They presented a new report about the medical atrocities committed by Nazi doctors. The objective of the research is to alert the current medical community about these practices carried out by the Nazis in the name of racial purity.
Nazi doctors did atrocities in the name of race purity
Herwig Czech and his team of researchers from the Medical University of Vienna prepared the report. The Lancet published it after three years of exhaustive research for its writing.
It discusses in detail and historically how doctors and other health professionals collaborated in drafting the so-called mandatory sterilization laws. Based on this law, they sterilized 350 thousand people who were considered genetically inferior.
The consequence was that many of these people had serious health and psychological problems. Others died as a result of these surgeries.
Likewise, more than 230 thousand people were murdered for having some type of cognitive, physical or mental disability, applying the so-called euthanasia programs. As if this were not enough, thousands of these people suffered the horrors of medical experimentation in concentration and extermination camps.
His actions were justified by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
During the Nazi period, racial doctrine was the justification for carrying out these atrocities. Using “eugenics” (good origin) as a basis, based on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
In nature, the survival of the fittest individual is manifested at the expense of the most vulnerable, who is destined to become extinct. However, what Darwin never imagined was that some humans would apply his theory to other humans considered inferior. During the time of Nazi rule, eugenics was medically accepted in Germany and the countries that were under its influence.
Society was in a state of moral disarmament. Massive unemployment, war, uncontrolled crime in the streets, disease outbreaks and the high mortality rate created a very problematic situation. In this context, the Nazis adopted measures based on eugenics to eliminate so-called “unworthy lives,” and also applied sterilization on a large scale.
Guilty without punishment
The report is based on 878 historical and reliable sources. It is the most complete on the atrocities committed by National Socialism made to date. Many of those guilty never paid for their crimes. However, some of his writings are currently used in medical teaching.
The Anatomist’s Atlas, for example, was written by the Austrian National Socialist Eduard Pernkopf. He used photographs of people executed under the Nazi regime to illustrate his atlas.
Although the most chilling thing about the report may be the massive participation of the medical community at that time. Hundreds of doctors, like the famous Mengele, participated. At the end of the war, 65% of German doctors were affiliated with the National Socialist Nazi party.
The authors of this report say it is just the beginning of a larger investigation. The goal is for health professionals, doctors and medical students to have a complete idea of what Nazi doctors did.
