Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans [Hardcover]

Vivien Spitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

A chilling story of human depravity and ultimate justice, told for the first time by an eyewitness court reporter for the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Nazi doctors.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Spitz reported the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in Germany from 1946 to 1948 for the U.S. War Department. In writing her book, she worked from a condensed transcript of the 11,538-page court reporters' record, which she helped prepare. Her horrendous story of evil--and ultimate justice--covers the trials of 20 doctors and three medical assistants charged with crimes against humanity and calculated genocide. She recounts experiments in which concentration-camp inmates were forced into high-altitude chambers and sent to 68,000 feet without oxygen; the suffering of inmates forced to undergo freezing experiments in tanks of ice water until they died; malaria experiments on 1,200 inmates; and experiments in which inmates were artificially wounded and infected with mustard gas. There were sulfanilamide experiments conducted on Polish Catholic priests in Dachau, and seawater experiments on Gypsies. Spitz also reports on the judgments and sentences in these trials. The book paints a nightmarish picture of a world without hope that had lost all its values and meaning. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

In 1946, Spitz was a 22-year-old court reporter from Detroit when she was hired to transcribe the Nuremberg Trials. Spitz recounts her experience in "Doctors" and how Jews and others were subjected to hideous "medical" experiments.

This is an uncomfortable book to read, but the frankness with which Spitz delivers her own story makes it one of a kind. -- Lisa Siegel, Atlanta Jewish Times

Read Vivien Spitz's personal memoir with its shattering memories from the Nuremburg trials and you will encounter physicians who, corrupted by Nazi ideology, brought shame to their profession. -- Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel

This book carries us on a vivid, sensitive journey of a young woman's descent into a corner of hell. It behooves us to inspect the rationalization and excuses of the perpetrators of mass murder that Vivien Spitz documents. --Walter L. Gerash, Attorney, and author of Murders in the Bank Vault

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Sentient Publications (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591810329
• ISBN-13: 978-1591810322
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > History > Military Science
  • #49 in Books > History > Europe > Germany

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

91 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to read but vital, September 4, 2005

By 

David E. Levine (Peekskill , NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans (Hardcover)

Vivien Spitz is half German by heritage but, she strongly indicts her countrymen in this chilling account of horrific "medical experiments" that Nazi doctors and medical assistants performed on innocent people. The descriptions of what was done is creepy but the story must be told. Ms. Spitz was the youngest court reporter during the Nuremberg trials as she transcribed the testimony in the trals of medical personnel. She documents a dozen types of experiments and, some truly had no medical value but were done only for the sake of perpetrating inhumanity to non Arians, most of whom were Jews and Gypsies. There were other vicitms as well, such as Russians. Among the defendants, some were sentenced to death, others to prison terms of varying legnths and a total of seven were acquitted. The acquittals were probably due to the court leaning over backwards to make the trials look fair.

An example of an experiment that was done with no possible scientific value was to force victims to drink brackish seawater to see the effects. Of course this made the victims sick and drove them mad. Most did not survive. Another awful experiment was to amputate limbs and attempt to transpant them to others. Without modern microsurgery and anti rejection medication, this could never have possibly worked but these ghouls killed and permanently maimed people in the name of science. Even if this experiment could have worked, the real purpose was to do the most horrible acts of brutality on the victims, not to accumulate medical knowledge. Horrible diseases, such as malaria were deliberately introduced to vicitims. Another horrible experiment was to lock victims into vaultlike chambers where the atmospheric conditions of 68,000 feet in altitude could be simulated.

Ms. Spitz is truly a wonderful person as she makes sure that holocaust deniers don't get away with their revisionism. She has confronted them and, importantly, she has written this book. The book is difficult to read because of the horrors that are documented. Still, it should be read so that we never forget.

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bleak, stark, and severe account, July 5, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans (Hardcover)

Written by skilled journalist Vivian Spitz, who counts being the youngest court reporter at the Nuremberg Trials among her many accomplishments, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account Of Nazi Experiments On Humans presents literal testimonies of Nuremburg war crimes trials specifically pertaining to murderous medical experiments performed on living people. A bleak, stark, and severe account; the dry yet thoroughly detailed testimony speaks for itself. Information concerning the conviction and sentencing of defendants is also included. The author offers closing chapters about adapting to a normal life after her role in bearing witness to unspeakable atrocities, including her encounters with poisonous and sometimes threatening Holocaust deniers. A straightforward primary source appreciable to scholars and lay readers alike, and a welcome contribution to Holocaust Studies and reference shelves.

43 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars German Barbarism: Genocide Beyond Jews and Against Slavs, June 15, 2006

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans (Hardcover)

The reader of this book quickly learns that the gruesome experiments conducted against helpless victims were not just done by a few "warped" Nazi ideologues, such as the infamous "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele, but by a large cadre of German doctors. One also quickly realizes that the victims were not limited to Jews, but included members of various nationalities. Every imaginable grotesque experiment was performed. Perhaps the most instructive part of the book is chapter 14, which discusses forced sterilization. The Germans found that physical castration was too slow and costly. X-radiation often made the victims ill or killed them outright. A drug derived from a certain Brazilian plant induced sterility, and was tried on inmates.

What was said to be ultimately needed was a method of sterilization that could easily be employed en masse and was preferably one in which the victim did not know that he or she was sterilized. Obviously, mass sterilization was intended for very large target of victims. In fact, defendant Rudolf Brandt cited Heinrich Himmler (pp. 191-192), who stated that forced sterilization was to be used to exterminate not only Jews but also Russians and Poles. So, although the author Spitz does not develop this further, Himmler's statement adds proof to the fact that after the Jews, most of the Slavs were next in line for genocidal extermination. Mass shootings and gassings were useful for killing a few million people (Jews and Polish intellectuals), but mass sterilization was much more practical for the eventual extermination of tens of millions to hundreds of millions of people (Slavs as a whole). Just as a small number of sterilized Jews were kept alive for forced labor, so also a remnant of the Slavic peoples would be kept alive as slaves of the German Reich. It is high time that educational Holocaust materials include focus on the fact that the Slavs were also victims of genocide. Only the end of the war spared most of the Slavs from forced sterilization, and eventual extermination.