The Nazis conducted a variety of medical experiments on the prisoners who were confined in extermination camps during the Second World War.
The goals of the experiments were, among other things, to test new weapons, test treatments for the army or confirm the racial ideas of the Nazis.
The experiments were often carried out by doctors who in many cases maimed or killed the prisoners.
For example, Nazi doctors in the Ravensbrück extermination camp in 1942-43 “transplanted” muscles, bones and nerves into prisoners in order to gain knowledge that would enable the Nazis to save badly wounded soldiers on the battlefield.
The Death Doctor escaped punishment
One of the most terrifying Nazi doctors was Joseph Mengele, who experimented on thousands of children, dwarfs and twins at the Auschwitz-Brickenau extermination camp.
Mengele tried to prove the superiority of the Aryan race and prisoners were sewn together or poison was injected into them.
After the war, Mengele fled to South America, where he lived under a false flag until his death in 1979.
Extremely painful procedures were performed without anesthesia
In Dachau and Auschwitz, the Nazis conducted experiments to prevent and treat hypothermia in soldiers.
In them, naked prisoners in the extermination camps were made to stand outside in the cold for many hours, or they were put in a vat of water at freezing point.
Then some prisoners were thrown into boiling water.
Other prisoners in the extermination camps were starved, gassed, poisoned or infected with deadly diseases. Likewise, the limbs of prisoners were cut off without anesthesia.
After World War II, 23 high-ranking doctors and officers were indicted for their part in the experiments.
Seven were acquitted – others were sentenced to death or long prison terms.
