Ernst Klee, born in 1942, studied Theology and Social Education, initially publishing on the subject of marginal groups; 1982 Adolf Grimme Prize for his TV film on the life of a woman of restricted growth. His groundbreaking book ‘“Euthanasie” im NS-Staat. Die Vernichtung “lebensunwerten Lebens”’ was published in 1983. It was followed by ‘Dokumente zur “Euthanasie”’ (1985) and ‘Was sie taten, was sie wurden’ (1986) on the post-war careers of the Nazi ‘euthanasia’ doctors. His book ‘Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer’ earned him the Geschwister Scholl Prize. His most recent publications are ‘Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich’ (2001), showing how the medical perpetrators of Nazi Germany were courted after 1945 while their victims received nothing but derision, and 2003’s ‘Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945’, which provoked a great deal of media interest.
Ernst Klee passed away in May of 2013.
