Freezing and Hyperthermia

By: Mace

      From 1939 and 1945 about 70 cruel and unusual experiments were tested on victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Such people as Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, and Catholic priests. A set of experiments were conducted to find the cure for Hypothermia.

     “The freezing and hypothermia experiments were divided into two parts. First they had to figure out how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second how to best resuscitate the frozen victim.” The experiments were conducted on men to simulate the conditions the armies suffered on the Eastern Front. The German forces were ill prepared for the bitter cold. Thousands of German soldiers died of freezing or were debilitated by cold injuries. Dr. Rascher conducted experiments to learn how to treat hypothermia for the Luftwaffe, German air force.

     Dr. Sigmund Rascher was a medical doctor in the Dachau concentration camp and did many inhumane experiments, all involving human subjects from the holocaust. Nazi doctors, in order to protect their research in trial, proclaimed that all subjects where sentenced to death as criminals or volunteered. Dr. Rascher participated in his own experiments as a subject, but unlike the prisoners, he had the option of stopping the experiment at any time.

Outside:

     The first method of the freezing was stripping the victim from his clothing then putting him out side on a stretcher in sub-zero temperatures until he froze. This method was much too slow so another experiment was conducted.

Freezing water:

The victim was strapped down in an air force uniform and put in a vad of freezing water. It was learned that most victims lost consciousness and died when the body temperature dropped to 25 C and was most successful. 

To measure the drop of body temperature, an insulated probe was inserted into the subjects rectum and was held in place by an expandable ring which opened inside the rectum to hold the probe in place.

The resuscitation or warming experiments were just as cruel and painful as the freezing experiments. 4 unfreezing experiments where conducted:

Sun Lamp:

The one being experimented on was placed under a sun lamp which was so hot it blistered and burned the skin. This method obviously wasn't the right cure.

Internal Irrigation:

In this method the victim was placed in heated water at blistering temperatures that forcefully irrigated into the stomach, bladder, and intestines. Every single victim who was subjected to this experiment died.

Hot Bath:

The victim was put in a warm bath that slowly increased the temperature. This method was proved to work the best but many patients died do to shock if they where heated to quickly.

Body Heat:

This perverted experiment proved to work pretty well but not as well as the warm bath. Heinrich Himmler suggested to Dr. Rascher that he try to use women to warm the frozen men. He suggested that the victim and a women copulate.