“* * * the latest X-ray technique and research make it easily possible to carry out mass sterilization by means of X-rays. However, it appears to be impossible to take these measures without having those who were so treated finding out sooner or later that they definitely had been either sterilized or had been castrated by X-rays.”
Another letter from Brack to Himmler, in June 1942, laid the basis for X-ray experiments which were subsequently carried out at Auschwitz. The second paragraph of this letter forms a fitting conclusion to this account of Nazi depravity, and I quote (NO-205):
“Among 10 millions of Jews in Europe there are, I figure, at least 2 to 3 millions of men and women who are fit enough to work. Considering the extraordinary difficulties the labor problem presents us with, I hold the view that these 2 to 3 millions should be specially selected and preserved. This can, however, only be done if at the same time they are rendered incapable to propagate. About a year ago I reported to you that agents of mine have completed the experiments necessary for this purpose. I would like to recall these facts once more. Sterilization, as normally performed on persons with hereditary diseases, is here out of the question because it takes too long and is too expensive. Castration by X-rays, however, is not only relatively cheap but can also be performed on many thousands in the shortest time. I think that at this time it is already irrelevant whether the people in question become aware of having been castrated after some weeks or months, once they feel the effects.”
J. Typhus (Fleckfieber) and Related Experiments
From December 1941, until near the end of the war, a large program of medical experimentation was carried out upon concentration camp inmates at Buchenwald and Natzweiler to investigate the value of various vaccines. This research involved a variety of diseases—typhus, yellow fever, smallpox, paratyphoid A and B, cholera, and diphtheria. A dozen or more of the defendants were involved in these experiments which were characterized by the most cynical disregard of human life. Hundreds of persons died. The experiments concerning typhus—known in Germany as Fleckfieber or “spot fever”, but is not to be confused with American spotted fever—were particularly appalling.
The typhus experiments at Natzweiler were conducted by Dr. Eugen Haagen, an officer in the Air Force Medical Service and a professor at the University of Strasbourg. In the fall of 1943, through the defendant Sievers, Haagen obtained 100 concentration camp prisoners for experiments with typhus vaccines. Two hundred more prisoners were furnished in the summer of 1944. These experiments caused many fatalities among the prisoners.
The general pattern of these typhus experiments was as follows. A group of concentration camp inmates, selected from the healthier ones who had some resistance to disease, were injected with an anti-typhus vaccine, the efficacy of which was to be tested. Thereafter, all the persons in the group would be infected with typhus. At the same time, other inmates who had not been vaccinated were also infected for purposes of comparison—these unvaccinated victims were called the “control” group. But perhaps the most wicked and murderous circumstance in this whole case is that still other inmates were deliberately infected with typhus with the sole purpose of keeping the typhus virus alive and generally available in the bloodstream of the inmates.
The typhus murders at Buchenwald were carried out in 1942 and 1943 under the direction of the defendants Genzken and Mrugowsky. Requests for the human guinea pigs were turned over to, and filled by, the defendant Hoven. The bulk of the actual work was done by an infamous physician known as Dr. Ding, who committed suicide after the war. But Dr. Ding’s professional diary has survived.
The first entry in Ding’s diary, for 29 December 1941, reveals that here again the impetus for these murderous researches came from the Wehrmacht. This entry describes a conference sponsored by the defendant Handloser and Dr. Conti, respective heads of the military and civilian medical services of the Reich, which was also attended by the defendant Mrugowsky. Typhus had been making serious inroads on the German troops fighting in Russia. The account of this conference relates that, and I quote (NO-265):
“Since tests on animals are not of sufficient value, tests on human beings must be carried out.”