around the country giving lectures on what “eugenics” was. He considers himself the founder new science, his main idea"racial purity of the nation." Some call it the struggle for a healthy lifestyle. Blots argues that the future of man can be simulated at the genetic level, in the womb, and this will happen at the end of the 20th century. They listened to him and were surprised, but no one called him “the devil doctor.” Yudin Boris Grigorievich, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, claims that “eugenics is a science (although it can hardly be called a science”) that deals with the genetic improvement of humans.”
In 1933, Hitler believed German geneticists. They promised the Fuhrer that within 20-40 years they would raise a new person, aggressive and obedient to the authorities. The conversation was about cyborgs, biological soldiers of the Third Reich. Hitler was excited about this idea.
During one of Blots' lectures in Munich, a scandal broke out. When asked what the doctor proposed to do with the sick, Blots replied “sterilize or kill,” and that this was precisely the purpose of eugenics. After this, the lecturer was booed, and the term “eugenics” appeared on newspaper pages.
In the mid-30s, a new symbol of Germany appeared, the glass woman. This symbol was even shown at the World Exhibition in Paris. Eugenics was not invented by Hitler, but by doctors. They meant well to the German people, and it all ended in concentration camps and experiments on people. And it all started with a glass woman.
Boris Yudin claims that doctors “incited” German leaders to Nazism. At a time when this term did not yet exist, they began to practice eugenics, which in Germany was called racial hygiene. Then, when Hitler and his entourage came to power, it became clear that it would be possible to sell the idea of racial hygiene. From Professor Burle’s book, “Science and the Swastika”: “After Hitler came to power, the Fuhrer actively supported the development of German medicine and biology. Financing scientific research increased tenfold, and doctors were declared the elite. In the Nazi state, this profession was considered the most important, since its representatives were responsible for the purity of the German race.”
"Human Hygiene"
Dresden, Museum of Human Hygiene. This scientific institution was under the personal patronage of Hitler and Himmler. The main task of the museum is mass propaganda of healthy lifestyle. It was in the Museum of Human Hygiene that a terrible plan for sterilization of the population was developed, which Hitler supported. Hitler insisted that only healthy Germans had children, so the German people would ensure the “thousand-year existence of the Third Reich.” Those who suffer from mental illness and physical disabilities should not make their offspring suffer. This speech had to do not so much with individuals as with entire nations.
In the hands of Hitler, eugenics turned into the science of racial murder. And the first victims of eugenics were the Jews, because in Germany they were declared an “unclean race.” According to Hitler, the ideal German race should not “contaminate” its blood by mixing with Jews. This idea was supported by doctors of the Third Reich.
Eugenics professors developed laws of racial purity. According to the laws, Jews had no right to work in schools, government institutions, teach at universities. And first of all, according to doctors, it was necessary to clear the scientific and medical ranks of Jews. Science was becoming an elite closed society.
In the mid-20s, Germany had the most advanced science. All scientists and doctors who worked in the field of genetics, biology, obstetrics and gynecology considered it prestigious to undergo an internship in Germany. At that time, a third of the doctors were Jews, but after the great purge in 1933-1935, German medicine became completely Aryan. Himmler actively recruited doctors into the SS, and many joined because they were supporters of the Nazi cause.
According to Blots, the world was originally divided into “healthy” and “unhealthy” peoples. This is confirmed by genetic and medical research data. The goal of eugenics is to save humanity from disease and self-destruction. According to German scientists, Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Chinese, and blacks are nations with an inadequate psyche, weak immunity, and an increased ability to transmit diseases. The salvation of the nation lies in the sterilization of some peoples and the regulated birth rate of others.
In the mid-30s, on a small estate near Berlin, a secret facility was located. This is the Fuhrer's medical school, its activities are patronized by Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy. Every year, medical workers, obstetricians and doctors gathered here. It was impossible to come to school at will. The students were selected by the Nazis, the party. SS doctors selected personnel who took advanced training courses at the medical school. This school trained doctors to work in concentration camps, but at first these personnel were used for the sterilization program in the second half of the 30s.
In 1937, Karl Brant became the official boss of German medicine. This man is responsible for the health of the Germans. According to the sterilization program, Karl Brant and his subordinates could use euthanasia to get rid of mentally ill people, disabled people and children with disabilities. Thus, the Third Reich got rid of “extra mouths”, because military policy does not imply the presence of social support. Brant completed his task - before the war, the German nation was cleared of psychopaths, disabled people and freaks. Then more than 100 thousand adults were killed, and gas chambers were used for the first time.
Unit T-4
September 1939, Germany attacked Poland. The Fuhrer clearly expressed his attitude towards the Poles: “The Poles must be slaves of the Third Reich, because at the moment the Russians are beyond our reach. But not a single person capable of governing this country should remain alive." Since 1939, Nazi doctors will begin to work with the so-called “Slavic material”. The death factories began their work; there were one and a half million people in Auschwitz alone. According to the plan, 75-90% of those entering were to immediately go into gas chambers, and the remaining 10% of people were to become material for monstrous medical experiments. The children's blood was used to treat German soldiers in military hospitals. According to the historian Zalessky, the rate of blood sampling was extremely high, sometimes even all the blood was taken. Medical staff from the T-4 unit developed new methods of selecting people for destruction.
The experiments at Auschwitz were led by Joseph Mengel. The prisoners nicknamed him “the angel of death.” Tens of thousands of people became victims of his experiments. He had a laboratory and dozens of professors and doctors who selected children and twins. The twins received blood transfusions and organ transplants from each other. Sisters were forced to bear children from their brothers. Forced gender reassignment operations were carried out. There have been attempts to change the color of a child's eyes by injecting various chemicals into the eyes, amputating organs, and attempting to sew children together. Of the 3 thousand twins who came to Mengele, only three hundred survived. His name became a household word for a killer doctor. He dissected live babies and tested women with high-voltage electric shocks to find out the limits of endurance. But this was only the tip of the iceberg of killer doctors. Other groups of doctors conducted experiments with low temperatures: how low a degree a person can withstand. What is the most effective way for a person to become hypothermic, and what is the best way to resuscitate him. The influence of phosgene and mustard gas on the human body was tested. They found out how long a person could drink sea water and performed bone transplants. They were looking for a remedy that could speed up or slow down human growth. We treated gay men,
With the outbreak of hostilities on the military front, hospitals were overcrowded with wounded German soldiers, and their treatment required new techniques. Therefore, they began a new series of experiments on prisoners, causing them injuries similar to the wounds of German soldiers. Then they were treated different ways, finding out which methods are effective. Shrapnel fragments were injected to determine the stages at which operations were needed. Everything was carried out without anesthesia, and tissue infections led to the amputation of the prisoner’s limbs.
To find out what danger threatens the pilot when the aircraft cabin is depressurized at high altitude, the Nazis put prisoners in a low-pressure chamber and recorded the body's reaction. Experiments were conducted on the use of euthanasia, sterilization, and the development of infectious diseases such as hepatitis, typhus and malaria. They infected - cured - infected again until the person died. They experimented with poisons, adding them to prisoners' food or shooting them with poisonous bullets.
These experiments were carried out not by sadists, but by professional doctors from the special SS unit T-4. By 1944, the monstrous experiments became known in America. This caused unconditional condemnation, but the results of the experiments were of interest to the intelligence services, military departments, and some scientists. That is why the Nuremberg trial of the murderous doctors ended only in 1948, and by this time the case materials had disappeared without a trace, or ended up in scientific centers USA, including materials on “Practical Medicine of the Third Reich”.
We can all agree that the Nazis did terrible things during World War II. The Holocaust was perhaps their most famous crime. But terrible and inhuman things happened in the concentration camps that most people did not know about. Prisoners of the camps were used as test subjects in a variety of experiments, which were very painful and usually resulted in death.Experiments with blood clotting
Dr. Sigmund Rascher conducted blood clotting experiments on prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. He created a drug, Polygal, which included beets and apple pectin. He believed that these tablets could help stop bleeding from battle wounds or during surgery.
Each test subject was given a tablet of this drug and shot in the neck or chest to test its effectiveness. Then the prisoners' limbs were amputated without anesthesia. Dr. Rusher created a company to produce these pills, which also employed prisoners.
Experiments with sulfa drugs
In the Ravensbrück concentration camp, the effectiveness of sulfonamides (or sulfonamide drugs) was tested on prisoners. Subjects were given incisions on the outside of their calves. Doctors then rubbed a mixture of bacteria into the open wounds and stitched them up. To simulate combat situations, glass shards were also inserted into the wounds.
However, this method turned out to be too soft compared to the conditions at the fronts. To simulate gunshot wounds, blood vessels were ligated on both sides to stop blood circulation. The prisoners were then given sulfa drugs. Despite the advances made in the scientific and pharmaceutical fields due to these experiments, prisoners suffered terrible pain, which led to severe injury or even death.
Freezing and hypothermia experiments
The German armies were ill-prepared for the cold they faced on the Eastern Front, from which thousands of soldiers died. As a result, Dr. Sigmund Rascher conducted experiments in Birkenau, Auschwitz and Dachau to find out two things: the time required for body temperature to drop and death, and methods for reviving frozen people.
Naked prisoners were either placed in a barrel of ice water or forced outside in sub-zero temperatures. Most of the victims died. Those who had just lost consciousness were subjected to painful revival procedures. To revive the subjects, they were placed under sunlight lamps, which burned their skin, forced to copulate with women, injected with boiling water, or placed in baths with warm water (which turned out to be the most effective method).
Experiments with incendiary bombs
For three months in 1943 and 1944, Buchenwald prisoners were tested on the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals from phosphorus burns caused by incendiary bombs. The test subjects were specially burned with the phosphorus composition from these bombs, which was a very painful procedure. Prisoners suffered serious injuries during these experiments.
Experiments with sea water
Experiments were carried out on prisoners at Dachau to find ways to turn sea water into drinking water. The subjects were divided into four groups, the members of which went without water, drank sea water, drank sea water treated according to the Burke method, and drank sea water without salt.
Subjects were given food and drink assigned to their group. Prisoners who received seawater of one kind or another eventually began to suffer from severe diarrhea, convulsions, hallucinations, went crazy and eventually died.
In addition, subjects underwent liver needle biopsies or lumbar punctures to collect data. These procedures were painful and in most cases resulted in death.
Experiments with poisons
At Buchenwald, experiments were conducted on the effects of poisons on people. In 1943, prisoners were secretly injected with poisons.
Some died themselves from poisoned food. Others were killed for the sake of dissection. A year later, prisoners were shot with bullets filled with poison to speed up the collection of data. These test subjects experienced terrible torture.
Experiments with sterilization
As part of the extermination of all non-Aryans, Nazi doctors conducted experiments in mass sterilization on prisoners of various concentration camps in search of the least labor-intensive and most cheap method sterilization.
In one series of experiments, a chemical irritant was injected into women's reproductive organs to block the fallopian tubes. Some women have died after this procedure. Other women were killed for autopsies.
In a number of other experiments, prisoners were exposed to strong X-rays, which resulted in severe burns to the abdomen, groin and buttocks. They were also left with incurable ulcers. Some test subjects died.
Experiments on bone, muscle and nerve regeneration and bone transplantation
For about a year, experiments were carried out on prisoners in Ravensbrück to regenerate bones, muscles and nerves. Nerve surgeries involved removing segments of nerves from the lower extremities.
Experiments with bones involved breaking and setting bones in several places on the lower limbs. The fractures were not allowed to heal properly because doctors needed to study the healing process and also test various methods healing.
Doctors also removed many fragments of the tibia from test subjects to study bone tissue regeneration. Bone transplants included transplanting fragments of the left tibia onto the right and vice versa. These experiments caused unbearable pain and severe injuries to the prisoners.
Experiments with typhus
From the end of 1941 to the beginning of 1945, doctors carried out experiments on prisoners of Buchenwald and Natzweiler in the interests of the German armed forces. They tested vaccines against typhus and other diseases.
Approximately 75% of test subjects received trial vaccines against typhus or other chemical substances. They were injected with the virus. As a result, more than 90% of them died.
The remaining 25% of experimental subjects were injected with the virus without any prior protection. Most of them did not survive. Doctors also conducted experiments related to yellow fever, smallpox, typhoid, and other diseases. Hundreds of prisoners died, and many more suffered unbearable pain as a result.
Twin experiments and genetic experiments
The goal of the Holocaust was the elimination of all people of non-Aryan origin. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals and other people who did not meet certain requirements were to be exterminated so that only the "superior" Aryan race remained. Genetic experiments were carried out to provide the Nazi Party scientific evidence superiority of the Aryans.
Dr. Josef Mengele (also known as the "Angel of Death") was greatly interested in twins. He separated them from the rest of the prisoners upon their arrival at Auschwitz. Every day the twins had to donate blood. The actual purpose of this procedure is unknown.
Experiments with twins were extensive. They had to be carefully examined and every inch of their body measured. Comparisons were then made to determine hereditary traits. Sometimes doctors performed massive blood transfusions from one twin to the other.
Since people of Aryan origin mostly had blue eyes, experiments were done with chemical drops or injections into the iris to create them. These procedures were very painful and led to infections and even blindness.
Injections and lumbar punctures were done without anesthesia. One twin was specifically infected with the disease, and the other was not. If one twin died, the other twin was killed and studied for comparison.
Amputations and organ removals were also performed without anesthesia. Most twins who ended up in concentration camps died in one way or another, and their autopsies were the last experiments.
Experiments with high altitudes
From March to August 1942, prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp were used as test subjects in experiments to test human endurance at high altitudes. The results of these experiments were supposed to help the German air force.
The test subjects were placed in a low-pressure chamber in which atmospheric conditions were created at altitudes of up to 21,000 meters. Most of the test subjects died, and the survivors suffered from various injuries from being at high altitudes.
Experiments with malaria
For more than three years, more than 1,000 Dachau prisoners were used in a series of experiments related to the search for a cure for malaria. Healthy prisoners became infected with mosquitoes or extracts from these mosquitoes.
Prisoners who fell ill with malaria were then treated various drugs to test their effectiveness. Many prisoners died. The surviving prisoners suffered greatly and were basically disabled for the rest of their lives.
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The Third Reich is the most mysterious empire of the twentieth century. Until now, humanity shudders to comprehend the secrets of the greatest criminal adventure of all time. We have collected for you the most mysterious experiments of scientists of the Third Reich.
Some of these experiments are so terrible that sometimes just the thought that flashes through our heads about it gives us goosebumps.
It’s hard to believe that there were people who didn’t put the lives of other people at a penny, laughed at their suffering, crippled the fate of entire families, and killed children.
Thank God that in our time there are those who can protect us from the modern manifestation of this cruelty, if you support this, we are waiting for your comment.
Along with the design of nuclear weapons, the Third Reich carried out research and experiments on animals and humans as a biological unit. Namely, Nazi experiments were carried out on people, their endurance of the nervous system and physical capabilities.
Doctors have always had a special attitude; they were considered the saviors of humanity. Even in ancient times, witch doctors and healers were revered, believing that they had special healing powers. This is why modern humanity is shocked by the blatant medical experiments of the Nazis.
The wartime priorities were not only rescue, but also the preservation of the working capacity of people in extreme conditions, the possibility of blood transfusions with different Rh factors, new drugs were tested. Great importance was attached to experiments to combat hypothermia. The German army that took part in the war eastern front, turned out to be completely unprepared for the climatic conditions of the northern part of the USSR. A huge number of soldiers and officers suffered serious frostbite or even died from the winter cold.
Doctors under the leadership of Dr. Sigmund Rascher dealt with this problem in the Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps. To these experiments big interest Reich Minister Heinrich Himmler personally demonstrated (the Nazi experiments on people were very similar to the atrocities of the Japanese Unit 731). At a medical conference held in 1942 to study medical problems associated with work in northern seas and highlands, Dr. Rasher published the results of his experiments conducted on concentration camp prisoners. His experiments concerned two aspects - how long a person can remain in low temperatures without dying, and in what ways it can then be reanimated. To answer these questions, thousands of prisoners were immersed in ice water in winter or lay without clothes tied to a stretcher in the cold.
To find out at what body temperature a person dies, young Slavic or Jewish men were immersed naked in a tank of ice water close to “0” degrees. To measure a prisoner's body temperature, a sensor was inserted into the prisoner's rectum using a probe that had an expandable metal ring at the end, which was pushed open inside the rectum to hold the sensor firmly in place.
It took a huge number of victims to find out that death finally occurs when body temperature drops to 25 degrees. They simulated German pilots getting into the waters of the Northern Arctic Ocean. With the help of inhumane experiments, it was found that hypothermia of the lower occipital part of the head contributes to faster death. This knowledge led to the creation of life jackets with a special headrest that prevents the head from plunging into the water.
Sigmund Rascher during hypothermia experiments
To quickly warm up the victim, inhuman torture was also used. For example, we tried to warm up frozen people using ultraviolet lamps, trying to determine the exposure time at which the skin begins to burn. The method of “internal irrigation” was also used. At the same time, water heated to “bubbles” was injected into the test subject’s stomach, rectum and bladder using probes and a catheter. All victims died from such treatment, without exception. The most effective method turned out to be placing a frozen body in water and gradually heating this water. But a huge number of prisoners died before it was concluded that the heating must be slow enough. At the suggestion of Himmler personally, attempts were made to warm the frozen man with the help of women who warmed the man and copulated with him. This kind of treatment had some success, but, of course, not at critical cooling temperatures….
Dr. Rascher also conducted experiments to determine with what maximum height pilots could bail out of planes and survive. He experimented on prisoners, simulating Atmosphere pressure at an altitude of up to 20 thousand meters and the effect free fall without oxygen cylinder. Of the 200 experimental prisoners, 70 died. It is terrible that these experiments were completely meaningless and did not provide any practical benefit for German aviation.
Research in the field of genetics was very important for the fascist regime. The goal of the fascist doctors was to find evidence of the superiority of the Aryan race over others. A true Aryan had to be athletically built with correct proportions body, be blond and have blue eyes. So that blacks, Latin Americans, Jews, gypsies, and at the same time simply homosexuals could in no way prevent the accession of the chosen race, they were simply destroyed...
For those entering into marriage, the German leadership demanded that a whole list of conditions be met and full testing be carried out in order to guarantee the racial purity of children born in marriage. The conditions were very strict, and violation was punishable by up to death penalty. No exceptions were made for anyone.
So the legal wife of Dr. Z. Rascher, whom we mentioned earlier, was infertile, and the couple adopted two children. Later, the Gestapo conducted an investigation and Z. Fischer’s wife was executed for this crime. So the killer doctor was overtaken by punishment from those people to whom he was fanatically devoted.
In the book by journalist O. Erradon “Black Order. The Pagan Army of the Third Reich" talks about the existence of several programs to preserve the purity of the race. In Nazi Germany, “mercy death” was widely used everywhere - this is a type of euthanasia, the victims of which were disabled children and the mentally ill. All doctors and midwives were required to report newborns with Down syndrome, any physical deformities, cerebral palsy, etc. The parents of such newborns were pressured to send their children to “death centers” scattered throughout Germany.
To prove racial superiority, Nazi medical scientists conducted countless experiments measuring the skulls of people belonging to various nationalities. The scientists' task was to determine external signs, distinguishing the master race, and, accordingly, the ability to detect and correct defects that do occur from time to time. In the cycle of these studies, Dr. Joseph Mengele, who was involved in experiments on twins in Auschwitz, is infamous. He personally screened thousands of arriving prisoners, sorting them into "interesting" or "uninteresting" for his experiments. The “uninteresting” ones were sent to die in gas chambers, and the “interesting” ones had to envy those who found their death so quickly.
Test subjects were expected terrible torture. Dr. Mengele was especially interested in pairs of twins. It is known that he conducted experiments on 1,500 pairs of twins, and only 200 pairs survived. Many were killed immediately so that a comparative anatomical analysis could be carried out during autopsy. And in some cases, Mengele inoculated various diseases into one of the twins, so that later, having killed both, he could see the difference between the healthy and the sick.
Much attention was paid to the issue of sterilization. Candidates for this were all people with hereditary physical or mental illnesses, as well as various hereditary pathologies, these included not only blindness and deafness, but also alcoholism. In addition to the victims of sterilization within the country, the problem of the population of enslaved countries arose.
The Nazis were looking for ways to sterilize large numbers of people as cheaply and quickly as possible without causing workers long-term disability. Research in this area was led by Dr. Carl Clauberg.
In the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and others, thousands of prisoners were exposed to various medical chemicals, surgical operations, and x-rays. Almost all of them became disabled and lost the opportunity to procreate. Injections of iodine and silver nitrate were used as chemical treatments, which were indeed very effective, but caused many side effects, among others, cervical cancer, severe pain in the abdomen, as well as vaginal bleeding.
The method of radiation exposure of experimental subjects turned out to be more “profitable”. It turned out that a small dose x-rays can provoke infertility in the human body, men stop producing sperm, and women’s bodies do not produce eggs. The result of this series of experiments was radioactive overdose and even radioactive burns for many prisoners.
From the winter of 1943 to the autumn of 1944, experiments were carried out in the Buchenwald concentration camp on the effects of human body various poisons. They were mixed into the prisoners' food and the reaction was observed. Some victims were allowed to die, some were killed by guards various stages poisoning, which made it possible to conduct an autopsy and monitor how the poison gradually spreads and affects the body. In the same camp, a search was conducted for a vaccine against the bacteria typhus, yellow fever, diphtheria, and smallpox, for which prisoners were first vaccinated with experimental vaccines and then infected with the disease.
Buchenwald prisoners were also experimented with incendiary mixtures in an attempt to find a way to treat soldiers who received phosphorus burns from bomb explosions. The experiments with homosexuals were truly horrific. The regime considered non-traditional sexual orientation a disease and doctors were looking for ways to treat it. The experiments involved not only homosexuals, but also men of traditional orientation. Treatment included castration, removal of the genital organ, and transplantation of the genital organs. A certain doctor Vaernet tried to treat homosexuality with the help of his invention - an artificially created “gland” that was implanted into prisoners and which was supposed to supply male hormones to the body. It is clear that all these experiments did not bring results.
From the beginning of 1942 to the middle of 1945, in the Dachau concentration camp, German doctors under the leadership of Kurt Pletner conducted research to create a method of treating malaria. For the experiment, physically healthy people were selected and infected with the help of not only malaria mosquitoes, but also by introducing sporozoans isolated from mosquitoes. For treatment, quinine was used, drugs such as antipyrine, pyramidon, as well as a special experimental medicinal product"2516-Bering". As a result of the experiments, about 40 people died directly from malaria, and more than 400 died from complications after the disease or from excessive doses of medications.
During 1942-1943, in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, the effects of antibacterial drugs were tested on prisoners. Prisoners were deliberately shot and then infected with anaerobic gangrene, tetanus and streptococcus bacteria. To complicate the experiment, crushed glass and metal or wood shavings were also poured into the wound. The resulting inflammation was treated with sulfanilamide and other drugs, determining their effectiveness.
Experiments in transplantology and traumatology were conducted in the same camp. Deliberately mutilating people's bones, doctors cut out sections of skin and muscle down to the bone, so that it would be more convenient to observe the healing process of bone tissue. They also cut off the limbs of some experimental subjects and tried to reattach them to others. Nazi medical experiments were led by Karl Franz Gebhardt.
At the Nuremberg trials, which took place after the end of World War II, twenty doctors stood trial. The investigation showed that they were, at their core, true serial killers. Seven of them were sentenced to death, five received life imprisonment, four were acquitted, and another four doctors were sentenced to prison terms ranging from ten to twenty years in prison. Unfortunately, not everyone involved in the inhumane experiments received retribution. Many of them remained free and lived long lives, unlike their victims.
Next, we invite you, in the company of one blogger, to go on a creepy tour of the Nazi death camp Stutthof in Poland, where German doctors conducted their terrible experiments on people during the Second World War.
The most eminent doctors in Germany worked in these operating rooms and X-ray rooms: Professor Karl Clauberg, doctors Karl Gebhard, Sigmund Rascher and Kurt Plötner. What brought these luminaries of science to the tiny village of Sztutovo in eastern Poland, near Gdansk? There are heavenly places here: picturesque white Baltic beaches, pine forests, rivers and canals, medieval castles and ancient cities. But the doctors did not come here to save lives. They came to this quiet and peaceful place in order to do evil, cruelly mocking thousands of people and conducting savage anatomical experiments on them. No one came out alive from the hands of professors of gynecology and virology...
The Stutthof concentration camp was created 35 km east of Gdansk in 1939, immediately after the Nazi occupation of Poland. A couple of kilometers from the small village of Shtutovo, active construction of watchtowers, wooden barracks and stone security barracks suddenly began. During the war years, about 110 thousand people ended up in this camp, of whom about 65 thousand died. This is a relatively small camp (when compared with Auschwitz and Treblinka), but it was here that experiments on people were carried out, and in addition, Dr. Rudol Spanner in 1940-1944 produced soap from human bodies, trying to put the matter on an industrial footing.
From most of the barracks, only the foundations remained.
But part of the camp has been preserved and you can fully experience the harshness for what it is.
At first, the camp regime was such that prisoners were even allowed to occasionally meet with relatives. In these rooms. But very quickly this practice was stopped and the Nazis began to seriously engage in the extermination of prisoners, for which, in fact, such places were created.
No comments needed.
It is generally accepted that the most terrible thing in such places is the crematorium. I don't agree. Dead bodies were burned there. Much more terrible is what the sadists did to people who were still alive. Let's take a walk to the "hospital" and see this place where the luminaries of German medicine saved unfortunate prisoners. I said this sarcastically about “rescuing”. Usually people ended up in the hospital just relatively healthy people. Doctors didn't need real patients. People were washed here.
Here the unfortunate people relieved themselves. Pay attention to the service - there are even toilets. In the barracks, toilets are just holes in concrete floor. In a healthy body healthy mind. Fresh “patients” were prepared for medical experiments.
Here, in these offices, in different time in 1939-1944, the luminaries of German science worked hard. Dr. Clauberg enthusiastically experimented with the sterilization of women, a topic that fascinated him throughout his adult life. Experiments were carried out using x-rays, surgery and various medicines. During the experiments, thousands of women, mostly Polish, Jewish and Belarusian, were sterilized.
Here they studied the effects of mustard gas on the body and looked for cures. For this purpose, prisoners were first placed in gas chambers and gas was released into them. And then they brought them here and tried to treat them.
Karl Wernet also worked here for a short period of time, devoting himself to finding a way to cure homosexuality. Experiments on gays began late, in 1944, and were not brought to any obvious result. Detailed documentation has been preserved of his operations, as a result of which groin area homosexual prisoners of the camp were implanted with a capsule with a “male hormone”, which was supposed to make them heterosexuals. They write that hundreds of ordinary male prisoners passed themselves off as homosexuals in the hope of surviving. After all, the doctor promised that prisoners cured of homosexuality would be released. As you understand, no one escaped from the hands of Dr. Vernet alive. The experiments were not completed, and the experimental subjects ended their lives in a gas chamber nearby.
While the experiments were carried out, the test subjects lived in more acceptable conditions than other prisoners.
However, the close proximity to the crematorium and gas chamber seemed to hint that there would be no salvation.
A sad and depressing sight.
Ashes of prisoners.
The gas chamber, where they first experimented with mustard gas, and from 1942 switched to “Cyclone-B” for the consistent destruction of concentration camp prisoners. Thousands died in this small house opposite the crematorium. The bodies of those who died from the gas were immediately dumped into the crematorium ovens.
There is a museum at the camp, but almost everything there is in Polish.
Nazi literature in the concentration camp museum.
Plan of the camp on the eve of its evacuation.
Road to nowhere...
The fate of the fascist doctors-fanatics developed differently:
The main monster, Josef Mengele fled to South America and lived in Sao Paulo until his death in 1979. Next door to him, the sadistic gynecologist Karl Wernet, who died in 1965 in Uruguay, quietly lived out his life. Kurt Pletner lived to a ripe old age, managed to receive a professorship in 1954, and died in 1984 in Germany as an honorary veteran of medicine.
Dr. Rascher himself was sent by the Nazis in 1945 to the Dachau concentration camp on suspicion of treason against the Reich and his further fate is unknown. Only one of the monster doctors suffered the deserved punishment - Karl Gebhard, who was sentenced to death by the Nuremberg court and was hanged on June 2, 1948.