By late October 1942 Himmler’s enthusiasm for medical experimentation was burgeoning. Instead of cures for battlefield wounds, he was asking Sigmund Rascher, another favoured doctor, to find ways to revive sailors and airmen pulled out of freezing seas. Himmler had been reading about methods used by coastal communities in past centuries to save shipwrecked crews in the Baltic. Country folk often knew excellent remedies, he told Rascher in a letter, such as teas brewed from medicinal herbs.
