Is there evidence that the science of modern chemotherapy was developed during the Holocaust by Nazi Germany?

Question

I'm currently studying the history of chemotherapy (the use of specialized drug cocktails to treat cancer) and encountered an opinion stating that "to benefit from chemotherapy is to benefit from the horrific research conducted by the Nazi's during the Second World War." Has anyone heard of this relationship between, specifically, the research German scientists and doctors conducted during the second world war and modern chemotherapeutic treatments? Please provide references (even if it is just a television show on the History Channel that you saw, or a book / magazine that you read offline) since I'm looking for a factual, definitive answer to this; not a bunch of opinions. Thanks.

Answer 1

There is still, even after all this time, some debate on using those "experiments" and their findings. I wasn't able to find one thing I looked for, I thought there was a law or something passed that sealed those documents from scientific scrutiny. I suspect that if they are used, they are used very little and, as some of these cited below have noted, some (definitely not all) have some serious experimental flaws which make them of very limited scientific use even if permitted.

Answer 2

This is not exactly true. The Nazi's indeed performed horrific "medical" experiments, usually with the aim of either a battlefield application or developing on racial purity/disparity propaganda. Among them were experiments using sulfanilamide (antibacterial antibiotics) to treat wounds and injuries.

I could not find anything directly related to modern, oncological chemotherapy and the Nazi experiments. There were great debates about the ethics and viability of using data from the Nazi experiments. Generally because the Nazi doctors/scientists had political/racial agendas, and committed egregious violations of the Hippocratic oath, their data and conclusions were generally suspect.

Your question is most thought-provoking. However, consider the source of the opinion you cited. Was it an educated and well-reasoned opinion? Did they cite anything specific?

WARNING! Below are some links about the Nazi experiments and they contain GRAPHIC/DISTURBING material.