Yale Symposium on Holocaust and Genocide: Intro
February 23, 2023- 00:07My name is Mark Mercurio.
- 00:08I'm the director of the program
- 00:09for Biomedical Ethics here at
- 00:10the Yale School of Medicine.
- 00:12And today, of course,
- 00:13is a very special day,
- 00:14an event we've been planning for a long time.
- 00:16This is our symposium on
- 00:18Holocaust and Genocide.
- 00:19And I've got a few announcements and
- 00:20and people I want to make you aware of,
- 00:22and then we'll be getting to it with our
- 00:24first speaker in just a couple of minutes.
- 00:26But I will keep on behalf of myself,
- 00:28on behalf of the manager of our program,
- 00:30Karen Cole,
- 00:31who many of you have been in touch with.
- 00:32Karen's in the back there in
- 00:34charge of logistics and stuff.
- 00:36And of course Jack Hughes and
- 00:37Sarah Hall are associate directors.
- 00:39So we're all very pleased you're here.
- 00:41It's nice to have.
- 00:42We are in the process this year
- 00:44of reassembling our bioethics
- 00:45community here at Yale.
- 00:47After being on just online,
- 00:49we we never lost touch,
- 00:50but we did a lot of programs on zoom
- 00:53and now we do a lot of programs hybrid.
- 00:55So we do have.
- 00:56A large zoom audience.
- 00:57We have about 170 folks registered
- 00:59for the zoom and another 130
- 01:00who are registered to be here
- 01:02at some point during the day.
- 01:03So a very big crowd and we're
- 01:05so pleased you're here.
- 01:07In addition,
- 01:07you know online on the zoom we
- 01:09have folks from coast to coast,
- 01:11there are folks from Massachusetts
- 01:13to California as well as in
- 01:15Switzerland and France and we also
- 01:16have some special folks here.
- 01:18I want to welcome obviously the Yale
- 01:20faculty and staff and students,
- 01:22many folks from the Holocaust Memorial,
- 01:23Miami Beach there are in the audience and.
- 01:26Online children of Holocaust
- 01:28survivors a special welcome to them.
- 01:31There are representatives here from
- 01:33the fellowships at Auschwitz for
- 01:34the study of professional ethics,
- 01:36a group called FASPE that I've
- 01:37been involved with,
- 01:38Jack and Sarah and and we work
- 01:40closely with them in the partnership.
- 01:42And in fact,
- 01:42our first speaker is a member
- 01:44of that organization.
- 01:45I'll introduce him in just a moment.
- 01:47There's rabbis and staff from
- 01:49statewide Jewish organizations,
- 01:50the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven.
- 01:53There are folks listening in from Harvard,
- 01:54Columbia, Quinnipiac, Rutgers,
- 01:56Fairfield and Chicago.
- 02:01Importantly in the audience right down
- 02:03here is my friend Jacob Lindenthal
- 02:06and also his sister Rachel Linenthal.
- 02:08Jacob is himself quite
- 02:10accomplished as an academician.
- 02:12Jacob has doctorates from yeshiva
- 02:15and from Colombia and from Yale,
- 02:19and has over 40 years on the
- 02:21faculty at Rutgers and is now a
- 02:23professor emeritus at Rutgers.
- 02:24Jacob approached me with this idea
- 02:26a few years back and this symposium.
- 02:30Which Jacob very generously
- 02:31supports as really his brainchild.
- 02:33So I want to thank Jacob for
- 02:34being here and thank him,
- 02:35of course for the generous support,
- 02:37and so we'll get a chance
- 02:38to hang out all day.
- 02:42Thank you to Doctor Linenthal
- 02:44to the Lindenthal family.
- 02:46Now, what else do I need to tell you?
- 02:47The important stuff.
- 02:48OK, so the men's room is,
- 02:50as you're facing me, on your left.
- 02:52You can just go through those side
- 02:53doors or through the back door,
- 02:54but it's on that hallway right along there,
- 02:56and the ladies room is along here.
- 03:00The food will be back there
- 03:01just for a few more minutes.
- 03:02Hopefully you guys had a chance to get that.
- 03:04We'll be getting into a break
- 03:06in just a little bit after the
- 03:08first couple of speakers. Umm.
- 03:11I think that's all the announcements
- 03:12I want to announce right now.
- 03:13I'll say some other things over the course,
- 03:15over the course of the morning.
- 03:17I think right now what I'd like to do
- 03:19is introduce you to a friend of mine,
- 03:22someone who I.
- 03:23I've worked with over the years
- 03:25and as we put this together,
- 03:28I thought, well, man,
- 03:29if we could get Torsten
- 03:30Wagner to do this with me,
- 03:31this would be just wonderful.
- 03:33He's an extraordinarily accomplished
- 03:35historian and and educator.
- 03:38So a little bit about my
- 03:39friend Torsten Wagner,
- 03:40who's a German historian.
- 03:41Born in Denmark,
- 03:42he completed undergraduate studies
- 03:44at the University of Tubingen in
- 03:46Germany and graduate studies at
- 03:47Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
- 03:49as well as the Technische Universitat
- 03:50in Berlin and the Free Universe dot
- 03:53in Berlin postgraduate studies.
- 03:54We're at the University of
- 03:56Wisconsin at Madison.
- 03:58He was based in Berlin for many years.
- 03:59He held positions as an educator
- 04:01at the Jewish Museum of Berlin and
- 04:03a research fellow at the Danish
- 04:04Center for Holocaust and Genocide
- 04:06Studies in Copenhagen and at the
- 04:08Department of Scandinavian Studies
- 04:09at Humboldt University in Berlin.
- 04:11From 2010 to 2019 he was an associate
- 04:14professor of modern European history at
- 04:16the Danish Institute for Study Abroad,
- 04:19the University of Copenhagen,
- 04:20and since 2019 he has been the
- 04:23executive Director of fast speed,
- 04:24the fellowships at Auschwitz
- 04:25for the study of professional
- 04:27ethics based in New York City.
- 04:28This is an organization that brings
- 04:31professional students from all across
- 04:33the country for a very intense 2
- 04:35week course in professional ethics
- 04:36that is based around the historical
- 04:39experiences of the Nazi era.
- 04:42And that's that's something
- 04:44that I won't get into now,
- 04:45but except to say that through
- 04:47working with that organization,
- 04:48I had the opportunity to see one
- 04:49of the best teachers I've had the
- 04:51privilege of seeing in my career.
- 04:53Who is Torsten Wagner?
- 04:55He has done a number of other things,
- 04:56but I think I've said enough for now,
- 04:59Torsten,
- 05:00if you'd be kind enough to come
- 05:01up and start our program off.
- 05:04You know this phenomenon,
- 05:05when people introduce you and
- 05:06you're listening to it in real,
- 05:07you're wondering who's he talking
- 05:08about with all these nice words.
- 05:10And then let's talk with you.
- 05:12Thank you Mark for this wonderful.
- 05:16Reduction and also the invitation
- 05:18again to to work together and
- 05:20Karen for sitting and all up.
- 05:22There she is. Umm.
- 05:27What I'm going to focus on,
- 05:28as you can see, is the whole question
- 05:31about how to define doctors and
- 05:33understand them as perpetrators.
- 05:35But where I want to start is with the,
- 05:38the story of that Nicole
- 05:40Rost has shared with us.
- 05:42Nicole Ross was a nurse,
- 05:45a prisoner nurse at Dachau,
- 05:48and he reports how he.
- 05:52Ends up having this bizarre experiences
- 05:54that a he's talking with a patient
- 05:57that or with a person who's recently
- 05:59coming into the hospital in the
- 06:01house towards the end of the war,
- 06:03not long time before the liberation.
- 06:05And it turns out that this is a.
- 06:09Polish person who is an architect and
- 06:12he's not there because he's a patient.
- 06:14He's just a prisoner at that house.
- 06:16And then cost starts to have a
- 06:18conversation with him and he realizes
- 06:20that this architect is there because
- 06:22the doctors at the camp hospital
- 06:24at the house wants to talk with the
- 06:27architect about how to design all their
- 06:29villas and nice big houses that they
- 06:31soon are going to build in the South
- 06:33of Germany and in the Alps and other places.
- 06:36And they're just flabbergasted
- 06:37because this is April 6th,
- 06:381945 and he's wondering where is his mind.
- 06:41You know,
- 06:41where are these hospitals?
- 06:42What are these doctors thinking that
- 06:44they believe that they will still
- 06:46have a post war scenario where they
- 06:48will be able to just enjoy the fruits
- 06:51of their work and have their villas?
- 06:54Now if we just Fast forward
- 06:56to a moment in the 1970s,
- 06:58eventually one of the doctors kind
- 07:01of shooks ends up being brought to
- 07:03trial and he actually gets sentenced.
- 07:06But in the end there is a.
- 07:11A state Doctor Who credits him and says,
- 07:15well,
- 07:15you're too old and you're too sick,
- 07:16you don't need to go to prison.
- 07:18And eventually he actually is able
- 07:20to go to Stan Benghazi in the Alps
- 07:22and spend the last 10-15 years of
- 07:24his life in the wonderful vilap,
- 07:25right?
- 07:26So that just as an anecdote about how
- 07:28we all know how many of the doctors,
- 07:31the vast majority of course,
- 07:32end up never being brought to justice,
- 07:34there are some,
- 07:35but it's of course more or less
- 07:38the exception in many ways.
- 07:40What we also know as a starting point is,
- 07:42of course,
- 07:43that that is the end of a story that
- 07:46begins with the fact that a lot of
- 07:49medical professionals were very open,
- 07:52very receptive to Nazi ideology,
- 07:55to the party,
- 07:56to becoming members of the party,
- 07:58to the policies of Nazism.
- 08:00And they were highly involved in the
- 08:03various mass crimes of Nazi Germany.
- 08:05And we are of course still asking
- 08:08ourselves why, and trying to map that.
- 08:09Who were these doctors?
- 08:12Why did they become perpetrators
- 08:14or accomplices?
- 08:15What were the motives,
- 08:16the driving forces, the objectives?
- 08:18What role did their milieu,
- 08:21their professional,
- 08:22social and personal context play?
- 08:24Even after decades of scholarship,
- 08:27that is not so clear and we are still in
- 08:29the process of mapping that and
- 08:31getting a better understanding of that.
- 08:33Let's see if we can get this to work.
- 08:36No. Do it here. Whoops, too far.
- 08:43So what I'd like to discuss
- 08:45with you is this question about
- 08:49who and what is a perpetrator.
- 08:50How can we define it?
- 08:53What is a medical crime?
- 08:55Can is there ways to define the
- 08:59medical edness of Nazi crimes?
- 09:01And what have we learned about
- 09:03the doctors and their motives?
- 09:06And I think it's worth,
- 09:07just for a moment asking ourselves.
- 09:09Why we're here?
- 09:10Why we thinking about these things?
- 09:12Why this history seems relevant to us?
- 09:15Obviously we want to commemorate
- 09:17the suffering of the victims just
- 09:19being a few days after January 27th,
- 09:21the day of liberation of
- 09:23Auschwitz and so many contexts,
- 09:24together with the Yama show of course,
- 09:26the moment in the year where we can.
- 09:29Commemorate them?
- 09:30That's definitely a purpose.
- 09:32Is it because we want to learn
- 09:34about the German doctors and
- 09:36German society beyond that?
- 09:38Is it because we want to learn about
- 09:40Nazism as ideology and as a period?
- 09:43Or does the exploration of the
- 09:45specific medical crimes of 1933,
- 09:47nineteen to 1945,
- 09:48tell us something about medicine
- 09:50and the medical profession in
- 09:52general and for that matter?
- 09:54Of course then also is relevant for
- 09:57medical ethics of future doctors.
- 09:59So let us get started with looking
- 10:02at how the understanding of
- 10:04perpetrators has changed in the
- 10:07course of the 7080 years that people
- 10:10have been thinking about this.
- 10:13Or you can call gone and other
- 10:15riders already shortly after 45,
- 10:17had a tendency to describe the
- 10:19perpetrators as failed existences,
- 10:22as hooligans or as wannabe intellectuals.
- 10:25Underachieving academics.
- 10:27And yes.
- 10:31Overtime. Sure. Could you just start over?
- 10:40You can put it on the time.
- 10:42How does this work now?
- 10:43Still OK, better, yeah.
- 10:50So very often more seen as marginal figures
- 10:52in the academic scene who often have
- 10:55been unemployed and kind of irrelevant,
- 10:58that then is added or even refuted by a
- 11:03second context of images that surround it.
- 11:07And that's of course something that we
- 11:09in many ways will also address when
- 11:11David Marvel will talk about a mingler,
- 11:13because in many ways the Mingala syndrome
- 11:15was part of a second complex of images.
- 11:17Of the diabolic beasts where it's
- 11:21very relatively obvious that we see
- 11:23that people split off evil right and
- 11:25kind of position it so to speak,
- 11:27and figures like Mangala the sadistic
- 11:30psychopath and or fanatic anti
- 11:32Semites frothing at their mouth.
- 11:35And the interesting thing is that
- 11:36that image that of course goes back
- 11:37all the way to the first one,
- 11:38two decades after 45,
- 11:40has been alive and kicking
- 11:42for decades after that.
- 11:43And one interview,
- 11:44whether it really stands out and then
- 11:46other scholars have written about regularly
- 11:48is an interview with Karsten Vilmar,
- 11:51who back then was the the director of
- 11:54the German Medical Association in 1987.
- 11:56Right.
- 11:57So we're talking 40 years later here.
- 11:59Who's still in that interview defends
- 12:01the majority of German doctors and says,
- 12:03let's not forget that
- 12:04this was a tiny subgroup,
- 12:06354 hundred doctors out of 90,000
- 12:09German doctors who don't blame
- 12:11the 90,000 for the 300.
- 12:13And they were marginalized,
- 12:14they were outside of society,
- 12:16they were pathological,
- 12:16they were deviant, demonic,
- 12:18delusional as fanatics, right.
- 12:19So you can still see how there's
- 12:21this attempt, of course,
- 12:23to create that distance.
- 12:25First step in the process that many
- 12:27of you will be familiar with is of
- 12:30course the tendency to look at the
- 12:33ordinary mediocre paper pusher,
- 12:34the quotidian functionary who is
- 12:37an overly zealous administrator,
- 12:38the COG in the wheel following
- 12:40orders were shocking and normal.
- 12:42And of course we can contrast the
- 12:44images moving from mingala or
- 12:46the perception of mingala.
- 12:48We'll talk about the real Mangala,
- 12:50whatever that exactly is.
- 12:51Of course later.
- 12:52But the image of Mangala versus
- 12:54the image of Eichmann.
- 12:55Obviously here.
- 12:57So we're talking about early 60s,
- 12:58when this really pushes in.
- 13:00And so the bureaucrat is doing his job,
- 13:03mainly his job in highly
- 13:06complex modern societies.
- 13:07He's not bothering about the consequences
- 13:09of his work and his criminal dimensions,
- 13:12and again of course emphasized
- 13:13that this means he cannot shrink,
- 13:15and what she meant was thinking.
- 13:17I believe is of course that.
- 13:21You're not able to reflect on the choices
- 13:24and the responsibility that you have.
- 13:26So this focus on the division of
- 13:29Labor both fit the experience of
- 13:32an audience and of people who are
- 13:33part of the discussion in the 60s,
- 13:35but of course also fit wonderfully with
- 13:38the exculpatory strategies of the time.
- 13:42By the way, if you think about
- 13:44how to define perpetrators,
- 13:45you would think that the first person
- 13:48and the first context you go to.
- 13:50Are the is the judicial system right?
- 13:53I mean, isn't that their job right
- 13:55to define who commits a crime there?
- 13:57They have generations of experience in that.
- 14:00But when we look at many
- 14:02different national contexts,
- 14:04particularly the West German context,
- 14:06of course that is one big failure, right?
- 14:08That the legal system, of course is,
- 14:09I'm sure many of you will be familiar with,
- 14:12really failed.
- 14:13And the number of people
- 14:15who are actually prosecuted,
- 14:16brought to trial, sentenced in the 50s,
- 14:19is of course even dwindling.
- 14:20And of course that's a decade and
- 14:22only picks up a little bit later,
- 14:24so that's of course an important
- 14:26factor to keep in mind.
- 14:301/4 strand, in terms of understanding
- 14:32and thinking about the perpetrators
- 14:33is of course the emphasis on
- 14:35the machinery of extermination.
- 14:37The realization that actually
- 14:38had been taken much earlier,
- 14:40but had had a very hard time
- 14:42getting into a broader discussion.
- 14:44And I'm of course talking
- 14:45about Hilbert here, right?
- 14:46Just imagine you write a book
- 14:47that is really important for
- 14:49German history in the 50s.
- 14:51And when is it published in German?
- 14:5482 all right.
- 14:55And even in English I think it
- 14:57took years before it came out and
- 14:59not talking about the reception
- 15:00and the discussion of course.
- 15:02So Hilbert very early on of course said
- 15:04these this murder was a murder that
- 15:06all of German society was involved with.
- 15:08The accomplices came from a broad
- 15:11cross section of German society and
- 15:13the machinery of examination was only a
- 15:15variation of modern organized society.
- 15:17I human was not banal,
- 15:19he controlled the machinery.
- 15:20And of course there was not much love
- 15:22lost between Argant and Hilbert.
- 15:24That's a different topic.
- 15:25And people continued to practice
- 15:28their profession.
- 15:29There was no specific
- 15:31training needed necessarily,
- 15:32for the spotlight was really on the
- 15:35central complicity of the elites in
- 15:37German society, so Hilberg emphasizes.
- 15:41How?
- 15:42The elements of the machinery,
- 15:44the railway employees, the managers,
- 15:46the lawyers, the doctors,
- 15:47the engineers were able to.
- 15:48He dared.
- 15:49He did ignore the individual motifs.
- 15:52He did ignore factors like
- 15:53ideology or the utopian ideas.
- 15:55There were some things we would
- 15:57probably see critical today,
- 15:58but that was a massive leap forward
- 16:00in terms of understanding it.
- 16:01And I think that it's safe to say that he
- 16:03was right about Eichmann in many ways.
- 16:04Of course, also that somebody, Eichmann,
- 16:07did think about what he was doing.
- 16:10Now.
- 16:12Around the late 70s and into the 80s,
- 16:15there's a new discussion developing both
- 16:17in broader thinking about Nazi history
- 16:20and also within the medical context.
- 16:23And one important turning point is
- 16:26a competing alternative conference
- 16:29of doctors that happens in Berlin
- 16:31in 19 W Berlin in 1980,
- 16:33where people say there is the
- 16:35official doctors Congress.
- 16:36They are so obviously not dealing
- 16:38with their past.
- 16:39We're going to do an alternative Congress.
- 16:41But even when these first initiatives
- 16:44are taken to ask the critical questions
- 16:46about what ordinary Germans did,
- 16:48what ordinary doctors did in that period,
- 16:51there's still this strong and relatively
- 16:54narrow focus on the Nazi doctor in me.
- 16:57Which on the one hand,
- 16:58in many ways seems big leap forward,
- 17:01right?
- 17:01Because it means let's drop this
- 17:03whole thing about distancing
- 17:04yourself without pretending that
- 17:05you have nothing to do with this.
- 17:06So there's this emphasis on looking
- 17:08at the continuities and medical
- 17:10thinking and medical practice,
- 17:12of course.
- 17:12But on the other hand,
- 17:14the problem here is what the Nazi
- 17:18doctors actually did.
- 17:20Why they did it still remains sparking,
- 17:22right.
- 17:23So it becomes this abstract category
- 17:24that you try to think about,
- 17:26but we know very little
- 17:27about that of course stays
- 17:29for a while this kind of aspect
- 17:31in that transition period.
- 17:35So we can see this growing interest
- 17:37but also this clear limitations.
- 17:39Of course there is nevertheless an
- 17:43enormous growth of important scholarship.
- 17:45I'm just going to mention people
- 17:47like Gisela Bock who looks at
- 17:49sterilization for sterilization,
- 17:50or Hansen, Ashmol and many.
- 17:52And of course Robert J Lifton
- 17:54whose theory of doubling today.
- 17:56Of course many people would
- 17:57seem very critical and distant
- 17:59themselves for as scholars,
- 18:01but nevertheless a lot in this
- 18:02massive work that listen starts
- 18:04in late 70s and publishes.
- 18:0580s.
- 18:05Things point forward to important
- 18:07developments in the research on
- 18:09medical crimes and the perpetrators,
- 18:11of course, in years later.
- 18:15Those of you who are knowledgeable
- 18:17about the scholarship about the
- 18:19Holocaust know that these were very
- 18:21unproductive years because scholars
- 18:22were caught in a debate between the
- 18:25intentional lists that strongly
- 18:26focused on the ideology and Hitler,
- 18:28and then the structuralist who had a
- 18:30tendency just to talk about anonymous
- 18:32structures developing and changing.
- 18:33And there were no victims and
- 18:34there were no perpetrators, right?
- 18:36So I'm not going to waste
- 18:37our time either on that.
- 18:38But that's of course where a lot of the
- 18:41discussion and the scholarship went.
- 18:43But what we can see then is that in the
- 18:45course of the 80s and into the 90s,
- 18:47there is a growing unease and
- 18:50unhappiness with these kind of
- 18:52industrial mechanic references.
- 18:54And people realize that's not really
- 18:56what we read and learn about.
- 18:58There was a much more direct
- 19:00involvement of human beings.
- 19:01Not everything.
- 19:02Everything was industrial and and you
- 19:05know conveyor belt kind of murder.
- 19:08There was a lot of killers and
- 19:10those who were complicit,
- 19:12who were much closer to the victims
- 19:14and the metaphor and the image
- 19:15and the real item of that was of
- 19:17course in many ways the bullet,
- 19:18right, the murder by bullets that
- 19:21really moves into the picture.
- 19:22And we could add,
- 19:24metaphorically speaking,
- 19:25that was a growing awareness of the syringe.
- 19:28Also as a way of killing right,
- 19:30this kind of much more direct
- 19:32interaction between the complicit
- 19:34perpetrator or the complicit
- 19:36professional and and and the victim.
- 19:39That of course leads to important
- 19:41scholarship that very much is
- 19:43connected with Christopher Browning
- 19:44and his ordinary men book,
- 19:46where he analyzed the Police
- 19:48Reserve Police Battalion,
- 19:49another one and the book came out in 1992.
- 19:51And he makes an important point that
- 19:53we're still kind of profiting from
- 19:56this emphasis on how biography,
- 19:59the biographical details of people
- 20:01very often do not explain much about
- 20:04why somebody becomes a perpetrator.
- 20:06It's not about class, it's not about Miller,
- 20:08it's not about religion, right,
- 20:10that people come from very different
- 20:11backgrounds,
- 20:12and that very often is surprisingly
- 20:14quotidian and familiar.
- 20:16Social psychology,
- 20:18psychological or situational factors
- 20:21can make very ordinary people.
- 20:23Intra perpetrators.
- 20:23It did not take Nazi believers.
- 20:26That's of course an important
- 20:27challenge that has stayed with us
- 20:29for the last what is this, 30 years?
- 20:31And competing.
- 20:32And those are overlapping with him,
- 20:34of course. Daniel Goldhagen at the same
- 20:36time looked at some of the similar sources,
- 20:38and his book about the ordinary Germans
- 20:41was of course massively criticized
- 20:43and has massive flaws, which I'm
- 20:45also not going to waste time on now.
- 20:47But he did one very important,
- 20:49interesting thing that I for me,
- 20:50it took years to realize because I was
- 20:52so much more the student of those who
- 20:54had were busy pushing back against him.
- 20:56But what we've seen 1020 years
- 20:58later is of course that Goldhagen
- 21:00made one very important.
- 21:02Point, he said. We might.
- 21:04Fundamentally be asking the wrong question.
- 21:09We should not ask how people succeeded to
- 21:12make other people do things they reject
- 21:15and see and see as unjust and unnecessary.
- 21:18But we need to acknowledge that
- 21:20they wanted to do what they did.
- 21:22Very unpleasant. But you can see how
- 21:24that was really a threshold, right?
- 21:26It's always saying, how could they do
- 21:27it and how did they make them do it?
- 21:30And who gave the order just
- 21:32radically changing things around
- 21:33what if they actually wanted it?
- 21:35For whatever complex reasons and
- 21:37that's of course really was a
- 21:39threshold that we needed to cross
- 21:40and that has remained important.
- 21:42And this is the starting point for
- 21:45the first time for a period from the
- 21:47mid 90s into the early 2000s and some
- 21:50degree to some degree even beyond that,
- 21:53we actually ended up with perpetrator
- 21:55research right where there
- 21:56was not with a few exceptions.
- 21:58We didn't have much research
- 22:00on perpetrators before that.
- 22:02And now then at that point of
- 22:04time we end up with empirically
- 22:06rich studies to actually that went
- 22:07in and looked at who were they,
- 22:10what did they do,
- 22:10why did they do it and so on.
- 22:12That's of course when you understood that
- 22:15the the dynamics of that development
- 22:17was much more a complex one of certain
- 22:19orders coming from the center,
- 22:21certain decisions being made in
- 22:23the periphery or in the region or
- 22:25in the local circumstances,
- 22:26it would much more became
- 22:28an interplay between.
- 22:29Becomes top down and what comes bottom up,
- 22:31all the kind of complexities.
- 22:32Of course much more came into the
- 22:34focus and made us rethink and I re
- 22:37understand what the crimes of Nazism
- 22:39were all about in this setting.
- 22:41And of course, by the way,
- 22:43this also very much meant that we
- 22:45ended up understanding that the
- 22:47number of perpetrators is much
- 22:49higher than than we thought.
- 22:51The current numbers that I am familiar
- 22:54is that we think about beyond 200,000,
- 22:57right above 200,000 numbers of people
- 22:59who actually are directly involved in crimes.
- 23:02And that does not mean the German
- 23:04soldiers of course in many ways also had,
- 23:06I mean the mass soldiers also
- 23:08had roles in it.
- 23:09So very different setting from
- 23:11just thinking about a few thousand
- 23:12bad guys that were part of this.
- 23:16And two very important scholars then
- 23:21created the next quantum Leap that is
- 23:23for sure ulich habit and Michael Vilt,
- 23:25because what they helped us to
- 23:28understand is that the category
- 23:30generation and specific different
- 23:33institutions actually matters.
- 23:35There's very much these guys will behave,
- 23:37but of course in many ways became
- 23:39the spiritual director of this whole
- 23:41generation of perpetrator research.
- 23:43And what he emphasized is,
- 23:46of course the the specific cohort
- 23:48that we since then mainly called
- 23:50the war Youth generation.
- 23:52I don't know how much you've come
- 23:53across that phenomenon already,
- 23:54but a lot of the central players
- 23:57of that period, of course,
- 23:59are born in the window between 1900 and 1910.
- 24:04And what that generation, of course,
- 24:06has in common is that they are.
- 24:10Old enough still to be all inspired
- 24:13by the hyper nationalist atmosphere
- 24:16of the German kaiserreich.
- 24:19But too young in many cases to
- 24:22actually fight in World War One to be
- 24:25disillusioned about this nationalism.
- 24:26And it's that cohort that then ends
- 24:29up moving into the student movement.
- 24:32Umm, the folkish, rather ethnocentric,
- 24:36hyper nationalist,
- 24:37anti-Semitic student movement of the
- 24:39early 1920s and eventually will be the
- 24:42leading figures in the professions,
- 24:44the medical profession and in other areas,
- 24:46also in the course of the 1930s,
- 24:48so these very young.
- 24:51Kind of middle management leaders
- 24:52of the Nazi crimes of 30s were the
- 24:55students of the 20s and the war
- 24:57youth generation born in 1919.
- 24:59So this is what with the focus on
- 25:02then at best as highly second hand,
- 25:05but also for many others of course what
- 25:07we haven't really help us to understand.
- 25:09And parallel to that,
- 25:10of course also Michael Wilde looks
- 25:11at the role of the institution
- 25:13because he looks at a collective
- 25:14biography of all the leadership
- 25:16of the right security main office,
- 25:17which basically isn't police and a few
- 25:20other organizations that are fused.
- 25:21And he can identify similar things,
- 25:23but he makes a strong additional point.
- 25:24It's just not only generation.
- 25:27It's also that generation might
- 25:29explain why a certain cohort is
- 25:32very susceptible to Nazi ideology,
- 25:35but that doesn't necessarily turn
- 25:37them into perpetrated and perpetrators
- 25:38of mass murderers.
- 25:39You need two additional factors.
- 25:41You need very extraordinary
- 25:43institutional structures that mold
- 25:45you in a process into perpetrators
- 25:48and that specific setting.
- 25:49Or for example,
- 25:50the city has helped and and you
- 25:52need a specific saturation of the
- 25:54war and of some war,
- 25:55but the specific kind of war.
- 25:57Germany was raging, particularly in the east,
- 25:59of course.
- 25:59That support,
- 26:00of course,
- 26:00why generation and institutions
- 26:02were very important factors that
- 26:05helped us understand these dynamics
- 26:07in many ways in that moment.
- 26:11Eventually, of course,
- 26:12built was also one of the persons
- 26:14who really helped us understand
- 26:16the importance of the national
- 26:18community and the exclusive nature
- 26:20character of the national community,
- 26:21the Fork schema and shaft, in this process.
- 26:23And that's the last point that I
- 26:25just want to touch on and that's
- 26:27of course the significance of.
- 26:29The transformation of values and norms that
- 26:31take place in these decades at the same time,
- 26:34right this notion that we
- 26:37actually take our decisions.
- 26:39Based on our interpretations of situations.
- 26:42Right, we look at the situation,
- 26:44we try to understand it,
- 26:45and then we take our decisions.
- 26:47So the question must be,
- 26:49where are the processes and the
- 26:51situations by which Germans,
- 26:53and for that matter,
- 26:55complicit Europeans,
- 26:55decided to become complicit,
- 26:57and why?
- 27:011933, then one more turns out to be this
- 27:03moment of a catalyst of a normative change.
- 27:06A radical normative change
- 27:08where the elites were.
- 27:09Professionals are the key players
- 27:13in this transformation of values,
- 27:16making the unimaginable normal.
- 27:17And that's of course the context
- 27:19where Venokur, Nitzan, Raphael goes,
- 27:22and so many others have helped
- 27:24us to understand that we end
- 27:27up with a society where is.
- 27:30Radical notion of difference.
- 27:33In terms of value,
- 27:34becomes standards and becomes part of
- 27:36practice in the course of the 30s, so both.
- 27:39All of society changes is its
- 27:42morality in many ways and becomes
- 27:44particularist in a very radical sense,
- 27:47and the professionals of course
- 27:49play a key role in that process.
- 27:53We also learned in that context, of course.
- 27:57That.
- 27:59We are neither looking at
- 28:02ideological warriors nor at obedient,
- 28:05thoughtless robots.
- 28:06We're looking at individuals who
- 28:08are trying to make sense of their
- 28:10new task that they've been given
- 28:12and imbuing it with meaning so that
- 28:14also killing becomes kind of a job.
- 28:17In that particular setting and that
- 28:18against that backdrop of these this morality,
- 28:21change of morality in many ways.
- 28:22So we're looking at individuals
- 28:25with agency initiative.
- 28:28Often guided by anticipatory
- 28:30obedience and their own interests,
- 28:32situated in the midst of bourgeois society,
- 28:34of middle class society,
- 28:36or this is not some fringe that's important,
- 28:39reflecting their decisions and their
- 28:41actions and claiming their share of power,
- 28:45of social power,
- 28:46of resources guided by particular interests
- 28:49and embracing the notions of inequality,
- 28:53violence, and suppression.
- 28:54And it is,
- 28:54of course,
- 28:55part of that moral change that I talked,
- 28:57which meant there was very often.
- 28:59Room for maneuver.
- 29:00There was a core consensus,
- 29:02and there was active support
- 29:03for many of these crimes.
- 29:04What does all of this mean for our
- 29:07project of trying to understand
- 29:08the medical perpetrators?
- 29:12We have since then over the last
- 29:14few decades seen more and more
- 29:16studies of trying to understand this,
- 29:17but there's been a certain tendency
- 29:20still to focus on the organizations,
- 29:22the structures, history of science,
- 29:25intellectual history.
- 29:26But the biographical focus
- 29:28on the values and motives,
- 29:31the driving factors of the perpetrator,
- 29:33still has been the acceptance,
- 29:35the the exception.
- 29:36I'm familiar with Barker fees on Cal
- 29:38brand to of course is a key player,
- 29:41but there are not so many.
- 29:42And it's actually only a few
- 29:44half a year ago that a book
- 29:47actually came out with a not so.
- 29:49I mean with a very clear title,
- 29:51medical perpetrators, right,
- 29:52where it tries to bring together
- 29:54that new research that has tried,
- 29:56that has developed over the last few years,
- 29:59addressing some of these points.
- 30:03In that context, of course.
- 30:05And then the next question,
- 30:08the next point that I want to
- 30:10take you to is the whole complex
- 30:13of what are medical crimes?
- 30:15And in that context, of course,
- 30:17we probably first need to agree
- 30:20on what is medical about them.
- 30:22And secondly,
- 30:23what exactly then is criminal about
- 30:26what the medical professionals did?
- 30:29And I'm very much also relying on
- 30:31folks who for me was the big discovery
- 30:33over the last few months and years,
- 30:35because he has contributed
- 30:37to that whole discussion.
- 30:38So I'm indebted to his his
- 30:41reflections on this.
- 30:42He makes an argument that was very
- 30:44helpful for me and I think that
- 30:46probably also something that we
- 30:47should take forward-looking in terms
- 30:49of dealing with that, he says.
- 30:50We need to differentiate.
- 30:52Between the activities of physicians
- 30:55in specific medical contexts,
- 30:57hospitals, research institutions,
- 30:59public health settings.
- 31:01Bruces the activities of physicians
- 31:05in non medical contexts where they
- 31:08are guided by aims and rationalities
- 31:10that are exclusively defined
- 31:12by non medical actors and where
- 31:15physicians easily are replaceable.
- 31:17And obviously he's arguing that
- 31:20if some doctor.
- 31:22Commits a crime in a non medical
- 31:24context where non medical actors
- 31:26define that's not a medical crime.
- 31:28Might still be horrible,
- 31:29but it's not a medical crime and
- 31:31I find that relatively convincing.
- 31:32So the question is of course.
- 31:35What about do you still remember?
- 31:36Recognize his face? Radovan Karadzic, right?
- 31:42Serbian. Mass murderer right ahead and
- 31:47and probably in charge of separate.
- 31:49It's A and thousands of of.
- 31:52Muslims that were murdered in Yugoslavia.
- 31:54What was Yugoslavia in the 90s was the schist
- 31:58right and had worked as a psychiatrist.
- 31:59But that does not make him
- 32:01a medical killer, right?
- 32:03Because he ends up going into politics
- 32:05and when he does commits his crimes,
- 32:07he's not doing it as a doctor.
- 32:09And you could have the same discussion
- 32:12that's probably at least somebody
- 32:13that that David Muir will recognize
- 32:15Alfred Ebel up here in the corner.
- 32:17Who is the first head first
- 32:20director of the T4 killing side,
- 32:22the so-called euthanasia
- 32:23murder side of Brandenburg?
- 32:25He's a doctor but and then ends up
- 32:29being the commandant of Treblinka.
- 32:31One other.
- 32:33Horrendous murder sites in
- 32:35context of action Reinhard,
- 32:37where I think around 900,000
- 32:40mainly Polish Jews were murdered.
- 32:42And the question also in his case is
- 32:44when you take the criteria of deciding
- 32:47not to define cartridge as a medical,
- 32:49committing medical crimes also
- 32:52ever becomes more complicated.
- 32:54Arguably,
- 32:54what he does at Brandenburg
- 32:57is a medical crime.
- 32:59What he does at Treblinka,
- 33:00perhaps not anymore.
- 33:01And just him being a doctor there,
- 33:04at least creates a a Gray zone.
- 33:06You could argue that's important,
- 33:07but what I would argue is it's
- 33:09important that we reflect on these
- 33:10categories and why we use them.
- 33:11Because eventually, of course,
- 33:13we also want to think about.
- 33:14The medical profession and the
- 33:16professionals are how we use
- 33:17these categories in that setting.
- 33:21By the way,
- 33:21what Ralph and others of course
- 33:23also have emphasized,
- 33:24what completely is useless in this
- 33:25context is the category of party membership,
- 33:28right?
- 33:28I mean, that has been a tendency
- 33:30to try to define perpetrators,
- 33:32but being a member of the Nazi Party
- 33:35is not a helpful category at all.
- 33:38In both directions, of course.
- 33:41There was this whole tendency to say,
- 33:42well, I was forced to become a member
- 33:44of the party and I didn't want to,
- 33:46and that's of course nonsense.
- 33:47So this,
- 33:48that whole apologetic apologetics
- 33:51is not particularly helpful.
- 33:53But it's also not incriminating per se,
- 33:55right?
- 33:55We need to look at what they did with that,
- 33:58of course, in that context.
- 33:59And what makes makes things really
- 34:01complicated is of course that we also have.
- 34:04Cases where people who are persecuted
- 34:08in Nazi Germany end up sharing
- 34:10the ideas with the perpetrators.
- 34:13So the example that he brings in,
- 34:16of course, in this context is Franz Kalman.
- 34:18I don't know if you are my love,
- 34:18you are familiar with that name,
- 34:20but Kalman is somebody who I believe as a
- 34:24so-called half Jew gets into or a I think,
- 34:27well,
- 34:27he's a converted Jew actually.
- 34:30In other words,
- 34:31in his self division,
- 34:31not Jewish,
- 34:32but of course for 90 Germany he's
- 34:34been seen as a Jew and that is
- 34:35also why he eventually emigrates.
- 34:37And he even in 193637 he's
- 34:38banned from giving his
- 34:40lectures that he wanted to give at a
- 34:42number of medical conferences in Germany.
- 34:45Because he's seen as Jewish.
- 34:46But the irony is that the
- 34:48lectures he wants to give,
- 34:49and that partially were held by others,
- 34:51was very much pushing eugenics.
- 34:54And he even wandered laws that were
- 34:57more radical than the laws that look,
- 35:00quote, UN quote, legalized,
- 35:01forced for sterilization, right.
- 35:03So you have these categories,
- 35:04of course, where people actually
- 35:06can become in some ways part of the
- 35:08perpetrator and part of the victim
- 35:10side at the same time that doesn't
- 35:12exclude each other for that matter.
- 35:16Where goes very far, but I think also
- 35:18is an important impulse is of course,
- 35:22what do we do with? This dark icon of.
- 35:27Perhaps even the Holocaust.
- 35:29And that's, of course,
- 35:30the doctor on the ramp.
- 35:31And royalty would even argue it's a Gray
- 35:35zone whether we see that as a medical crime.
- 35:39When we have mingala or others standing
- 35:42there and being part of the selection
- 35:44and his argument is that we know
- 35:47that the vast majority of the people
- 35:49that had that function were none,
- 35:51were not were doctors.
- 35:52A lot of other officers also did their job,
- 35:54so obviously it was not a
- 35:57qualification for that function.
- 35:58A lot of the selection that happened
- 36:00in other parts of the camps,
- 36:01particularly outside of Auschwitz,
- 36:03also was done by.
- 36:05Just that we're not doctors, right?
- 36:07But on the other hand,
- 36:08of course he does concede that we have
- 36:10a very specific situation in Auschwitz,
- 36:13particularly 194344 with Oswald Pool
- 36:15pushing for a lower mortality and
- 36:18trying to make sure that there's
- 36:20still certain productivity and says
- 36:22only doctors can do the selection.
- 36:24So there is a Gray zone here,
- 36:25but I don't want to create an awareness
- 36:28that even sometimes icons need to
- 36:30be questioned and reflected on how
- 36:32we understand the doctors there.
- 36:34And he actually.
- 36:35The capability critical of these
- 36:37sometimes a little bit too fast,
- 36:39too dramatic and bombastic declarations
- 36:41of the Holocaust as a medicalized
- 36:43genocide that we find in some very
- 36:46high profile articles by scholars
- 36:47also that we need to rethink these
- 36:50categories against that backdrop.
- 36:52What we can of course can do is
- 36:56we can see medical crimes in seven
- 36:58different contexts of action.
- 37:00Many of them are very familiar.
- 37:01So I don't for you,
- 37:02I'm sure I'm going to walk you
- 37:03through all the details.
- 37:04What for me was very helpful was
- 37:06to get an awareness of where we
- 37:09can see medical crimes,
- 37:11identify medical crimes.
- 37:13Going beyond the ones that we all know,
- 37:17probably I'm just projecting from me,
- 37:19I guess here.
- 37:20And that's of course forced sterilization
- 37:22and other so-called eugenic policies,
- 37:24the murder of patients and of course,
- 37:27inhumane experiments.
- 37:28And he, of course,
- 37:30also draws the attention to three,
- 37:33four other areas.
- 37:34One is of course,
- 37:34to what degree were doctors involved
- 37:37in excluding people in medical
- 37:39institutions already in 33 because
- 37:40they were Jewish or politically?
- 37:43Um, problematic.
- 37:44Quote UN quote, right?
- 37:45So that could categorize as a medical
- 37:48crime because you operate as a doctor
- 37:50in a medical institution at the time.
- 37:52Um,
- 37:53there are doctors who decide to use.
- 37:58Victims of Nazi persecution
- 38:00for training purposes,
- 38:02something that I also wasn't
- 38:03that familiar with.
- 38:04But there are cases where a pregnant
- 38:07woman who were prisoners were then
- 38:11used in in medical training contexts
- 38:13to to teach students and of course
- 38:16the whole question of how to use
- 38:19bodies of victims of Nazi persecution
- 38:22and for anatomical purposes.
- 38:24Then there's a whole question
- 38:25about forced labor in civilian
- 38:27medical institutions.
- 38:28And then of course you know the the
- 38:31activity of of doctors in camp hospitals.
- 38:34And what Walker argues in that context
- 38:37is we even need to think about.
- 38:40What are the legal and
- 38:43ethical standards at the time?
- 38:45So looking at not only
- 38:47from our perspective now,
- 38:48but what are the laws in the 30s about this?
- 38:51What is the ethical standards?
- 38:53And include that not as the only
- 38:56criterion but just as one factor.
- 38:58And that's what leads him to say,
- 39:00particularly with forced sterilization,
- 39:02we do need to be aware of that this
- 39:05is not a Nazi crime per se, right?
- 39:07There has been increasingly
- 39:09become a part of of.
- 39:10A discussion also now how much?
- 39:12I think almost half of the states of the
- 39:15US at that time had forced sterilization.
- 39:18Denmark had forced sterilization, right?
- 39:20So there are quite a few other countries
- 39:22of course, that were practicing it.
- 39:25And if you take a positivist
- 39:28perspective on law,
- 39:30it was not even illegal, right?
- 39:31Because of course it was a law that
- 39:33the German government had decided.
- 39:35Now you can choose to say what the German
- 39:38Government in the summer or the fall
- 39:40of 1933 decides when there is no function.
- 39:42Democratic Parliament is not legal anymore,
- 39:44but that's where you end up,
- 39:45right?
- 39:45That's of course the the decision
- 39:47that you need to take and finally
- 39:50to wrap up that whole question
- 39:51about war medical crimes.
- 39:55There's also a strong point to be made that.
- 40:01Doctors who end up referencing that
- 40:03they only were guided by medical
- 40:05criteria or scientific criteria
- 40:07in terms of their experimentation
- 40:10also are to be questioned because
- 40:13very often that's inaccurate and
- 40:15the specific historical context,
- 40:16the example that often comes
- 40:17up as you use Hawthorn,
- 40:19who on the one hand did want
- 40:20to do real research,
- 40:22but of course what he does is to go
- 40:24to the people who run Brandenburg
- 40:26Garden or the killing side in
- 40:29Brandenburg itself and already.
- 40:31Talk with the leaders of
- 40:32the chief organizations,
- 40:33making sure that the right
- 40:34patients are murdered so that
- 40:36they can get their brains right.
- 40:37So yes, he does real brain research,
- 40:39but how does he get to how does he
- 40:42get these brains and how does he get
- 40:43exactly those brains that he wants?
- 40:45So there's a reference to science,
- 40:46of course is not only for
- 40:49that setting problematic,
- 40:50but of course it's also setting
- 40:52for implications because it's
- 40:54a reminder of how science of
- 40:55course also today is not free of
- 40:58political and value decisions.
- 40:59That of course also plays into that.
- 41:01Kind of context.
- 41:03So the third part that I want to
- 41:05discuss with you today is the whole
- 41:07issue about what we then have learned
- 41:10in terms of understanding and getting a
- 41:13better idea of the medical professionals.
- 41:17And the six points that I'm
- 41:19going to share with you here.
- 41:21You can glance over for a moment.
- 41:23Um.
- 41:24One important aspect,
- 41:25for me at least going a little bit deeper
- 41:29into this was to understand better.
- 41:32How we get to a situation where 45 some
- 41:35people will give you higher percentages.
- 41:37Somewhere around half of the German doctors
- 41:40end up becoming members of the Nazi Party.
- 41:43And it's relatively safe to argue to
- 41:46assume that in many cases there was a very
- 41:51clear opportunistic career motivation here.
- 41:54People realized,
- 41:54and we can see that in the sources also.
- 41:57They were hoping for the new
- 42:00professional opportunities that were
- 42:02coming up in these new massively
- 42:05subsidized areas of eugenics.
- 42:07Right hereditary health courts were set up.
- 42:10They always had three at their helm,
- 42:13right and two of them.
- 42:14Following correctly were doctors
- 42:16the whole genetic survey operation
- 42:19of the so-called epilogue Shea.
- 42:22Fasson right ahead of hereditary biological
- 42:24inventory and of course research in eugenics.
- 42:27So it was clear there would be new
- 42:31attractive potentials for jobs,
- 42:32which I of course have a much better
- 42:35chance getting when I am a party member.
- 42:38Another factor where you can see
- 42:40that coming in is that there is a
- 42:43very skewed balance of how many
- 42:45professors end up being in the
- 42:46party and how many privato sentence.
- 42:48So people who already had the ability
- 42:51to be professors but who hadn't
- 42:53been hired yet on a tenure position.
- 42:55So it's very obvious that those
- 42:57who are in the PD status,
- 43:00who of course still need to go that
- 43:03academic or that career jumped or
- 43:05much more into the astic entering.
- 43:08But the important thing is of course
- 43:10not only that it's not automatic and
- 43:13we still have half don't something
- 43:16else linear often emphasizes.
- 43:18So it's of course still a choice.
- 43:20And we also have an I found
- 43:22that particularly important.
- 43:23We also had a lot of examples where
- 43:25people do become members of the Nazi
- 43:28Party but turn out to be surprisingly
- 43:30uncooperative in terms of working
- 43:33with the working with the regime.
- 43:35So it's not so clear cut.
- 43:37See where I'm going with this.
- 43:38So it's not that either you are a
- 43:40gung ho and everything or you're not.
- 43:41It's more complicated.
- 43:42And the example here is the research
- 43:45that we have on the wonderful
- 43:47small Franconian place of Shabba.
- 43:48Where there's been kind of a
- 43:50study on these years of 1934 to
- 43:531939 where we can see again.
- 43:57Somewhere around 60% of the doctors
- 43:59are members of the Nazi Party,
- 44:01but 2/3 are the doctors and we
- 44:03of course don't know whether they
- 44:05were whether they were party
- 44:07members or not for these numbers.
- 44:10Never reported anybody in the
- 44:12context of eugenic survey.
- 44:15You see where this is going?
- 44:16So on the one hand.
- 44:20Vast majority wants to be party members.
- 44:22On the other hand 2/3 do not
- 44:26play with the Nazi requirements.
- 44:29And again, it's a question of interpretation.
- 44:32So much in history,
- 44:32of course, why this happens,
- 44:34but the most plausible argumentation that
- 44:36we also have some indications of in the
- 44:38sources in terms of the letters and private.
- 44:40Kind of ego documents and other places
- 44:42is these doctors were worried that
- 44:45patients would lose their trust in them.
- 44:49If I report somebody, who?
- 44:54Might have an illness that
- 44:56was defined as hereditary,
- 44:57ill and should be sterilized.
- 44:59There will be a rumor about it
- 45:00and other patients will say,
- 45:01I don't want to go to that doctor.
- 45:02He ends up getting me or my daughter
- 45:04or somebody else sterilized, right?
- 45:05So there are other factors of course,
- 45:07that play into that context.
- 45:11What else have we learned?
- 45:12We have increasingly seen how even in the
- 45:15context of forced sterilization money,
- 45:18the motivation of having an
- 45:19extra revenue played a role.
- 45:20It's not all about ideology.
- 45:22Case, for example,
- 45:23is Robert from Buna a doctor in India,
- 45:26and we have many other cases where we
- 45:29have a Doctor Who was clear he is a.
- 45:31Doctor and private practice will
- 45:33then goes to one of these hospitals
- 45:35in entrepreneur and has this extra
- 45:37income of a couple of 1000 rice
- 45:39micro months doing sterilizations,
- 45:41but where there's no obvious
- 45:44indication of ideological or
- 45:46institutional reasons to do it.
- 45:48We have case studies on Robert
- 45:50Wilmans who is the head of one of
- 45:53the departments at the border,
- 45:54shengshi and starting in Beetle,
- 45:57which was a very important kind of
- 46:00Protestant church driven institution.
- 46:03Where the transition?
- 46:052.
- 46:08Or sterilization for eugenic reasons
- 46:09and not for medical reasons.
- 46:11Of course we can see the change happen.
- 46:14Pushed by him before the
- 46:17law is promulgated, right?
- 46:19So he already kind of preemptively
- 46:20goes in that direction.
- 46:22He self defines as a strong,
- 46:25with a strong Protestant Christian identity,
- 46:28but he is the one who makes the
- 46:29whole institution a catalyst.
- 46:30We're accelerating that trend
- 46:31that it is talked about and the
- 46:34conviction as far as we can tell.
- 46:35Is, on the one hand that he believes in it.
- 46:39He seems really to believe that eugenic
- 46:42for sterilization is the right thing to do.
- 46:45And there's also good reason to
- 46:47assume that it's very much about
- 46:49his position at the hospital.
- 46:50He's not happy with the number
- 46:52of operations he does.
- 46:53When he has more operations
- 46:56on his whatever CV,
- 46:57then he has a different standing
- 46:59in the hospital, right?
- 46:59So we can see how very
- 47:01different motives of course,
- 47:02also come into these different scenarios.
- 47:04And supported Gulen who is a
- 47:08good example here as well.
- 47:09Is one of the many people who is the
- 47:12head of one of these mental institutions
- 47:15where people also end up being sterilized?
- 47:19Who?
- 47:21Is seeing with a lot of
- 47:23distrust by Nazi authorities.
- 47:25He there's a lot of jobs he doesn't get.
- 47:27He's seen as a almost kind of an anti Nazi.
- 47:29And nevertheless,
- 47:30he's lucky to get this kind
- 47:33of job as a director.
- 47:34But there are many other things where
- 47:37it's clear that there is this uneasiness
- 47:39with him from the authorities side.
- 47:42And he also clearly is on
- 47:43the reform side of things.
- 47:45He really wants to make sure we should
- 47:47be a healing institution again.
- 47:49We shouldn't have all these mental
- 47:51patients that just stay here forever,
- 47:52right?
- 47:53We need to find ways to get them to
- 47:54help them and then to release them again.
- 47:56But he realizes that he can only
- 47:59achieve his reform goals of kind of
- 48:02making his institution more modern
- 48:05when he pushes for force sterilization.
- 48:07Because when you have sterilized
- 48:09the patient that becomes the
- 48:11requirement for letting that
- 48:12person out in into society again.
- 48:15So he goes for it,
- 48:17right?
- 48:17So we can see these kind of complex
- 48:20situations of motives as well.
- 48:22We also have learned more and
- 48:24more about doctors that are
- 48:26really difficult to categorize.
- 48:27And I'm reminded of an exhibition that
- 48:29David Goldman, the founder of Aspen,
- 48:31I went to a few years ago about
- 48:33Fed and don't know if you recall,
- 48:36who of course is a.
- 48:39A towering figure of of surgery
- 48:42and of German medicine and
- 48:45the really important player.
- 48:47The first things that I knew
- 48:48about him was that there's a
- 48:50reason why Max Lieberman paints
- 48:51him because they were friends.
- 48:53Max Liebermann, German Jewish painter,
- 48:56impressionistic painter.
- 48:57He's one of the only non Jews
- 48:58who actually comes to Miami's.
- 49:01Burial in 1935?
- 49:03I believe so.
- 49:05Xampp is a good example of where we on
- 49:09the one hand know about how he and
- 49:12private contexts condemns Nazism,
- 49:14helps people who are persecuted at
- 49:17the period, but on the other hand,
- 49:19from day one already in 1933.
- 49:24Celebrates the Nazi takeover of power,
- 49:26celebrates it as a national
- 49:27revolution that was necessary,
- 49:28which of course also is relatively touristic
- 49:31of a certain part of German intellectuals,
- 49:34German elites at the time,
- 49:36and he is in the middle of that
- 49:38and also supports the regime.
- 49:40And the most important,
- 49:41probably the most damning evidence is,
- 49:44of course, that somebody might be
- 49:45something that we will touch on later.
- 49:47People like, or particularly
- 49:50salable actually also is present.
- 49:53When?
- 49:55The institutions,
- 49:56both from the medical world
- 49:59and the their market,
- 50:01and those who were involved in
- 50:03experimentation on prisoners get together,
- 50:06for example,
- 50:07for sulfonamide experimentation and all these
- 50:12kind of aviation experiments and so on.
- 50:15And people like Xenopol are there in
- 50:174344 with no word of criticism and
- 50:20even instead of criticizing these.
- 50:23Extremely inhuman and brutal experiments.
- 50:26They even give some productive advice
- 50:28how to improve the methods, right?
- 50:30So he's in the middle of it and
- 50:32that's of course where where is he,
- 50:34right?
- 50:34How could we categorize him in terms
- 50:37of anti Nazi but at the same time
- 50:39part of the crimes of course anyways.
- 50:42We have other examples also for the
- 50:46euthanasia murders and examples,
- 50:50for example from Erlangen,
- 50:52the mental hospital there,
- 50:55where we more and more understand
- 50:56how the heads of those hospitals
- 50:58where patients were killed.
- 51:00And when I used the word youthanasia,
- 51:01I hope that you can imagine the
- 51:03quotation marks as Nazi terminology,
- 51:05of course.
- 51:06We mourn,
- 51:07want understand how even people
- 51:10who were involved in that very
- 51:13often did not have a linear and
- 51:17unequivocally Nazi careers pushed
- 51:19for the murder and for sending their
- 51:23patients in spite of the fact that
- 51:25they had room for maneuver, right?
- 51:26We had more and more understanding of how
- 51:28many of the heads of these institutions,
- 51:30when they said,
- 51:31no,
- 51:31I didn't want to send their patients,
- 51:33were not punished.
- 51:34And that's of course what happened in 2015.
- 51:36Um also wrote an important book about and
- 51:40eventually one of the last examples that
- 51:42I want to give here is perhaps to situate.
- 51:45I don't exactly know where David Marvel
- 51:48is going to take us with mingala,
- 51:50but we of course know so much
- 51:54more now about the camp doctors,
- 51:56the s s doctors in the camps.
- 51:58And that is mainly,
- 51:59as far as I know,
- 52:00mainly due to Philip Rowe,
- 52:02where she wrote a kind of collective
- 52:06biography he was able to identify.
- 52:09All, as far as we know,
- 52:10all the doctors who were as s s men
- 52:16either standard asked or laggards, right?
- 52:20Either the head of the whole
- 52:22complex or the the subordinate Dr.
- 52:25at the place,
- 52:26and he ends up with 177 and
- 52:28has looked at these 177,
- 52:30tried to dig out everything
- 52:31he could find out
- 52:31about them. And that of course
- 52:34helps to contextualize people
- 52:35like Mangala in that context.
- 52:38And lo and behold, um,
- 52:40more than 50% of these doctors were
- 52:42also of the war youth generation.
- 52:44Some of them were even younger.
- 52:47They very often were strong supporters
- 52:51of eugenics, of anti-Semitism,
- 52:54of folkish ideology already in the 1920s.
- 52:57Interesting enough.
- 53:00In contrast to a lot of other cases
- 53:02where we see a lot of continuity,
- 53:04that doctors end up having doctors as sons,
- 53:07these guys were mainly past sons of pastors.
- 53:12So kind of for whatever reason,
- 53:13I'm not sure how to explain that,
- 53:15but that seems to be an interesting factor.
- 53:19They clearly believed in the
- 53:21US as a racial elite, right?
- 53:22So there is this idea of,
- 53:24of arrogance of the institution
- 53:25that we of course can see there.
- 53:27There's a strong focus on the
- 53:29ideological training that played a role.
- 53:31But we also need to balance
- 53:33this and have a reality check.
- 53:35There were often not enough applicants
- 53:37to get into these positions,
- 53:39and their medical training that these
- 53:41doctors got was more or less mediocre,
- 53:44so you should not kind of exaggerate
- 53:47this kind of elite context too much.
- 53:50Their situation, the situation of
- 53:52the doctors at the camps S doctors,
- 53:54was one that, of course,
- 53:55was defined by the whole medical
- 53:58system of the US.
- 53:59By the system of the concentration camps
- 54:01and by the way that the war developed,
- 54:03right so many ways,
- 54:04that's the triads,
- 54:05the triangle,
- 54:06that of course decides on what they can
- 54:08do and what their possibilities are.
- 54:12And what we need to keep in mind is
- 54:14that the people that were doctors at
- 54:16the camp were in a constant rotation.
- 54:19So they would from time to time be
- 54:20sent out and ended up with the troops.
- 54:22And I think that metal is an example
- 54:23of that as far as I remember,
- 54:24even where they end up with roughness
- 54:26units at the front or in the rear and
- 54:28then come back to the camp, right.
- 54:30So there is a movement.
- 54:31Then we can also clearly see how that
- 54:32adds to the brutalization, so to speak,
- 54:34in that process to some degree.
- 54:35This is of course a difficult
- 54:38interpretation as well along those lines.
- 54:41The important thing,
- 54:42of course here is that we should not
- 54:45think of the concentration camps as
- 54:47near detention sites even before 1939.
- 54:49They are clearly spaces of social
- 54:53racist transformation, right?
- 54:55There are spaces, the institutions,
- 54:57that are about to heal the national body,
- 55:00the Fox Carper, from its harmful elements.
- 55:03And the doctors were of course predestined,
- 55:04predestined for a key role.
- 55:06In that context,
- 55:07it's important that these doctors
- 55:09at the camps were acting relatively
- 55:12independent of the Commandant.
- 55:14Because their superiors were the
- 55:17head of the USS medical system,
- 55:20but not necessarily the commandant at
- 55:22the specific camp that they were in.
- 55:24That gave them some.
- 55:25Space to breathe and to take
- 55:27their own decisions, of course,
- 55:29within that context.
- 55:31There's a clear escalation to be seen,
- 55:34of course, after 1939.
- 55:36We have evidence that when Himmler comes,
- 55:39I'm trying to remember what
- 55:40camp he goes to about this.
- 55:41I think it's DAU.
- 55:44And he sees the consequences
- 55:45of the overcrowding and the
- 55:47chaos that has developed
- 55:48over the last first six,
- 55:501218 months after the war has started.
- 55:52And so in some places the
- 55:54number of prisoners. right?
- 55:56Within relatively short times,
- 55:58even somebody like Himmler was shocked.
- 56:00And that's of course where the initiative
- 56:01to 14 F 13 ends up being taken, right?
- 56:04That specific program like expands the
- 56:08so-called euthanasia killings into the camps,
- 56:11which of course for a long time
- 56:13means that now, to create more
- 56:15order and more space at the camps,
- 56:19prisoners would be taken from the camps
- 56:21and murdered and the killing sites off T4,
- 56:24and eventually they'll do it themselves.
- 56:26But that's of course a window that that
- 56:28opens up there in the course of 1942,
- 56:30particularly in that context.
- 56:32And almost all the physicians go all the
- 56:35way from clear neglect of their patients.
- 56:38I mean we barely see S doctors
- 56:41treating patients of course.
- 56:42To the mass dying to genocide,
- 56:44right.
- 56:45That's of course this kind of
- 56:46process that they go through and
- 56:48one of the most interesting cases
- 56:50that we know much more about now.
- 56:52Is it with this right who is of
- 56:55course in charge at Auschwitz?
- 56:58**** now and at least from September 1942?
- 57:03And the the challenge here is that we
- 57:05have one of his assistant prisoners,
- 57:08prisoner assistants Hermann
- 57:09Langbein by him who?
- 57:14Paints a very positive picture of him,
- 57:16right how he fights corruption,
- 57:18fights mortality,
- 57:19improves the prisoner situation.
- 57:21He's the one who also makes sure that
- 57:23the ramp selection becomes a medical job.
- 57:26But on the other hand, what we should
- 57:27not lose sight of is of course,
- 57:29that vets very much believes in the
- 57:32necessity of his task of mass murder,
- 57:35but just that he wants it to be
- 57:38done in a rational and decent way.
- 57:41And this notion of decency that
- 57:43even vets and others come back,
- 57:45of course diagonally refers to to the
- 57:47speech that we all know of of Himmler,
- 57:49the infamous speech in October 1943,
- 57:51where Himmler also speaks about committing
- 57:55the these killings in a decent.
- 57:57Manner, of course, at the same time.
- 58:01We have examples of doctors finding
- 58:03the their first weeks at the
- 58:06camp being very difficult.
- 58:07But I think the important thing is here
- 58:09not to understand this difficulties.
- 58:11We suddenly being on the ramp and having
- 58:13to take these decisions as necessary,
- 58:16having more inhibitions.
- 58:18I think that's big the often the leap
- 58:20that we take and we have good examples.
- 58:21Again, I don't want to go too far
- 58:24into David's topic here,
- 58:26but we have a case where mingle
- 58:27is sent off to calm down.
- 58:29I think hands still much who's a young guy,
- 58:3227 and who has a hard time being on the ramp.
- 58:35And the way that mango of course does it
- 58:37is that he says this is a little bit like.
- 58:38Matriarch, right.
- 58:40This is comparable.
- 58:42What we know is at least that almost
- 58:44all of the doctors get used to it,
- 58:46get used to it, do the job,
- 58:48and very often also end up using it for
- 58:50their research and their dissertation.
- 58:53So we see a combination in terms of
- 58:56motivations between racist motivations,
- 58:58careerism and self enrichment that of
- 59:01course very often plays interviews.
- 59:03What I wasn't so aware of,
- 59:05but I found important as well,
- 59:07is of course to see what Himmler
- 59:09actually thought about his actors.
- 59:11He had did not have high.
- 59:14A high opinion about them and mangler
- 59:16is more the exception that he is
- 59:19somebody who's actually able to build
- 59:21up his own research at Auschwitz.
- 59:23A lot of the research that otherwise
- 59:26happens in camp context is from external
- 59:28doctors that come in and then are
- 59:31given certain opportunities to to do there.
- 59:33But the bottom line is the camp
- 59:37doctors were neither just following
- 59:39orders nor they were thought leaders
- 59:41of their own social engineering.
- 59:43They were probably much more
- 59:44to be described as pragmatic,
- 59:45utilitarian practitioners of mass murder.
- 59:48Firmly rooted in the racist worldview
- 59:50and value system of uncompromising
- 59:53and resolute brutality.
- 59:57The last count point,
- 59:58I'm just looking at the time here.
- 60:00I'll just going to touch on very briefly.
- 01:00:02We also have one more research
- 01:00:03of course about the experiments.
- 01:00:05In one case that also stands out for
- 01:00:07me in that context is close, close.
- 01:00:09Schilling who does a lot of malaria
- 01:00:12experimenting and data was actually
- 01:00:15longer standing research project
- 01:00:17that goes all the way from 42 to 45.
- 01:00:20And his point is of course
- 01:00:22particularly interesting because
- 01:00:23unlike for example Mangala,
- 01:00:25he's somebody who's already.
- 01:00:26At the end of his career,
- 01:00:27I think he's in the late 60s,
- 01:00:28early 70s when he even starts with this.
- 01:00:31So he's had a career at the Holbrook
- 01:00:33Institute and other places,
- 01:00:35and he's very much also contributing to
- 01:00:37the normalization of having a research
- 01:00:40address at a concentration camp.
- 01:00:41But we also have learned more
- 01:00:42and more about is, of course,
- 01:00:44how these are networks right?
- 01:00:45And he has context to doctors all
- 01:00:48over and also to other institutions
- 01:00:50in that context.
- 01:00:51Who see this as normality and also strong
- 01:00:54sense of his own ethical integrity,
- 01:00:57right?
- 01:00:58He's doing humanity a service.
- 01:01:00It will cost some lives,
- 01:01:02but in the end the world will
- 01:01:05thank him because he will have
- 01:01:08solved the problem of malaria.
- 01:01:10Now.
- 01:01:12I'll whitling and Marian ********
- 01:01:14have done important work on him.
- 01:01:16And what I think is so crucial about
- 01:01:18that research is also that they really
- 01:01:20have driven home how to really fully
- 01:01:22understand what this kind of brutal,
- 01:01:25murderous experimenter is doing.
- 01:01:26Be very often also need the
- 01:01:28perspective of the victims,
- 01:01:30because we fully understand
- 01:01:32what Schilling is doing,
- 01:01:35just thanks to one of his assistants.
- 01:01:37We actually,
- 01:01:38Eugene asked,
- 01:01:38we actually know the details of that,
- 01:01:40and that's of course an important
- 01:01:41aspect in that whole realm.
- 01:01:44So I want to wrap up,
- 01:01:47but just kind of think about where
- 01:01:49that takes us to in terms of.
- 01:01:52Tentative conclusions or thinking
- 01:01:54of medical history, but also what
- 01:01:56we do with with this education,
- 01:01:58of course, I think one thing.
- 01:02:02That stands out from this whole
- 01:02:04process is that we see this
- 01:02:06strong desire of distance, right?
- 01:02:08If we can define those who committed the
- 01:02:11crimes as pathological or as fanatics,
- 01:02:13then it has nothing to do with me, right?
- 01:02:15So that of course has been one important
- 01:02:18thing that needs to be overcome.
- 01:02:20But at the same time,
- 01:02:21I think it's also important to
- 01:02:23acknowledge that this Nazi doctrine me
- 01:02:26approach also falls short unless we even
- 01:02:28also go into the specificity, right.
- 01:02:31We need the historical.
- 01:02:32Sophisticated,
- 01:02:32we cannot just make assumptions
- 01:02:34and guess and estimate.
- 01:02:35We need to understand what these
- 01:02:37doctors did and you could even
- 01:02:39include that we need a site specific
- 01:02:41exploration and that's of course what
- 01:02:43fast be that you've heard a lot about
- 01:02:45is trying to do right and faspe has
- 01:02:48over the last decade or so taking
- 01:02:50about 700 mainly graduate students
- 01:02:52to Europe and gone to the different
- 01:02:55places where doctors and lawyers and others.
- 01:02:58Are practicing what did practice their roles,
- 01:03:01acted in their roles and also to go
- 01:03:03to Auschwitz and to reflect on that.
- 01:03:05And I think it's safe to say that that's
- 01:03:07a very different setting to reflect
- 01:03:09on that complicity of people that in
- 01:03:11some ways were you and in other ways
- 01:03:13were different to try to understand that.
- 01:03:15So the big question,
- 01:03:16I'm sure that there are many
- 01:03:18of you in similar roles.
- 01:03:18I think I would how can we
- 01:03:20integrate that into the curriculum?
- 01:03:21How can we convince our schools integrated?
- 01:03:24How can we invite young future professionals?
- 01:03:29In the realm of medicine or law or business
- 01:03:30in other areas and one way of course is it.
- 01:03:33That's what we are trying to
- 01:03:34do to have these two week.
- 01:03:38Fellowships where we can mix
- 01:03:40and exploration of these sites.
- 01:03:42Uh, specific learning about the history,
- 01:03:44but then to think about the implications
- 01:03:46for the contemporary setting now.
- 01:03:50You probably also need a broader
- 01:03:52context for a lot of what we're doing.
- 01:03:54I briefly mentioned that,
- 01:03:56of course, as sterilization was
- 01:03:57not necessarily a German thing.
- 01:03:59I think that already opens up the question.
- 01:04:00We probably need much more of an
- 01:04:02understanding about how the different
- 01:04:04Nazi crimes connected, right?
- 01:04:05And how they engaged in each other.
- 01:04:07There was a book that came out last
- 01:04:08year about the relationship between
- 01:04:09US and Asia and the Holocaust.
- 01:04:11You would think,
- 01:04:12didn't we already know everything
- 01:04:13about that connection?
- 01:04:14But the point is actually that recent
- 01:04:17scholarship of the last 1-2 years really has.
- 01:04:21Driven at home that we should
- 01:04:22not think of it as the sequence
- 01:04:24first A then B but it's 2 murder
- 01:04:26programs that in complex ways are
- 01:04:28intertwined and relate to each other.
- 01:04:30And I think our understanding has is is
- 01:04:33growing as we speak about these connections.
- 01:04:36I think we also really for ourself,
- 01:04:38everybody that we tried to teach about this,
- 01:04:40we really need to address that
- 01:04:42massive temptation to project our
- 01:04:45thinking on historical figures.
- 01:04:47I don't know how often I've in a Facebook
- 01:04:49context had fellows who still want to say,
- 01:04:51well,
- 01:04:52but they had a really bad feeling
- 01:04:53what they were doing and they had to
- 01:04:55overcome their moral inhibitions and
- 01:04:56they didn't really want to do it,
- 01:04:57but they ended up being forced to whatever,
- 01:04:59ohh, look, they committed suicide.
- 01:05:02So that's probably because they
- 01:05:03felt bad about it, right?
- 01:05:04We really have to radically
- 01:05:05turn that around and say.
- 01:05:07What if they actually want to do it?
- 01:05:09And if if they want to do it,
- 01:05:11what are the explanatory factors for that?
- 01:05:14How do we get into that basically?
- 01:05:17Eventually,
- 01:05:17and that should be my last sentence before
- 01:05:21Mark pulls me off the stage here is.
- 01:05:25There are of course there is
- 01:05:27a way to see these.
- 01:05:29Doctors.
- 01:05:30As we look into them, as in a mirror,
- 01:05:34as fanatic outsiders.
- 01:05:36There is a second way of looking at
- 01:05:39them as apolitical normal physicians
- 01:05:42dedicated to a medical ethos but
- 01:05:45abused by external political powers or
- 01:05:48enticed by omnipresent group dynamics.
- 01:05:50Or, and that's what royalty argues.
- 01:05:52And he convinced me he said no,
- 01:05:54we might also need to think about the
- 01:05:57latently destructive mentalities and
- 01:05:59value hierarchies of medicine as a field,
- 01:06:02medicine as a profession,
- 01:06:04which became manifest under the
- 01:06:06specific ramifications of Nazism,
- 01:06:08and give up this idea that there are
- 01:06:11autonomous fears of politics here,
- 01:06:14society and medicine somewhere else.
- 01:06:16Thank you.
- 01:06:18Thank you so much, Torsten.
- 01:06:19So I'm going to invite the folks who
- 01:06:22are with us on the webinar to submit
- 01:06:24questions if you like in the Q&A portion
- 01:06:27and I'll take a look at those and I'll,
- 01:06:29I'll read some of those.
- 01:06:29But in the meantime,
- 01:06:30I want to offer folks in the audience
- 01:06:32a chance if you would raise your hand.
- 01:06:33We've got people on each
- 01:06:35side with microphones.
- 01:06:35If you have a question for Torsten,
- 01:06:39I'll take the the privilege
- 01:06:41of asking the first one.
- 01:06:44The first question I had is too broad,
- 01:06:45so I'll save that as the second one.
- 01:06:47But the first one was simply you talked
- 01:06:49about the eugenics and how eugenics
- 01:06:50took hold in Germany and and you,
- 01:06:52you mentioned briefly about forced
- 01:06:54sterilization in other countries,
- 01:06:55Denmark and of course the
- 01:06:56United States as well, right?
- 01:06:58And and there's the the well
- 01:07:00known German propaganda poster.
- 01:07:02We do not stand alone with all
- 01:07:04the flags of the various countries
- 01:07:06that were in the 1930s practicing
- 01:07:08forced sterilization eugenics
- 01:07:11and there were many people in.
- 01:07:14Including people in right here
- 01:07:15in New Haven and academics were
- 01:07:17really embraced eugenics, right.
- 01:07:18But it took a very different turn
- 01:07:20in Germany and and I don't know
- 01:07:23if that's took a different turn
- 01:07:25just within the medical profession
- 01:07:26or he certainly did politically.
- 01:07:28But I wonder if in the medical
- 01:07:29professional as well,
- 01:07:30can you talk a little bit of that
- 01:07:33you mentioned about the eugenics
- 01:07:34and the euthanasia where when that
- 01:07:37transition from forced sterilization
- 01:07:39to the euthanasia that took a very
- 01:07:42different term in Germany and
- 01:07:43among the German professionals.
- 01:07:44Compared to the United States?
- 01:07:46You've got your lapels here.
- 01:07:47Good.
- 01:07:49The microphone just continue,
- 01:07:50right again, I could just
- 01:07:52continue with you're good.
- 01:07:53Thank you, mark.
- 01:07:56I think it is important, of course,
- 01:07:57to say both things, right,
- 01:07:59that we have cases of eugenic
- 01:08:01policies in other countries and
- 01:08:03settings and then we have it in Germany,
- 01:08:06but it of course goes into a
- 01:08:08very different dimension and
- 01:08:09I think that what we need to
- 01:08:11understand is of course that.
- 01:08:15The project of a racial,
- 01:08:16biological, social engineering
- 01:08:18was so much more comprehensive,
- 01:08:20this idea to mold society, it was so,
- 01:08:22so much more of a guiding line of the
- 01:08:25whole regime that we end up with,
- 01:08:26of course, having a lot of clinics in the.
- 01:08:30Mid late 30s where sterilization
- 01:08:32almost becomes a daily occurrence
- 01:08:35and not the exception exceptional
- 01:08:37things I think there is.
- 01:08:39We need to look at the the
- 01:08:41similarities and the differences
- 01:08:42from Scandinavian countries or the
- 01:08:44US and then of course Nazi Germany.
- 01:08:46And the other question is of
- 01:08:48course one where I as a historian
- 01:08:50just have to say even experts in
- 01:08:52medical history disagree on that.
- 01:08:53There are historians who see very
- 01:08:56clear causal connections when people
- 01:08:59start with force sterilization.
- 01:09:01They will eventually also end up with
- 01:09:03using Asia. That's what Hanshu did.
- 01:09:05And then there are other scholars
- 01:09:07who say that's too fast,
- 01:09:08you can have 4 sterilization and by
- 01:09:10the way we see it in other places,
- 01:09:12but you don't need to end up with it.
- 01:09:14And the the the the voice.
- 01:09:16And I remember Madonna just Madonna
- 01:09:17is saying it a few days ago when
- 01:09:19we did our program there and he's
- 01:09:21doing it regularly of course to say,
- 01:09:23well it was just a logical step right.
- 01:09:25If you want to prevent people who are
- 01:09:29burden on society from being born,
- 01:09:31then you might also go to the
- 01:09:33people who already are born to take
- 01:09:34them out of society that they're.
- 01:09:35There was no big step.
- 01:09:37So there are people who emphasize
- 01:09:40that connection.
- 01:09:40But as I said,
- 01:09:41there is also a way of saying in the
- 01:09:43end there are different policies,
- 01:09:45different lines.
- 01:09:46There's a big difference between
- 01:09:47what is open and public and
- 01:09:49supported and what is secret, right?
- 01:09:51I mean the murder of patients to
- 01:09:54some degree is of course kept
- 01:09:56much more secret in many ways.
- 01:09:58And the most important Lincoln,
- 01:09:59that's probably the only last thing
- 01:10:00that I can say about it is of course
- 01:10:02the murder of children in that context,
- 01:10:04right.
- 01:10:04We have the so-called children's.
- 01:10:06With amnesiac quote UN quote,
- 01:10:07that in many ways creates the closest
- 01:10:09link between the two and that was of
- 01:10:11course also the most important early
- 01:10:12phase of the murder of patients.
- 01:10:14Thank you. Yeah for the for the
- 01:10:16other pediatricians in the room
- 01:10:17reminder that it largely started
- 01:10:19with the children because the
- 01:10:20children were felt to be the future.
- 01:10:22The euthanasia program largely started.
- 01:10:24So I've got a couple of these up
- 01:10:25here which you can see as well,
- 01:10:27but I want to I should actually.
- 01:10:30I'm interested to hear from
- 01:10:32Doctor Finn's question.
- 01:10:33Thanks for this marvelous talk regarding
- 01:10:36the context that formed the perpetrator
- 01:10:38generation you said of the war,
- 01:10:39especially in the east against
- 01:10:41the Soviet Union.
- 01:10:42Given the atrocities we now see
- 01:10:43in the East and the Ukraine,
- 01:10:45can you say more about how German
- 01:10:47attitudes toward the Soviets
- 01:10:49and their demonization based
- 01:10:50on their own atrocities,
- 01:10:52for example the work of Tim Snyder
- 01:10:55here may have informed Nazi ideology
- 01:10:58and self justificatory arguments.
- 01:11:00For their own crimes.
- 01:11:03Well, Tim Snyder, of course says somewhere
- 01:11:05something along the lines of if you
- 01:11:07believe in the lie, it better be true.
- 01:11:09And I think this is what fans
- 01:11:11of course references to it.
- 01:11:12And that's one way of trying to see
- 01:11:14these connections, right, to say.
- 01:11:17If you believe. If you find yourself
- 01:11:21ending up murdering civilians,
- 01:11:22children, women and so on,
- 01:11:23and do you think that they are an enemy
- 01:11:26of the world and of civilization,
- 01:11:28you can live better with yourself when
- 01:11:30you try to convince yourself of it, right?
- 01:11:32And that's of course one approach
- 01:11:35somewhat competing with that is of
- 01:11:36course also that to some degree
- 01:11:38you really have a process in the
- 01:11:40course of the 30s that more and more
- 01:11:42right these people out of society,
- 01:11:44eventually also out of existence.
- 01:11:46So we're also the value settings.
- 01:11:49Change, I think,
- 01:11:50the most important part that we can see,
- 01:11:53and that's of course also the
- 01:11:54reference to the Ukraine.
- 01:11:55You could be worried about how in
- 01:11:57this case Russian soldiers who
- 01:11:59are involved with these crimes,
- 01:12:00what it does to their own kind of
- 01:12:03idea and the perception of their
- 01:12:05victims in that context.
- 01:12:06And this of course also what we see
- 01:12:08when German soldiers operate in the east,
- 01:12:11that it becomes a numbing process.
- 01:12:13In many ways.
- 01:12:14We have good examples of that where Browning,
- 01:12:17for example, has described.
- 01:12:19How there were some people who opted
- 01:12:21out and didn't want to be part of the murder,
- 01:12:23but increasingly also due to peer pressure.
- 01:12:25Others more more people got involved and
- 01:12:27got numbed and found their way to it.
- 01:12:29Thank you. Thanks very much.
- 01:12:30We're going to move on to the next speaker.
- 01:12:31Thank you very much, Doris.
- 01:12:33So you can take that lapel
- 01:12:34mic from me, though. Back.
- 01:12:43So, well, let me just. Yeah.
- 01:12:47Do we have time for one more?
- 01:12:53Can I ask a question or no?
- 01:12:56Looks like we're not done. Sorry.
- 01:12:59That's Wagner.
- 01:12:59Thank you so much for your talk.
- 01:13:02You know, you mentioned Youthanasia and.
- 01:13:05You know, in the Nazi context, obviously.
- 01:13:09Including that with with murder,
- 01:13:11you know that term is used a lot
- 01:13:13in a contemporary context and.
- 01:13:16You know, particularly in the more.
- 01:13:20Progressive.
- 01:13:22The settings progressive forms
- 01:13:25of contemporary euthanasia
- 01:13:27in in Europe and in Canada.
- 01:13:30I'm wondering if you hear any.
- 01:13:33And he echoes clearly there,
- 01:13:35the the in these, in these situations,
- 01:13:37there's no, there's no coercion, I think.
- 01:13:41I think at least,
- 01:13:42you know to whatever degree that's that's
- 01:13:45not that that's not allowed of course,
- 01:13:47but it's interesting hearing,
- 01:13:49you know,
- 01:13:50in some of those contexts you
- 01:13:52hear about cost analysis,
- 01:13:53health savings when it comes to.
- 01:13:58When it comes to individuals who
- 01:14:01you know who may not that one
- 01:14:04might not have to care for,
- 01:14:07I'm wondering if you hear any echoes.
- 01:14:12It's obvious it's still on.
- 01:14:18Does it work now?
- 01:14:19Yeah, you got it. Sorry.
- 01:14:21Thank you for the question.
- 01:14:23In terms of where we are time wise,
- 01:14:25this is going to be a 32nd answer to
- 01:14:27what deserves a much longer discussion.
- 01:14:30Obviously I'll just say that that's
- 01:14:32something that obviously also in the
- 01:14:34context of fast-paced fellowships
- 01:14:35and discussions is central.
- 01:14:36We are trying to see what these
- 01:14:39historical experiences means for
- 01:14:41these contemporary discussions.
- 01:14:42There are people who will emphasize
- 01:14:44that slippery slope right,
- 01:14:45emphasize how these dynamics
- 01:14:46that we see in nature Germany are
- 01:14:48relevant for the current context
- 01:14:49and other people who will.
- 01:14:51Reject that strongly and personally
- 01:14:53say and I'm not speaking for my
- 01:14:55medical faculty here that I think
- 01:14:57it's important to think about
- 01:14:59the fundamental question if that
- 01:15:00is a role of a doctor,
- 01:15:01right,
- 01:15:01is that is that the self definition
- 01:15:03of the professional role of a doctor
- 01:15:05should be enrolled in those cases
- 01:15:07and whatever on whatever level of
- 01:15:09involvement we're talking about and
- 01:15:11yes coming looking at historian added.
- 01:15:14I am concerned when my medical faculty
- 01:15:16colleagues from in the fastback
- 01:15:18context tell me how they're more.
- 01:15:21Studies,
- 01:15:21for example,
- 01:15:22from Belgium and the Netherlands,
- 01:15:23that indicate that the people who end up.
- 01:15:28Being used youthanize using the same
- 01:15:31terminology with some hesitation here
- 01:15:33of course increasingly are older.
- 01:15:37Lonely ladies in nursing homes very
- 01:15:41often also have very little financial.
- 01:15:45Resources.
- 01:15:45That makes me wonder what kind
- 01:15:47of denying is that going on?
- 01:15:48But that's that's a very contentious
- 01:15:50area and I cannot really do justice
- 01:15:51to your important question now,
- 01:15:53sorry.
- 01:15:54Thank you very much.