Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich: Karrieren vor und nach 1945 (review)

Ernst Klee's latest book is dedicated both to "unmasking" (book jacket) the involvement of more than seven hundred German biomedical professionals in various and sundry forms of entgrenzte Wissenschaft during the Third Reich, and to documenting their reestablishment in positions of importance in the postwar period. The work makes for sad reading—on several levels.

Naturally, the most depressing thing about the story is that these events happened in the first place. The reader is presented with countless examples (some of them previously undocumented) of medically trained individuals who happily used the window of opportunity afforded them by the Nazi "racial state" to indulge in new research or "therapy" at the expense of individuals deemed by the National Socialists to be outside the bounds of a healthy German society. Klee devotes a considerable amount of space to the criminal activities of important representatives of occupational groups such as radiologists; pedagogues for the blind, deaf, and learning disabled; and, of course, psychiatrists. Perhaps as depressing as the research void of all ethical standards undertaken by these biomedical professionals is the attempt to whitewash, cover up, or, indeed, reward with prizes many of the individuals who participated (some more, some less) in medical misdeeds.

In addition, Klee engages in a personal attack against two historians. He labels Canadian historian Michael Kater a "servant of Nazi perpetrators" (p. 293) for allegedly aiding in the postwar defense of Wolf-Dietrich Wolf (a person connected to the former SS-Ahnenerbe); he then denigrates German historian of medicine Hans-Peter Kröner's book on plant geneticist and eugenicist Erwin Baur as nothing but a whitewash. According to Klee, whoever accepts the arguments of these medical professionals or in any way attempts to explain why they became involved in such deeds "mocks the victims" (p. 330).

Although I would not wish to belittle the "unmasking" of countless medical perpetrators both during and after the Third Reich, it is time, I believe, that even the journalist Klee offer us a history rather than a mere chronicle of these events. After all, he has been at this kind of work for more than twenty years. There are numerous examples of statements taken out of context, or simply placed in the book for shock value. For example, Klee states that Eugen Fischer's Nazi career was already programmed at the time he became director of the KWI for Anthropology in 1927. This is ostensibly proven by mentioning that he appointed Günther Brandt, a Nazi Party member since 1921, as his assistant. What Klee does not tell his readers, however, is that this same Brandt was involved in an extremely large campaign to denounce Fischer as less than trustworthy after the "Nazi seizure of power." In all likelihood, Fischer made the Faustian bargain with the Nazi state, at least in part, because he was under attack.

Another point: Klee was fortunate enough to be given sole access to the Karin Magnussen papers. Magnussen, a fanatical Nazi and a researcher at the KWI for Anthropology, collaborated with Mengele (while the latter was at Auschwitz) on the genetics of eye pigmentation and iris structure, allegedly to provide a more up-to-date scientific racial diagnosis to be used against Nazi Germany's racial enemies. You would think that with this unique set of papers Klee might do more than show us how horribly unethical and unrepentant this woman was, and how she managed to secure a position as a high-school biology teacher in Bremen after the war. History is about interpretation. This book lacks any: Klee does little more than chronicle these morally revolting incidents.

What is needed after all the specialized texts on the subject of medical crimes under the Nazi regime is a viable explanation of why it came to commit these crimes in the first place, and how it was possible that so many of the perpetrators could regain respectable positions...