This book offers a radically new and definitive reappraisal of Allied responses to Nazi human experiments and the origins of informed consent. It tells the story of Nazi and Allied human experiments, and how war crimes investigators were diverted from the mission to uncover weapons of mass destruction to respond instead to the wartime German experiments. From outlining policies on war crimes and trials in relation to Nazi medical atrocities, the books goes on to analyse the Medical Trial, considering the prosecution, defense, judges and observers to present a rounded picture of the court and its context. With the central premiss that the trial was in fact a 'genocide trial', the author explores the far-reaching effects of its aftermath in terms of Cold War politics, compensation and research ethics.
'A multifaceted account of the Nuremberg Medical Trial, one that combines a number of theoretical perspectives and is receptive to both the historical context and the personal narrative of those involved. The book is cogently argued and presents a thoroughly informed analysis of the relationship between German medicine, on one hand, and Nazi racial and social policies during the Second World War, on the other.' - Journal of the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences
'Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials provides ample evidence of what can happen, even in a developed country, when democratic norms and institutions are subverted.' - Journal of the American Medical Association
'Prodigiously researched...the book offers valuable insights into the dynamics of the Trial and, more generally, the vulnerability of ethics to the demands of scientific progress.' - Social History of Medicine
'A masterly volume' - The Lancet
'Is there anything left to say about the trial of the Nazi doctors at Nuremberg? Weindling's book provides abundant proof that there is. Indeed, there is so much new information in this book, almost all of it derived from primary sources, that the history of this pivotal moment in the ethics of research with human subjects seems to have been reborn with its publication. Not a page is wasted in this packed, efficiently narrated account. Weindling delivers surprise after surprise, correcting and redirecting the accumulated impression we have inherited of what the Nazi doctors did, why they did it, and how the doctors were judged. Few readers will finish the book with their preconceptions intact. ' - Professor Daniel Wikler, Harvard School of Public Health, University of Harvard
'A multifaceted account of the Nuremberg Medical Trial, one that combines a number of theoretical perspectives and is receptive to both the historical context and the personal narrative of those involved. The book is cogently argued and presents a thoroughly informed analysis of the relationship between German medicine, on one hand, and Nazi racial and social policies during the Second World War, on the other.' - Journal of the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences
'Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials provides ample evidence of what can happen, even in a developed country, when democratic norms and institutions are subverted.' - Journal of the American Medical Association
'This book represents a major piece of new research, carefully investigating the structures and actors that gave rise to the atrocities of Nazi medicine, as well as documenting the difficulties of prosecuting such crimes and the continuing problems arising from human experimentation and the (political) limits of medicine...a work of immense importance, dealing competently and even-handedly with the darkest aspects of the 'dialectic of Englightenment.' - Rene Wolf, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol 40, 4-5, 2006
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
List of lIlustrations
Introduction
PART ONE: EXHUMING NAZI MEDICINE
The Rabbits Protest
Allied Experiments
Criminal Research
Exploitation
Aviation Atrocities
PART TWO: MEDICINE ON TRIAL
From the International to Zonal Trials
Pseudo-science and Psychopaths
The Nuremberg Vortex
Internationalism and Interrogations
Science in Behemoth: The Human Experiments
The Medical Delegation
A Eugenics Trial?
Euthanasia
Experiments and Ethics
Formulating the Code
PART THREE: AFTERMATH
Cold War Medicine
A Fragile Legacy
Tables
Bibliography, Archives, Interviews
Index
PAUL JULIAN WEINDLING is Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of Medicine at the Department of History, Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism (Cambridge University Press) and Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press). He is a member of the Max Planck Presidential Commission on the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft under National Socialism.
Description
This book offers a radically new and definitive reappraisal of Allied responses to Nazi human experiments and the origins of informed consent. It tells the story of Nazi and Allied human experiments, and how war crimes investigators were diverted from the mission to uncover weapons of mass destruction to respond instead to the wartime German experiments. From outlining policies on war crimes and trials in relation to Nazi medical atrocities, the books goes on to analyse the Medical Trial, considering the prosecution, defense, judges and observers to present a rounded picture of the court and its context. With the central premiss that the trial was in fact a 'genocide trial', the author explores the far-reaching effects of its aftermath in terms of Cold War politics, compensation and research ethics.
Reviews
'A multifaceted account of the Nuremberg Medical Trial, one that combines a number of theoretical perspectives and is receptive to both the historical context and the personal narrative of those involved. The book is cogently argued and presents a thoroughly informed analysis of the relationship between German medicine, on one hand, and Nazi racial and social policies during the Second World War, on the other.' - Journal of the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences
'Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials provides ample evidence of what can happen, even in a developed country, when democratic norms and institutions are subverted.' - Journal of the American Medical Association
'Prodigiously researched...the book offers valuable insights into the dynamics of the Trial and, more generally, the vulnerability of ethics to the demands of scientific progress.' - Social History of Medicine
'A masterly volume' - The Lancet
'Is there anything left to say about the trial of the Nazi doctors at Nuremberg? Weindling's book provides abundant proof that there is. Indeed, there is so much new information in this book, almost all of it derived from primary sources, that the history of this pivotal moment in the ethics of research with human subjects seems to have been reborn with its publication. Not a page is wasted in this packed, efficiently narrated account. Weindling delivers surprise after surprise, correcting and redirecting the accumulated impression we have inherited of what the Nazi doctors did, why they did it, and how the doctors were judged. Few readers will finish the book with their preconceptions intact. ' - Professor Daniel Wikler, Harvard School of Public Health, University of Harvard
'A multifaceted account of the Nuremberg Medical Trial, one that combines a number of theoretical perspectives and is receptive to both the historical context and the personal narrative of those involved. The book is cogently argued and presents a thoroughly informed analysis of the relationship between German medicine, on one hand, and Nazi racial and social policies during the Second World War, on the other.' - Journal of the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences
'Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials provides ample evidence of what can happen, even in a developed country, when democratic norms and institutions are subverted.' - Journal of the American Medical Association
'This book represents a major piece of new research, carefully investigating the structures and actors that gave rise to the atrocities of Nazi medicine, as well as documenting the difficulties of prosecuting such crimes and the continuing problems arising from human experimentation and the (political) limits of medicine...a work of immense importance, dealing competently and even-handedly with the darkest aspects of the 'dialectic of Englightenment.' - Rene Wolf, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol 40, 4-5, 2006
Contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
List of lIlustrations
Introduction
PART ONE: EXHUMING NAZI MEDICINE
The Rabbits Protest
Allied Experiments
Criminal Research
Exploitation
Aviation Atrocities
PART TWO: MEDICINE ON TRIAL
From the International to Zonal Trials
Pseudo-science and Psychopaths
The Nuremberg Vortex
Internationalism and Interrogations
Science in Behemoth: The Human Experiments
The Medical Delegation
A Eugenics Trial?
Euthanasia
Experiments and Ethics
Formulating the Code
PART THREE: AFTERMATH
Cold War Medicine
A Fragile Legacy
Tables
Bibliography, Archives, Interviews
Index
Authors
PAUL JULIAN WEINDLING is Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of Medicine at the Department of History, Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism (Cambridge University Press) and Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press). He is a member of the Max Planck Presidential Commission on the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft under National Socialism.
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