assigned to concentration camps where they engaged in a variety of indescribably cruel human medical experiments. SS doctors were called upon in 1936 to assist with Germany's euthanasia program against the mentally disabled and physically handicapped in a program known confidentially as Operation T4. For example, they helped develop the first methods of gassing patients using carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes of lorries (vans). Stemming from a secret memorandum signed into effect by Hitler authorizing the killing of "useless eaters" and people considered an economic burden on German society on 9 October 1939, Operation T4 eventually evolved into the Law for Euthanasia for the Incurably Ill. According to historian Götz Aly, the first commandants of the death camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka came out of Operation T4 and "were on its payroll." In 1938, the SS formed its own Medical Academy in Berlin to train medical personnel and physicians who would serve with the SS-VT, the forerunner of the Waffen-SS. Doctors serving with the Waffen-SS were highly trained both in medical skills and combat tactics with many such doctors receiving high combat awards. During the war's progression, the Waffen-SS had a continuously developing structure for physicians which was highly complex, so sometime in August 1943, Himmler united all the medical branches of the SS and placed them under the command of Reicharzt-SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz, much like the Surgeon-General of the army. Oftentimes personnel in the medical units of the SS performed duties not typically associated with traditional medicine as their primary responsibility once the war began was nothing less than the institutionalized medical genocide of anyone considered an enemy of the Nazi regime. People deemed inferior or undesirable became human guinea pigs and were exploited for scientific research by SS doctors as they conducted inhumane medical experiments at the camps. Human medical experiments, the most notorious of which occurred at Dachau concentration camp and Auschwitz reached their zenith during the war. Such experiments ranged from vivisections, sterilization experiments, infectious disease research, freezing experiments, as well as many other excruciating medical procedures often performed without anesthetic. During this period of time one of the most infamous SS doctors, Josef Mengele, served as Head Medical Officer of Auschwitz and was responsible for the daily gas chamber selections as well as brutal experiments (including those on human twins). Another function that SS doctors served was to maximize the economic utility of