Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

A chilling, bestselling, and meticulously researched eyewitness account of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, Doctors from Hell exposes how 23 Nazi physicians tortured and killed in the name of science, revealed through rare trial transcripts and previously unseen courtroom evidence.

Doctors from Hell is a searing eyewitness account of the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial, told by Vivien Spitz, who was just 22 years old when she served as a court reporter during one of the most disturbing war crimes trials in history. With clarity and restraint, Spitz reveals how Nazi physicians, sworn to heal, became agents of torture and death in the name of science, patriotism, and personal ambition.

Drawing directly from courtroom testimony, the book documents the crimes of 23 doctors and medical assistants who conducted brutal experiments on concentration camp inmates. Victims were forced into high-altitude chambers without oxygen, subjected to amputations and transplant experiments, deliberately wounded and infected with typhus, exposed to mustard gas, or left untreated to compare medical outcomes. In one of the most chilling cases, 112 Jewish inmates were murdered so their skeletons could be collected for study.

Spitz supports this account with rare trial transcripts and previously unpublished photographs used as evidence, materials long inaccessible to the public. Her factual, unsensational style allows the horror to speak for itself.

A powerful foreword by Dr. Frederick R. Adams places these crimes in a modern ethical context, tracing their roots to earlier eugenics programs and raising urgent questions about medical experimentation, informed consent, and professional silence. Meticulously researched and deeply unsettling, Doctors from Hell is both a historical record and a warning that medical ethics must never be taken for granted.

Vivien Spitz was a Fellow of the Academy of Professional Reporters of the National Court Reporters Association and was the Chief Reporter of Debates in the United States House of Representatives from 1972 to 1982. Vivien also reported the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in Germany from 1946 to 1948. She was honored for this work, which she spoke about worldwide, as well as her continued efforts in Holocaust awareness and bioethics.