In the name of humanity. That was the explanation of Dr. Claus Karl Schilling for the execution of malaria experiments upon 1,200 inmates of the Dachau concentration camp during the Second World War. The reputable Schilling had come to Dachau with the personal permission of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in 1942 because he could use the prisoners as research subjects without the restriction of obtaining their consent. Schilling was not an exception.
Many Nazi doctors seized the unique opportunity to execute human experiments without legal and ethical restrictions during the war. The SS and the Wehrmacht either initiated or supported the research of the Nazi doctors. The central question that puzzled jurists and scientists is how these doctors, who were educated to heal people, could execute human experiments and deliberately harm and even kill people. To some scientists, their acts stand out as 'exemplars of evil.' This judgment is based on the fact that prisoners did not give their informed consent, the cruel and sometimes sadistic character of the experiments, and because never before in medical experiments was the death of the research subjects a central element of the research design. Many people think that 'science went mad' in the Third Reich and that Nazi doctors who committed these crimes were pseudo-scientists, sadists, and even monsters. However, it is a false explanation to think these perpetrators were madmen or monsters.
It is confronting to know that physicians belonging to the most advanced medical community of the world at the time and who had sworn to 'do no harm, could commit these crimes.
On this trail, Dr. Josef Mengele's pseudo-scientific research at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II led to immeasurable suffering amongst the camp's children.