The Theory and Practice of Hell (40 page)

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Dr. Rascher on April 13, 1942, that he was deeply interested in the matter, wishing “ continued success in the ex periments.” (In the passage immediately following he wrote: “ Kindest regards to your dear wife as well. Heil Hitler!” ) Rascher replied, saying among other things that “ the produc tive interest of the Reich Leader SS” deeply stimulated his “ energy and resourcefulness.” The rejults of this productive interest and resourcefulness were some eighty killings. These were reported by Dr. Ruff to Professor Hippke and Dr. Schroder, both of them major-generals in the Medical Corps and Air Force Medical Inspectors. Neither of them raised any objections, even at a time when there had been only a few fatalities. On the contrary, on October 10, 1942, Professor Hippke wrote to Himmler:

D
e a r
M
r
. R
e i c h
L
e a d e r
SS:

In the name o f German aviation medicine and research I express my obedient gratitude for your great interest and aid in connection with the Dachau experiments. These ex periments supplement our knowledge to an important and valuable degree.
. . .
Freezing experiments along different lines are still under way in Dachau. As soon as the work requires your further kind support I hope I may be per mitted to appeal to you again through Captain Rascher.

With Heil Hitler!

P
r o f e s s o r
D
r
. H
i p p k e
.

A letter by the Reich Air Ministry’s official in charge of aviation medicine, dated October 8, 1942, shows that as early as February 24, 1942, Professor Holzlohner of Kiel had been asked by the Medical Inspector of the German Air Force to in vestigate “ The Effect of Chilling on Warm-Blooded Organisms.” This was scientific jargon for the plight of fliers crashing into icy seas. Dr. Rascher proposed to the air force that experiments be conducted on concentration-camp in mates. The result was a collaboration between Rascher and Holzlohner, who supervised the experiments up to late October 1942. Rascher then continued them until May 1943.

During the first period the subjects, clothed or stripped, were immersed in water of 39 to 48° F. until they grew stiff.

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Temperature was measured rectally by thermo-electric means. There were fifty to sixty subjects and fifteen to eighteen fatalities. During the second period Rascher also used another method. Prisoners were exposed to the cold winter air (4 to 13° F. below zero) overnight. When their screams created too much of a disturbance, Rascher finally used anesthesia. Ac cording to the testimony of an eyewitness, the former inmate Walter Neff, Rascher immersed two Russian officers, brought from the camp prison, naked in ice water. It took them five hours to die. During the third hour a Polish orderly who was also present heard one of the Russians say to the other: "Why don’t you ask the officer to shoot us!” The second replied that it was no use expecting any mercy from this Fascist dog.

The total number o f human subjects from November 1942,

to May 1943, was between 220 and 240. Some underwent ex periments two or three times. There were 65 to 70 deaths.

Himmler was especially interested in methods of wanning persons who had been severely chilled. In a number o f series this was done by means of naked women, brought from Ravensbriick for the purpose. “ Personally I believe,” Himm ler wrote Rascher, now promoted to SS captain, “ these ex periments may bring the best and most sustained results, but of course I may be mistaken.” He was not mistaken. Rascher was able to report in detail how revived subjects practiced sex ual intercourse at 86 to 90°F. and that this proved to be the equivalent of a “ hot bath.” When placed between two naked women, the subjects did not recover as rapidly as with one woman. “ I attribute this to the fact that in warming by means of one woman personal inhibitions are avoided and the woman clings more closely to the chilled person (cf. Curve 4 ).”

The SS leadership insisted that these experiments were of great importance to German aviation, and that the gentlemen of the air force were not supporting them with sufficient en thusiasm. Professor Hippke defended himself against these charges in a letter of March 6, 1943, directed to SS Lieutenant-General Wolf, chief of Himmler’s personal staff:

You are mistaken, however, in assuming that I, the responsible head o f all medical-scientific research work, ever offered the slightest opposition to the freezing ex-

*

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periments on human beings, thus impeding their progress. I instantly assented to these experiments, because our own preliminary tests on large animals had been concluded and required supplementation. It would seem rather im plausible that I, who am responsible for every kind of rescue method for our airmen, would not do everything possible to promote such work. When Rascher first pre sented hisplans to me, I agreed with him at once.. . .

Apart from the gruesome deaths, there were no practical results from these experiments. They contributed nothing that was helpful to German fliers.

Three separate series of experiments were initiated by the

SS leadership in its efforts to find a method by which large numbers of human subjects could be quickly and permanently sterilized without their own knowledge.

The first experiment in this line was based on the published results, in a German scientific magazine, of certain animal ex periments conducted by the firm of Madaus & Co., Dresden-Radebeul, with extract from the South American plant
Caladium Seguinum
(“ Animal Experiments on the Question of Sterilization by Drugs,”
Zeitschrift fiir die gesamte ex perimented Medizin [Journal of Experimental Medicine
, 109, 1]). Himmler’s attention was called to this publication from two sides at once. In August 1941, the Deputy
Gauleiter
(Provincial Governor) of Lower Austria wrote that Dr. Fehringer, chief of his regional Office of Racial Policy, had taken up the subject of sterilizing men and women by means of drugs. He proposed to conduct “ the necessary in vestigations and human experiments . . . on inmates of the Gypsy camp at Lackenback in Lower Danube Province, by means of an appropriately selected medical staff, on the basis of the animal experiments of Madaus, and in collaboration with the Institute of Pharmacology of the Vienna Medical Faculty.” He could only hint at “ the vistas opened up by the possibility of sterilizing an unlimited number of people in the shortest possible time and the simplest possible way.”

The Munich dermatologist and urologist, Dr. Adolf Pokorny,1was more blunt. In October 1941, after having read

1Acquitted in the Nazi Medical Trial at Nuremberg.—
Tr.

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the Madaus report, he wrote to Himmler:

I f we were to succeed, on the basis o f these researches, in producing as soon as possible a drug that would within a relatively short time, imperceptibly bring about sterilization in man, we should have a new and extremely effective weapon at our disposal. The thought alone that the three million Bolshevists presently in German hands could be sterilized, making them available as workers while excluding them from procreation, opens vastperspectives.

The perspectives were set forth in detail:

(1) Dr. Madaus must not be allowed to make any further publication (the enemy is listening!). (2) Cultivation o f the plant (readily cultivated in hothouses). (3) Immediate ex periments on human beings (criminals!), to establish dosage and duration o f treatment. (4) Intensive research into the effective chemical substance, leading to: (5) Syn theticproduction, i fpossible.

Himmler immediately mobilized the resources of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, through SS Lieutenant-General Pohl, and those of the Reich Physician SS, through SS Lieutenant-General Grawitz. A hothouse for the cultivation of
Caladium Seguinum
was built. “ Steriliza tion experiments in the concentration camps” were set in mo tion, “ using whatever supply of the plant may be available.” According to a statement by SS Colonel Rudolf Brandt,1 Himmler’s personal adjutant and chief of the Ministerial Office in the Reich Ministry of Interior, such experiments were actually conducted, but I have been unable to learn in which camp. The difficulties encountered in cultivating
Caladium Sequinum
on German soil, and other methods of mass sterilization that had opened up in the meantime, caused SS initiative along this line to slow down.

A certain Dr. Horst Schuhmann, who had been active as a consultant and head o f an institution in 1939, during Hitler’s so-called euthanasia program, had investigated the effect of X-rays on the human generative glands. In 1941, when the gassing of mental patients no longer occupied all his time, he

1Rudolf Brandt was sentenced to death in the Nazi Medical T ria l.—
Tr.

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communicated with Reich Leader Bouhler who, according to SS Colonel Victor Brack,1 Chief of Service in Hitler’s own Chancellery, proposed “ to solve the Jewish problem by means of mass sterilization.” In 1942 contact with the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office was established. Himmler gave his personal support to the plans “ by making available suitable material in the Auschwitz concentration camp.” Dr. Schuhmann got hold of able-bodied Jews, aged twenty to twenty-four, and exposed their sexual organs to X-rays for fifteen minutes. Subsequently the men had to go straight back to work. Those who could not keep the pace because of the ensuing burns and abscesses were gassed. Two to four weeks later the remaining victims were castrated, so that their testicles could be dissected and examined under the microscope. Between times Dr. Schuhmann traveled to Ravensbrtick, where he sterilized Gypsy children without anesthesia.