The worst torture in the history of mankind.

Torture is often referred to various minor disorders that occur with all in use.This determination is rewarded with education naughty children, standing in a long queue, a large laundry, subsequent ironing and even cooking process.All this, of course, can be very painful and unpleasant (although the extent of a debilitating largely depends on the nature and inclination of man), but it bears little resemblance to the worst torture in the history of mankind.Practice interviews "with prejudice" and other acts of violence against the prisoners took place in almost all countries of the world.The time frame is also not defined, but as a modern man psychologically close relative to recent events, then his attention drawn to methods and special equipment invented in the twentieth century, particularly in the German concentration camps of the Third Reich.But there were ancient Oriental and medieval torture.Fascists taught and their counterparts from the Japanese counterintelligence, and other similar NKVD secret police.So why was all this mockery of people?

meaning of the term

To begin, starting the study of a matter or phenomenon, any researcher trying to define it."It is right to call - already half-understand" - Chinese proverb says.

So torture - a deliberate infliction of suffering.It does not matter the nature of torture, it can not only be physical (in the form of pain, thirst, hunger and deprivation of sleep opportunity), but also moral and psychological.By the way, the worst torture in the history of mankind, as a rule, combine the two "channels of influence".

But it is not only the fact of suffering.Meaningless anguish called torture.From his torture differs purposefulness.In other words, a man beaten with a whip, or hang on the rack for a reason, and in order to get some results.Using violence, encourage the victim to confess guilt, disclosure of hidden information, and sometimes punished for any offense or crime.The twentieth century has added to the list of possible targets of torture another item: torture in concentration camps sometimes done in order to study the reaction of the organism to unbearable conditions to determine the limit of human capabilities.These experiments are recognized by the Nuremberg Tribunal inhuman and pseudo-scientific, that did not stop to study the results after the defeat of Nazi Germany specialists physiologists of the victorious countries.

Death or court

Targeted action suggests that after receiving the results, even the most horrible torture in history continued.Continue to them did not make sense.Position executioner-Executor, usually held a professional who knows the techniques of pain and psychological features, if not all, very much, and spend his efforts on meaningless bullying there was no point.After the recognition of the victims of the crime it could not wait, depending on the degree of civilization of a society, immediate death or treatment with subsequent trial.Legal registration penalty after partisan questioning during the investigation was characteristic of punitive Justice of Germany in the initial era of Hitler and Stalin "open process" (Shakhty affair, the trial of the Industrial Party, massacres of Trotskyists and so on. D.).After giving the defendants a tolerable appearance of them dressed in suits and showed decent public.Broken morally, people often dutifully repeated all that they were forced to confess to the investigators.Torture and executions were put on stream.Truthful testimony did not matter.And in Germany, and the Soviet Union 30's confession of the accused was considered the "queen of evidence" (Vyshinsky, the prosecutor of the USSR).Brutal torture was used for the purpose of receiving it.

Death Inquisition torture

Not in any field of activity (except in the manufacture of instruments of murder) of humanity is so successful.It should be noted that in the last century, there is even some regress compared to ancient times.European executions and torture of women in the Middle Ages were made, usually on charges of witchcraft, and the reason most often the visual appeal of the unfortunate victim.However, sometimes the Inquisition condemned and those who actually committed terrible crimes, but the specifics of that time was valued doom condemned.No matter how long did torment, they ended in the death of a convicted person.As an instrument of execution could use iron maiden, Bronze bull, fire or described Poe pendulum with a sharp edge, methodically lowered onto the chest of the victim, inch by inch.Terrible tortures of the Inquisition have a long and accompanied by unimaginable mental suffering.The preliminary investigation could be carried out with the use of other ingenious mechanical devices for the slow digestion of bones of the fingers and limbs and muscular ligament rupture.The best-known tools of steel:

- metal sliding pear, used for particularly sophisticated torture of women in the Middle Ages;

- «Spanish boots";

- Spanish as a chair with clamps and a brazier for the legs and buttocks;

- Iron bra (pectoral), puts on chest in red-hot form;

- «crocodiles» and special forceps to crush the male genitalia.

have executioners of the Inquisition was a torture and other accessories, which it is better not to know people with sensitive psyche.

East, ancient and modern

Whatever ingenious inventors chlenovreditelnoy European technology, but the most terrible torture in the history of mankind invented yet in the East.The Inquisition used metal tools, had sometimes very intricate structure, Asia preferred the all natural, natural (today, these funds may be called eco-friendly).Insects, plants, animals - everything was in motion.Oriental torture and execution have the same purpose as the European, but technically different duration and greater sophistication.Old Persian butchers, for example, practiced scaphism (from the Greek word "skafium" - the trough).The victim is immobilized by shackles, tied to a trough, forced to eat the honey and drink the milk and then smeared with a sweet body composition, and lowered into the swamp.Bloodsucking insects slowly eaten alive person.Just in case there were some executions in the anthill, and if the unfortunate subject to be burned in the scorching sun, he has to cut puschih torment forever.There were other forms of torture, which used elements of the biosystem.For example, it is known that the bamboo grows fast, per meter per day.Simply hang the victim a short distance over the young shoots, and the tip of the stems cut off at an acute angle.We tried to eat time to think again, to confess everything and give accomplices.If he persevere, it will slowly and painfully pierces plants.Such a choice is provided, however, not always.

torture as a method of inquiry

in the Middle Ages, and in later various types of torture were applied not only to the inquisitors and other officially recognized monstrous structures, but also the usual public authorities today called law enforcement.It is included in a set of methods investigation and inquiry.Since the second half of the XVI century in Russia practiced different types of bodily effects, such as: the whip, hanging, rack, burning tongs and open fire, immersion in water, and so on.Enlightened Europe, too, did not differ humanism, but practice shows that in some cases torture, humiliation, and even the fear of death is not guaranteed at the truth.Moreover, in some cases, the victim was willing to admit the shameful crime, preferring a horrible end endless horror and pain.The case with the miller, to remember which calls the inscription on the pediment of the French palace of justice.He took the blame someone else under torture, was executed, and the real culprit was soon caught.

Cancel torture in different countries

At the end of the XVII century a gradual departure from the practice of torture and the transition from it to another, more humane methods of interrogation.One of the outcomes of the Enlightenment was the realization that it is not cruel punishment, but the certainty of its effect on reducing criminal activity.In Prussia, torture abolished from 1754, this country was the first to put his trial at the service of humanity.The process has gone steadily, different states have followed suit in the following sequence:

Note:

*) legislation of the various cantons of Switzerland changed at different times of the period.

Special mention deserve the two countries - Britain and Russia.

Catherine the Great abolished torture in 1774, issued a secret decree.This, on the one hand, continued to keep the criminals at bay, but on the other, show a desire to follow the ideas of the Enlightenment.Legally issued this decision has been Alexander I in 1801.

As for England, there were banned torture in 1772, but not all, but only some.

Illegal torture

legislative ban did not mean the complete elimination of the practice of pre-trial investigation.In all countries, there were representatives of the police estate, ready to break the law in the name of his triumph.Another thing is that their actions were carried out illegally, and in the case of exposure they faced legal prosecution.Of course, and methods have changed significantly.It was necessary to "work with people" more carefully, without leaving visible traces.In the XIX and XX centuries in the course were the objects are heavy, but with a soft surface, such as sandbags, thick volumes (the irony of the situation was manifested in the fact that most of these were legal codes), rubber hoses and so on. F. Do not leavefocus and methods of moral pressure.Some investigators have at times threatened severe punishments, long life, and even violence on loved ones.This, too, was tortured.The horror experienced by prisoners on remand, urged them to make a confession, to perjure himself and receive undeserved punishment, including the death penalty.The majority of police officers perform their duty honestly, studying the evidence and collecting testimony for presentation reasonable charges.Everything changed after coming to power in some countries of totalitarian and dictatorial regimes.It happened in the XX century.

In Soviet Russia

After the October Revolution of 1917 in the territory of the former Russian Empire, civil war broke out, in which both warring parties often do not consider themselves bound by the rules of law, the former mandatory under the Tsar.Torture of prisoners of war in order to obtain information about the enemy practiced and the White Guard counter-intelligence and the KGB.During the Red Terror were often executed, but the abuse of the representatives of "exploiting class", which ranked as the clergy and nobility, and a well-dressed "masters", took a mass character.In the twenties, thirties and forties NKVD used prohibited methods of investigation, depriving suspects of sleep, food, water, beating and mutilating them.This was done with the permission of management, and sometimes in his direct orders.The aim was to find out the truth rarely - repression made to intimidate and challenge the investigator was to obtain the signature on the protocol contained in the recognition of counter-revolutionary activities, and slander of others.As a rule, Stalin "torturers" is not used much torture devices, content accessible objects such as paperweights (they were beaten on the head), or even an ordinary door, which nip fingers and other protruding parts of the body.

In Nazi Germany

torture in concentration camps created after the coming to power of Adolf Hitler, differed in style from those previously used, which is a strange mixture of eastern European sophistication with practicality.Initially, these "prisons" were created for the guilty Germans and representatives of national minorities declared hostile (Gypsies and Jews).Then came the turn of the experiments, which were of a scientific character, but cruelty surpassed the worst torture in the history of mankind.
In an effort to create antidotes and vaccines from the Nazi SS doctors administered lethal injections to prisoners, the operation was carried out without anesthesia, including abdominal, frozen prisoners starved of heat, did not allow them to sleep, eat and drink.So they wanted to develop a technology "production" ideal soldiers are not afraid of the cold, the heat, and injuries that are resistant to toxic substances and disease-causing germs.The history of torture during World War II forever etched the names of doctors and Pletner Mengele, who were, along with other members of the criminal fascist medicine, epitomized inhumanity.They also conducted experiments on the limb lengthening by mechanical pulling, strangling the people in the discharged air and other experiences that caused excruciating agony that lasted sometimes for hours.

Torture Women Nazis were primarily develop ways of depriving them of their reproductive function.We studied different techniques - from simple (removal of the uterus) to sophisticated, had a win-term Reich mass application (radiation and chemical exposure).

all ended before the victory in 1944, when the camp began to liberate the Soviet and allied troops.Even the appearance of the prisoners spoke more eloquently than any evidence that is in itself the content in inhuman conditions was torture.

Current status

Torture Nazis have become the standard of rigidity.After the defeat of Germany in 1945, humanity happily breathed in the hope that this will never happen again.Unfortunately, albeit on a smaller scale, but the flesh torture, mockery of human dignity and moral humiliation remains one of the terrible signs of the modern world.Developed countries, declaring their commitment to human rights and freedoms, looking for legal loopholes to create special areas where respect for their own laws is optional.Prisoners of secret prisons for years are exposed to the secret police without being charged with specific charges.The methods used by military personnel in many countries in the local and major armed conflicts in relation to the captives and a suspect of sympathizing with the enemy, sometimes surpass the cruelty of the Middle Ages torture and abuse of human beings in Nazi concentration camps.At the international investigation of these precedents too often instead of objectivity is possible to observe double standards when the war crimes of one party fully or partly ignored.

Will there be a new era of Enlightenment, when torture will be finally recognized once and for all humanity and shame banned?So far, little hope for it ...