Nuremberg Medical Trial Research Paper

After the end of the Holocaust, in October 1946, the Nuremberg Medical Trial began. Twenty-three German doctors, physicians, and scientists all accused of aiding the Nazis and furthering the extermination program of the Jews were on trial to determine their fate. Fifteen of the twenty-three scientists were found guilty; eight of the fifteen were jailed, and the other seven were given the death penalty. Not among the twenty-three was the infamous Josef Mengele; Mengele managed to elude capture and trial, and lived under several aliases. Only when Mengele washed up dead on the shore of Brazil, after having a massive stroke while in the water, was he finally caught (Bulow, Louis). Agonizing and lethal experiments were performed on prisoners,

Scientific experiments performed on the Jewish prisoners were meant to accomplish three particular things. The first genre of experiments done on prisoners were tests and solutions to find cures for common wounds and illnesses that soldiers in the Nazi army obtained in the field. Wounds, such as cuts and open sores, were purposely inflicted on the prisoners, and then agitated by the Doctors rubbing dirt and shards of glass into them. The effects of the tests were recorded, and the prisoners were given test solutions to heal the sores and infections that the prisoners often endured. The second genre of testing was to test newly invented medicines, that still needed to be tested before being released for public use. Some medicines were still dangerous or contained heavy doses of chemicals, still needing to be edited. The third and final genre of experiments were not directly beneficial to science. Prisoners tested in this genre were infected with certain diseases, and their reactions, resistance to the disease, and deaths were recorded. This final genre on tests done on prisoners were meant to prove the Nazi opinion of Jewish inferiority (Nazi Medical Experiments). Many prisoners died brutal deaths in the name of medical and scientific

Poisons developed by the scientists were often hidden in prisoners’ food. Prisoners marked for death by the hand of one of the Doctors were sometimes killed by being shot with poison bullets. Prisoners used in tests and experiments performed by the Doctors were killed after their tests were over, usually in the gas chambers. Prisoners that were found with scientifically interesting deformities were sent back to the German hospitals or universities where the Doctors had previously been working before the start of the Holocaust. Often times, the Doctors would ask prisoners personal questions about their life prior to their arrest. One specific professor, named Dr. August Hirt, took corpses that had been killed in the gas chambers, and used them as teaching demonstrations. He was demonstrating to college students the supposed superiority of the Aryan race (Nazi Medical Experimentation). Professor August Hirt and his Jewish skeleton collection were just one of the many despicable things the Doctors of the Holocaust