Nazi Medical Crimes Research Articles

History of Eugenics in Otorhinolaryngology: Ernst Rüdin and the International Eugenics Network.

Introduction The early geneticist and psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) became one of the key figures in the eugenics movement and in the German health system of the Nazi era. His connections in the international eugenics network have played an important role in the history of eugenics. Objective To discuss the connections between Ernst Rüdin's scientific group in Munich and Otmar von Verschuer's group in Frankfurt during the Nazi era. Methods Otorhinolaryngological materials from Ernst Rüdin's former private library are presented, and they show Rüdin's deep involvement in the international eugenics network. These materials provide insights into early medical genetics in otorhinolaryngology. Results One result of the present study is that eugenics groups from Munich, Frankfurt, and New York certainly influenced one another in the field of otorhinolaryngology. Karlheinz Idelberger and Josef Mengele were two scientists who performed hereditary research on orofacial clefts. Later, Mengele became deeply involved in Nazi medical crimes. His former work on orofacial clefts clearly had, to some extent, an influence on subsequent studies. Conclusion An international eugenics network already existed before 1933. However, it becomes clear that the weaknesses of many early genetic studies did not enable its authors to draw firm scientific conclusions, suggesting that scientists lacked an accurate concept of the genetic causes of most illnesses.

Ethicizing history. Bioethical representations of Nazi medicine.

The article presents and analyzes different approaches of U.S. bioethicists in comprehending the Nazi medical crimes after 1945. The account is divided into two sections: one dealing with discussions on research ethics and the Nuremberg Code up until the 1970s and the other ranging from the 1970s to the present and highlighting bioethics' engagement with Nazi analogies. The portrayal of different bioethical scholars, institutions, and documents-most notably Henry K. Beecher, Jay Katz, the Belmont Report, the Hastings Center, Arthur L. Caplan, and Robert M. Veatch-provides a nuanced interpretation of the motives that bioethicists held and the strategies that they applied to establish an understanding of the Nazi medical crimes and their relation to contemporary bioethical issues. In this, the different approaches shared a common goal: To integrate the Nazi medical crimes into an ethical framework by means of selective acknowledgments and representation of their history.

Memory Unbound, Unfounded Memory? On Medicine, the Holocaust, and Bioethical Reflection

Abstract The article deals with the notion that medical theories and practices played a significant role in the advent and execution of the Holocaust, and that bioethical lessons need to be drawn from this relation. Three underlying premises of this notion are critically assessed: First, that the importance of medicine for the Holocaust has been neglected by Holocaust scholarship; secondly, that there is a considerable empirical connection between Nazi medical crimes and the Holocaust; and thirdly, that this empirical connection represents a paradigmatic epistemological significance of medicine for the Holocaust. The article stresses that the Nazi medical crimes and the participation of physicians in inhumane research practices and mass murder were a significant aspect of Nazi history, but did not play a constitutive role in the extermination of European Jewry. For reasons of historical accuracy, as well as ethical specificity, they should, therefore, not simply be subsumed under the term Holocaust.

Foreign Bodies: The New Victims of Unethical Experimentation

AbstractDespite a number of beneficent outcomes, clinical trials on human subjects have exposed some of the worst forms of state crime, most notably in Nazi Germany. Even with the subsequent establishment of guidelines for the protection of human subjects, such as the Nuremberg Code, clinical trials resulting in death and injury is a continuing feature of medical research, especially as Western states outsource more trials to the private sector where profit margins often trump personal safety. Focusing on the clinical trials business in India, the article argues that the exploitation of human subjects in developing countries, affecting as it does the most vulnerable groups, must be understood as a form of state‐corporate crime. In this way, the moral distance we prefer to place between Nazi medical crimes and those committed in the interests of neoliberal values becomes less viable and the need for effective responses to unethical clinical trials more pressing.

Child Murder in Nazi Germany: The Memory of Nazi Medical Crimes and Commemoration of “Children’s Euthanasia” Victims at Two Facilities (Eichberg, Kalmenhof)

Nazi Germany’s “children’s euthanasia” was a unique program in the history of mankind, seeking to realize a social Darwinist vision of a society by means of the systematic murder of disabled children and youths. Perpetrators extinguished “unworthy life” during childhood and adolescence by establishing killing stations, misleadingly labeled Kinderfachabteilungen (“special children’s wards”), in existing medical or other care facilities. Part of a research project on Nazi “euthanasia” crimes and their victims, this paper uses a comparative historical perspective to trace memories of the crimes and the memorialization of their victims at the sites of two of these wards (Eichberg and Kalmenhof in Hesse, Germany). It also discusses the implications of the findings for theorizing mnemonic practices and analyzing ways in which memorials and other sites of memory deal with past trauma and atrocity.

Apology, responsibility, memory. Coming to terms with Nazi medical crimes: the example of the Max Planck Society

In June 2001, the then president of the Max Planck Society addressed a formal apology to survivors of Nazi medical crimes. Starting from this ritual of repentance, the paper examines the participants' diverse views of how to deal with the medical crimes of National Socialism. In comparison with the DGPPN, it asks about possibilities of going beyond historical retrospection to fulfil the imperative of remembrance.

Ulf Schmidt, Justice at Nuremberg: Leo Alexander and the Nazi doctors' trial, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. xiv, 386, £60.00 (hardback 0-333-92147-X).

Ulf Schmidt, Justice at Nuremberg: Leo Alexander and the Nazi doctors' trial, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. xiv, 386, £60.00 (hardback 0-333-92147-X).

Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-45, and the American Cover-up

ABSTRACT The Nazi medical crimes against humanity are familiar. Much less familiar are the medical crimes inflicted by Japanese army physicians in Manchuria during much of this same period—crimes that match, both in scope and brutality, anything performed by the Nazi physicians in Europe.In Factories of Death, Sheldon Harris, emeritus professor of history at California State University at Northridge, provides the most comprehensive account to date of the Japanese medical experiments, an impressive piece of scholarship that tells how doctors abused human bodies to test biowarfare agents and how US government authorities after the war refused to prosecute, choosing instead to exploit the information gathered for the American biowarfare effort at Fort Detrick.The story begins in 1932, when the Japanese army gave 200 000 yen and a command of 300 men to Ishii Shiro, a young professor of immunology with the rank of major in the medical corps, to

Doctors of Infamy—The Story of the Nazi Medical Crimes

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article ArticleNo AccessDoctors of Infamy—The Story of the Nazi Medical CrimesGLENN E. MYERSGLENN E. MYERSSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Apr 2006https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.107.2.151AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail "Doctors of Infamy—The Story of the Nazi Medical Crimes." American Journal of Psychiatry, 107(2), p. 151 Access content To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access. Personal login Institutional Login Sign in via OpenAthens Purchase Save for later Item saved, go to cart PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry $35.00 Add to cart PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry Checkout Please login/register if you wish to pair your device and check access availability. Not a subscriber? Subscribe Now / Learn More PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5 library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development. Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byPsychiatry, Vol. 59, No. 3 Volume 107Issue 2 August 1950Pages 151-151 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 April 2006 Published in print 1 August 1950

Book Reviews

Book Reviews Get access ALEXANDER MITSCHERLICH and FRED MIELKE. Doctors of Infamy: The Story of the Nazi Medical Crimes. Translated by Heinz Norden. With Statements by Three American Autiorities Identified with the Nuremberg Medical Trial: Andrew C. Ivy, M.D., Telford Taylor, Brigadier General U.S. Army, Leo Alexander, M.D.; and a note on Medical Ethics by Albert Deutsch (including the New Hippocratic Oath of die World Medical Association). New York, Henry Schuman, 1949. xxxix + 172 + xiii pp. Illus. $3.00 ERNEST M. GRUENBERG ERNEST M. GRUENBERG New Haven, Conn Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume V, Issue Summer, Summer 1950, Pages 345-b–349, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/V.Summer.345-b Published: 01 July 1950