25 Facts About Sigmund Rascher

Sigmund Rascher was a German Schutzstaffel doctor.

Sigmund Rascher conducted deadly experiments on humans pertaining to high altitude, freezing and blood coagulation under the patronage of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, to whom his wife Karoline "Nini" Diehl had direct connections.

When police investigations uncovered that the couple had defrauded the public with their supernatural fertility by 'hiring' and kidnapping babies, she and Rascher were arrested in April 1944.

Sigmund Rascher was accused of financial irregularities, murder of his former lab assistant, and scientific fraud, and brought to Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps before being executed.

Therefore, Sigmund Rascher attended the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, a school based on Steiner's anthroposophist approach to education.

Sigmund Rascher came under the influence of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, who believed in the influence of cosmic rhythms on life processes.

The exact day of his joining is uncertain: Sigmund Rascher insisted that it was on 1 March, whereas documents show 1 May This is relevant because the first date is 4 days before the Nazi victory in the March 1933 German federal election, whereas the second date is after Hitler had consolidated power on 23 March with his Enabling Act.

From 1936 to 1938 Sigmund Rascher worked on cancer diagnostics, supported by a DFG stipend under Prof.

In 1939, Sigmund Rascher transferred to the SS with the rank of Private.

That same year, Sigmund Rascher denounced his father, and was conscripted into the Luftwaffe.

Sigmund Rascher became involved in testing a plant extract as a cancer treatment.

Kurt Blome, deputy of the Reich Health Leader and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council, favoured testing the extract on rodents but Sigmund Rascher insisted on using human test subjects.

Sigmund Rascher asked Himmler to place human subjects at his disposal, stating quite frankly that the experiments might prove fatal, but that previous tests made with monkeys had been unsatisfactory.

Sigmund Rascher subsequently wrote back to Brandt, asking for permission to carry out his experiments at Dachau, and plans for the experiments were developed at a conference in early 1942 attended by Sigmund Rascher and members of the Luftwaffe Medical Service.

Sigmund Rascher replied to Himmler that the victims had to date been merely Poles and Soviets, and that he believed they should be given no amnesty of any sort.

Sigmund Rascher conducted so-called "freezing experiments" on behalf of the Luftwaffe on 300 test subjects without their consent.

American investigators later concluded that Sigmund Rascher had been merely a convenient front for Luftwaffe chief surgeon Erich Hippke, who had been the true source of the ideas for Sigmund Rascher's experiments.

Sigmund Rascher's victims were forced to remain outdoors naked in freezing weather for up to 14 hours, or kept in a tank of icewater for three hours, their pulse and internal temperature measured through a series of electrodes.

Sigmund Rascher, who had by now been transferred to the Waffen-SS, was eager to obtain the academic credentials necessary for a high-level university position.

Sigmund Rascher experimented with the effects of Polygal, a substance made from beet and apple pectin, which aided blood clotting.

Sigmund Rascher predicted that the preventive use of Polygal tablets would reduce bleeding from gunshot wounds sustained during combat or during surgery.

Sigmund Rascher published an article on his experience of using Polygal, without detailing the nature of the human trials and set up a company to manufacture the substance, staffed by prisoners.

However, during her fourth "pregnancy", Karoline Sigmund Rascher was arrested while attempting to kidnap a baby.

Sigmund Rascher was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp and Karoline was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Sigmund Rascher remained in Buchenwald following his arrest in 1944, until the camp's evacuation in April 1945.