I was looking at a post on the lj community for the manga and anime Hellsing that said Hirano might have found inspiration in the history of Unit 731 and provided this wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731Every once in a while, I am reminded of how disgusted I am by humans' misuse of our potential. No, maybe not disgusted... disappointed. The type of stuff that went down in 731 are usually associated with German concentration camps, but the truth is that pretty much every nation has violated the rights of another for some reason at some time. We can all play the victim, but we can all play the other side as well. Isn't that a counterproductive duality?