On
this date, April 26, 1945, Nazi Mad Scientist, Dr. Sigmund Rascher was executed
by firing squad. I will post information about this Nazi War Criminal from
Wikipedia and other links.
 |
|
Dr.
Sigmund Rascher
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://www.laborjournal.de/rubric/buch/2011/b_11_01.lasso]
|
Sigmund Rascher
|
|
Born
|
12 February 1909
Munich, Germany |
Died
|
26 April 1945 (aged 36)
Dachau concentration camp |
Allegiance
|
Nazi Germany
|
Service/branch
|
Schutzstaffel
|
Rank
|
SS-Hauptsturmführer
|
Battles/wars
|
World War II
|
Sigmund Rascher
(12 February 1909 – 26 April 1945) was a German SS doctor. His deadly
experiments on humans, which were carried out in the Nazi
concentration camp of Dachau, were judged inhumane and criminal
during the Nuremberg Trials.
Early
life and career
Rascher
was born the third child of Hanns-August Rascher (1880–1952), a physician, and
completed his secondary education in Konstanz in 1930 or 1931 (this is
uncertain, as he himself used both dates). His father was an avid follower of Rudolf
Steiner, and Sigmund attended a Waldorf
School which was based on Steiner's approach to education. In 1933 he began
studying medicine
in Munich,
where he also joined the NSDAP. The exact day of his joining is also uncertain, as there
are two dates given: Rascher insisted that it was on 1 March, whereas the
documents show 1 May. This is relevant in that the first date is before the
Nazi victory in the election of 5 March 1933, where as the
second date is after Hitler had consolidated power on 23 March with his Enabling Act.
After
his Praktikum (internship), he worked with his now divorced father in Basel, Switzerland,
and also continued his studies there, joining the Swiss Voluntary Work Forces.
In 1934 he moved to Munich to finish his studies, and received his doctorate in
1936.
In
May 1936 year Rascher joined the SA.
In 1939 he transferred to the SS with the
rank of SS-Mann (Private).
In
Munich Rascher worked with Prof. Trumpp from 1936 to 1938 on cancer
diagnostics, supported by a stipend, and until 1939 was an assistant physician
at Munich's Schwabinger Krankenhaus hospital.
Career
with the SS
In
1939 Rascher denounced his father, joined the SS, and was conscripted into the
Luftwaffe. A relationship and eventually marriage to former singer Karoline
"Nini" Diehl gained him direct access to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Rascher's connection with Himmler gave him immense influence,
even over his superiors. Diehl may have been a former lover of Himmler; she
frequently corresponded with him and interceded with him on her husband's
behalf.
A
week after first meeting Himmler, Rascher presented a paper, "Report on
the Development and Solution to Some of the Reichsfuehrer's Assigned Tasks
During a Discussion Held on April 24, 1939". Rascher became involved in
testing a plant extract as a cancer treatment. Kurt Blome,
deputy of the Reich Health Leader (Reichsgesundheitsführer) and Plenipotentiary
for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council, favoured testing the extract
on rodents, but Rascher insisted on using human test subjects. Himmler took
Rascher's side and a Human Cancer Testing Station was established at Dachau.
Blome worked on the project.
High
altitude experiments
Rascher
suggested in early 1941, while a captain in the Luftwaffe's Medical Service, that
high-altitude/low-pressure experiments be carried out on human beings. While
taking a course in aviation medicine at Munich, he wrote Himmler a letter in
which he said that his course included research into high-altitude flight and
it was regretted that no tests with humans had been possible as such
experiments were highly dangerous and nobody volunteered for them. Rascher
asked Himmler to place human subjects at his disposal, stating quite frankly
that the experiments might prove fatal, but that previous tests made with
monkeys had been unsatisfactory. The letter was answered by Rudolf Brandt, Himmler's adjutant, who informed
Rascher that prisoners would be made available.
Rascher
subsequently wrote back to Brandt, asking for permission to carry out his
experiments at Dachau, and plans for the experiments were developed at a
conference in early 1942 attended by Rascher and members of the Luftwaffe
Medical Service. The experiments were carried out in the spring and summer of
the same year, using a portable pressure chamber supplied by the Luftwaffe. The
victims were locked in the chamber, the interior pressure of which was then
lowered to a level corresponding to very high altitudes. The pressure could be
very quickly altered, allowing Rascher to simulate the conditions which would
be experienced by a pilot freefalling from altitude without oxygen. After
viewing a report of one of the fatal experiments, Himmler remarked that if a
subject should survive such treatment, he should be "pardoned" to
life imprisonment. Rascher replied to Himmler that the victims had to date been
merely Poles and Russians, and that he believed they should be given no amnesty
of any sort.
 |
|
Mugshot of Wolfram
Sievers, taken by American authorities after his arrest
|
Freezing
experiments
Rascher
also conducted so-called "freezing experiments" on behalf of
the Luftwaffe, in which 300 test subjects were used against their will. These
were also conducted at Dachau after the high-altitude experiments had concluded.
The purpose was to determine the best way of warming German pilots who had been
forced down in the North Sea and suffered hypothermia.
Rascher's victims were forced to remain outdoors naked in freezing weather for
up to 14 hours, or kept in a tank of icewater for three hours, their pulse and
internal temperature measured through a series of electrodes. Warming of the
victims was then attempted by different methods, most usually and successfully
by immersion in hot water.
General
Dr. Erich
Hippke, chief of the Luftwaffe medical service, was the actual source of the
idea for the so-called "freezing experiments" which were
undertaken on behalf of the Luftwaffe and conducted at Dachau concentration
camp by Sigmund Rascher.
Himmler
attended some of the experiments, and told Rascher he should go the North Sea
and find out how the ordinary people there warmed victims of extreme cold.
Himmler reportedly said he thought "that a fisherwoman could well take her
half-frozen husband into her bed and revive him in that manner" and added
that everyone believed "animal warmth" had a different effect than
artificial warmth. Four Romani women were sent from Ravensbrück concentration camp and
warming was attempted by placing the hypothermic victim between two naked
women.
A
medical conference was held in Nuremberg in October 1942, at which the results of the
experiments were presented under the headings "Prevention and Treatment of
Freezing", and "Warming Up After Freezing to the Danger Point".
Rascher,
who had by now been transferred to the Waffen-SS, was eager to obtain the
academic credentials necessary for a high-level university position. A habilitation
which was to be based on his research failed, however, at Munich, Marburg, and
Frankfurt, due to the formal requirement that results be made available for
public scrutiny. US investigators later concluded that Rascher had been merely
a convenient front for Luftwaffe chief surgeon Erich Hippke, who had been the
true source of the ideas for Rascher's experiments.
Similar
experiments were conducted from July to September 1944, as the Ahnenerbe
provided space and materials to doctors at Dachau to undertake “seawater
experiments”, chiefly through Wolfram Sievers.
Sievers is known to have visited Dachau on 20 July 1944, to speak with Kurt
Plötner and the non-Ahnenerbe Wilhelm Beiglboeck, who ultimately carried out
the experiments.
While
at Dachau, Rascher developed the standard cyanide capsules, which could be
easily bitten through, either deliberately or accidentally.
Blood
coagulation experiments
Rascher
experimented with the effects of Polygal, a substance made from beet and apple pectin, which
aided blood
clotting. He predicted that the preventive use of Polygal tablets would
reduce bleeding from gunshot wounds sustained during combat or during
surgery. Subjects were given a Polygal tablet, and shot through the neck or
chest, or their limbs amputated without anaesthesia. Rascher published an
article on his experience of using Polygal, without detailing the nature of the
human trials and also set up a company to manufacture the substance, staffed by
prisoners.
Personal
life and execution
In
an attempt to please Himmler by demonstrating that population growth could be
accelerated by extending the childbearing age, Rascher publicized the fact that
his wife had given birth to three children even after becoming 48 years of age,
and Himmler used a photograph of Rascher's family as propaganda material.
However, during her fourth "pregnancy", Mrs. Rascher was arrested for
trying to kidnap a baby and an investigation revealed that her other three
children had been either bought or kidnapped. Himmler felt betrayed by this
conduct, and Rascher was arrested in April 1944. As well as complicity in the
kidnappings of the three infants, Rascher was also accused of financial irregularities, the murder of his
former lab
assistant, and scientific fraud. Both Rascher and his wife
were hastily condemned without trial to the concentration camps. Rascher was
imprisoned at Buchenwald following his arrest in
1944 until the camp's evacuation in April 1945. He and other prisoners were
then taken to Dachau where Rascher was
executed by firing squad on 26 April 1945;
just three days before the camp was liberated by American troops.
Literature
Hubert
Rehm: The Fall of the House of Rascher. The bizarre life and death of the
SS-doctor Sigmund Rascher.
OTHER
LINKS:
No comments:
Post a Comment