# Apparently the Nazis did more than just gas prisoners **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 12, 2008, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246 "2008-09-12T09:01:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/1 "2008-09-12T09:01:08Z")
I had no idea they were this diabolical in killing people. > **[Phenol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol)** > > Phenol (also known as carbolic acid, phenolic acid, or benzenol) is an aromatic organic compound with the molecular formula .mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su{display:inline-block;font-size:80%;line-height:1;vertical-align:-0.35em}.mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su\>span{display:block;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output sub.template-chem2-sub{font-size:80%;vertical-align:-0.35em}.mw-parser-output sup.template-chem2-sup{font-size:80%;vertical-align:0.65em}C6H5OH. It is a white crystalline s The m... > [@](#): > > Second World War > Injections of phenol have occasionally been used as a means of rapid execution. In particular, phenol was used as a means of extermination by the Nazis before and during the Second World War. Originally used by the Nazis in the 1930s as part of its euthanasia program, phenol, cheap and easy to make and quickly effective, became the injectable toxin of choice through the last days of the War. Although Zyklon-B pellets were used in the gas chambers to exterminate large groups of people, the Nazis learned that extermination of smaller groups was more economical via injection of each victim one at a time with phenol instead. Phenol injections were given to thousands of people in concentration camps, especially at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Approximately one gram is enough to cause fatal outcome. Injections were administered by medical doctors, their assistants, or sometimes prisoner doctors; such injections were originally given intravenously, more commonly in the arm, but injection directly into the heart, so as to induce nearly instant death, was later preferred [8] . One of the most famous inmates at Auschwitz to be executed by carbolic acid injection was St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest who volunteered to undergo three weeks of starvation and dehydration in the place of another inmate and who was finally injected with carbolic acid so that the Nazis could make more room in their holding cells. [8] ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/2 "2008-09-12T09:37:45Z")
And while we’re on the subject of horrible things the Nazis did, sad reading: [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/12/82147/8041/956/513664](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/12/82147/8041/956/513664) [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/11/105923/777/544/509984](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/11/105923/777/544/509984) [http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf\_extract/98/5/129](http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/98/5/129) (end of the second column) In my research on the Holocaust, the bulk of which (research) ended some months ago, I came upon information regarding how the Nazis discovered that the most efficient way to use their crematoria was to put a dead man and woman and a live child in all at once. I really, really hope this was not the case, and I haven’t been able to find anything tonight corroborating it, but with the Nazis, the extent of the evil they imagined is limited only by their deaths. Hate keeps hating until it dies or is no longer harbored. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/3 "2008-09-12T14:15:54Z")
I read about the phenol injections when I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. As ghastly as that was, Eduard Wirth and Josef Mengele’s [human experimentation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation) was even more horrific. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/4 "2008-09-12T14:40:25Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > As ghastly as that was, Eduard Wirth and Josef Mengele’s [human experimentation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation) was even more horrific. I came to this thread to post the same. That stuff wasn’t scientifically valid even for psychos, it was just cruelty. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/5 "2008-09-12T16:15:03Z")
Color me ignorant, but how is being injected with phenol any more diabolical than being gassed to death? “Nearly instant death” sounds like a pretty good deal from a victim’s standpoint. I mean, if I had to choose between nearly instant lethal injection or spending several minutes asphyxiating to death inside a gas chamber, then hell yes make mine phenol please. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/6 "2008-09-12T16:30:42Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Color me ignorant, but how is being injected with phenol any more diabolical than being gassed to death? “Nearly instant death” sounds like a pretty good deal from a victim’s standpoint. > > I mean, if I had to choose between nearly instant lethal injection or spending several minutes asphyxiating to death inside a gas chamber, then hell yes make mine phenol please. Well, there’s that “first, do no harm” thing. ---
**Author:** ![PharmBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/74df32/32.png) [@PharmBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PharmBoy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/7 "2008-09-12T16:42:17Z")
You had no idea?? Where did you take History, DisneyLand? Please, pleae, I’m begging you, read some history books on Nazi germany. We can’t ever forget this happened… ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/8 "2008-09-12T17:10:11Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I came to this thread to post the same. That stuff wasn’t scientifically valid even for psychos, it was just cruelty. Definitely. The pressure chamber is the one that really gets to me. Shirer’s book has a pretty awful first hand description of a person in the pressure chamber from a Jewish doctor that Sigmund Rascher forced to work as a lab assistant. There may be worse ways to die, but I can’t think of any offhand. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/9 "2008-09-12T17:31:59Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Well, there’s that “first, do no harm” thing. You’re kidding, right? These were Nazis in WWII. There are no boundaries in wartime. Joe ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/10 "2008-09-12T17:50:39Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Color me ignorant, but how is being injected with phenol any more diabolical than being gassed to death? “Nearly instant death” sounds like a pretty good deal from a victim’s standpoint. > > I mean, if I had to choose between nearly instant lethal injection or spending several minutes asphyxiating to death inside a gas chamber, then hell yes make mine phenol please. That was my reaction too. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/11 "2008-09-12T19:56:06Z")
> [@wheresgeorge04](#): > > You’re kidding, right? These were Nazis in WWII. There are no boundaries in wartime. I believe that to be reference to the medical oath physicians take. Some of Mengele’s horrible research with twins supposedly yielded useful data. Sewing twins together comes to mind. My plan would have been to sew Hitler, Mengele and Goebbels together, amputating a leg and arm from each. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/12 "2008-09-12T20:40:19Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Color me ignorant, but how is being injected with phenol any more diabolical than being gassed to death? “Nearly instant death” sounds like a pretty good deal from a victim’s standpoint. > > I mean, if I had to choose between nearly instant lethal injection or spending several minutes asphyxiating to death inside a gas chamber, then hell yes make mine phenol please. Instant death? Well maybe you’ve been in a concentration camp for a year or so. Then one day you are lined up for this. They take down the number off your arm and put it on a list entitled “Filthy Jews we kill with Phenol Injections Today” (or something like that) The Nazis kept good records. Then you have to open your stripey pajamas to give the kind Doktor access to your heart and he comes at you with a huge heart needle. Then you die “instantly” ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/13 "2008-09-12T21:04:05Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > Color me ignorant, but how is being injected with phenol any more diabolical than being gassed to death? “Nearly instant death” sounds like a pretty good deal from a victim’s standpoint. > > I mean, if I had to choose between nearly instant lethal injection or spending several minutes asphyxiating to death inside a gas chamber, then hell yes make mine phenol please. seriously, this sounds like one of the more humane ways the nazis killed people. It’s still terrible, but to take all the terrible things they did and then be shocked by lethal injection? The experiments the nazis did are made even worse when you look at how pointless most of them were. I suppose if your only goal is to see how long it takes certain things to kill people, then they did a great job. If I’m going to be killed in a science experiment though, I’d hope they at least got some useful scientific or medical knowledge out of it. ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/14 "2008-09-12T21:06:01Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Instant death? > Well maybe you’ve been in a concentration camp for a year or so. > > Then one day you are lined up for this. > > They take down the number off your arm and put it on a list entitled “Filthy Jews we kill with Phenol Injections Today” (or something like that) The Nazis kept good records. > > Then you have to open your stripey pajamas to give the kind Doktor access to your heart and he comes at you with a huge heart needle. > > Then you die “instantly” That’s great and all, but the gassing victims went through all that other stuff too plus got gassed to death. It’s a shitty way to go either way, but I’d take the needle over the zyklon. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/15 "2008-09-12T23:27:15Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > They take down the number off your arm According to Laurence Rees, the number tattoos were given only at Auschwitz. It does seem more horrible to me to kill one at a time by injection than hundreds at once. It is more personal. On resistance: I have no cite, but recall reading that in one incident where they were shooting Jews, one guy attacked the shooter with a knife. The Germans killed him and the remaining Jews with axes. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/16 "2008-09-12T23:44:14Z")
I’m starting to think these Nazi guys weren’t all that nice. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/17 "2008-09-13T00:38:03Z")
Every time anyone brings up the Nazi atrocities I like to point out the fact that America sat by and did NOTHING to help the Jews. Read about the [SS St. Louis.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis) Refugees from the Nazis tried to disembark in America - Roosevelt didn’t allow it. He, in essence, proved right the theory of Hitler that the Jews were so hated that nobody would want to help them. If there is a hell, Roosevelt is in it for this, as far as I’m concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/18 "2008-09-13T04:19:05Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > If there is a hell, Roosevelt is in it for this, as far as I’m concerned. Then so is practically everyone else from that time period, and so are you by the standards of 50 years from now. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/19 "2008-09-13T04:42:00Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Every time anyone brings up the Nazi atrocities I like to point out the fact that America sat by and did NOTHING to help the Jews. … They were a little busy WINNING THE WAR AND STOPPING THE GERMANS! Now get off my lawn! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Incref](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@Incref](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incref)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2008, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246/20 "2008-09-13T04:44:12Z")
The Nazis were horrible, but don’t forget they weren’t the only ones committing [war crimes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_human_experimentation) I though especially chilling was this entry: > [@](#): > > To determine the treatment of frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water until frozen solid. The arm was later amputated; the doctor would repeat the process on the victim’s upper arm to the shoulder. After both arms were gone, the doctors moved on to the legs until only a head and torso remained. The victim was then used for plague and pathogens experiments.[26] [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apparently-the-nazis-did-more-than-just-gas-prisoners/463246.md?page=2)