The cold water experiments were performed between August and October 1942; the dry-cold experiments from February to April 1943. Walter Neff, already identified, described the experimental basin as being made of wood, two meters long, two meters high, and 50 centimeters above the floor. He stated that 280 to 300 prisoners were used in the tests, many of them undergoing as high as three experiments, and that out of the number indicated 80 to 90 died. The selection of the subjects was left to the political department of the camp after Rascher had made requests for a certain number. The eventual victims were made up of political prisoners, foreigners, prisoners of war, and inmates condemned to death. According to Neff, none of the subjects were volunteers. (T-423.)
The experiment was conducted in the following manner. The basin was filled with water and then ice was added until the temperature measured 3° [centigrade]. Now the subject, either naked or dressed in a flying suit, was forced into the freezing liquid. When two certain doctors, Holzloehner and Finke, were performing the experiment, the subjects had narcotics administered to them, but when Rascher took over he refused narcotics because he maintained that “you cannot find the exact condition of the blood, and that you would exclude the willpower of the subject if he was under an anaesthetic.” When the subject was experimented on in a conscious state, a much longer time elapsed before the so-called freezing narcosis set in. (T-424.)
Neff, describing the operation, declared that the “sinking down of the temperature until 32° [centigrade] was a terrible plight for the experimental subject.” At 32° the subject lost consciousness, but these persons “were frozen down to 25° body temperature.” When Rascher was handling the experiments “a large number of the persons involved were kept in the water so long a time until they were dead.” (T-425.)
Many others died during the reviving or during the re-warming procedure. The utterly heartless and fiendish manner in which some of the experiments were conducted can be gathered from the graphic description by Neff of the episode of the two Russians—
“It was the worst experiment which was ever carried out. From the bunker two Russian officers were carried out. We were forbidden to speak to them. They arrived in the afternoon at approximately 4 o’clock. Rascher had them undressed and they had to go into the basin in a naked state. Hour after hour passed and when usually after a short time, 60 minutes, the freezing would have set in, these two Russians were still conscious even after two hours. All of our appeals to Rascher, asking him to give them an injection was without purpose. Approximately in the third hour one Russian said to the other: ‘Comrade, tell that officer that he may shoot us.’ Then the other one replied, ‘Don’t expect any mercy from this Fascist dog.’ And how can one imagine that we inmates also had to be witnesses of such a death and could do nothing against it, then you can really estimate how terrible it is to be condemned to work in such an experimental station. After these words, which were translated to the Germans by a young Pole in a somewhat different form, Rascher went back into his office. The young Pole immediately tried to give them an anaesthetic with chloroform, but Rascher returned immediately. He threatened us with a pistol, and he said, ‘Don’t dare interfere and approach these victims.’ The experiment lasted at least five hours until death set in. Both corpses were sent to Munich for autopsy in the Schwabisches Hospital there. Q. Witness, how long did it normally take to kill a person in these freezing experiments? A. The length of the experiment varied according to the individual case. It always varied according to whether the subject was clothed or unclothed. If his physical construction was weak and if in addition to that he was naked, death often set in already after 80 minutes. But there were a number of cases where the experimental subject lived up to three hours and remained that way in the water until finally death set in.” (T-426.)
On 20 September 1942, Rascher made an intermediary report on these experiments—
“The experimental subjects (VP’s) were placed in the water dressed in complete flying uniform, winter or summer combination, and with an aviator’s helmet. A life jacket made of rubber or kapok was to prevent submerging. The experiments were carried out at water temperatures varying from 2.5° to 12° [centigrade]. In one experimental series, the occiput, the brain stem, protruded above the water, while in another series, the brain stem and back of the head were submerged in water * * *. Fatalities occurred only when the brain stem and back of the head were also chilled. Autopsies of such fatal cases always revealed large amounts of free blood, up to one-half liter, in the cranial cavity. The heart invariably showed extreme dilation of the right chamber. As soon as the temperature in these experiments reached 28° the experimental subjects died invariably, despite all attempts at resuscitation. The above-discussed autopsy findings conclusively proved the importance of a warming protective device for the occiput when designing the planned protective clothing of foam type.” (T-398-399.)
The sheer monstrousness of this type of experiment reveals itself in the last sentence of the report which states with the flourish of a great scientific discovery that if the back of the head, the occiput is to be submerged in freezing water, there should be a warm, protective device to cover the occiput. If one is to have his feet in icy water, he should wear warm, waterproof boots. If he is to dip his head in the icy water, then his head should also be protected! This, then, is the weighty conclusion of so-called scientists sacrificing human lives for an observation that is obvious to a ten-year-old child.
“During attempts to save severely chilled persons (Unterkuehlte) it was shown that rapid re-warming was in all cases preferable to slow re-warming, because after removed from the cold water, the body temperature continued to sink rapidly. I think that for this reason, we can dispense with the attempt to save intensely chilled subjects by means of animal heat. Rewarming by animal warmth, animal bodies or women’s bodies, would be too slow. As auxiliary measures for the prevention of intense chilling, improvements in the clothing of aviators come alone into consideration. The foam suit with suitable neck protector which is being prepared by the German Institution for Textile Research (Deutsches Textilforschungsinstitut), Muenchen-Gladbach, deserves first priority in this connection. The experiments have shown that pharmaceutical measures are probably necessary if the flier is still alive at the time of rescue.” (T-399-400.)
Here other amazing, fantastic discoveries were made.