German Medicine in the Third Reich

In his new book, Ernst Klee details unknown medical crimes in the Nazi era, how they came about and how they were covered up after 1945. The focus is on medical practitioners, the majority of whom continued their careers unhindered after the war. Klee’s newly found sources will trigger heated discussions. In his book of medical history investigations he unearths a web of cover-ups and names approximately 750 individuals involved. The book deals with the history of racial hygiene up to its final practical consequences in the murderous institutions of Hadamar, Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc. In this "textbook" of Nazi extermination medicine with chapters on psychiatry, brain research, radiology, blood group research, etc., Ernst Klee reports on previously unknown medical crimes and criminals, including their post-war careers. He documents the state of genetic research in the Nazi state up to Mengele’s experiments in Auschwitz. And the story continued after 1945. The previous protagonists now saw themselves as misused, virtually as victims of National Socialism. Former supporters of extermination medicine such as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) belittled their involvement, as did the erstwhile masterminds and beneficiaries of the Nazi crimes in the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. The one-time criminals were paid court to after 1945, their victims taunted anew.