Descrittore
Termine preferito
medici dei campi CercaNota d'ambito
Use for discussions of doctors in the camps. (en-US)
Definizione
Approximately 70 documented medical research and experimentation projects using prisoners against their will as test subjects took place in Nazi concentration camps during the war. The presiding doctors and medical personnel were recruited or drafted from the state and party organizations, professional organizations, (such as the National Socialist Physicians League) universities, military medical corps, the SA, the SS and its military branch, the Waffen-SS. However, higher numbers of physicians joined the SS; the doctors who supervised medical experiments in the camps were members of the SS but worked with medical personnel from other organizations. For example, experiments in the Dachau concentration camp were carried out by SS doctor Sigmund Rascher and civilian doctors drafted into the Luftwaffe. Approximately 200 doctors were stationed in the camps, conducting research and experiments and were advised by German and Austrian academic and research institutions. In June 1942, Karl Brandt became the head of medical services in Germany, which included military, SS, and civilian medical personnel. Doctors wishing to engage in medical experimentation submitted a request to Heinrich Himmler who granted approval and funding. After the war, doctors who had been members of the SS were tried by a US military tribunal at Nuremberg, as the SS had been defined as a criminal organization. (en-US)
Fonte
Kater, Michael H. "Criminal Physicians in the Third Reich: Towards a Group Portrait." In Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany: Origins, Practices, Legacies, edited by Francis R. Nicosia and Jonathan Huener, New York: Berghahn Books. 2002. p. 77-92