1. Experiments dealing with the survival of military personnel

Many experiments in the camps intended to facilitate the survival of Axis military personnel in the field.  For example, at Dachau, physicians from the German air force and from the German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments on prisoners  to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. Scientists there also carried out so-called freezing experiments on prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia. Prisoners were also used  to test various methods of making seawater drinkable.

2. Experiments to test drugs and treatments

Prisoners in the Ravensbrück concentration camp took several clandestine photographs as evidence of the medical experiments conducted on them. The camp was the site of bone-grafting experiments and experiments to test newly developed sulfa drugs.

Pictured here, Bogumila Jasuik was chosen as one of the 74 “rabbits” for medical experimentation. German doctors experimented on her twice in November and December 1942, making four cuts on the muscles of her thigh.

The “rabbits” wanted to take photographs to document their mutilated legs. The photos were secretly taken behind the barracks and were processed after the war.

Other experiments aimed to develop and test drugs and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field.  At the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, and Neuengamme, scientists used camp inmates to test immunization compounds and antibodies for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis. Physicians at Ravensbrück conducted experiments in bone-grafting and tested newly developed sulfa (sulfanilamide) drugs. At Natzweiler and Sachsenhausen, prisoners were exposed to phosgene and mustard gas in order to test possible antidotes.

3. Experiments to advance Nazi racial and ideological goals

A third category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview.  The most infamous were the experiments of Josef Mengele on twins of all ages at Auschwitz.  He also directed experiments on Roma (Gypsies), as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, to determine how different “races” withstood various contagious diseases. The research of August Hirt at Strasbourg University also intended to establish “Jewish racial inferiority.”  Additional gruesome experiments meant to further Nazi racial goals included  a series of sterilization View This Term in the Glossaryexperiments, undertaken primarily at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. Scientists tested a number of methods in an effort to develop an efficient and inexpensive procedure for the mass sterilization View This Term in the Glossaryof Jews, Roma, and other groups Nazi leaders considered to be racially or genetically undesirable.

The Nuremberg Code

The Nuremberg Code was created In the aftermath of the discovery of the camp experiments and subsequent trials to address abuses committed by medical professionals during the Holocaust. The Nuremberg Code included the principle of informed consent and required standards for research.