Doctors Of Infamy The Story Of The Nazi Medical Crimes

With 16 pages of photographs One of the most shocking aspects of the Nazi treatment of their prisoners was the wanton cruelty of the doctors assigned to the concentration camps that were dotted throughout occupied Europe. In an ironic perversion of their Hippocratic oath doctors, such as the infamous Mangele, carried out horrendous experiments on their captive victims in the name of science. As part of the Nuremberg trials the Nazi medical establishment was called to account for these crimes against humanity. Alexander Mitscherlich was the doctor assigned to carry out a full investigation into the crimes across all of Europe; in his report embodied in this book, reported on the awful scale and complicity of the Nazis. The terrible details have to be read to be believed in this shocking book.

A physician says, "I have an ethical obligation never to cause the death of a patient," another responds, "My ethical obligation is to relieve pain even if the patient dies." The current argument over the role of physicians in assisting patients to die constantly refers to the ethical duties of the profession. References to the Hippocratic Oath are often heard. Many modern problems, from assisted suicide to accessible health care, raise questions about the traditional ethics of medicine and the medical profession. However, few know what the traditional ethics are and how they came into being. This book provides a brief tour of the complex story of medical ethics evolved over centuries in both Western and Eastern culture. It sets this story in the social and cultural contexts in which the work of healing was practiced and suggests that, behind the many different perceptions about the ethical duties of physicians, certain themes appear constantly, and may be relevant to modern debates. The book begins with the Hippocratic medicine of ancient Greece, moves through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, and the long history of Indian 7nd Chinese medicine, ending as the problems raised modern medical science and technology challenge the settled ethics of the long tradition.

A chilling story of human depravity and ultimate justice, told for the first time by an eyewitness court reporter for the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Nazi doctors. This is the account of 22 men and 1 woman and the torturing and killing by experiment they authorized in the name of scientific research and patriotism. Doctors from Hell includes trial transcripts that have not been easily available to the general public and previously unpublished photographs used as evidence in the trial. The author describes the experience of being in bombed-out, dangerous, post-war Nuremberg, where she lived for two years while working on the trial. Once a Nazi sympathizer tossed bombs into the dining room of the hotel where she lived moments before she arrived for dinner. She takes us into the courtroom to hear the dramatic testimony and see the reactions of the defendants to the proceedings. This landmark trial resulted in the establishment of the Nuremberg code, which set the guidelines for medical research involving human beings. A significant addition to the literature on World War II and the Holocaust, medical ethics, human rights, and the barbaric depths to which human beings can descend.

This new hardcover edition of Odd Nansen's diary, the first in over sixty-five years, contains extensive annotations and other material not found in any other hardcover or paperback versions. Nansen, a Norwegian, was arrested in 1942 by the Nazis, and spent the remainder of World War II in concentration camps--Grini in Oslo, Veidal above the Arctic Circle, and Sachsenhausen in Germany. For three and a half years, Nansen kept a secret diary on tissue-paper-thin pages later smuggled out by various means, including inside the prisoners' hollowed-out breadboards. Unlike writers of retrospective Holocaust memoirs, Nansen recorded the mundane and horrific details of camp life as they happened, "from day to day." With an unsparing eye, Nansen described the casual brutality and random terror that was the fate of a camp prisoner. His entries reveal his constantly frustrated hopes for an early end to the war, his longing for his wife and children, his horror at the especially barbaric treatment reserved for Jews, and his disgust at the anti-Semitism of some of his fellow Norwegians. Nansen often confronted his German jailors with unusual outspokenness and sometimes with a sense of humor and absurdity that was not appreciated by his captors. After the Putnam's edition received rave reviews in 1949, the book fell into obscurity. In 1956, in response to a poll about the "most undeservedly neglected" book of the preceding quarter-century, Carl Sandburg singled out From Day to Day, calling it "an epic narrative," which took "its place among the great affirmations of the power of the human spirit to rise above terror, torture, and death." Indeed, Nansen witnessed all the horrors of the camps, yet still saw hope for the future. He sought reconciliation with the German people, even donating the proceeds of the German edition of his book to German refugee relief work. Nansen was following in the footsteps of his father, Fridtjof, an Arctic explorer and humanitarian who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work on behalf of World War I refugees. (Fridtjof also created the "Nansen passport" for stateless persons.) Forty sketches of camp life and death by Nansen, an architect and talented draftsman, provide a sense of immediacy and acute observation matched by the diary entries. The preface is written by Thomas Buergenthal, who was "Tommy," the ten-year-old survivor of the Auschwitz Death March, whom Nansen met at Sachsenhausen and saved using his extra food rations. Buergenthal, author of A Lucky Child, formerly served as a judge on the International Court of Justice at The Hague and is a recipient of the 2015 Elie Wiesel Award from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This book traces the history of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial of 1946-47, through the eyes of the Austrian émigré psychiatrist Leo Alexander, whose investigations helped the US prosecution. Schmidt provides a detailed insight into the origins of human rights in medical science and into the changing role of international law, ethics and politics.

Nazism cursed the European continent and tried to dominate the world. It was a racist dogma enforced by racist bullies and brutal criminals. Before Adolf Hitler was crushed, between 50 and 60 million people died. Nazis extended their cruelties into the realm of medicine, their grinning doctors, many of them once distinguished professors with advanced degrees, torturing thousands, including children, to death in grisly ways in filthy back rooms at the many Nazi camps or in special murder "clinics." This book discusses some of the hideous crimes against humanity they committed, all of it with a clear conscience and without a second thought. There is also a section on medical "experiments" and atrocities carried out, even in the days of the 21st Century, in a developed country near you.

The atrocities committed by Nazi physicians and researchers during World War II prompted the development of the Nuremberg Code to define the ethics of modern medical experimentation utilizing human subjects. Since its enunciation, the Code has been viewed as one of the cornerstones of modern bioethical thought. The sources and ramifications of this important document are thoroughly discussed in this book by a distinguished roster of contemporary professionals from the fields of history, philosophy, medicine, and law. Contributors also include the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal and a moving account by a survivor of the Mengele Twin Experiments. The book sheds light on keenly debated issues of both science and jurisprudence, including the ethics of human experimentation; the doctrine of informed consent; and the Code's impact on today's international human rights agenda. The historical setting of the Code's creation, some modern parallels, and the current attitude of German physicians toward the crimes of the Nazi era, are discussed in early chapters. The book progresses to a powerful account of the Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg, its resulting verdict, and the Code's development. The Code's contemporary influence on both American and international law is examined in its historical context and discussed in terms of its universality: are the foundational ethics of the Code as valid today as when it was originally penned? The editors conclude with a chapter on foreseeable future developments and a proposal for an international covenant on human experimentation enforced by an international court. A major work in medical law and ethics, this volume provides stimulating, provocative reading for physicians, legal professionals, bioethicists, historians, biomedical researchers, and concerned laypersons.