Medicine without humanity

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Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial has been the title of a work since 1960 that was first published by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke in 1947 as The Diktat der Menschenvernahm. The Nuremberg Medical Trial and its sources have been edited and published by Lambert Schneider Verlag in Heidelberg . The editorship came about because the young Mitscherlich, due to a lack of willingness on the part of established professional representatives, had assumed the chairmanship of the six-member commission of the West German Medical Association for the observation of the Nuremberg medical process for a period of ten months - on the condition that the medical faculties of all universities in Germany Agree to the medical commission's participation in the process.

The documentation was "primarily not to be read as a process report", writes Mitscherlich in his foreword in the 1960 edition, "but as part of a chronicle ." The project had been hindered or fought on by some since 1946, not least because of this expanded perspective which made a certain degree of generalizability seem permissible. This remains obvious, even if the Göttingen physiologist Friedrich Hermann Rein announced in his review of June 20, 1947 the intention to protect individual colleagues in his profession from false accusations. The review of Rein in the Göttinger Universitätszeitung (GUZ) and the reservations expressed in it did at least get the publication some attention in a general science journal that was read nationwide, which led to the so-called document dispute up to May 1948.

Some of those named by Mitscherlich and Mielke had already opposed the brochure from 1947 in court with regard to some of the contents of the publication by filing an injunction , with which they were successful. Later certain statements were no longer included. The interim report of the commission from 1947 was published by Lambert Schneider, although it was intended to be distributed mainly among medical professionals. Ironically , this was thanks to the members of the editorial team of Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift , who, contrary to planning, refused to publish the report in the professional journal . The final report of 1949 was also met with silence, because there were neither reviews in medical association gazettes nor in daily newspapers, and there were no letters from readers. Alice Ricciardi-von Platen's documentary Die Killing Mentally Ill in Germany (1948) fared little differently in the immediate post-war period, although it was only "discovered" again in the 1990s.

Against the American edition with the title Doctors of Infamy. The story of the Nazi medical crimes (1949) was opposed by sections of the German medical profession.

At Mitscherlich's request , the German Medical Association had released its foreword from the 1949 edition for the 1960 edition, but Mitscherlich waived it because he found it "inadequate in terms of processing". Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen wrote in 1999: "A further discussion of the topic of medicine under National Socialism only came about in 1961 with the essays by Georg Bittner in the Deutsches Ärzteblatt , then there was silence until 1980".

Contents of the 1960 and 1977 edition

The editors divide their work as follows: From the intention of this chronicle (1960), foreword to reprint (1977), negative pressure and hypothermic experiments, experiments to make seawater drinkable, typhus vaccine experiments, hepatitis epidemica virus research, sulfonamide , Bone transplantation and phlegmon experiments, lost and phosgene experiments, creation of a skeleton collection of people of Jewish origin for the “Reichsuniversität” Strasbourg, the euthanasia program for the “terminally ill”, the “direct elimination” of unwanted folk and unwanted sickness through “special treatment” and preliminary experimental work for mass sterilization. They cite general evidence about human experiments and relate them to medical ethics , describe the course of the court proceedings and state the legal basis of the verdict.

To the intention of publication

In August 1947, in the first contribution to the so-called document dispute, Alexander Mitscherlich quoted the principle of the intention to publish, which was expressly stated in his “Foreword to the brochure”, “which is formulated as follows on page 13:“ We do not want - what we are not called to do - the view to expose the guilt of individual men, but rather to make tangible part of the effective overall context of our time, in which all peoples are sufferingly entangled. "" The documentation is "primarily not to be read as a trial report," writes Mitscherlich in his foreword in the edition from 1960, "but as part of a chronicle of time ". In it Mitscherlich formulates, among other things, that as a result of the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, there was no dispute about the National Socialist medical crimes, neither in the medical profession nor in German society.

Mitscherlich dedicates the 1960 edition to the memory of Fred Mielke, "in memory of his courageous willingness to endure the horrific, even in reflection, for the sake of a freer and friendlier continuation of life", and Mitscherlich ends his foreword by saying that he has the certificates especially Mielke's peers.

In his foreword to the reprint in 1977 Mitscherlich brings up the use of psychodrugs and corrupt behavior in the medical profession: “What these people who have become aware of and those who have been punished for overpowering the helpless is that it was doctors who were responsible for this unsurpassable corruption of medical activities . "He sums up the intention to publish, looking back on the situation 30 years earlier:" At that time the question was whether it would be possible to reduce the medical process to the level of individual criminal files. We have done our best to counteract such simplistic views. "

effect

While the Nuremberg doctors' trial was still in progress, the editors were involved in legal disputes due to actions for injunctive relief from Professors Franz Büchner , Wolfgang Heubner and Ferdinand Sauerbruch . It was mainly about the presentation of presentations at the so-called "Aviation Medicine Conference" from 26./27. October 1942 in Nuremberg. They reported the results of human experiments on involuntary test persons whose killing had been accepted. As a result, certain text passages were no longer recorded in the later editions.

In the Göttinger Universitätszeitung between June 20, 1947 and the “Closing Words to the Document Dispute” in No. 17 of 1948, a dispute was held on technical and ideological aspects and, in some cases, personal attacks on the editors. Jürgen Peter is of the opinion that the debate in the GUZ is "partially a continuation of the legal dispute", whose "objections to certain text passages [...] in the document brochure are not entirely unjustified". The intention of a general rejection of the documentation is a myth.

A few months later, on October 16 and 17, 1948, the 51st German Medical Association met , and with its resolution commissioned the publication as the final report of the members of the German medical commission made up of six people, including Alexander Mitscherlich (head, still without a professorship ) and Fred Mielke (medical student), who had been sent to the 1st American Military Court in Nuremberg by the working group of the West German Medical Associations. For the 1949 edition, the title was Science Without Humanity. Medical and eugenic aberrations under dictatorship, bureaucracy and war . This is an expanded documentation compared to the 1947 edition.

In the section "About the intention of this chronicle" of the 1960 edition, Mitscherlich investigates the "strange fate so far" of the book and its predecessor brochure and states that the 1949 edition had no effect, although 10,000 copies were sent to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Westdeutsche Doctors' associations had gone to be distributed to the medical profession. In 1960 Mitscherlich sums up the effect as follows: “Almost nowhere was the book known, no reviews, no letters from the readership; none of the people we met over the next ten years who knew the book. It was and remained a mystery - as if the book had never appeared. ”The World Medical Association used the book as evidence of distancing itself from the crimes, so that the German medical profession was accepted as a member again. Mitscherlich-Nielsen quoted in her article from 1999 from the Ärztliche Mitteilungen from 1950, where H. Neuffer said in the article on the World Medical Association that a "final line under the past of the last few years" can now be drawn.

Mitscherlich wrote a new foreword for the 1977 reprint of the first paperback edition from 1960. The latest edition is the 18th edition from 2012.

Points of contention in the dispute 1947/1948

A dispute about the dictate of human contempt was fought in the Göttingen university newspaper. Jürgen Peter sums it up like this: The controversy was opened by the Göttingen physiologist Friedrich Hermann Rein with his review of the volume under the aspect of the (non-) indebtedness of science. After Mitscherlich's first reply, the Berlin professor of pharmacology Wolfgang Heubner, who was quite uncritical of National Socialist legal practice, and the Berlin surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch also expressed their views. The demand was made that medicine needed a new ethical foundation compared to the preservation of “pure” science. The dispute developed into a document dispute in the sense that it was primarily about the authentic reproduction of the events that are described in the volume The dictate of human contempt .

In his first reply to Mitscherlich in August 1947, FH Rein named another point of controversy in the GUZ , the honor of German representatives of a profession: “It remains a question of conscience for Dr. Mitschlich whether he wants to keep the statement made on p. 42 of his brochure, by which he has made it less of a documentation. This is what it is about, and not ›about the honor of German scientists‹, it is inviolable. ”Rein could therefore have meant the following passage:“ None of the participants in the conference, among them the most well-known representatives of science, asked for further clarification about the experimental arrangement. or protested against them. "

expenditure

  • 1947 The dictate of human contempt. A documentation by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke . ( The Nuremberg Medical Process and its Sources ), 175 pages, Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg, March 1947. First to twenty-fifth thousand. (Interim report). In some copies there is a page in front of the title page that is headed “To the reader” and is almost entirely filled with text. The text concludes: “The editors, who are far from self-righteous above any one of these men, do not want to accuse anyone in the eyes of their fellow men, because the years of calamity have entangled us all enough in debt and it is now possible therefore to find a bridge to deeper insight. Not accusation, but clarification, not ostracism, but opening of a common path into the future, in which we may at least be spared self-humiliation in spite of all adversity, is the intention of this chronicle ”. This page is glued to the front cover sheet, on which the following information is written in capital letters: “From the German Medical Commission at the American Military Court I in Nuremberg. (Head of Priv.-Doz. Dr. Alexander Mitscherlich). Documentation from the trial against 23 SS doctors and German scientists ”. The title page is followed by the table of contents and then a page with a motto at the bottom right: "" ... then that most people are damned, the reason is that they did not know what they were and what they could become or have to become. «  Grimmelshausen , Simplicius Simplicissimus 1669“, followed by an unsigned preface of three pages and an introduction of three and a half pages. This is followed by chapters I – V and from page 163 onwards an afterword of almost 11 pages. This edition has a list of people on pp. 174–175 that the 1949 edition lacks.
  • 1949 Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (eds.), Science without humanity. Medical and eugenic aberrations under dictatorship, bureaucracy and war . With a foreword by the Working Group of the West German Medical Chambers. Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg 1949 (final report). On page iv: “This final report was published by the German Medical Commission at the 1st American Military Court, Nuremberg, on behalf of and in accordance with the resolution of the 51st German Medical Association on October 16 and 17, 1948 in Stuttgart . ”And further, on the same page:“ The first edition of 10,000 copies is only intended for the West German Medical Association. ”On the following four pages (v-viii) there is a foreword by the Association of West German Medical Associations , which is marked with "Bad Nauheim March 1949". The list of persons in the 1947 edition is not included in this edition.
  • 1960 Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (eds.), Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Doctors Trial ; New edition of science without humanity in the Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt 1960, ISBN 3-596-22003-3 ; latest edition: 18th edition, Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3-596-22003-8
English translation of the 1947 edition
  • Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (Eds.), Doctors of Infamy. The story of the Nazi medical crimes , xxxix, 172 pages, Henry Schuman, New York 1949
English edition 1962
  • The death doctors , by A. Mitscherlich and F. Mielke. Translated from the German by James Cleugh, 367 p., Elek Books, London [1962] ( Worldcat additional note: Translation of Medicine without Humanity , first published in 1948 [sic] under title: Science without Humanity )

Articles relevant to medicine in the Göttingen university newspaper 1947/1948

  • "Closing word on the document dispute", in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 17 (1948), p. 12. (In it, the editors use excerpts from the letter by Sauerbruch and Heubner of May 3, 1948 and from Mitscherlich's reply of May 15, 1948. Reproduced June 1948.)
  • Alexander Mitscherlich (Heidelberg), “Protest or Insight? - Mitscherlich's answer to Professors Heubner and Sauerbruch ", in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 10 (1948), p. 6 (Mitscherlich defends himself against the personal attack against him and Mielke by Wolfgang Heubner and refutes the two points presented.)
  • Wolfgang Heubner / Ferdinand Sauerbruch, “Protest von Heubner and Sauerbruch”, in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 3 (1948), pp. 6-7.
  • Werner Heisenberg, "The concern for natural science", in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 3 (1948), p. 7.
  • Th.-Otto Lindenschmidt (Hamburg): “Inviolable life. Euthanasia as an ethical problem ”, in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung No. 17/18, August 15, 1947, pp. 9-10.
  • The document dispute, in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 17/18, August 15, 1947, pp. 6-8; "Mitscherlich answers"
    • Part 1: Alexander Mitscherlich: “Inhuman Science”, pp. 6–7; “Professor Rein sees the aberration of some doctors in the recent past only due to their personal pathological psychological structure. I do not deny this in some cases, but I ask why it was possible for you to live out this personal abnormality within research. Beyond that, however, I find that it was by no means just psychopaths in the common sense who got on the wrong track. Rather, it was extremely average characters who got caught up in disastrous politics, but also in science itself. [...] I cannot [...] consider it a fair tactic that this sharpest attack be launched against my person without Professor Rein giving the readers the evidence. If I were to deal with his accusation now, I would have to advise the names of researchers whom he is hiding. "(Mitscherlich, p. 6)
    • Part 2: FH Rein: “Rein: Vorbeigeredet”, pp. 7–8. “To answer the question of whether science, by its very nature, could become the cause of inhumanity, I asked Dr. Mitscherlich's brochure was used. [...] My arguments that those misdeeds of the Nuremberg Trial have nothing to do with any reprehensible nature of science are not invalidated by his remarks anywhere. Dr. Mitscherlich's concern is completely different from mine. That's why he »talked past«. "(Beginning and end of the final paragraph)
  • Friedrich Hermann Rein (Göttingen): “Science and inhumanity. Comments on three characteristic publications ”, in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 14, June 20, 1947, pp. 3-5. “It is unusual for the editors to be allowed to venture certain statements while the proceedings are still pending. [...] But whether it is right to present these medical crimes to a broader lay public in detail, I doubt [...] But one thing is almost irresponsible in this book: that the editor of the documents, in additional remarks, some outstanding scientists who have brought the world who are known for their complete impeccability and precisely for their high level of humanity, bring them into the terrible suspicion of approving or even encouraging these crimes. "(Rein, p. 4)
  • Rudolf Schoen (Göttingen): “The German medical profession. Back to previous reputation and level of education! ”, In: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 10, April 25, 1947, pp. 9–11.

See also

literature

  • "Medicine without humanity". The Nuremberg medical trial began 60 years ago , in: Antifaschistisches Infoblatt , 73, 4. 2006, pages 46–49.
  • Jürgen Peter: The controversial fate of the documentation "Science Without Humanity" (1949) , Chapter 3.3 and
The controversy in the “Göttinger Universitätszeitung” (GUZ) on the “Dictation of Human Contempt” (1947/1948) , Chapter 8
in: The Nuremberg Medical Trial as reflected in its processing based on the three document collections by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke , Lit-Verlag, Münster 1994; 2nd edition 1998, 3rd, revised edition, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8258-2112-8 , pp. 68–71 and 209–226.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Peter: Immediate reactions to the process , in: Angelika Ebbinghaus, Klaus Dörner (ed.): Destroying and healing. The Nuremberg Medical Trial and its Consequences, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-351-02514-9 , pp. 452-475.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Alexander Mitscherlich, "From the intention of this chronicle", in: Medicine without humanity. Documents of the Nuremberg Medical Trial , Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (eds.), Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt 1960, 17th edition 2009, pages 9–22.
  3. ↑ a b c d e cf. “Among the medical professionals, National Socialism had found an above-average basis. Around 45 percent of practicing doctors joined the NSDAP; 26 percent belonged to the SA, nine percent to the SS. ”,“ Medicine without humanity ”. The Nuremberg medical trial began 60 years ago, in: Antifaschistisches Infoblatt , 73, 4.2006, pages 46–49.
  4. ^ FH Rein: "Science and Inhumanity. Comments on three characteristic publications ”, in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 14, June 20, 1947, pp. 3-5
  5. ↑ a b Julius Brandel, " The dictates of misanthropy. German doctors try to prevent an American book against Nazi doctors ”, in: Aufbau , Volume 15, February 18, 1949, No. 7, page 19, columns a – c.
  6. ↑ a b c d Jürgen Peter, "The controversy in the Göttinger Universitätszeitung (GUZ) on the dictate of human contempt (1947/1948)", Chapter 8 in: The Nuremberg Medical Process as reflected in its processing based on the three document collections by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke , Lit-Verlag, Münster 1994; 2nd edition 1998, 3rd, revised edition, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8258-2112-8 , pp. 209–226.
  7. ↑ a b Margarete Mitscherlich-Nielsen, "Science without humanity - medicine and anti-Semitism", in: psychosozial , 22 (1999), volume IV (no. 78), pp. 21-30.
  8. ^ "The document dispute", in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 17/18, August 15, 1947, pp. 6-8; “Mitscherlich answers”, part 1: Alexander Mitscherlich: “Inhuman Science”, p. 6–7, p. 6, left column.
  9. ↑ Fred Mielke (born June 25, 1922 in Breslau ( Das Diktat der Menschenverektiven , 1947, p. 6) died in 1959 at the DNB
  10. ↑ a b c d Institute for the History of Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Colloquium 561452 More recent results in the history of medicine on January 25, 2006: PD Dr. Dr. Jürgen Peter (Institute for Socialization Research and Social Psychology, University of Frankfurt am Main): Immediate reactions in the German allied occupation zones to the Nuremberg medical trial ( memento of the original from March 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , last accessed on March 26, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.meduniwien.ac.at
  11. ↑ Reproduced from the 17th edition 2009, p. 5 (this is the page before the table of contents)
  12. ↑ Here as the sole author, as Fred Mielke only lived until 1959.
  13. ↑ "In retrospect, Mitscherlich himself suspected that the documentation was bought up by the medical associations shortly after its publication in order to prevent it from spreading," says the article "Medicine without humanity". The Nuremberg medical trial began 60 years ago, in: Antifaschistisches Infoblatt , 73, 4.2006, pages 46–49 on page 48 in the middle column.
  14. ↑ See conjectures by H.-M. Lohmann and RJ Lifton as well as illuminating information in letters from Mielke and Mitscherlich ("Only a few 100 copies came into the book trade", page 69, footnote 141) in: Jürgen Peter, "The controversial fate of the documentation science without humanity (1949)", Chapter 3.3 in: The Nuremberg Medical Process as reflected in its processing based on the three document collections by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke , Lit-Verlag, Münster 1994; 2nd edition 1998, ISBN 3-8258-2112-9 , pages 68-71, footnote 137.
  15. ↑ The document dispute , in: Göttinger Universitätszeitung , No. 17/18, August 15, 1947, pp. 6-8; “Mitscherlich answers”, part 2: FH Rein: “Rein: Vorbeigeredet”, p. 7–8, p. 8, right column.
  16. ↑ The Dictation of Contempt for Man. A documentation by Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke , 175 pages, Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg, March 1947, p. 42.
  17. ↑ The Nuremberg Medical Trial and its sources , this subtitle is on the front cover, but not on the inside of the title page.