Before 1933, medicine in Germany was noted for its strict guidelines and regulations on human experimentation. When the National Socialist (Nazi) Party assumed power in 1933, it was hoped that German physicians would reject Nazi inroads into medicine. The reality, however, is that the German medical profession already had begun to embrace National Socialism (Nazism) and its efforts to purify German society.
The National Socialist Physicians' League is Formed
Nazism did not emerge suddenly in 1933, but gradually gained strength in Germany throughout the 1920s. In 1929, the National Socialist Physicians' League (NSPL) was formed to dictate the goals of Nazi medicine. One goal was to purge German medicine of any Jewish influence, including that of the approximately 9,000 Jewish physicians then working in Germany.
By 1933, about 7% of all registered physicians in Germany had joined the NSPL. Throughout the 1930s, laws were passed to restrict Jews from practicing medicine, until their licenses were revoked entirely in 1938. By 1942, physician membership in the Nazi Party had risen to 38,000 — nearly half of all doctors in Germany.
The German Medical Profession Supports Adolf Hitler
Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in January 1933, the president of Germany’s two largest medical associations wired Hitler his support and requested a meeting. On April 5, 1933, Hitler met with Dr. Stauder and discussed Nazi plans for racial cleansing. Instead of expressing revulsion at the idea, Dr. Stauder assured Hitler of his willingness to work together to improve German “national health.”
On April 8, 1933, the Prussian Chamber of Physicians unanimously added their grateful support for the aims of the new government, while explicitly rejecting the more compassionate public health aims of the former Weimar Republic. Five days later, the front page of a prominent German medical journal, Deutsches Arzteblatt, reported on Dr. Stauder’s visit with Hitler. Hanauske-Abel (1996) states that this report openly announced Nazi plans to rid Germany of all Jews.
On June 24, 1933, the executive director of one of Germany’s largest medical associations (the Hartmannbund) acknowledged that the medical profession's overriding goal was to serve the State. In an excerpt published in JAMA (1933), Dr. Haedenkamp emphasized that the influence of any physician would no longer be based on the “superabundance of medicines and remedies” used to cure, but solely on the doctor's personality and public attitude.
Why Were German Physicians Attracted to Nazism?
The allure of Nazism probably had two basic reasons. One attraction was the hope that the Nazis would use medicine as a means of purging German society of ‘impure’ elements, such as homosexuals, the mentally ill, and Jews. In 1931, a German geneticist named Fritz Lenz had declared that Nazism was nothing more than “applied biology.” In this context, medicine was a tool of the State to improve the overall health of the German people. The fact that the ‘public good’ now excluded the vulnerable did not strike most German physicians as a perversion of medical ethics.
Another attraction was money. According to Kater (1989), the gross income of German physicians had fallen from a high of 13,741 Reichsmarks (RM) in 1929 to 9,280 RM in 1933. Toward the end of 1933, however, concentration camps such as Dachau began operation. German medical journals began to advertise well-paying positions for doctors willing to work in the new camps.
Under the Nazi regime, the annual salaries of German physicians steadily improved, rising to 10,234 RM in 1934, 11,608 RM in 1935, and 12,546 RM in 1936. By 1937, the annual physician salary was 13,643 RM, or about 50% higher than it had been four short years earlier.
Erosion in Medical Ethics
Although Nazism may have encouraged the changing medical climate in Germany, the medical profession itself also contributed to the erosion in medical ethics. German physicians did not object when their Jewish colleagues were harassed and stripped of their professional licenses. Furthermore, antipathy toward homosexuals and the mentally ill made it easier for medical professionals to define some human beings as subhuman, unworthy of respect, and experimental objects.
A 1943 cartoon entitled “Infectious Germs” reflects many of the elements perceived as objectionable in German society. The symbols under the microscope represent Jews, communists, and homosexuals. In a few years, those racist attitudes would lead to human experimentation abuses such as the world never had seen before.
References
-------. 1933. Excerpt from Berlin. JAMA. 100(21):1706–1707.
Hanauske-Abel HM. 1996. Not a slippery slope or sudden subversion: German medicine and National Socialism in 1933. British Medical Journal. 313(7070):1453–1463.
Kater MH. 1989. Doctors Under Hitler. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
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