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Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene

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This book is an exceptional survey of the development of a genocidal mentality among the doctors of the Third Reich. Of great interest to those doing research on this topic are the diaries of Nazi anatomist,Dr. Hermann Voss in Posen during the war. It demonstrates, among other things, a pervasive manichaean attitude that extended from Hitler on down- A tendency to view the world in all-or-nothing terms. The characters are largely repulsive (Dr. Friedrich Mennecke referring to victims as "portions")and it is sometimes hard to handle the intricacies of the history unless you have a background in this area. If you are looking for a general understanding of the doctors, try Lifton's book, The Nazi Doctors. For more history of this type, try Death and Deliverance by Burleigh or The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code by Annas and Grodin. If you want to know about the experiments, go to a library and sift through the case of United States vs. Karl Brandt et al. (1947 - the Nuremberg "Doctors" Trial). This book is valuable to those initiated into the macabre studies of Hitler's Germany, but you might want to stay away if you're only a general reader.

While I have not purchased this book from Amazon.com, I have reviewed it at a local bookstore. The book itself speaks more on the psychiatric area of "Nazi-medicine" rather than on actual experimentation. For those interested in a more focused book on the Nazi's "bio-medical vision" they should read "The Nazi Doctors" by R.J. Lifton. It is an excellent and descriptive book, giving accounts from survivors. It is careful to give actual accounts instead of fabricated stories, at the same time not glorifying Nazi science. I disagree with the comment about this book being reviewed. In my personal opinion, it does not glorify Nazi science. I have read many books on this subject and say that this book deserves credit, but not enough for five stars.

Nazism has often been misunderstood. Pross comments: "Anti-Semitism and racism can no longer be identified as the only driving forces behind Nazi politics..." (p. 14). An unknown number (in the thousands) of handicapped and infirm Germans were put to death. (pp. 91-92).

The Nazis are often misrepresented as a thin layer of fanatic madmen ruling over the German masses. It is untrue that doctors and scientific practitioners who actively practiced Nazi doctrines were just a few monsters such as Joseph Mengele, the Auschwitz "Angel of Death". In actuality, many educated Germans could be listed who acted in comparable manner. (e. g., see p. 147).

The anatomist Hermann Voss is particularly instructive. He wrote some human-anatomy books that have been widely used for decades, even in translation into other languages. He continued teaching anatomy well after WWII, and died in his 90's, having escaped justice for his crimes. During WWII, he was stationed in Posen (German-occupied Poznan). He kept a chilling diary during WWII, which has survived. It included transparently genocidal comments, such as the complaints that the Slavs are multiplying too rapidly, and that all Polish people should be exterminated. (pp. 105-106, 127-128, 130, 132).

The considerable attention given, in western countries, to the Holocaust has facilitated the rise of distortions about Nazi actions. For instance, Jewish bodies were not the only ones exploited (as by removal of gold crowns). Gold teeth and crowns were also removed from the bodies of Nazi-murdered Poles. (p. 136). The bodies of Nazi-murdered Poles were used in classes on dissection. (e. g., pp. 135-136, p. 147). So were the heads of guillotined Polish Resistance fighters. (p. 143). Most ghoulish of all is the fact that the preserved bodies of Polish resistance fighters are probably being used in Germany today. (p. 141). Otherwise Poles, no less than Jews, were cremated after being murdered. (pp. 130-132).

On another subject, the authors of this anthology strike raw nerves as they relate modern practices to the Nazi medicine of over 65 years ago. This includes the abortion of babies deemed "undesirable" for whatever professed reason. (pp. 54-55). The modern euthanasia movement is also scrutinized, including its rationalizations about the "quality of life", the "right to die", and the "senselessness of prolonging suffering." While analyzing "worthless life" considerations under Nazism, Aly concludes that: "Orienting the euthanasia discussion toward the individual case suits a modern, secular society attempting to overcome its inability to deal with death...Death wishes depend upon material conditions, as well as upon whether a society classifies suffering and death as superfluous misery...Such debates produce desperate, self-destructive desires that are transformed into new, apparently individual arguments in an expanding campaign for the destruction of life." (p. 28).

Christian Pross uses even stronger language as he comments: "In contemporary Germany, dramatic official rhetoric about the `cost explosion' in health care and continuous cuts in spending have produced new prophets of euthanasia." (p. 3). The perceptive American reader can recognize similar considerations in American socialized medicine (Obamacare), and the question of "death panels" that decide the fate of sick and elderly patients.

This little book containing a collection of essays on the perpetrators of the Holocost, not the thugs who operated the camps or served in the mruder squads but the intellectual killers who developed the concept and implemented the programs that murdered first the disabled and the mentally ill before turning to other betterknown prey.

A must read for any interested in this subject.

"Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine & Racial Hygiene," Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1994, ISBN 0-8018-4824-5 (PB) 296 pgs., 6" x 9" No index, a few notes & B/W photos.

In the foreword, Michael Kater warns despite passage of those Nuremberg, Helsinki & Tokyo convenants after WW-11 to safeguard medical ethical standards (& prevent hideous medical abuses as done by Nazis & Japanese during the war) that many countries of the world persist in violation of these codes of conduct & he mentions a few countries including India, Canada, Lebanon & Germany in Bavaria. Kater informs us the authors including Ernst Klee are of a "new generation of German Scholars" whose aims are to further rectify & uncover Nazi medical irregularities - & that some of the Aly & Pross writings have been declared controversial & "exaggerated or twisted out of all proportion." He details various ways the Jewish physicians were eliminated starting in 1934 & replacing them with "Aryan" doctors, noting some 4,500 to 6,000 Jewish doctors were expelled from Germany & several hundred committed suicide. Pross states crimes (persecution & Holocaust) were not only by "the tiny number of 350 black sheep among the German medical profession...involved in medical crimes, but... many more...directly or indirectly, ...the cream of German medicine, ...professors, ...scientists and researchers." The only plausible explanation to me is that some residuum of the "old generation of German scholars" remain in the medical citadels & refuse to leave their chairs for the likes of Aly & Pross.

The book contains 5 chapters: Introd. by Pross has information on recent attempts to introduce various types of euthanasia & a provocative discussion of Robert Lifton's neologistic "doubling" to account for Nazi physicians' mass murdering ("The Nazi Doctors"). Goetz Aly has 3 interesting chapters on medicine against the "useless" & discussion of Operation T-4, the Posen diaries of Dr. H. Voss, & "Pure & Tainted Progress" which examines economic forces driving "therapeutic extermination" including taking all of patients' possessions including dental gold, charging for meals during starvation & billing the mandated Insurance coverage after inmates were "treated" (code word for "exterminated"). The final chapter "Selected Letters of Doctor Friedrich Mennecke" by Dr. Chroust appear to have been added on as an after thought, offering one interesting Mennecke tidbit: "Your can tell by looking at the Russian people that they are born and raised right in the dirt, so they don't know any better. These paople are..."

Overall, the book is well-written, provides many details on ruminations of the Nazi mindset to evoke rules & regulations to promote active killing as "medical euthanasia" with the least amount of discussion & protest by the Volk. Aly is a freelance historian & political scientist with a personal agenda, but knowing that, it still makes a good read.