And if there were medical gains, should they be used?

[Yedith]

This question has come up in just about every "ethics" class I have been involved with. Should the results of any research done under the Nazi regime be used, or - because of the hows and whys - not be used? What think ye?

[Roberto]

This question has come up in just about every "ethics" class I have been involved with. Should the results of any research done under the Nazi regime be used, or - because of the hows and whys - not be used? What think ye?

The following quote should help to illustrate the "hows and whys" in question:

In the murders in this field the Jews were not the only victims. The Nazi doctors also used Russian prisoners of war, Polish concentration camp inmates, women as well as men, and even Germans. The “experiments” were quite varied. Prisoners were placed in pressure chambers and subjected to high-altitude tests until they ceased breathing. They were injected with lethal doses of typhus and jaundice. They were subjected to “freezing” experiments in icy water or exposed naked in the snow outdoors until they froze to death. Poison bullets were tried on them as was mustard gas. At the Ravenbrück concentration camp for women hundreds of Polish inmates - the “rabbit girls” they were called - were given gas gangrene wounds while others were subjected to “experiments” in bone grafting. At Dachau and Buchenwald gypsies were selected to see how long, and in what manner, they could live on salt water. Sterilization experiments were carried out on a large scale at several camps by a variety of means on both men and women; for, as an SS physician, Dr. Adolf Pokorny, wrote Himmler on one occasion, “the enemy must be not only conquered but exterminated.” If he could not be slaughtered - and the need for slave labor toward the end of the war made that practice questionable, as we have seen - then he could be prevented from propagating. In fact Dr. Pokorny told Himmler he thought he had found just the right means, the plant Caladium seguinum , which, he said, induced lasting sterility.

[...]

It was this Dr. Sigmund Rascher who seems to have been responsible for the more sadistic of the medical experiments in the first place This horrible quack had attracted the attention of Himmler, among whose obsessions was the breeding of more and more superior Nordic offspring, through reports in SS circles that Frau Rascher had given birth to four children after passing the age of forty-eight, although in truth the Rashers had simply kidnapped them at suitable intervals from an orphanage.
In the spring of 1941, Dr. Rascher, who was attending a special medical course at Munich given by the Luftwaffe, had a brain storm. On May 15, 1941 he wrote Himmler about it. He had found to his horror that research on the effect of high altitudes on flyers was still at a standstill because “no tests with human material had yet been possible as such experiments are very dangerous and nobody volunteers for them.”

Can you make available two or three professional criminals for these experiments ... The experiments, by which the subjects can of course die, would take place with my co-operation.

The SS Führer replied within a week that “prisoners will, of course, be made available gladly for the high-flight research.”
They were, and Dr. Rascher went to work. The results may be seen from his own reports and from those of others, which showed up at Nuremberg and at the subsequent trial of the SS doctors.
Dr. Rascher’s own findings are a model of scientific jargon. For the high-altitude tests he moved the Air Force’s decompression chamber at Munich to the nearby Dachau concentration camp where human guinea pigs were readily available. Air was pumped out of the contraption so that the oxygen and air pressure at high altitudes could be simulated. Dr. Rascher then made his observations, of which the following one is typical.

The third test was without oxygen at the equivalent of 29,400 feet altitude conducted on a 37-year old Jew in good general condition. Respiration continued for 30 minutes. After four minutes the TP [test person] began to perspire and roll his head.
After five minutes spasms appeared; between the sixth and tenth minute respiration increased in frequency, the TP losing consciousness. From the eleventh to the thirtieth minute respiration slowed down to three inhalations per minute, only to cease entirely at the end of that period. ... About half an hour after breathing had ceased, an autopsy was begun.

An Austrian inmate, Anton Pacholegg, who worked in Dr, Rascher’s office, has described the “experiments” less scientifically.

I have personally seen through the observation window of the decompression chamber when a prisoner inside would stand a vacuum until his lungs ruptured. They would go mad and pull out their hair in an effort to relieve the pressure. They would tear their heads and face with their fingers and nails in an attempt to maim themselves in their madness. They would beat the walls with their hands and head and scream in an effort to relieve pressure on their eardrums. These cases usually ended in the death of the subject.

Some two hundred prisoners were subjected to this experiment before Dr. Rascher was finished with it. Of these, according to the testimony at the”Doctor’s Trial”, about eighty were killed outright and the remained executed somewhat later so that no tales would be told.
This particular research project was finished in May 1942, at which time Field Marshal Erhard Milch of the Luftwaffe conveyed Göring’s “thanks” to Himmler for Rascher’s pioneer experiments. A little later, on October 10, 1942, Lieutenant General Dr. Hippke, Medical Inspector of the Air Force, tendered to Himmler “in the name of the German aviation medicine and research” his “obedient gratitude” for “the Dachau experiments.” However, he thought, there was one omission in them. They had not taken in to account the extreme cold which an aviator faces at high altitudes. To rectify this omission the Luftwaffe, he informed Himmler, was building a decompression chamber “equipped with full refrigeration and with a normal altitude of 100,000 feet. Freezing experiments,” he added, “along different lines are still under way at Dachau.”
Indeed they were. And again Rascher was in the vanguard. But some of his doctor colleagues were having qualms. Was it Christian to do what Rascher was doing? Apparently a few German Luftwaffe medics were beginning to have their doubts. When Himmler heard of this he was infuriated and promptly wrote Field Marshal Milch protesting about the difficulties caused by “Christian medical circles” in the Air Force. He begged the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff to release Rascher from the Air Force medical corps so that he could be transferred to the SS. He suggested that they find a “non-Christian physician, who should be honorable as a scientist,” to pass on Dr. Rascher’s valuable works. In the meantime Himmler emphasized that he

personally assumed the responsibility for supplying asocial individuals and criminals who deserve only to die from concentration camps for these experiments.

Dr. Rascher’s “freezing experiments” were of two kinds: first, to see how much cold a human being could endure befroe he died; and second, to find the best way of re-warming a person who still lived after being exposed to extreme cold. Two methods were selected to freeze a man: dumping him into a tank of ice water or leaving him out in the snow, completely naked, overnight during winter. Rascher’s reports to Himmler on his “freezing” and “warming” experiments are voluminous; an example or two will give the tenor. One of the earliest ones was made on September 10, 1942.

The TPs were immersed in water in full flying uniform ... with hood. A life jacket prevented sinking. The experiments were conducted at temperatures between 36.5 and 53.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In the first test series the back of the head and the brain stem were above water. In another series the back of the neck and cerebellum were submerged. Temperatures as low as 79.5 in the stomach and 79.7 in the rectum were recorded electrically. Fatalities occurred only when the medulla and the cerebellum were chilled.
In autopsies of such fatalities large quantities of free blood, up to a pint, were always found in the cranial cavity. The heart regularly showed extreme distention of the right chamber. The TPs in such tests inevitably died when body temperature had declined to 82.5, despite all rescue attempts. The autopsy findings plainly prove the importance of a heated head and neck protector for the foam suit now in the process of development.

A table which Dr. Rascher appended covers six “Fatal Cases” and shows the water temperatures, body temperature on removal from water, body temperature at death, the length of stay in the water and the time it took the patient to die. The toughest man endued on the ice water for one hundred minutes, the weakest for fifty-three minutes.
Walter Neff, a camp inmate who served as Dr. Rascher’s medical orderly, furnished the “Doctor’s Trial” with a layman’s description of one water-freezing test.

It was the worst experiment ever made. Two Russian officers were brought from the prison barracks. Rascher had them stripped and they had to go into the vat naked. Hour after hour went by, and whereas usually unconsciousness from the cold set in after sixty minutes at the latest, the two men in this case still responded fully after two and a half hours. All appeals to Rasher to put them to sleep by injection were fruitless. About the third hour one of the Russians said to the other, ‘Comrade, please tell the offices to shoot us.’ The other replied that he expected no mercy from this Fascist dog. The two shook hands with a ‘Farewell, Comrade’ ... These words were translated to Rascher by a young Pole, though in a somewhat different form. Rascher went to his office. The young Pole at once tried to chloroform the two victims, but Rascher came back at once, threatening us with his gun. The test lasted at least five hours before death supervened.

The nominal “chief” of the initial cold-water experiments was a certain Dr. Holzloehner, Professor of Medicine at the University of Kiel, assisted by a Dr. Finke, and after working with Rascher for a couple of months they believed they had exhausted the experimental possibilities. The three physicians thereupon drew up a thirty-two page top-secret report to the Air Force entitled “Freezing Experiments with Human Beings” and called a meeting of German scientists at Nuremberg for October 26-27, 1942, to hear and discuss their findings. The subject of the meeting was “Medical Questions in Marine and Water Emergencies.” According to the testimony at the “Doctors’ Trial’, ninety-five German scientists, including some of the most eminent men in the field, participated, and though the three doctors left no doubt that a good many human beings had been done to death in the experiments there were no questions made as to this and no protests therefore made.
Professor Holzloehner [Footnote: Professor Hoçlzloehner may have had a guilty conscience. Picked up by the British he committed suicide after his first interrogation]and Dr. Finke bowed out of the experiments at this time but the persevering Dr. Rascher carried on alone from October 1942 until May of the following year. He wanted, among other things, to pursue experiments in what he called “dry freezing.” Auschwitz, he wrote to Himmler,

is much better suited for such tests than Dachau because it is colder there and because the size of the grounds causes less of a stir in the camps (The test persons yell when they freeze.)

For some reason the change of locality could not be arranged, so Dr. Rascher went ahead with his studies at Dachau, praying for some real winter weather.

Thank God, we have had another intense cold snap at Dachau [he wrote Himmler in the early spring of 1943]. Some people remained out in the open for 14 hours at 21 degrees, attaining an interior temperature of 77 degrees, with peripheral frostbite ...

At the “Doctor’s Trial” the witness Neff again provided a layman’s description if the “dry-freezing” experiments of his chief.

A prisoner was placed naked on a stretcher outside the barracks in the evening. He was covered with a sheet, and every hour a bucket of cold water was poured over him. The test person lay out in the open like this into the morning. Their temperatures were taken.
Later Dr. Rascher said it was a mistake to cover the subject with a sheet and to drench him with water ... In the future the test persons must not be covered. The next experiment was on ten prisoners who were exposed in turn, likewise naked.

As the prisoners slowly froze, Dr. Rascher or his assistant would record temperatures, heart action, respiration and so on. The cries of the suffering often rent the night.

Initially [Neff explained to the court] Rauff forbade these tests to be made in a state of anesthesia. But the test persons made such a racket that it was impossible for Rascher to continue these tests without anesthetic.

Source of quote:

William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Simon & Schuster New York, 1960, pages 979 to 991.

I wonder what medical gains - if any - were obtained from experiments such as those above described.

[Yedith]

Roberto, thank you for the text on the "hows and why"... although I think most would have had an idea about that meant. My question is ...IF any research came out of these horrors, should it be put to use?

[Roberto]

Roberto, thank you for the text on the "hows and why"... although I think most would have had an idea about that meant. My question is ...IF any research came out of these horrors, should it be put to use?

I understood your question, which is rather difficult to answer. I'll think about it over the weekend.

Cheers,

Roberto

[Dan]

Roberto, thank you for the text on the "hows and why"... although I think most would have had an idea about that meant. My question is ...IF any research came out of these horrors, should it be put to use?

Yedith, if we learned anything about air transportation from the V-1 and 2's, should we use them?

The answer is clearly yes. Good may come out of evil. The fact that the good doesn't justify the evil done is a separate issue, IMHO.

Regards
Dan

[Pumpkin]

This can be framed as a well known economic type of problem, related to copyright. The problem with making it legal to use knowledge that has resulted from torture, is that it gives incentive to use torture in the future. Someone might illegally perform such experiments with the calculated risk of getting caught. Even if caught, he might reason, the results will make it worth the punishment. Consider the potential value of torture to the pharmaceutical industry to realize the incentives present! However, if he knows that the results won't be used, the point of committing the crime is lost.

It is to be compared with a court that dismisses evidence that the police has obtained illegally. It destroys the incentive for policemen to misuse their authorities. Also, should it be allowed to sell furs from animals near extinction? Using the furs that exist already, won't kill any new animals, so what's the harm? But allowing a market for existing furs will provide a market also for new ones. Should anti-aids medicin patents be nationalized by governments in poor countries? Then they could be sold at manufacturing cost and be available to the poor. But it will eliminate the profits of the pharmaceutical companies and destroy their incentive for developing new medicins for use in poor countries. While it would be short term good, the long term consequences might be many times worse!

In these kind of problems, the short-term upside is often very concrete and obvious. The long-term downside of creating bad incentives, however, is much more abstract and difficult to estimate. Destroying the valuable information can be viewed as an investment in our system of incentives, which might pay off in the long run.

This is a purely rational approach. One might put moral aspects on it as well. And moral always involves ignoring the consequences in favour of some blind "principle".

[Yedith]

Well put, Pumpkin! Can I quote you when this topic comes up an yet another ethics class?

[Scott Smith]

This is a purely rational approach. One might put moral aspects on it as well. And moral always involves ignoring the consequences in favour of some blind "principle".

Yes, and also a very "Bourgeois" way of looking at the world. No higher good can ever be served except by the buoying of financial markets, a philosophy which motivates the many in the short-term at the expense of any higher rationality. Unless checked, it may lead the world to stampede itself to destruction in search of ever-endless bull markets. And regardless of any mantle of humanitarian morality, anything that gets in the way will be trampled pitilessly.

[Tarpon27]

ROFL!

Scott, you really crack me up. These never-ending, completely off-topic gems of wisdom.

Thanks!

Mark

[Scott Smith]

ROFL!

Scott, you really crack me up. These never-ending, completely off-topic gems of wisdom.

Thanks!

Mark

Why so aggressive, Mark? The discussion was ethics, and any sociologist would know that there is such a thing as "bourgeois morality," as Pumpkin explained. Perhaps that's where some of this Greuelpropaganda comes from... But as Freud would say while munching on an unlit phallic symbol, "it's just a theeeory."

"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought."

The Affluent Society, (1958), ch. 11.

[Tarpon27]

Scott wrote:

Why so aggressive, Mark? The discussion was ethics, and any sociologist would know that there is such a thing as "bourgeois morality," as Pumpkin explained. Perhaps that's where some of this Greuelpropaganda comes from... But as Freud would say while munching on an unlit phallic symbol, "it's just a theeeory."

Sorry...I am not trying to be aggressive, but I just found your commentary wildly off-topic, and somewhat simplistically nonsensical, but that is my opinion.

Per "Gruelpropaganda": I rather enjoyed Pumpkin's response, and it presents an exercise in ethics that is certainly well worth consideration. He/she seems to have presented a fairly reasoned case for the negation of the "ends justifies the means" in that the process of getting the desired end is fraught with ethical, moral, and potentially dangerous perils.

As an example along Pumpkin's reasoning, what if we could cure cancer by killing 10 human beings? Make them convicted murderers. Maybe human society would embrace this concept, but then, as Pumpkin points out, what is the cost the next time?

I did not find your response as an exercise in ethics but rather a statement of fact(s) that you appear to find irreputable:

No higher good can ever be served except by the buoying of financial markets, a philosophy which motivates the many in the short-term at the expense of any higher rationality. Unless checked, it may lead the world to stampede itself to destruction in search of ever-endless bull markets. And regardless of any mantle of humanitarian morality, anything that gets in the way will be trampled pitilessly.

I find that a political viewpoint, of your own opinion, and here in the supposed bastion of capitalism, a premise that appears to me to be false. And I do not see this opinion of yours as having much, if any, relation to the thread's topic, but more as commentary of your views on economic issues.

But I am going offtopic.

Regards,

Mark

[Scott Smith]

I find that a political viewpoint, of your own opinion, and here in the supposed bastion of capitalism, a premise that appears to me to be false. And I do not see this opinion of yours as having much, if any, relation to the thread's topic, but more as commentary of your views on economic issues.

Well, I apologize if I have offended anyone with my flights of fancy. I too enjoyed Pumpkin's response and my point was merely that it was an example of Bourgeois Morality. And there perhaps I should have left it.

Regarding off-topic posts, it is not so clearcut where a discussion will lead--and I tend to be an advocate of MORE discussion, including occasional abstract reasoning and satire. However, I am also a critic of unadulterated SPAM. Here is the definition that I always use:

SPAM:

From a skit on the British television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus in which chanting of the word SPAM, a trademark for a canned meat product, overrides all dialog. Unsolicited commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses (1994).

The operative point is that "noise" intend to drown discussion is Spam; otherwise, discussion is discussion.

Once again, if my posts do the former instead of the latter I apologize and will try to improve when necessary.

Best Regards,
Scott

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

I think it should be used. Why should it not?

Not using it would mean that you would have to re-discover something you already know, which could take years, if not decades.

Maybe the knowledge was discovered at the loss of inocent. On the other hand, it would mean that quite a few everyday appliances should not be used anymore.

The magnifying glass was first used as a weapon
The complete industrialized part of the world is based on slave and child labour
The first space rocket lauched was lauched without hope of retrieval of the dog inside
There are most likely many more on the list.

Some people tend to forget the Nazis are not the only evil peopl eon the planet... Today, and forever, there will be a class society, where some people hae worse conditions than others. There have been no evidence in histoory that humans (or any other animals) can live without a class society, and labour intensive industries are needed.

We can't all live like Amish people...

Therefore, I don't see why discoveries (that can save lifes) should not be used, just because the way they were discovered are not ethical...

Christian

[Ovidius]

I wonder what medical gains - if any - were obtained from experiments such as those above described.

I see I have to re-formulate Yedith's question:

Assuming that you(Roberto Muehlenkamp) were an Air Force pilot who was forced to eject over the North Atlantic without oxygen mask, to survive freezing in the below-zero water and to drink seawater before you were recovered, and due to treatments and training based on high-altitude/extreme cold/saltwater experiments you survived unharmed, would you put a flower on the grave of Dr. Sigmund Rascher?

~Regards,

Ovidius

[Davey Boy]

There is no doubt that those experiments were criminal, and those conducting them should've been prosecuted as war criminals.

You can't just torture someone because you think that it will help "mankind" or whatever. If no one volunteers for such things, then you simply have to make do without human subjects. And there are ways to do that, though I'm sure the results would not have been as exact in this case (the technology was a bit backward back then).

So yeah, the tests did provide plenty of useful material. And there was no point discarding all that knowledge. I hope that it was used productively. As Dan said, good can come out of evil.