Half of German doctors were Nazis

The 24 doctors and public health officials who faced trial as war criminals at Nuremberg 50 years ago this summer were neither demented nor unwillingly coopted by the Nazi regime, Dr Michael Grodin told a conference organised by the University of Pennsylvania's centre for bioethics last week.

Dr Grodin, professor of medical ethics at Boston University and author of The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code, said that, unlike other war crimes in which it was difficult to determine precisely who had been responsible for which crimes, there was clear evidence to link doctors with specific instances of murder, torture, …