“In the Name of Humanity”: Nazi Doctors and Human Experiments in German Concentration Camps

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-252
Author(s):  
Daan de Leeuw

Abstract During the Second World War over two hundred and fifty German doctors conducted medical experiments on human beings. Jurists and scholars have pondered ever since how doctors educated to heal could harm and even kill. Robert Jay Lifton has argued that psychological “doubling” could explain their crimes: their Faustian bargain with Nazism outweighed their Hippocratic Oath. Here the author argues, however, that Lifton’s theory does not apply to these Nazi doctors because there is no indication that they recognized ethical constraints against human experimentation. To explain how “healers became killers,” the author focuses on the broader historical aspects of their behavior.

1969 ◽  
Vol 9 (104) ◽  
pp. 646-647

Twenty-five years after the second World War, the International Committee of the Red Cross is still dealing with claims for compensation from people living in certain Central European countries who were victims of pseudo-medical experiments in German concentration camps.


1973 ◽  
Vol 13 (142) ◽  
pp. 3-21

On 16 November 1972, an agreement on compensation for the Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments carried out in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War was signed by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Government of the Polish People's Republic. In accordance with this agreement, which marks the end of the arrangement under which the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany has paid more than DM 40 million to 1,357 Polish victims through the ICRC since 1961, the Federal Republic of Germany will pay an additional DM 100 million to the Polish Government.


1970 ◽  
Vol 10 (110) ◽  
pp. 284-285

Following a mission carried out in December 1969 by Dr. J.-F. de Rougemont, accompanied by Mr. J.-P. Maunoir, assistant director and Miss L. Simonius, delegate, in the clinics of the Warsaw and Gdansk Academies of Medicine and at the headquarters of the Polish Red Cross in the capital, new compensation claims for Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War were laid before the Neutral Arbitration Commission.


1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (120) ◽  
pp. 144-144

The Neutral Commission appointed by the ICRC to decide on applications by Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War met from 7 to 9 January 1971 at ICRC headquarters in Geneva. It consisted of Mr. W. Lenoir, President, a judge of the Geneva Court of Justice, Dr. S. Mutrux, assistant director of the Bel-Air psychiatric clinic in Geneva, and Dr. P. Magnenat, professor and assistant at the Nestlé Hospital university clinic in Lausanne.


1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (132) ◽  
pp. 150-150

The Neutral Commission appointed by the ICRC to decide on claims made by Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments carried out in concentration camps during the Second World War, met at ICRC Headquarters in Geneva from 6 to 8 January 1972. It comprised Mr. Lenoir, the Chairman, a Judge of the Geneva Law Courts, Dr. S. Mutrux, Assistant Administrator of the Bel-Air Psychiatric Clinic in Geneva, and Dr. P. Magnenat, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Assistant at the University Clinic of the Nestlé Hospital in Lausanne.


1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (137) ◽  
pp. 441-441

The Neutral Commission appointed by the ICRC to decide on claims made by Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments carried out in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War met at ICRC headquarters in Geneva on 17 and 24 June 1972. The Commission comprises Mr. W. Lenoir, Chairman of the Neutral Commission and Judge of the Geneva Law Courts; Dr. S. Mutrux, Assistant Administrator of the Bel-Air Psychiatric Clinic in Geneva, and Dr. P. Magnenat, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Assistant at the University Clinic of the Nestlé Hospital in Lausanne.


1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (123) ◽  
pp. 324-324

The Neutral Commission appointed by the ICRC to decide on applications by Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War, met on 30 April, 1 May and 4 May 1971 at ICRC headquarters in Geneva. It consisted of Mr. W. Lenoir, President, a judge of the Geneva Court of Justice, Dr. S. Mutrux, assistant director of the Bel-Air psychiatric clinic in Geneva, and Dr. P. Magnenat, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and assistant at the Nestlé Hospital university clinic at Lausanne.


Author(s):  
Julia Alekseevna Abbyasova ◽  
Ekaterina Olegovna Golovina ◽  
Yuriy Vladimirovich Ishkov

The article analyzes the processes of illegal use of prohibited methods of research by Nazi physicians during their medical experiments on live people-prisoners of the concentration camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau during the Second World War. Medical experiments on living people, prisoners of concentration camps, as a rule, resulted in their death or caused severe and irreparable harm to health. These experiments supported by the idea of creating "pure race" were conducted by physicians of Nazi Germany in the death camps located throughout Europe. The leaders of the Nazi hierarchy developed the foundations of their fascist ideology, using the works of German sociologists (Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Hans Friedrich Carl Guenther, Walter Wuest) and geneticists (Eugen Fischer, Erwin Bauer and Fritz Lenz, etc.), many of whom came to the conclusion that the possibility of creating the necessary conditions in Nazi Germany for the purpose of improving the human race was closely linked to limiting reproduction of the "lower" peoples. The Nuremberg trial of Nazi criminals (1945-1946) identified serious crimes of Nazi physicians, who conducted medical experiments on people in concentration camps, and claimed them inhuman and breaking all international and human rights.


1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (135) ◽  
pp. 333-333

The Neutral Commission appointed by the ICRC to decide on claims made by Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments carried out in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War, met at ICRC headquarters in Geneva, on 4 and 5 May 1972. It comprised Mr. Lenoir, Chairman of the Commission and Judge at the Geneva Law Courts; Dr. S. Mutrux, Assistant Administrator of the Bel-Air Psychiatric Clinic in Geneva, and Dr. P. Magnenat, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Assistant at the University Clinic of the Nestlé Hospital at Lausanne.


Der Pathologe ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Westemeier ◽  
Sebastian Scheib ◽  
Hendrik Uhlendahl ◽  
Dominik Gross ◽  
Mathias Schmidt

AbstractDuring the Second World War, the German Wehrmacht and the SS tested various chemical warfare agents on prisoners of concentration camps. The SS needed a pathologist to do this. Therefore, Reichsarzt SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz recruited the 32-year-old Hans Wolfgang Sachs. Despite his position as senior pathologist at the office of the Reichsarzt SS, Sachs was spared interrogation and prosecution after 1945, although the prosecution presented a document about chemical warfare and human experiments during the Nuremberg medical trial. In this, Sachs was named as a participant in so-called “N-Stoff” (chlorine trifluoride) experiments. Little is known about Sachs to this day. This article is intended to close this gap. Of particular interest are the motives and reasons why Sachs joined the party and the SS, as well as his career after 1945.


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