HOLOCAUST, JOHN WEAR ARTICLE
Were The Medical Experiments On Prisoners At Dachau An Exceptional Horror?
Malaria Experiments
The malaria experimentation at Dachau was performed by Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling, who was an internationally famous parasitologist. Dr. Schilling was ordered by Heinrich Himmler in 1936 to conduct medical research at Dachau for the purpose of specifically immunizing individuals against malaria. Dr. Schilling admitted to Dr. Larson that between 1936 and 1945 he inoculated some 2,000 prisoners with malaria. …
The defense in the Doctors’ Trial at Nuremberg submitted evidence of doctors in the United States performing medical experiments on prison inmates and conscientious objectors during the war. The evidence showed that large-scale malaria experiments were performed on 800 American prisoners, many of them black, from federal penitentiaries in Atlanta and state penitentiaries in Illinois and New Jersey. U.S. doctors conducted human experiments with malaria tropica, one of the most dangerous of the malaria strains, to aid the U.S. war effort in Southeast Asia.[6] Although Dr. Schilling’s malaria experiments were no more dangerous or illegal than the malaria experiments performed by U.S. doctors, Dr. Schilling had to pay for his malaria experiments by being hanged to death while his wife watched. The U.S. doctors who performed malaria experiments on humans were never charged with a crime.
High Altitude and Hypothermia Experiments
Germany also conducted high-altitude experiments at Dachau. Dr. Sigmund Rascher performed these experiments beginning February 22, 1942, and ending around the beginning of July 1942.[7]
According to Neff’s testimony, approximately 70 or 80 prisoners died during these experiments.[9] A film showing the complete sequence of an experiment, including the autopsy, was discovered in Dr. Rascher’s house at Dachau after the war.[10]
Dr. Rascher also conducted so-called freezing experiments at Dachau….
Blood Clotting Experiments
Dr. Rascher also experimented with the effects of Polygal, a substance made from beet and apple pectin, which aided blood clotting. He predicted that the preventative use of Polygal tablets would reduce bleeding from surgery and from gunshot wounds sustained during combat. Subjects were given a Polygal tablet and were either shot through the neck or chest, or their limbs were amputated without anesthesia. …
Infectious Disease, Biopsies and Salt Water Tests
Phlegmones were also induced in inmates at Dachau by intravenous and intramuscular injection of pus during 1942 and 1943. Various natural, allopathic and biochemical remedies were then tried to cure the resulting infections. The phlegmone experiments were apparently an attempt by National Socialist Germany to find an antibiotic similar to penicillin for the infection.[18]…
The Luftwaffe had also been concerned since 1941 with the problem of shot-down airmen who had been reduced to drinking salt water. Sea water experiments were performed at Dachau to develop a method of making sea water drinkable through desalinization. … Many of the subjects became ill from these experiments, suffering from diarrhea, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and sometimes madness or death.[22]
Most Deaths From Natural Causes
Dr. Charles Larson’s forensic work at Dachau indicated that only a small percentage of the deaths in the camp were due to medical experimentation on humans. The profile of the prisoner population that his autopsies projected showed that most of the victims died from natural causes; that is, of disease brought on by malnutrition and filth caused by the war. … Dr. Larson sincerely believed that although Dachau was only a short ride from Munich, most of the people in the city had no idea what was going on inside Dachau.[23]
Dr. Larson’s conclusions are reinforced by the book Dachau, 1933-1945: The Official History by Paul Berben. This book states that the total number of people who passed through Dachau during its existence is well in excess of 200,000.[24] The author concludes that while no one will ever know the exact number of deaths at Dachau, the number of deaths is probably several thousand more than the quoted number of 31,951.[25] This book documents that approximately 66% of all deaths at Dachau occurred during the final seven months of the war.
The increase in deaths at Dachau was caused primarily by a devastating typhus epidemic which, in spite of the efforts made by the medical staff, continued to spread throughout the camp during the final seven months of the war. The number of deaths at Dachau includes 2,226 people who died in May 1945 after the Allies had liberated the camp, as well as the deaths of 223 prisoners in March 1944 from Allied bombings of Kommandos.[26] Thus, while illegal medical experiments were conducted on prisoners at Dachau, Berben’s book clearly shows that the overwhelming majority of deaths of prisoners at Dachau were from natural causes.
Allied Medical Experimentation
During the Doctors’ Trial at Nuremberg, Dr. Karl Brandt and the other defendants were infuriated at the moral high ground taken by the U.S. prosecution. Evidence showed that the Allies had been engaged in illegal medical experimentation, including poison experiments on condemned prisoners in other countries, and cholera and plague experiments on children.
The U.S. prosecution flew in Dr. Andrew Ivy to explain the differences in medical ethics between German and U.S. medical experiments. Interestingly, Dr. Ivy himself had been involved in malaria experiments on inmates at the Illinois State Penitentiary. When Dr. Ivy mentioned that the United States had specific research standards for medical experimentation on humans, it turns out that these principles were first published on December 28, 1946. Dr. Ivy had to admit that the U.S. principles on medical ethics in human experimentation had been made in anticipation of Dr. Ivy’s testimony at the Doctors’ Trial.[27]