High Altitude Experiments

A prisoner falls unconscious (and later dies) from overexposure in a high-altitude chanber in Dachau

From March 1942 to August 1942, experiments were conducted at the Dachau concentration camp, for the benefit of the German Air Force, to investigate the limits of human endurance and existence at extremely high altitudes.
The experiments were carried out in a low-pressure chamber in which atmospheric conditions at high altitude (up to 68,000 feet) could be duplicated.
The experimental subjects were placed in the low-pressure chamber and thereafter the simulated altitude therein was raised. Most victimes died as a result, and many of the survivors suffered injury related to exposure to extreme atmospheric conditions

The defendants Karl Brandt, Handloser, Schroeder, Gebhardt, Rudolf Brandt, Mrugowsky, Poppendick, Sievers, Ruff, Romberg, Becker-Freyseng, and Weltz are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes

Sources: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10. Nuremberg, October 1946 - April 1949. Washington D.C.: U.S. G.P.O, 1949-1953