Skip Navigation

Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1990 5(1):73-87; doi:10.1093/hgs/5.1.73
© 1990 by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by BENGERSHÔM, E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Articles

FROM HAECKEL TO HACKETHAL: LESSONS FROM NAZI MEDICINE FOR STUDENTS AND PRACTITIONERS OF MEDICINE*

E. BENGERSHÔM

Jerusalem, Israel

In discussing such issues as euthanasia and eugenics there has been no lack of oblique references to Nazi medicine and the Nuremberg Trials. It is as if the impact of Nazi medicine on medical ethics has been most pronounced in its rhetoric, and regrettably also in inapt comparisons Is it possible at all to profitably apply the Nazi analogy to the problems of normal medicine?

The thousand threads which linked the medical crimes inside the camps with the conduct of ‘innocent’ doctors, nurses, civil administrators etc. outside, have been subjected to new scrutiny during the past decade. The results of these explorations are highly significant. They run the whole gamut from wishful Ignorance and timorous acquiescence to deliberate cooperation with the Nazi health policy of many officials and citizens. The silence of the outside world allowed the ‘few’ perpetrators of medical crimes to have their way.

Normal medicine has many important lessons to learn from this passivity and compliance of doctors and the public. This topic ought to be included in obligatory courses and examinations of medical ethics.

*This is an updated version of a paper presented at the Conference ‘Remembering for the Future’, Oxford, 10–13 July 1988.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.