How Did The Nazis Perform Medical Experiments

The Nazis had many motivations for performing medical experiments on various groups of people during the Holocaust. Such motivations included collecting data in order to aid the German army, finding effective methods of treatment for diseases in a purely scientific attempt, and discovering techniques to bolster the Nazi racist beliefs. Additionally, the Nazis executed such experiments to determine the most productive strategy in mass elimination. The Nazis performed specific experiments to collect data that would benefit different aspects of the German army. Experiments were designed to improve medical treatment of battle wounds. For example, Nazi physicians did experiments with mustard gas. The purpose of such experiments was finding
Brandt, asked him to help in giving him prisoners to use at his disposal for research purposes. The Nazis want to research the causes of the contagious jaundice. The experiments were done by Dr. Dohmen. Graum writes that the doctor came to the conclusion that “contagious jaundice is not carried by bacteria but by a virus” (1273). Graum also reports that Nazi doctors want to increase their knowledge, so they further experiment by injecting the “vaccination of the cultivated virus germ into humans” (1273). Graum asks from Himmler that he allow Dohmen to continue these experiments even though he is not an SS doctor. He wants this to be an exception for the sake of more experiments. He feels that the Germans need these experiments because the illness has a favorable prognosis when treated practically and quickly. The Nazis want to find a preventative treatment for jaundice. In 1946, Dr. Klaus Karl Schilling was hanged at Dachau for his part in the experiments that infected victims with malaria. “He had a greater claim than most of the experimenters to the title of scientist” (Mellanby 148). Schilling was invited to Dachau by Himmler specifically to conduct the malaria experiments because he was a well-known authority on this particular disease. Schilling believed that by doing these experiments, he provided an unparalleled opportunity for malariology advancement. So, he injected healthy victims with a “mild strain of benign tertian malaria” which would not kill the victim (Mellanby 148). Nazi doctors infected victims with malaria from mosquitoes to find a vaccine for disease. It is said that Schilling obtained consent from his victims before experimenting on them. He used drugs carefully according to science, but it didn’t make much difference at Dachau. The U.S. Court claimed that despite Schilling’s seemingly sincere scientific