Adolf Hitler

In order to fully understand what the holocaust is, who was involved and why scientists in the camps performed horrendous experiments on its prisoners, we must first understand what could provoke soldiers and normal everyday people like you and me to commit such crimes and be able to, at least on the surface level, accept and hide the true gravity of their actions and their effects on others. Perhaps, we should first analyze the man behind it all, Adolf Hitler.

Hitler didn’t always want to take over the world and commit genocide, his original interests were art. This created a conflict between Adolf and his family, his father in particular as he wanted Adolf to enter the civil services. While his mother was lying on her death bed, Adolf was taking entrance exams to Vienna Academy of the arts in hopes of accomplishing his dream, but unfortunately for him, he was rejected. (Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889-1913).

One of Adolf Hitler's greatest strengths is that he was a great orator and was able to slowly manipulate and brainwash the German populous to acquire his ideals and beliefs. The main ideal of course, was the anti-Semitism that ran rampant throughout Europe. Hitler did not simply create a new hatred for a group of people; anti-Semitism existed long before Hitler came to power. He simply tapped into what already existed and used his powers of persuasion to turn the crowd in his favor.

Aside from the anti-Semitism and other prejudices, he took advantage of people's social vulnerabilities. Since people were also feeling isolated and lonely and humans naturally gravitate towards a group environment with the goal of feeling useful or included.

In conclusion, despite Hitler’s actions, he was still a person, a person with emotions and dreams just like us, he, however followed the wrong path. Even those who go off the deep end are still at the end of the day human and imperfect.       

dehumanization

While dehumanization is bad, one might be able to consider it a necessary evil. Usually in wars or other intense conflicts, a person might have great difficulty when faced with the prospect of actually killing another human being. This is natural and makes sense as if people had little to no problem with the aspect of killing one another, we as a species would have killed each other off. As duty calls and people are called off to war, they are tasked with killing the enemy, whether it is indirectly or directly. People, especially soldiers can understand the concept of killing, but for some when it actually happens; they are unable to do it, why? And how can this apply to the physicians who ran experiments on other human beings in the concentration camps?

Dehumanization is the process in which someone devalues the life and legitimacy of another human being. Simply put people are being objectified so as to make killing and inflicting harm easier. The real trouble with dehumanization however, is that is going to be hard, if not impossible to get rid of. This is because that as long as conflict exists, soldiers will exist to diffuse and win the conflict for their side, victory is only possible if one thinks of his enemy as less than human.

Dehumanization functions as a method to loosen a person’s, or even an entire society’s moral restraints that were placed upon them by society. People’s emotions are split into two categories: primary emotions and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are considered universal; they exist in other living beings aside from humans. These emotions consist of: happiness, dear, sadness, and anger. Primary emotions are a product of nature and evolution, they naturally exist within us whether we want them to or not. Secondary emotions such as: regret, nostalgia, and exuberance (overwhelmingly cheerful or full of energy) are a product of human society. Animals for example don’t necessarily feel these emotions.

types of experiments

In these concentration camps, German physicians conducted horrible experiments on the inmates of the camps. It seems, that despite how horrible these experiments were, they seemed to serve a purpose, that purpose being aiding the German army and ironically attempting to cure diseases, poisons, and other medical conditions.

There were several types of experiments performed on concentration camp inmates. These experiments were not done just for the sake of cruelty and animosity. They had legitimate scientific concerns related to Germans soldiers in mind.

One of these experiments concerned high altitude. The purpose was to find out the best way to help save pilots who eject at high altitudes. They put inmates through conditions simulating up to 68,000 feet high altitude.  The following autopsies reported the existence of tiny pockets of air within the blood vessels of the brain.

Another of these experiments was freezing.  Here, physicians were trying to aid German soldiers in extremely cold circumstances such as landing in the freezing ocean or fighting on Russia’s frigid front. German physicians would submerge inmates in freezing temperatures, while others were taken outside into the freezing outdoors and were restrained. Those who survived were them thawed out be either warm sleeping bags, really hot bathes.  People who underwent this suffered extreme pain, foamed at the mouth, and loss of consciousness. These extreme temperatures also caused victims’ internal body temperature to drop to as low as 79.7 degrees farenheight. 

German physicians even thought that they could reattach limbs from one person to another. They also wanted to if possible, study how human limbs, joints and muscles regenerate. Scientists also conducted bone and nerve grafting. Grafting is the process of replacing missing bone. Physicians removed victims’ bones, muscles and nerves from healthy patients. The leg bones were broken apart with a hammer. Then parts of muscles were cut out, bone fragments were then inserted into the muscle. (Testimony of Dr. Zofia Maczka). 

Inmates at the concentration camps were also forced to endure sterilization. Physicians sterilized both men and women. Their primary goal was to do this with minimum effort. The process included radiating, then castrating a man’s genitalia. The women had it no easier; they had toxic chemicals inserted into their uteruses. 

The Germans also sought a way to make seawater drinkable. Victims were restricted to only drinking seawater while being deprived of food.   

Among with coming up with ways to help German soldiers at the expense of inmate lives, they also conducted experiments to what else, kill people, novel concept. They tried to develop a method of singular execution. To accomplish this noble task, they injected cyanide (a poison that basically kills cells by depriving them of the ability to produce energy), and phenol (a poison that can affect the heart and nervous system). Physicians would inject these among other poisons into victim via a menagerie of methods including: poisoning food and shooting victims with poison bullets. This particular experiment took no prisoners. Even those who survived the torture were finished off. This was done primarily so autopsies could be performed upon the corpses. Inmates were also injected with tuberculosis in an attempt to create a vaccination for the disease. Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that primarily affects the lungs and is spread via droplets from coughs and sneezes. Its primary symptoms include: cough, fever, chills and fatigue. This disease can also affect other organs and its symptoms then vary depending on the organs affected. Continuing in their quest for curing various diseases and poisons, the Germans attempted to find a cure for phosgene, a WW1 poisonous gas. Phosgene gas would cause irritation on skin, eyes, or lungs if inhaled. (Facts about Phosgene)

In conclusion, despite how bad these experiments seemed, the physicians seemed to have their reasons for conducting such experiments. To put this in perspective these people were literally guinea pigs, dehumanized to nothing more than mere objects, test subjects to better the lives of the human species (or at least the Germans) as a whole. It is by this dehumanization that some of these physicians were able to do the things that they did.

Intro

         People, no matter how ordinary or extraordinary they are, no matter how perfect they seem, they can be capable of terrible, unthinkable things that wouldn't seem possible for an average joe to commit. Of course through modern psychology and counseling, we can root out and find the source of the modern person's standard psychological issues. However, the answers aren’t as easy to find when we start trying to figure out why people would commit genocide. This is a complex question as there are many variables that might cause one to commit such an act, and to convince others to join them. Genocide is also very illogical as it heavily goes against evolution and preservation of life.  We humans are interesting creatures; we will do terrible things to each other and then try to justify them by dehumanizing or discrediting the other party. What is even more puzzling is that it isn’t always the super evil overlord that is doing these terrible acts, sure he instigates and manages tem, but he isn’t alone. In situations like this, normal, everyday people like you and me are very capable of committing these acts, what is even more remarkable is that we are able to hide the true gravity of what we do from others and even ourselves.

   This subject is relevant to WW 2 and the holocaust not only because these events are directly linked, but because in order to further our understanding of human behavior, we need to look into the past and examined what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it from happening again.