Researcher uncovers secret Nazi project to infest mosquitos with malaria and drop them on allied territory

WHY did the Nazis need to study insects? And why were mosquitos put through gruelling endurance tests?

More than a pest ... the British DeHaviland Mosquito fighter-bomber aircraft launched raids deep into the heart of Germany.

WHY did the Nazis need to study insects? While the stated goal was to combat disease, new research shows they were also trying to find a “super race” of mosquitoes — to use as a secret weapon.

Evidence for the secret World War II biological weapons research program has been uncovered by Tubingen University researcher Dr Klaus Reinhardt.

While studying documents from the notorious Waffen SS, Dr Reinhardt discovered several suggesting they had been operating a covert biological weapons testing program.

The objective: To find ways to infest the enemy with malaria-carrying mosquitos.

The problem: Which breed of mosquito was up to the task.

Reinhardt’s noticed documents relating to the formation of a Waffen SS Entomological Institute at the Dachau concentration camp.

It didn’t make sense, he said. Germany already had quite a few insect research agencies studying ways to tackle disease and protect crops.

Why would such a health unit be set up at a concentration camp?

Further sifting of documents revealed the project was initiated by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, in January 1942.

Reinhard says the project appeared to have been instigated after the SS officers complained of infestations of lice and an outbreak of typhoid fever among their troops.

Himmler’s original orders were for basic research into countering such germ-carrying insects. These were carried out by director Eduard May.

Dachau ... German theologist Karl Kunkel, a former prisoner of the Nazi regime, visits the concentration camp 55 years after his liberation. Picture: AP /Camay Sungu

But, by 1944, as Germany’s position became more desperate with the Russians advancing on one side and Britain and America on the other, the institute was instructed to test the endurance of various species of mosquito.

The variety likely to last the longest without food or water and in extreme conditions would be the chosen breed, Reinhard says. They were to be infected with malaria and bundled into special canisters before being dropped by bombers over enemy territory.

This is despite Adolf Hitler’s public ban on such biological warfare programs.

The Nazi documents reveal what they believed to be the mosquito master race: The anopheles mosquito variety was found to be capable of surviving more than four days in a “weaponised” state.

The Nazis were of course notorious for their brutal quest for a human “master race” of Aryan people.

And it was near one of the most vile centres of this evil mission — Dachua concentration camp, where thousands of non-Aryan Jews and Slavs were exterminated — where the mosquito research was carried out.

Dr Reinhardt says this was so the mosquitoes could be studied in conjunction with another notorious Nazi experiment — inoculating prisoners with malaria.

The doctor behind this project, Professor Claus Schilling, was later executed after the Nuremberg trials for his crimes.

However, mosquito master-race director May was spared such a fate.

An SS official testified at Nuremberg that May had refused to carry out research on human subjects.

Dr Reinhardt says he has found no evidence that May collaborated with Schilling: “May knew that somebody carried out experiments related to malaria in the prisoners’ camp but it is not clear whether he deliberately stayed clear of them or simply was not allowed to enter the prisoners’ camp.”

Of course, one of Germany’s opponents did use Mosquitoes in their victorious campaign.

Only this was the name given to one of the world’s most famous aircraft.

More than a pest ... the British DeHaviland Mosquito fighter-bomber aircraft launched raids deep into the heart of Germany.