Description
Book Synopsis Following decades of silence about the involvement of doctors, medical researchers and other health professionals in the Holocaust and other National Socialist (Nazi) crimes, scholars in recent years have produced a growing body of research that reveals the pervasive extent of that complicity. This interdisciplinary collection of studies presents documentation of the critical role medicine played in realizing the policies of Hitler’s regime. It traces the history of Nazi medicine from its roots in the racial theories of the 1920s, through its manifestations during the Nazi period, on to legacies and continuities from the postwar years to the present.
Trade Review “This collection of scholarly papers illustrates the ongoing, unfinished nature of historical research on the Holocaust and medicine, broadly defined…This sobering book is important reading for anyone interested in Jewish or medical history or in the impact of values, ideology, and ethics on scientific practice…Highly Recommended.” • Choice
“This volume offers new research and insights on a range of issues not often covered in the extant historical literature. Its mix of topics and perspectives is a particular virtue, ranging from the history of medicine to Jewish religious practice, gender, biographical and institutional studies, and the 'postwar continuities and legacies’ that are a particular emphasis and strength of the volume.” • Geoffrey Cocks, Professor Emeritus of History at Albion College
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Foreword
William E. Seidelman
Introduction to the Volume: Recognizing the Past in the Present
Sabine Hildebrandt, Miriam Offer, and Michael A. Grodin
Part I: The Past
Chapter 1. Non-Mechanistic Explanatory Styles in Interwar German Racial Theory: A Comparison of Hans F. K. Günther and Ludwig Ferdinand Clauß
Amit Varshizky
Chapter 2. From “Racial Surveys” to Medical Experiments in Prisoner of War Camps
Margit Berner
Chapter 3. "Der Doktor": The Writings of Mordechai Lensky During the Interwar Period
Miriam Offer
Chapter 4. Rabbinic Responsa During the Holocaust: The Life-for-Life Problem
Johnathan I. Kelly, Erin L. Miller, Rabbi Joseph Polak, Robert Kirschner, and Michael A. Grodin
Chapter 5. Un(B)earable: Pregnant Bodies and Obstetrical Genocide
Annette Finley-Croswhite
Chapter 6. “Complete Mastery of the Subject”: The Connection between Forced Sterilization and Gynecological Fertility Research in National Socialism
Gabriele Czarnowski
Chapter 7. Deference, Pragmatism, Ideology: The Medical Student Kurt Gerstein and the Predicament of Ethical Conduct under National Socialism
Mathias Schütz
Chapter 8. Ludwig Stumpfegger (1910–1945): A Career at the Interface of Hitler, Himmler and Ravensbrück Concentration Camp
Stephanie Kaiser and Mathias Schmidt
Chapter 9. Between Participation in National Socialist Medicine and Everyday Administrative Action: On the Economic Argument of the Psychiatric Planning Commission (1941–1945)
Felicitas Söhner
Chapter 10. Dentists in National Socialist (Nazi) Germany: A Fragmented Profession
Matthis Krischel
Chapter 11. Only Following Orders? Aviation Medicine in Nazi Germany
Alexander von Lünen
Chapter 12. Blood and Bones from Auschwitz: The Mengele Link
Paul J. Weindling
Part II: The Present: Postwar Continuities, Legacies, and Reflections
Chapter 13. Renewed Trauma: Abraham De La Penha’s Testimony against Dr Franz Lucas in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial
Andrew Wisely
Chapter 14. “Schluss mit der Rassenschande!” From Separation to Extermination: The Fate of Jewish Mentally Ill Patients in Germany and Occupied Poland 1939–42
Kamila Uzarczyk
Chapter 15. “Since she was in Auschwitz the patient feels that she is being persecuted”: Holocaust Survivors and Austrian Psychiatry after World War II
Herwig Czech
Chapter 16. “To Prevent Further Unfounded Aly Constructions”
Götz Aly
Chapter 17. Baneful Medicine and a Radical Bioethics in Contemporary Art
Andrew Weinstein
Chapter 18. The History of the Vienna Protocol
Sabine Hildebrandt, Joseph A. Polak, Michael A. Grodin, and William E. Seidelman
Conclusion: The Past in the Present and the Future
Index
