This is a list of notable

medical doctors Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. When the Nazi government came to power it purged Germany of its 6,000 to 7,000 Jewish doctors. Reportedly more than 7% of all German

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

s became members of the

Nazi party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, a far higher percentage than the general population. In 1942 more than 38,000 German doctors, half the total number of doctors, had joined the Nazi party. While most of these doctors were

s, some held

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

s (PhDs) in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

, or related fields. Doctors who were working for the state, and not for their patients, using a

Mendelian Mendelian inheritance (also known as Mendelism) is a type of biology, biological Heredity, inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, an ...

type of logic chart, saw extermination of their patients as the correct solution to the problem of mental illness and the genetically defective. "The participation in the ‘betrayal of

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...

’ had a broad basis within the German medical profession. Without the doctors' active help, the Holocaust could not have happened." wrote E Ernst in the International Journal of Epidemiology. Psychiatrist

Ernst Rüdin Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1874 – 22 October 1952) was a Swiss-born German psychiatrist, geneticist, eugenicist and Nazi, rising to prominence under Emil Kraepelin and assuming the directorship at the German Institute for Psychiatric Rese ...

was the founder of the psychiatric genetics field and was also a founder of the German

racial hygiene The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...

movement. Killing and experimentation became medical procedures as they were performed by licensed doctors. A doctor was present at all the mass killings for legal reasons. During the

Doctors' trial The Doctors' Trial (officially ''United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.'') was the first of 12 trials for war crimes of high-ranking German officials and industrialists that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone ...

, the defense argued that there was no international law to distinguish between legal and illegal human experimentation, which led to the creation of the

Nuremberg Code The Nuremberg Code (german: Nürnberger Kodex) is a set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in '' U.S. v Brandt'', one of the Subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War. Tho ...

(1947). After the war, the

German Medical Association The German Medical Association (GMA) (german: Bundesärztekammer, BÄK), founded in 1947 and based in Berlin, is the co-ordinating body of physicians’ self-regulation in Germany. It co-ordinates the activities of the 17 State Chambers of Physician ...

blamed

Nazi atrocities The governments of the German Empire and Nazi Germany (under Adolf Hitler) ordered, organized and condoned a substantial number of war crimes, first in the Herero and Namaqua genocide and then in the First and Second World Wars. The most notabl ...

on a small group of 350 criminal doctors. After Nazi Germany surrendered, some doctors attempted to change names to escape capture and trial, such as

Werner Heyde Werner Heyde (aka Fritz Sawade) (25 April 1902 – 13 February 1964) was a German psychiatrist. He was one of the main organizers of Nazi Germany's T-4 Euthanasia Program. Early life Heyde was born in Forst (Lausitz), on May 25, in 1902, and com ...

and

Robert Ley Robert Ley (; 15 February 1890 – 25 October 1945) was a German politician and Labour Union, labour union leader during the Nazi era; Ley headed the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He also held many other high positions in the Party, inc ...

,"Robert Ley is in hands of yankees" Lawrence Daily Journal World. May 17, 1945
/ref> Other doctors, such as

Walter Schreiber Walter Paul Emil Schreiber (21 March 1893 – 5 September 1970) was a medical officer with the German Army in World War I and a brigadier-general (''Generalarzt'') of the Wehrmacht Medical Service during World War II. He would later serve as a ke ...

, were covertly moved to the United States during "

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World Wa ...

" in 1951.

List

This is an alphabetical list of World War II Nazi physicians. Some of those listed here were members of the Nazi party, but were either found to be innocent or had no direct involvement in the killings. Doctors' trial, Nuremberg, 1946–1947

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nazi doctors Aktion T4 * Lists of people by activity

Doctors Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...

List

See also

Articles

Lists

Notes

References