Nazi malaria experiments

The Nazi malaria experments were nonconsensual resaearch, conducted between February 1942 at April 1945 at Dachau Concentration Camp; purpose was to test immunization for and treatment of malaria on over 1200 prisoners, primarily Polish priests.

The experiments were intended to gain information for protecting the health of the German military. This trial proceeded a U.S. Army trial of the working-level participants at the camp, led by Claus Schilling, who was convicted and hanged.

Nine defendants were charged in the Medical Case (NMT): Kurt Blomer, Karl Brandt, Rudolf Brandt, Karl Gebhardt, Siegfried Handloser, Joachim Mrugowsky, Helmut Poppendick, Paul Rostock, and Wolfram Sievers. Only Sievers was convicted.

In the opening statement of the Prosecution, on 9 December 1946, Telford Taylor explained that the actual experimented was a Dr. Schilling, with whom Sievers and the other defendants cooperated. "Healthy persons were infected by mosquitoes or injections...Gebhardt kept Himmler informed.

"After the victims had been infected, they were variously treted with with quinine, neosalvarsan, pyramidon, antipyrine, and several combinations of these drugs. Many deaths occurred from excessive doses of neosalvarsan and pyramidon. According to the findings of the Dachau court, malaria was the direct cause of 30 deaths, and 300 to 400 others died as a result of subsequent complications."

Of these drugs, only quinine is still used. The medical literature had reported the toxicity of the others. In 1936, the British Medical Journal reported that an increased incidence of poisoning by pyramidon, and that Parliament had ruled it would be listed as a poison and available only on prescription.