Which is worse?

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by kiwigeordie, Jan 18, 2012.

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  1. kiwigeordie

    kiwigeordie Senior Member

    Last night I watched a documentary called "Science & the Swastika - The Wrong Stuff". The theme was the post-war use of German scientists by the US during the space programme - with the focus on those specializing in aviation medicine.

    Much of the knowledge gained by these specialists was at the expense of concentration camp inmates, many of who died as a result of the high altitude or freezing water experiments.

    The most disquieting aspect (for me) was the apparent lack of feeling by the scientists for their 'guinea pigs'. That may sound strange but what I mean is that they appeared to have no hatred for their victims - the majority of who were Jewish, of course.

    I can understand without condoning someone ill-treating another out of mis-placed hatred for their race/colour/religion. I'm sure that many of us have at some time experienced similar feelings (to a lesser degree I hope) for one reason or another without acting on them but it struck a chill into me that someone could be so amoral and without feeling that they could act that way towards another human being.

    I guess what I'm trying to say is that I find their actions far more frightening than those for example of a camp guard killing a prisoner out of hatred born of prejudice. Yet these people were actively protected from post-war prosecution.

    What do other members think?

    Pete
     
  2. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    Much of the data gathered in various German institutions (not just the KZs) was due to experimentation on unwilling subjects - the immorality of the research is not in dispute, however some of the data gathered has enabled progress in various scientific and medical fields therefore we are left with a thorny ethical dilemma. Which I am glad others have had to make.
     
  3. kiwigeordie

    kiwigeordie Senior Member

    Agree completely Jed. The doco included an interview with a modern day Royal Navy scientist specializing in the field of cold water immersion of downed aircrew. He was given access to the findings of the German experiments and agonised over whether to use them in his research.
    His conclusion was that by using the results he was memorialising those who had died in order that such information could be obtained. That's to say, their deaths would not have been in vain.

    My question, however, still stands. Which (if either) is worse? 'Hot-blooded' killing from misplaced hatred or 'cold-blooded' killing for so-called scientific research? I know which one frightens me more.

    Pete
     
  4. Pinhead

    Pinhead Stitch Monkey!

    Which is worse? Cold blooded killing, imho.

    The fact that it is emotionless is what is so firghtening about it. As has been said, most of us can understand an emotional response or reaction to something on one level or another but to have no feeling at all about the fate of another human being is truely, truely terrifying and sinister.

    The question of whether it is ethical to use the results of the afore mentioned research is a real dilema. However, the research was done, the results were gathered. If the results weren't used... then would those innocent people have suffered and died for nothing? Would using the results help to memorialise the victims? Would not using it mean they are forgotten? I don't have an answer, only questions I'm afraid.

    Regards,
    Sean
     
  5. Tapera Naevia

    Tapera Naevia Junior Member

    Last night I watched a documentary called "Science & the Swastika - The Wrong Stuff". The theme was the post-war use of German scientists by the US during the space programme - with the focus on those specializing in aviation medicine.

    Much of the knowledge gained by these specialists was at the expense of concentration camp inmates, many of who died as a result of the high altitude or freezing water experiments.

    The most disquieting aspect (for me) was the apparent lack of feeling by the scientists for their 'guinea pigs'. That may sound strange but what I mean is that they appeared to have no hatred for their victims - the majority of who were Jewish, of course.

    I can understand without condoning someone ill-treating another out of mis-placed hatred for their race/colour/religion. I'm sure that many of us have at some time experienced similar feelings (to a lesser degree I hope) for one reason or another without acting on them but it struck a chill into me that someone could be so amoral and without feeling that they could act that way towards another human being.

    I guess what I'm trying to say is that I find their actions far more frightening than those for example of a camp guard killing a prisoner out of hatred born of prejudice. Yet these people were actively protected from post-war prosecution.

    What do other members think?

    Pete

    I think that for some reason, the most important aspects of WW2 were neither are analyzed in just right.
    If we analyze the position of international politics Nazi from a objective point of view and without fanaticism, we see that in many ways were not wrong.
    Although it is obvious I have to say that while I believe that some aspects were not wrong .... raised was the solution that is worthy of being considered one of the greatest horrors that humanity suffered.
    Consider that all was made by a madman is .....an infantile thought.
    Until we resolve this dilemma we are exposed to relive the same horror.
    For example:
    Hiroshima.
    Nagasaki.
    Massive bombing of Vietnam.
    September 11.
    Osama Bin Laden.
    Apartheid.

    Best regards
     
  6. kiwigeordie

    kiwigeordie Senior Member

     
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  7. wowtank

    wowtank Very Senior Member

    My view of most scientists Nazi or not can be summed up by Justin Sullivan:

    Well we know what makes the flowers grow - but we don't know why
    And we all have the knowledge of DNA - but we still die
    We perch so thin and fragile here upon the land
    And the earth that moves beneath us, we don't understand
    So we rush towards the Judgement Day, when She reclaims
    A toast to the Luddite martyrs then, who died in vain
    Down at the lab they're working still, finishing off
    How do we tell the people in the white coats
    Enough is enough?
     
  8. Peccavi

    Peccavi Senior Member


    Konrad Adenauer stated "According to a statement made by an American expert, the patents formerly belonging to IG Farben have given the American chemical industry a lead of at least 10 years. The damage thus caused to the German economy is huge and cannot be assessed in figures. It is extraordinarily regrettable that the new German inventions cannot be protected either, because Germany is not a member of the Patent Union. Britain has declared that it will respect German inventions regardless of what the peace treaty may say. But America has refused to issue such a declaration. German inventors are therefore not in a position to exploit their own inventions. This puts a considerable brake on German economic development

    Some German scientists did refuse to co-operate

    I recommend the book by Diarmuid Jefferys - IG Farben and Making of the Hitler War Machine.

    You need to look well beyond the scientist - the Bosses at IG Farben were supremely guilty and were rewarded (the few found guilty) with a couple of years in prison and nearly all resummed their old Directorships after 1950.

    Why? - because the Allies and the Americans in particular were more concerned with the Red Menace than justice for the millions murdered in Auchwitz and elsewhere.

    And as my quote from Dr Adenauer (first Chancellor of the new Germany) shows, commercial advantage was another factor. All those American organisations which benefited have questions to be answered as well.

    Blaming the scientist is too facile - the real guilty men were the bosses at IG Farben, Krupp, Theissen etc, also Todt and Speer.

    Sadly the perpetrators, the companies concerned and those that benefitted have gone on from strength to strength.
     
  9. kiwigeordie

    kiwigeordie Senior Member

    Peccavi, thanks for the book reference I'll try to locate a copy.

    Yes, I was aware of the German industrialists use of slave labour and also research material from human experimentation. You're right in that they also carry responsibility for such inhumane actions.

    IMHO however, I believe that there is a subtle difference between someone sitting in a boardroom and deriving profit from such actions and those wielding a syringe and scalpel.

    I believe there were also a number of companies in the US who maintained their peacetime affiliations with German counterparts throughout the war years.

    I'm also not convinced that any lack of post-war retribution was due to the West being preoccupied with the Cold War. It seems more likely that it was due to commercial/political influence from those western companies who sttod to gain from the use of ex-German scientists and their research.
     
  10. Peccavi

    Peccavi Senior Member

    Here is what one of the nastiest of the IG Farben Directors, Fritz Ter Hell replied to the question of the prisoners suffering during experiments:

    "No special suffering was dealt to the prisoners by them, since in their absence, one would have killed them."
    ("Den Häftlingen ist dadurch kein besonderes Leid zugefügt worden, da man sie ohnedies getötet hätte.“)

    Bizarrely during the Trial, this evil man had been let out of Court by the sympathetic and naive American judge and had spent his freedom threatening witnesses.

    He was in charge of the building of the Buna werks at Monowitz, where life expectancy for the Russian POWs was 4 months before they were shipped to the Gas chambers. He got 8 years but was released after 2 years (and extremely cushy ones)His comment on his realease

    "it not surpising the Americans need us now (ie to combat the Soviets) " - Full of repentance!

    In 1956 after a change inthe Law which allowed war criminals to resume Directorship he was confirmed as Chairman of BAYER. Naturally he retired an extremely wealthy and successful businessman.

    But to answer your suggestion that the lowly scientist sticking in the needle was more guilty, my answer is NO.

    Ter Hell knew he was murdering tens of thousands but as you can see it troubled his conscience not one little bit.

    To put it another way - was the SS camp guard worse than Himmler?
     
  11. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Without doubt,post war,the Allies used captured documentation of the records of illegal medical experiments carried out by the German medical profession, in the pursuit of science.

    It has to be said that that those of the medical profession conducting these experiments were members of the Nazi Party.

    There was an attempt to bring these people to book after the war and the principal characters, 23 SS physcians featured in the Doctors' Trial and stood before an American Military Tribunal No1 in December 1946.

    The charges were:

    common design or conspiracy.
    war crimes.
    crimes against humanity.
    membership of criminal organisations.

    The bulk of the medical experiments were conducted relating to high altitude,low temperature and the drinking of seawater.Other experiments conducted were with typhus and infectionious jaundice,sulphur drugs,bone grafting, (hidious experiments conducted on Polish females which failed,crippling the "patient",mustard gas and mass sterilisation.

    In the past,I read the account of a doctor who joined the SS and was posted to Poland.Such was his intensity for dissection of the human body that he stationed himself in the basement of a house where Poles were executed and where he had instant access to those recently executed.

    His notes are intermingled with the love of his wife and family...most disturbing to read taken what he was involved in.Committed suicide before he could be brought to justice.

    As for IG Farben,the company provided the building block for the German war economy,particularly in chemical engneering such as explosives (85% of the war requirements),noxious gases and almost the whole of synthetic tyre production.The cartel controlled over 900 factories in Germany and the Greater German Reich and using slave labour,100% of its output uderpinned the Nazi regime.

    The company had a presence at Auschwitz with its syntetic rubber Buna plant.

    After the war,the Allies were determined to break up the cartel that the company had enjoyed since the 1920s but as the attempt to break up Krupps,found that there was not a German buyer coming forward.The realisation that Russia represented a threat to Western Europe and IG Farben should be allowed to trade, overrode denazification and decartelisation lapsed.Freedom from prison of IG Farben directors followed.
     
  12. Bradlad

    Bradlad Senior Member

    I think the point behind this thread has been missed a little, I think the original post was more aimed at the individuals performing the tasks remorselessly than under orders.

    I have considered this before, I read about Unit731 ( the Japanese research centre ) and some of the participants in the atrocities there.
    Most said they felt no malice or in fact any emotion towards their ' subjects ' they just " did what needed doing ".

    Now to me this is inhuman, even a vet feels something when he/she puts an animal down, but to feel nothing when you are inflicting suffering on a human you have no emotion towards is very scary, what sort of upbringing or doctrine have you been subjected to to become so detached?
    And even more worrying, what are the chances of rehabilitation or future recurrences?
     
  13. Peccavi

    Peccavi Senior Member

    The company had a presence at Auschwitz with its syntetic rubber Buna plant.

    Sorry Harry but it was a lot more than presence.

    IG Farben were the only German company to finance, build and own their own Concentration camp and to operate their own coal mine to feed Monowitz, Buna, Synthetic Petroleum and Methanol plants. Even the SS complained that the IG Farben regime was too severe and led to too early a death amongst the prisoners.

    Bayer paid the SS to carry out experiments with new drugs at Buchenwald on prisoners. Trainloads of documents were destroyed by the Company so we will never know the full extent of the trade.

    Since it is felt that my contribution is sending the thread off subject, I will desist and maybe start another about corporate, white collar guilt.
     
  14. Tapera Naevia

    Tapera Naevia Junior Member

    ""TN. First, I can see that English is not your first language so forgive me if I have misunderstood your meaning.""

    Nothing to forgive. At any discussion the most important things for me are:
    1 ) The intention of the participants.
    2 ) Objectivity and truth of the arguments.

    In my case the intention is ....... go forward! Like in a highway : Looking forward and also, occasionally looking back.

    ""You appear to be saying that not all Nazi politics was bad. This is not an idea to which I can subscribe. It is no consolation that the Nazis brought full employment to Germany and made the trains run on time when measured against the misery and death caused by such a repressive regime.""

    Please pay attention to my words.
    I said : international politics Nazi .

    But everything that we try to discuss is useless if:
    1) We don't see that now The World has too much people thinking like Nazis .
    2) We see that thought is, in many cases, born in our inability to show the reality.

    I think we're in a world completely different from previous centuries.Today are anachronistic ideologies !
    And those ideologies are fed from our mistakes, recruiting young people to whom we gave no culture.

    In summary, as you can see, there is not only a problem to raise within the bounds of a single language.

    Tapera Naevia

    PS: Please look for "Tapera Naevia" (Striped Cuckoo) on the web.
     
  15. Peccavi

    Peccavi Senior Member

    Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment 2009, 3/3 - YouTube

    I think this might have some bearing on the discussion - Milgram's Obedience experiment where an authority figure can get ordinary individuals to administer lethal "injections" to complete strangers in the name of science.

    In Nazi Germany, obedience and the supremacy of the State plus the fear of non-compliance on personal safety and that of your relatives must have all contributed to pressure on these scientists to comply.

    Lets not forget that at least one Bayer chemist had a lot more conscience than the evil Bayer Chairman Ter Heil. This one having discovered that a drug caused chemical castration in mice was required by the SS to carry out this experiment on Russian POWs - bravely he refused.

    At the other extreme lets also not forget that even in the Medical Profession there are psychopaths like Dr Shipman who clearly enjoyed murdering old people (whilst still being a "good father" and husband).
     

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