Philip Arnold

4/2/2014
Professor Werts-Orbaugh
English 1102 9:30-10:45 T, TH
Engineering and the Holocaust
My inquiry is on the inventions and engineering feats made on the holocaust and how we
have learned from these experiments and used them for the good of mankind. My major is
mechanical engineering so this relates to my field of study very well. As an engineer we are
always innovating and learning from our past. So this ties very well into my major because it is
showing how an engineers work process goes, where we are constantly improving on ideas that
didnt work or in this case were used for evil. Through this paper I will call upon 3 different
types of engineering feats used by the Nazis that we have learned from to improve life and
human life today. These three feats include medical experiments made by the Nazis, Nazi
architecture, and weapons used or planned by the Nazi regime.
First off are the medical advances that were made through many unwanted or unapproved
experiments. Though many experiments were performed during the holocaust most of the Nazis
never even got permission, or in other words they used war prisoners or patients that had not
volunteered themselves for the operation. As the article (Nazi Medical Experiments) said
During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly
experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.. Although
these experiments were painful and deadly there were still certain medical advances that we
were able to take away from them such as advances in Anastasia and methods of sedating
people. Although this is the medical field it can still very well relate to my major of engineering.
How this can relate is it shows the design process of how an engineer designs something by
showing the failed trials and how we learn from them to keep improving the product.
Along with the medical advances, structural advances were also made and were
learned upon to improve the life of people today. Hitler used architecture as another way to
advance the Nazi Germanys goals. They building were designed to scare and intimidate people
as that is what the Nazis were trying to do. In
particular the New Reich Chancellery building
in Berlin was the building Hitler and the
German army were most proud of. According
to (order from stone) the building needed to be
impressive and intimidating, and wanted it to
express Nazi ideals of order and strength.
Overall architecture is not as important in
improving society in the future as medical
advances or weaponry advances, but it is still very important because I marks the culture of that
time. Going forth we can recognize the style of architecture and relate it back to the time period
of Nazi Germany. Also we can develop our own new style of architecture using certain parts of
the architecture that Nazi Germany used and create our own culture in architecture.
Last and in my opinion the most important is the weapons that Nazi Germany
used or planned to use during the holocaust and WWII. The Nazis were very creative in the
weapons/ torturing devices that they used during the holocaust. One particular idea that stood
out during my research on the subject was how they planned on using mosquitoes as biological
weapons. Basically they were trying to figure out a way to keep malaria infected mosquitoes
alive long enough to be transported and dropped behind enemy lines. This would in turn infect
the enemy with malaria. To show how conniving and willing to go against the rules Hitler and
the German army were is excerpt from (Nazi scientist plan on using mosquitoes as biological
weapons)
With Germany having signed up to the 1925 Geneva protocol, Adolf Hitler had
officially ruled out the use of biological and chemical weapons during the second world war, as
had allied forces. Research into the mosquito project had to be carried out in secret.
That shows how creative the Nazis were willing to get with their weapons and what terms they
were willing to violate. Along with their secret experiments with mosquitoes, the Nazis also
conducted secret weaponry experiments ranging from a bouncing bomb to a moving mine. It is
these types of inventions and innovation that Nazi Germany was best known for. Although they
were used for evil during the war they are ideas that have been improved upon today and now we
can use them for our own good and not the destruction of people. A list of 10 weapons that I
found online from (10 secret military weapons of Nazi Germany) contained Fritz-x, sun gun,
sonic cannon, whirlwind cannon, bouncing bomb, Horten Ho 229, schwerer gustav, panzer viii
maus, tracked mine, and the famous STG 44. The innovation made for these experiments are the
kind of things that us engineers pride ourselves in. So from this we can learn a lot on an idea and
find a way to fix that idea and improve upon it.
Overall there are many different types of innovation that the Nazis had during the time of
WWII and the holocaust. Many of these experiments and inventions were designed with the
purpose of evil and were carried out in an unethical way. However from these different
experiments we learned a lot. We implemented different technology from the different types of
experiments and used them for the good of mankind in todays world. This relates back to my
field of engineering because it shows the same kind of innovation that we engineers have to go
through in designing a product. For example sometimes the product fail or in this case was used
for the wrong purpose but you have to look back and learn from your mistakes and use parts of
them to go forward and make the final product.

















Sources
"Art Under Fascism: Architecture." Art Under Fascism: Architecture. N.p., n.d. Web. 2
Apr. 2014. <http://sitemaker.umich.edu/artunderfascis

"Nazi Medical Experiments." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States
Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005168>.

Oltermann, Philip. "Nazi scientists planned to use mosquitoes as biological weapon."
theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 15 Feb. 2014. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/14/nazi-scientists-mosquitoes-biological-
weapon>.

"Top 10 Secret Military Weapons of Nazi Germany." HubPages. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr.
2014. <http://malti001.hubpages.com/hub/Top-10-Secret-Weapons-of-Nazi-Germany>.