nazi

The Research of Nazi Germany
Origins
The rise of the Nazi Party began with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on January 30, 1933. Soon after his appointment, Adolf began to prepare the state for Nazi rule. The Nazi party was guided by authoritarian principles and began to invoke a Volk society in which religious and class differences would be eradicated. Any political enemies of the Nazi party were subject to intimidation and legislation that discriminated against their party. In February of 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree suspended the basic civil rights of citizens. Within his first two years as chancellor, Hitler had aligned all other political, professional and cultural organizations with the goals of the Nazi party. All aspects of government, economy, and education were under the tyrannous control of the Nazi party. Through various acts passed by the Reichstag, Hitler became the total dictator of Germany. He began to put forth his plans to decimate the population of several different enemies of the Nazi party, and to expand across Europe and form the next great empire.
Medical & Health Things Adolf Hitler believed that the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Germany was a threat that could weaken the country. Non-Aryans (which included Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, anti-socials, and other impure races) were considered "lebensunwertes Leben" or unworthy of life. To control and shape the population to his liking, he created the Nazi Physician League in 1933. 2,800 (around 6% of the total doctors in Germany) joined imminently with the percent rising to 50% shortly after. In April, a law is passed allowing only Aryan physicians the right to practice in the Socialist Medical System. With his ARMY OF NIGGAHS, Hitler was able to influence his followers - that the health of the state in more important than the individual. After only six months as Chancellor, Adolf passed the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring. This allowed for the forced sterilization of people suffering from schizophrenia, epilepsy, "feeblemindedness", alcoholism, depression, Huntington's chorea, hereditary deafness and asylum inmates. According to the law, doctors had to report the genetic illnesses of their patients to a higher-up health officer. A petition was also created for the sterilization of patients and reviewed by the Hereditary Health Courts. Around ninety percent of the petitions submitted were accepted and followed through. Police force was often needed to forcibly escort the patient to the operating room and secured to the table. A vasectomy was performed on men and ligation of the fallopian tubes in women. During the period, scientists wanted a faster and easier way to sterilize women who took one to two weeks to recover from the operation. Some prisoners at camps were drugged and blasted with radiation and x-rays to test a speedier process. The results were not satisfactory with the subjects suffering from serious burns and painful swelling. Sadly by the end of the war, between 300,000 and 450,000 people were sterilized. Klara Nowak speaks of her experiences from a 1991 interview.
"Well, I still have many complaints as a result of it. There were complications with every operation I have had since. I had to take early retirement at the age of fifty-two - and the psychological pressure has always remained. When nowadays my neighbors, older ladies, tell me about their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, this hurts bitterly, because I do not have any children or grandchildren, because I am on my own, and I have to cope without anyone's help." - Klara Nowak The Nazis wanted to further advance German medicine and their knowledge of the human body. To achieve this, expendable humans were needed to test on. They turned to the prisoners of the concentration camps to involuntarily aid their twisted plans. Many of the experiments that took place were for the advancement of their military while others were for the health of the German people. When the Germans had moved to the Eastern Front, many soldiers were not prepared for the freezing cold temperatures and died because of it. As a result, Doctors Sigmund Rascherat Birkenau, Dachua, and Auschwitz were to supervise the experiments to see if they could prevent and treat hypothermia. They were to directly reported their findings to Heinrich Himmler along with other high ranking Nazis. The first method was to strip the subject, usually a healthy male Russian or Jew, and force him into a vat of icy cold water. A thermometer inserted in the rectum, which held in place with a metal ring, measured the persons internal body temperature. They would freeze in there for up to five hours until they became unconscious and died from hypothermia. Body temperatures would get as low as 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The second method was to strip the subject and strap onto a stretcher and place them outside. The winters in Auschwitz were extreme and very bitter. Over 300 people suffered and died from these experiments. Along with these experiments, others were performed to heat up the body to combat the cold and hyperthermia. One such experiment had the subject placed under sun lamps that were so blistering, it burned their skin. Another had hot water injected into their intestines, bladder, and intestines but they died as a result. The most effective treatment was the Hot Bath experiment where the subject was placed in a vat of warm water which was heated up gradually. This was rather successful but it was reported that some died from shock if the temperature rose too quickly. Yet another military type experiment was conducted at the Dachau camp from March to August of 1942. The German Air Force wanted to see the effects and human endurance of high altitudes. A prisoner was strapped into a harness and locked in a low-pressure chamber. The altitude simulated in the chamber was equal to that at a height of 68,000 feet. Many lost consciousness and soon after died. Another experiment was created to test the effectiveness of a synthetic antimicrobial agent to help treat battlefield wounds. Subjects were forcibly wounded and infected with bacteria such as Streptococcus, Clostridium tetani (tetanus), and Clostridium perfringens (gangrene). Their wounds were aggravated by wood shavings and glass shards being rubbed into them. Yet another tortuous experiment was created with mustard gas. Since it became widely used in World War II, scientists wanted to find the most effective was of treating woods caused by mustard gas. For the German Air Force and Navy, the Dachau concentration camp performed experiments on inmates. Their goal was to perfect a method of making sea water drinkable. The subjects were starved and deprived of all food. They were only given containers of sea water to drink. From the excess of salt intake, their bodies became even more dehydrated as they drank more. They suffered serious internal bodily injuries as a result. Besides military experiments, the prisoners at camps were used to test pharmaceutical drugs and chemicals. A Malaria experiment was conducted at the Dachau concentration camp from February 1942 to April 1945. By infecting and injecting over 1,000 people, the scientists hoped to find some sort of immunization. Besides malaria, scientists also tested immunization compounds for typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, hepatitis, ad yellow fever. Many were not successful and over half died from the diseases. The most notorious experiments held during the Nazi Era were the Twin Experiments conducted by Josef Mengele. He was born on March 16, 1911 in Gunzburg, Bavaria in Germany. He earned a Ph.D. in physical anthropology in 1935 from the University of Munich. Soon after, he became the assistant of Dr. Otmar von Verschuer who was widely known for his research with twins. He then joined the SS and was drafted in the army. There he performed medical service for the Waffen-SS. After being wounded while on campaign, Josef returned back to Germany and was promoted to Auschwitz on May 20, 1943. Nicknamed the "Angel of Death", Mengele enjoyed conducting "selections" at the camp. He would sort out the incoming prisoners and form two groups. Healthy men were set aside to perform labor at the camp while others, mostly women, children, and the elderly, were sent to the gas chambers. Josef enjoyed doing this camp duty since here, he could pull aside inmates he wanted to experiment on. What fascinated him the most were identical and fraternal twins. Mengele would treat his personal subjects better than the rest; giving then better housing, food, and even sweets. His kindness was deceptive and did not carry over to his medical lab. The twins were extensively examined, measured, and photographed weekly by him or one of his assistants. Some of his experiments included limb amputation, infecting one twin with a deadly disease but not the other, and blood transfusions between the set of twins. He also attempted to see if changing a person's eye color was feasible. Chemicals were forcibly injected into the eyes of living subjects. If they did not die during the gruesome procedures, he had them killed by either lethal injection, shot, or beaten. The experiments did not end there, the bodies were dissected and examined, some were even sent to other scientists for further study. Many wonder why he had no remorse for his actions and why he had no empathy for fellow humans. Some report that he wanted to prove the supremacy of heredity over environment, which would "prove" that the Aryan race was superior. Others suggest that the studies would improve the reproduction rate of blond hair, blue eyed Germans and even the chance of having twins.
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