Cold Experiments

World War II brought upon humanity countless atrocities; especially those committed by the Third Reich. During the Holocaust many Nazi scientists were allowed to conduct unspeakable and awful experiments on subjects that in most cases, did not volunteer. A notorious example of these is experiments are the “cold experiments”, conducted to see how the human body reacted to hypothermia conditions (Lagnado). These experiments and tests did reap results and data that proved to be useful. Dr. Strughold, who is believed to be involved in these experiments, made incredible advances in space medicine and was even given the name “Father of Space Medicine” (Lagnado). Because of these advances they created a yearly award in his name, the Hubertus Strughold Award (Lagnado). Arguments have been raised on whether or not to keep his name in the award because of …show more content…
Strughold, failed to be convicted of any war crimes. Lucette Lagnado addresses this in her article, “A Scientist’s Nazi-Era Past Haunts Prestigious Space Prize” saying, “In America, the U.S. Justice Department investigated him at several junctures but never found sufficient grounds for prosecution.” (Lagnado). Society does not have the ability to examine exactly what happened during the cold experiments; so it is in trusted to the court system to investigate and prosecute accordingly. The fact that the Justice Department could not find sufficient evidence to convict Dr. Strughold, proves the argument that he is innocent of war crimes. If it is assumed that the court system cannot be trusted, then what is the purpose of their existence. Also, if this case is seen as wrongfully ruled, then what is to keep society from saying that all court cases handled by the justice department are wrong? There has to be faith in the justice department and since they failed to find sufficient evidence to convict Dr. Strughold it must be assumed he is