"The chapters in this volume painfully drive
home the point that certainly as far as Germany is
concerned, the lessons of the Third Reich have not yet
been learned... These significant attempts by younger
recruits to the larger medical establishment to change
things through eye-opening reflection and analysis,
however uncomfortable, need support."—Michael H. Kater,
author of
Doctors under Hitler, in
the foreword.
The infamous Nuremberg
Doctors' Trials of 1946-47 revealed horrifying crimes
—ranging from grotesque medical experiments on humans to
mass murder—committed by physicians and other health
care workers in Nazi Germany. But far more common, argue
the authors of Cleansing the
Fatherland, were the doctors who profited
professionally and financially from the killings but
were never called to task—and, indeed, were actively
shielded by colleagues in postwar German medical
organizations.
The authors examine
the role of German physicians in such infamous
operations as the "T 4" euthanasia program (code-named
for the Berlin address of its headquarters at Number 4
Tiergartenstrasse). They also reveal details of
countless lesser known killings—all ordered by doctors
and all in the name of public health. Maladjusted
adolescents, the handicapped, foreign laborers too illto
work, even German civilians who suffered mental
breakdowns after air raids were "selected for
treatment." (One physician who persisted in speaking of
"killings" was officially reprimanded for his "negative
attitude.")
The book also includes
original documents—never before published in
English—that give unique and chilling insight into the
everyday workings of Nazi medicine. Among
them:
• Minutes from a 1940 meeting of
the Conference of German Mayors, at which a Nazi
official gives the assembled politicians detailed
instructions for the secret burial of murdered mental
patients.
• A pre-Nazi era
questionnaire sent by the head of a state mental
institution to parents of disabled children. (Sample
question: "Would you agree to a painless shortening of
your child's life after an expert had determined him
incurably imbecilic?" Sample answer: "Yes, but I would
prefer not to know.")
• The diary of
Dr. Hermann Voss, chief anatomist at the Reichs
University of Posen (and later a highly respected
physician in postwar Germany), who delights in the
flowers blooming outside his window and worries that the
overstock of Polish cadavers from his Gestapo suppliers
might cause his crematory oven to break
down.
• Letters of Dr. Friedrich
Mennecke, director of the notorious Eichberg Clinic, who
writes with cloying sentimentality to the wife he calls
"mommy" and comments offhandedly about visiting
concentration camps to select "patients" for death.
Today, as reports of mass death in
Europe are once again cast in terms of public hygiene,
and as euthanasia is advocated—even applauded—on U.S.
television, the relevance of what Michael H.Kater here
calls "the lessons of the Third Reich" is perhaps
greater than ever. Against this background,
Cleansing the Fatherland sends a
stark message that is difficult to ignore.
