Related information:
The Japanese tampon named for Anne Frank, famous
teenage diarist who died in a German concentration camp |
German washable menstrual pads and belt, with
case (about 1935-40) |
The influence of the World War II on German products:
Ad for Camelia menstrual pads (1940/41) &
underpants made from American sugar sacks (1945/46) |
Camelia disposable menstrual napkin: terrific cardboard
ad from a former drugstore in Saxony, Germany, 1936-37 |
The pursuit of the poison in menstruation |
 
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MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH
"Fright Bleeding" (Schreckblutung)
Nazi experiments on condemned menstruating women, reported in the 1940s
From "Die
unpäßliche Frau: Sozialgeschichte der Menstruation und Hygiene
1860-1985"
by Sabine Hering and Gudrun Maierhof (Pfaffenweiler, 1991)
history, Germany, women, medical, experiment, menstruation,
prisoner,
fright, Shreck
WARNING! This describes heartless, cold-blooded
acts! I decided to print this because it too is part of the cultural history
of menstruation.
During and right before World War II, among many other medical experiments
and research, at least one German doctor experimented on women Nazi courts
judged guilty of serious crimes and had condemned to death.
Below, I've translated much of the German text describing Prof. Stieve's experiments
in Die unpäßliche Frau: Sozialgeschichte
der Menstruation und Hygiene 1860-1985 ("The Indisposed Woman:
Social History of Menstruation and Hygiene 1860-1985" by Sabine Hering
and Gudrun Maierhof [Pfaffenweiler, 1991]).
Related information:
The Japanese tampon named for Anne Frank, famous
teenage diarist who died in a German concentration camp |
German washable menstrual pads and belt, with
case (about 1935-40) |
The influence of the World War II on German products:
Ad for Camelia menstrual pads (1940/41) &
underpants made from American sugar sacks (1945/46) |
Camelia disposable menstrual napkin: terrific cardboard
ad from a former drugstore in Saxony, Germany, 1936-37 |
The pursuit of the poison in menstruation |
Below: My translation from pp. 105-106.
I added all red emphases. I added the bars:
The Depths of Medical Research
The effects that this thinking [the previous section described how the
Nazis classified women according to their social class and the condition
of their ovaries. No, I'm not kidding.] can produce in extreme cases is
shown by the examinations by the respected professor of gynecology Stieve
in prisons and Dr. Clauberg in concentration camps. Clauberg used the "favorable"
situation in camps to further his examinations aimed at the achievement
of mass sterilization.
For Dr. Stieve they offered research possibilities on his preferred
theme of "fright bleeding" from the
uterus.
Stieve started from the premise that women who have been imprisoned
for a long time and no longer menstruate start menstruating again after
receiving a severe psychological shock. This
supposition relates to several preliminary investigations:
"Tietze (1938) stresses that the amenorrhea essentially begins
at the start of the trial of the female criminals and that menstruation
begins of itself again in confinement. . . . The women I had to examine
had committed the worst crimes and therefore awaited the harshest punishments.
The phenomena observed of them were caused if not exclusively then primarily
by the fear of death." (Stieve, H.:
Schreckblutung aus der Gebärmutterschleimhaut, in: Zbl. Gyn. [Zentralblatt
für Gynäcologie] 67, 1943, S. 875) [from Stieve, Hermann: "Fright
Bleeding from the Endometrium" in Central Journal of Gynecology 67,
1943, page 875]
Stieve undertakes his examinations on 9 women. They are sentenced to
death, are in concentration camps or in prisons, have no periods during
their confinements, are however - in the interests
of research - relatively well fed. Stieve
takes their histories of illness, awaits the announcement of their sentence,
examines them again just before their execution and then performs autopsies
after their execution. That was what was supposed to happen.
But the women who instead of being immediately executed wind up on Stieve's
examination table amazingly start their periods.
Then they're killed.
"Next I'll [Prof. Stieve] describe a case that confirms my earlier
observations. It concerns a 31-year-old unmarried woman who had apparently
always been healthy. When 11 years old she had been seriously burned on
both thighs, which had healed well under superficial scars. Since she was
14 she had menstruated regularly every 26-34 days. It lasted 4-5 days and
caused no difficulties worth mentioning. The woman was twice engaged to
be married and had regular sexual intercourse. Pregnancies were prevented.
The woman gave a calm but not intellectually bright impression. She was
an industrious and reliable worker. She committed a serious crime and was
imprisoned. Her period disappeared at first but after 8 weeks again appeared.
A further, rather weak bleeding appeared 4 weeks later then again disappeared.
About 6 weeks after the beginning of the last period, 128 days after the
beginning of her incarceration, the woman got the notification for the
coming carrying-out of her sentence.
"Hardly an hour later she bled scantily from her sex organs. She
understood this to be menstruation."
[Then she was executed.]
"Eight hours later I autopsied her and found the following:
"She is a small, delicate woman with a delicate skeleton, good
musculature and well developed fat layers. She is well nourished. The secondary
sex organs are fully developed. The woman has a beautiful, wide pelvis
and pronounced female pubic hair. The breasts are well developed, somewhat
drooping, with big glands. All organs are completely healthy including
the sex organs with no growths. Both ovaries are small, which is frequent
among women imprisoned for a lengthy time. The right one weighed 5.5 grams,
the left 5.2. . . . " [From Stieve's medical paper above, p. 867]
How carefully a doctor describes a just executed
woman who had been placed at his disposal for research purposes.
He concluded with the words:
"Among 9 completely healthy, mature women, whose menstruation
had stopped for a lengthy time because of the influence of nervous excitement,
more or less considerable bleeding from the uterus had again started in
direct connection with highly upsetting news. In all cases the ovaries
were shrunken, . . ."
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NEXT | The German text from Die
unpäßliche Frau
Related information:
The Japanese tampon named for Anne Frank, famous
Jewish teenage diarist who died in a German concentration camp|
German washable menstrual pads and belt, with
case (about 1935-40)|
The influence of the World War II on German products:
Ad for Camelia menstrual pads (1940/41) &
underpants made from American sugar sacks (1945/46)|
Camelia disposable menstrual napkin: terrific cardboard
ad from a former drugstore in Saxony, Germany, 1936-37|
The pursuit of the poison in menstruation|
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