 BMJ No 7070 Volume 313 Not a slippery slope or sudden subversion: German medicine and National Socialism in 1933Hartmut M Hanauske-AbelThe history of medicine this century is darkened by the downfall of the German medical profession, exposed during the doctors' trial at Nuremberg in 1946. Relying largely on documents published during 1933 in German medical journals, this paper examines two widely accepted notions of those events, metaphorically termed "slippery slope" and "sudden subversion." The first connotes a gradual slide over infinitesimal steps until, suddenly, all footing is lost; the second conveys forced take over of the profession's leadership and values. Both concepts imply that the medical profession itself became the victim of circumstances. The slippery slope concept is a prominent figure of argument in the current debate on bioethics. The evidence presented here, however, strongly suggests that the German medical community set its own course in 1933. In some respects this course even out paced the new government, which had to rein in the profession's eager pursuit of enforced eugenic sterilisations. In 1933 the convergence of political, scientific, and economic forces dramatically changed the relationship between the medical community and the government. That same convergence is occurring again and must be approached with great caution if medicine is to remain focused on the preservation of physical and medical integrity.
Die apokalyptische Ansicht der Welt ist eigentlichdie, daB sich die Dinge nicht wiederholen.(1) "The apocalyptic view of the world quintessentially is one in which events do not reoccur." The notion that something will not happen again prepares the ground for cataclysmic re-enactments. In 1946, the year Wittgenstein scrawled this idea into his notebook,leading civilian and military representatives of German medicine were indicted at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. Among them were assistant and tenured professors; clinic directors and the personal physician of the chancellor; the head of the German Red Cross; the highest ranking physician of the army and of the air force; and biomedical researchers employed by the pharmaceutical industry, the military, and universities. Some of Germany's top physicians killed themselves before interrogation or indictment.Among them was the highest representative of Germany's medical profession, Dr L Conti; the rector of the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, Professor E Holzlohner; and the director of the I Medical Clinic of the University of Vienna, Professor H Eppinger, still renowned and honoured as one of the pioneers of hepatology. To this very day the dimensions and implications of the doctors' trial are hard to grasp, particularly for the German medical community. Even at the international level the prevalent concepts on "Nazi medicine" and "Nazi experiments" have as their essence "dab sich die Dinge nicht wiederholen," that such events will not happen again. The use of the very term "Nazi" implies historical uniqueness, designates a chapter closed and finalised, and intimates that those involved had been "Nazis," who, disguised as doctors,gained control and then executed their ideology. "It is difficult to believe that such . . . killing . . . could occur again."(2)
Slippery slope concept
Sudden subversion concept: German medicine was "raped" This concept of sudden subversion, or rape, was first promulgated by both consultants to the United States chief counsel for war crimes during the doctors' trial, Professor Alexander and Professor A C Ivy."Nazi propaganda was highly effective in perverting public opinion and public conscience in a remarkably short time. In the medical profession this expressed itself in a rapid decline in standards of professional ethics."(4) "The world now knows that the Nazis during the recent war used human beings without their consent as experimental subjects," wrote Professor Ivy, and he pinpointed as those responsible Chancellor Hitler and his Minister for Popular Enlightenment Dr J Goebbels, "the man whose false propaganda and racial views resulted in the most wanton torture and destruction of human beings in the history of the human race."(10) These pronouncements by two expert witnesses at the Nuremberg trial are so severely flawed by lack off actual evidence that they have not been repeated by German advocates of the sudden subversion concept. Instead, they increase the number of those involved in the assault from just two individuals to, in the words of Dr Vilmar, "at the very best 400,"(9) without, however, specifying any criterion for arriving at this number or presenting a list of names for verification.
The spirit of enlightened amnesia
Present study: compilation of documents Most of the referenced publications are from the leading German medical journals, which were read by the vast majority of the nation's then 52518 physicians(26) and often printed in prominent layout. More than half of the documents quoted were chosen from Deutsches Arzteblatt,today still the most respected and widely read platform for continuous medical education and professional politics in Germany. By contrast, only one citation is from the still prestigious Munchener Medizinische Wochenschrift . In the early 1930s that journal aggressively promoted nationalistic, anti-Semitic, and eugenic ideas in central Europe's medical communities to such a degree that in 1935 Czechoslovakia categorised it as a fascist magazine and banned its distribution.(27) All material from National Socialist medical journals was excluded to avoid distorting the selection, though these journals were well received in the profession and printed in large numbers (for example, during 1934 Ziel und Weghad a weekly circulation of 16000).(28)(29) In 1986 the German Chamber of Physicians and its various branches acknowledged that they had "unfortunately" destroyed potentially embarrassing documents relating to their collusion with the Hitler administration.(13) Thus one of the few remaining ways to reconstruct the deliberations and actions of the representatives of the German medical profession during the spring and summer of 1933 is by hand searching the German medical journals of that year. Having been collected in libraries throughout Germany and the world, they are today the possession and inheritance of all physicians.Through close reading of these journals it was possible to identify pivotal passages in all three categories of interest, and for the first time these passages are printed in English. Their translation was by the distinguished British biophysicist and translator Professor J W Boag.(30)(31) Only occasionally did I need to correct a translation in the interest of precision. Even with the most sensible effort, however, the language of Winston Churchill remains too innocent to convey the penumbra and pandemonium of the German originals.
Document set 1: the political arena On 5 March elections for the new parliament are held in an atmosphere of intimidation, the National Socialists using every means at their disposal to cripple the electioneering of other parties and silence opposition voices. Despite these efforts they receive only 43.9% of the popular vote and declare the result a grand victory.(32)(33) On 12 March Dr K Haedenkamp writes: "The time for a calm and continuous development has come at last. The overthrow of party politics has opened the way for genuine statesmanship. The opposition has no possibility of overturning the plans of the Reich government.The parliamentary methods of the period following the first world war have suffered a decisive defeat, the horse trading of the political parties is at an end."(34) Dr Haedenkamp is executive director of the Hartmannbund, one of the two largest German medical associations.
On 21 March the chancellor and the Reich president open the session of the new parliament in the Garrison Church at Potsdam.(32)(33) Dr A Stauder, the democratically elected president of the Hartmannbund and the Deutscher Arztevereinsbund, the two largest German medical associations, meets"in intimate talks" on account of "the political revolution"with National Socialist colleagues in Munich.(35)(36) He then telegraphs Hitler that "the principal professional organisations in Germany gladly welcome the firm determination of the Government of National Renewal to build a true community of all ranks, professions, and classes, and they gladly place themselves at the service of this great patriotic task."(37) On 24 March in Berlin, parliament-surrounded by SA and SS troops and with 17% of its delegates under arrest or in hiding-passes the Enabling Act promoted by the National Socialist fraction. The act grants dictatorial powers to the new administration. A quarter of the 94 Social Democrats who dare to vote against the act will be assassinated later.(32)(33)(38) In Nuremberg Dr Stauder meets with National Socialist colleagues in an atmosphere of cordial understanding, and one of them, Dr G Wagner, is named "commissioner" of the Hartmannbund and the Deutscher Arztevereinsbund.(35)(36)
On 30 March Dr Stauder announces that "by voluntary agreement"(39) he will resign his position in favour of his National Socialist colleague Dr Wagner. His proposal meets with "unanimous approval."(36) Dr Haedenkamp comments: "Stauder gave an emphatic reminder of the hard labour which had to be performed in the past under a political system that was ruinous to us all. The meeting unanimously approved the actions that had been taken, and responded with lively enthusiasm to the plans promulgated by the chairman of the medical associations."(35)
HERR HITLER IS DELIGHTED On 8 April in a unanimous declaration "the Prussian Chamber of Physicians at its first meeting after the national revolution gladly declares its readiness to place all its energies and experience at the service of the Government of National Resurrection, which it salutes with joy and gratitude. . . . As we think back over the past 15 years[of the Weimar Republic] we recognise that none of us is likely to shed a single tear for the democratic government that now has passed into history. Like the great majority of German physicians, we all rejected, as much as this was possible with the means at our disposal,the basic principles of that government, and we opposed its policy concerning the health service."(42) On 18 April, to celebrate the forthcoming birthday of the newly inaugurated chancellor, the German Society for Internal Medicine,holding its 45th congress in Wiesbaden, "sends to the Fuhrer of the New Germany their most sincere congratulations and their genuine admiration. As German physicians we see that our principal task is to work for the health of the nation with all our strength through research and scientific developments. As Germans we place ourselves gladly in the service of all the endeavours directed towards the national and moral advancement of our people."(43) On 19 April the German Society for Surgery also telegraphs a homage to Chancellor Hitler, and at its 57th meeting in Berlin meets under the "Symbol of the New Germany"(43)-the swastika of the National Socialists.
On 24 June Dr Haedenkamp summarises: "A new era, new tasks and new goals are replacing those of yesterday. Whatever is worthy of preservation shall be preserved, whatever is obsolete shall be cast aside. In the future we shall be guided by the strong will of authoritarian leadership, which has received its supremacy from the new State. To serve this State must be the sole objective of the medical profession. We are aware of the duties that we have to fulfil on its behalf. Insofar as we carry them out, we shall earn the right to have our work respected, and in this State occupy the position that we must claim so as to fulfil our tasks."(44) By July 26700 people are in "protective custody."(38) By the end of 1933 several dozen concentration camps are operating as legal institutions, among them Dachau and Sachsenhausen,(32)(45) and lucrative positions for doctors in these institutions are advertised in medical journals. Physicians certify on government forms that tortured prisoners are in excellent health, that emaciated inmates could work if discharged, that natural causes led to death in detention.(46-48) Within short order physicians falsify the medical records of victims and suppress physical findings of torture.(49)
Document set 2: the scientific arena
In November 1932 the Hartmannbund and the Deutscher Arztevereinsbund,send a petition to the ministry of the interior of the Weimar Republic"with the request that it should draw up as soon as possible a national law which would permit and regulate sterilisation on eugenic grounds. Reduced reproduction of persons carrying mental or physical handicaps of genetic origin must be achieved in order to guarantee the integrity of the population's gene pool."(52) In January 1933 Deutsches Arzteblattdeclares that with the venue for the next national meeting still undecided one"main theme" would be "eugenic questions." Its title page announces a nationwide competition for the best research paper on this subject: "In what ways can general practitioners take part in genetic and eugenic investigations or in the acquisition of human specimens?"(53) In March the Deutscher Arztevereinsbund announces that it will finance "a central promotional effort of the German medical profession" and to that end establishes an "Education Office for Population Politics and Racial Improvement."(54) In June Deutsches Arzteblatton its title page explains that the central promotional organisation of physicians and its"Education Office" "have the purpose of enhancing the idea of racial improvement among physicians and within the population. In doing so the medical profession has unselfishly devoted its services and resources to the goal of protecting the German nation from biogenetic degeneration. Beginning with general hygiene and the fight against infectious diseases, the development of public health leads from social medicine to racial hygiene. One recognises a development which in logical manner proceeds from affecting the population through just external means to caring for its internal core and very substance, its genetic composition. The medical profession has a special responsibility to work within the framework of the state on the tasks posed by population politics and racial improvement."(55) The ministry of the interior establishes an advisory panel of experts to assist in the conception and rapid formulation of eugenic legislation and names Professor Rudinas panel chairman.(50)
GUARDIAN OF GENETIC INTEGRITY On 14 July the new administration proclaims the Sterilisation Act,entitled "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Descendants." Paragraph 12 instructs that the mutilating operation"must be performed even against the will of the person to be sterilised. The attending surgeon must request any necessary assistance from the police authority. If other measures are insufficient it is permissible to use direct force." Insurance companies and "the one who has been sterilised" are to be billed for the operation. The law establishes genetic health and appellate genetic health courts, which are attached to civil courts and presided over by a lawyer and two doctors, one of whom is an expert in medical genetics. The law specifies a catalogue of "genetic illnesses" and lists psychiatric indications and alcoholism, among others. Physicians, registering every case of "genetic illness" among their patients, just like they register births, deaths, or venereal diseases, cannot withhold any information and must comply with all procedural requests. They identify patients to the genetic health courts for adjudicating the sterilisation act and are not bound to disclose the submitted information to these patients. Genetic health courts have subpoena power; their proceedings are secret-to preserve patient confidentiality and privacy. Also on 14 July the president of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society, Professor Max Planck, sends a memorandum to the minister of the interior, which includes the passage: "Herr Reichsminister, I am honoured to most humbly inform you that the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Sciences is willing to systematically serve the Reich in all aspects pertinent to the research on racial hygiene."(50)To that end Professor Planck has appointed a special commission, which includes Professor Rudin. On 29 July Deutsches Arzteblattreprints the entire Sterilisation Act and comments: "Since sterilisation is the only safe method to prevent the inheritance of mental diseases and serious genetic disorders, the law must be looked upon as an expression of loving care for the coming generations, and as an act of altruism. The elimination of defective genes is not of itself sufficient to keep our nation healthy and energetic, for this purging of the common gene palmist be complemented by positive population measures."(57) Professor Rudin coauthors the medical segment of an interpretative commentary, which all physicians are required to purchase at a special low price of 3 Reichsmarks and which contains a detailed addendum on surgical procedures for sterilising males and females written by the nation's leading authorities in reproductive medicine.(29) On 19 August Deutsches Arzteblatt , asserting that "every doctor must be a genetic doctor," publishes the first article on this topic, entitled "The physician and genetic improvement" by Professor F Pommel. Key phrases are "extermination of life not worth living," "legally enforced sterilisations," "creation of a new,biologically based nobility," and "the goal of breeding in the interest of the race."(58) As part of eugenic considerations "extermination of life not worth living" is thus introduced as a legitimate part of continuing medical education and becomes a standard technical term. On 16 September the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that Professor Rudin's institute "received a bequest of$1000000 . . . as a culmination of many previous gifts."(59)
ENGINEERS OF GENETIC IMPROVEMENT By 1937 the consequences of the medical community's zealous activities alarm Dr Wagner. He notices in the population "an often almost psychotic fear to get under the wheels of this law." He addresses a memorandum to Chancellor Hitler in which he protests "the sterilisation of entire families whom providence did not give the chance to receive the degree of formal schooling that is required to pass the intelligence tests. . . . Science has to remain the servant of our political principles and intentions." Within a year the"Nazis" have reined in the activities of the medical community.(29)(50)
EXPURGATORS OF GENETIC BALLAST On a large scale now the medical community continues its efforts to"take part in the acquisition of human specimens"(53) from the plethora of"material" produced by the killing hospitals, death camps, and executions to serve teaching and research.(62) From 1933 to 1945 the Eberhard Karl University in Tubingen alone receives 1077 corpses from executions.(67)(68)In the words of Professor J Hallervorden, the eminent neuropathologist:"I heard that they were going to do that and so I went up to them:'Look here now, boys, if you are going to kill all these people at least take the brains out so that the material could be utilised.'They asked me, 'How many can you examine?' and so I told them an unlimited number-'the more the better.' I gave them fixatives, jars,and boxes, and instructions for removing and fixing the brains, and they came bringing them like the delivery van from the furniture company. . . . There was wonderful material among these brains,beautiful mental detectives. . . . I accepted these brains of course.Where they came from and how they came to me was really none of my business."(69)(70) Between 1940 and 1944 Professor Hallervorden obtains at least 697 brains from one killing hospital.(71)
During the war physicians publish the results of such research,(16) hardly concealing the facts and often including "terminal experiments" such as the lethal cold immersion experiments conducted at Dachau, editorialised by Germany's leading surgeon, Professor E Gohrband.(72) After the war physicians previously involved in "the acquisition of human specimens" and now living in either German state continue to publish numerous papers utilising these specimens.(15)(69)(73) As late as 1985 research originating in Germany is contaminated by the use of these specimens.(74)(75) In 1989 such specimens are buried by some reputed German universities and national research institutes.(71)(76-78)
Document set 3: the economic arena
In 1933 about 17% of all physicians in Germany are classified as"Jewish"; there is a similar proportion among physicians in private practice certified to treat insured patients.(26)Larger cities have higher proportions of Jewish physicians (for example, 40-50% of all physicians in Berlin were Jews).(26)(79) To be Jewish the Deutsches Arzteblattstipulates that "it suffices if one parent or one grandparent is non-Aryan."(80)
On 5 April the chancellor receives Dr Stauder. A week later, in its title page coverage of the event, Deutsches Arzteblatt explains: "The Chancellor recognised the economic distress and hardship often existing in the medical community and especially among its young doctors. By energetic actions to remove racially alien elements, employment opportunities and a space to exist must be generated for these young Germans."(39)
EITHER A JEW OR A COLLEAGUE
Only on 22 April, four weeks after the unilateral action of the medical associations, does the newly inaugurated minister of labour issue the first state decree directed against non-Aryan doctors. They can no longer participate in the treatment of insured patients and would not receive new licences. The text of the decree, formulated with considerable help from Dr Haedenkamp, administratively assigned to the ministry,(40)(43) is announced in several medical journals.(84)(85) Dr Haedenkamp's public commentary is: "The legally binding licensing regulations now are precisely formulated with the intention to eliminate non-Aryan physicians."(86)Organisational oversight for the implementation of the "Entjudung"is assigned to the Hartmannbund-executive director Dr Haedenkamp.
On 20 May the Journal of the American Medical Association prints translations of the decrees to decertify and delicense non-Aryan physicians.(87) Also in May Lord Rutherford, Lord Rayleigh, Sir William Bragg, Professor J S Haldane, and other eminent British scientists sign an appeal publicly protesting that German universities are compelling scholars and teachers to relinquish their posts and "on the grounds of religion, political opinion or race are unable to carry on their work in their own country." That protest,supported by the Royal Society, specifies the names of 164 scholars,mostly distinguished professors, who were expelled between 4 April and 15 May.(88) By October the list includes more than 1000 names, and Lord Rutherford presides over a protest meeting at London's Albert Hall, which raises $500000 to support the expelled scholars. Professor Albert Einstein, "who spoke in English, expressed his deep sense of gratitude. . . . A historian delivering judgment at some future period, when Europe was politically and economically united, would be able to say that . . . the liberty and honour of this continent were saved by its Western nations."(89)
On 23 June the German minister of labour issues a decree that severely limits the professional activity of any non-Aryan physician in the healthcare system even if an extraordinary licence had been granted.(90) As a result of this set of decrees the proportion of Jewish doctors certified to treat insured patients drops by 31% (from 5308 to 3641) in just one year (fig 3).(26)(79) The positions vacated in the medical system were filled preferentially by young doctors loyal to the party.(26)(28)
On 15 July the first full article directed exclusively against "The Jewry" appears in Deutsches Arzteblattand asks: "What measures are best suited to prevent its further encroachment, or tore claim the positions it has usurped?"(91)
On 21 July an agreement between the key medical association and the insurance industry is announced "that in the future, only Aryan physicians will be employed, and that non-Aryan physicians will be reimbursed only for treating non-Aryan patients."(92)
PERMANENT IMPACT
In the summer of 1933 Jewish physicians are ostracised by their colleagues, isolated from their patients, and legally excluded from society. This expulsion, designed as "an employment enhancing strategy within the medical profession itself," coincides with an 11.3% increase in the income of physicians within the next 12 months.By 1935 doctors' average taxable income has increased by 25% (fig 2,2).
In 1933 an estimated 9000 doctors in Germany are thought to be categorised as non-Aryan.(26)(28) By 1938 only some 285 of these "mosaic sick treaters," as they will then officially be termed, will remain, relegated to treating only Jews. It has been estimated(78) that of all non-Aryan German colleagues practising in January 1933, at least 5%will perish of suicide, at least 25% will be murdered, and those remaining will survive only by taking refuge on virtually every continent on earth.
In the summer of 1996 fewer than two of every 1000 German doctors are Jewish. "As far as the medical profession [is] concerned, Nazi policy had been effective; Germany [is] practically judenrein."(78)
Discussion
The documentation presented here suggests that this transformation of German medicine cannot adequately be described by the metaphor of slippery slope or sudden subversion. The evidence for a "snowballing involvement"(7) of physicians in 1933 "that . .. had started from small beginnings"(4) is scant at best. All the community's voluntary decisions, as documented here,were intended to accelerate events-to the points of willing self submission under the National Socialists, outperforming even their eugenic intentions, and out pacing even Hitler's anti-Semitic designs.
Considered individually or in combination, the document sets do not support the notion that German medicine was dishonoured in just the first act of rape by "at the very best 400"Nazis.(9) Nor do they support the concept of a sudden subversion followed later by countless other atrocities. All the luminaries of the profession, its associations, and the biomedical community at large were able to act rationally right from the start,and all appeared thrilled not to have it any other way. The statements,programmes, and actions displayed in these documents do not tell the story of physicians dragged against their wishes into acts they did not like, or of physicians taking steps along a path on which they did not wish to tread. Hinting at underlying currents, this essay can only state the facts. It is for historians to analyse how deep and distant were their roots.
The annals of the downfall of German medicine are replete with the names of internationally renowned scientists like Professors Planck,Rudin, and Hallervorden(96)(97) and clinicians like Harvard trained Professor G Schaltenbrand,(98) who conducted neuroimmunological experiments on uninformed subjects-not at a concentration camp but at the Julius Maximilian University of Wurzburg.(98)The image of Nazi hacks and SS quacks engaged in lethal experiments in the seclusion of death camps is widely held to epitomise the type of doctor on trial in Nuremberg. But it is a false image-a stereotype constructed from incomplete data. The direct involvement of people representing the highest professional standards, the international connections, and the financial support that German medicine and science had acquired at that time make the rapidity and extent of the transformation in the summer of 1933 all the more remarkable.
THE LESSON OF CONVERGENCE
In this interpretation the activities of individuals like Stauder,Rudin, Planck, and Haedenkamp reflect aspects of the convergence of previously separate political, scientific, and economic forces into one impulse that dramatically changes the relationship between the biomedical community and the government. With the formation of this convergence driven impulse a transition occurs, so immediate and profound that it requires one to break loose from the idea of continuous development. There is an abrupt shift from one state to another. Instead of steady change there is a suddenly altered condition; instead of a series of intermittent states there is leapfrog transition. These observations are all qualitative descriptors for a quantum jump.
A similar pattern - the convergence of otherwise separate political, scientific, and economic forces into one impulse that dramatically changes the relation between physicians and government-is also discernible in two large scale studies classified as unethical and conducted under very different circumstances - namely, the Tuskegee syphilis study(107) and the human radiation experiments.(108) Though both were sponsored by the United States government, there is general consensus that the United States government subsequently pursued comprehensive and honest investigations in either case. The "subtle shift in emphasis of the physicians' attitude that one must thoroughly investigate"(4) in these cases, as in the German one, delineates an approach that tends to exclude the societal context in which medicine happens.
From 1932 to 1972 the state run Tuskegee study followed up 399 uninformed black men in Macon County, Alabama,(107)diligently recording the spontaneous evolution of intentionally untreated syphilis and its lethal consequences. The state run nuclear experimentation on uninformed men and women, at times pregnant, were conducted at institutions throughout the United States(109)(110)(111);included among other things the injection and ingestion of radioisotopes; and were classified in an internal memorandum as having"a little of the Buchenwald touch."(112) "The Nazi experiments had practically no effect on them because American officials tended to dismiss the German studies as isolated acts of deranged scientists-sheer madness that would never again be repeated."(107) The notion "daB sich die Dinge nicht wiederholen" prepares the ground for cataclysmic re-enactments.
Contextual analysis of events during the summer of 1933 in Germany may not just improve an understanding of the past but may also help to assess the present and near future. Developments within medicine and society during the past decade, particularly in North America and Europe, may found another convergence of previously separate political, scientific, and economic forces. Biomedical progress, fiscal constraints, legal decisions, and government regulations are all closing in on the practice and teaching of medicine. These forces may not be as demoniacal as those in Germany in the summer of 1933, but only by approaching their next apparent alignment with great caution can we avert a conflagration.
This paper was written in honour of Dr John Duncan Dawson (1946-1990). I am indebted to the following people, whose support and encouragement made the project possible: Dr J Leaning and Dr J Loretz(Boston, Massachusetts); Professor J W Boag (Edinburgh, United Kingdom); and Dr B M Cracchiolo (New Haven, Connecticut). Critical documents were generously provided by Dr E C Wolff (Bethesda, Maryland); M Roelen (Berlin); and Dr S Kolb (Nuremberg). Discussions with Professor M H Kater (Toronto) and the late Professor G Mann(Mainz) had a formative influence on the design and execution of the study. {funding}Funding: None.
Conflict of interest: In 1986 Dr H Hanauske-Abel published an article in the Lanceton the role of German doctors under National Socialism. Within two weeks his sublicence to practice emergency medicine was withdrawn by the Kassenarztliche Vereinigung, organisationally closely related to the Chamber of Physicians, and was restored to him only after a decision by the German Supreme Court. In 1987 Dr Hanauske-Abel brought a lawsuit against the Deutsches Arzteblatt(which has the same relation to the German Chamber of Doctors as the BMJhas to the BMA). He claimed that an interview with the president of the chamber on the topic of the Lancetarticle was defamatory. The courts found in favour of the defence.
Department of Paediatrics,
Hartmut M Hanauske-Abel,
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(Accepted 14 November 1996)
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Title page of Deutsches Arzteblatt, 13 April 1933, detailing Dr Strauder's visit with Chancellor Hitler. The text proclaims Hitler's pans to eliminate the Jews.
Dr K Haedenkamp in 1954 wearing the Bundesverdienkreuz of the Federal Republic of Germany.
'Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution'. Announcement for the third international eugenics congress, New York, 21-23 August 1932., which elected Prof Ernst Rudin as its president. 
Title page of 1 July 1933 issue of Deutsches Arzteblatt (editor: Dr K Haedenkamp)
Cold water immersion experiment at Dachau concentration camp presided over by Professor Holzohner (left) and Dr Rascher (right.) The victim is wearing a Luftwaffe garment . Note the floating blocks of ice.
