Volume 3: Persecution, human experimentation, forced labour

The predecessor organisations of DLR were involved in carrying out acts of forced labour and cruel human experiments. The research carried out by the Institute of Aviation Medicine within the German Aviation Research Institute (Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt; DVL) was closely intertwined with military aviation requirements. It was at this facility that self-experiments and experiments on volunteer test subjects took place, for instance on the effects of high altitudes. Moreover, individual aviation physicians were engaged in altitude and hypothermia experiments using prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp. The study also outlines how the predecessors of DLR treated Jewish employees and those persecuted for political reasons. The use of forced labour is also discussed, and the magnitude, origins and areas of deployment of foreign workers in the facilities of DLR's predecessor organisations is reconstructed. Camp structures, living and working conditions, as well as forms of control, repression and exploitation are also analysed. The combination of institutional analysis paired with biographical case studies highlights both structural conditions and individual scope for action and responsibility.