Nazi Dentists on Trial: On the Political Complicity of a Long-Neglected Professional Community.

Studies on the complicity of the medical profession in the crimes of the Third Reich are on the rise. This also applies to the question of the extent to which doctors were brought to justice in international trials after World War II. This topic, however, has hardly been considered-let alone systematically investigated-with respect to German dentists. It is precisely this gap that this article will address. First, we quantitatively identify all dentists who were brought to justice in the post-war period. Second, we give a profile of this group. We focus on the following questions: Who among the group was brought to trial, and when? What crimes were they accused of, which sentences were handed down, and how did these sentences affect their future lives? Our study is based primarily on archival sources, which we analyzed with respect to the relevant secondary literature. Contrary to the widely-held assumption that dentists had almost never had been made to stand trial after the end of the war, we identified 48 dentists who were accused in court. The prototypical accused dentist was male, lived in a traditional family model, belonged to the National Socialist Workers' Party (NSDAP) and the Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel), and was part of the so-called Kriegsjugendgeneration. The most frequent allegations made against these men were the theft of dental gold of murdered Nazi victims, an accusation unique to dentists; (accessory to) murder or manslaughter; and involvement in the deadly selections made in the concentration camps. In total, eight dentists were executed. Generally speaking, the earlier these proceedings and the sentencing took place, the harsher the sentence was. Many of those who received prison sentences subsequently found their way back into the dental profession.

Navegación e historia de la ciencia: el hundimiento del Gustloff (Derecho de la Guerra) / Navigation and history of science: the sinking of the Gustloff (The Laws of War)

Al inicio de 1945 el terror se apoderó del Tercer Reich cuando el Ejército Rojo comenzó a invadir los territorios orientales de Prusia, Polonia, Curlandia y Memel. Los mandos de la Marina de Guerra alemana (Kriegsmarine) eran conscientes de que la guerra estaba perdida y de que los civiles serían masacrados por las tropas soviéticas y los nativos eslavos en búsqueda de venganza. De ese modo, decidieron destinar todos sus buques disponibles al Mar Báltico para evacuar a más de 2 millones de soldados, heridos, mujeres, niños, ancianos, colaboracionistas y prisioneros en un heroico episodio que sería conocido con el nombre de Operación Hannibal. El buque KdF Wilhelm Gustloff fue trágico testigo de lo que allí sucedía

At the beginning of 1945, terror invaded the Third Reich when the Red Army began to invade the eastern territories of Prussia, Poland, Courland and Memel. The high command of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) were aware that the war was lost and that civilians would be slaughtered by Soviet troops and Slavic natives in search of revenge. Thus, they decided to allocate all their available ships to the Baltic Sea to evacuate more than 2 million soldiers, wounded, women, children, elderly, collaborators and prisoners in a heroic episode that would be known as "Operation Hannibal." The ship KdF Wilhelm Gustloff was a tragic witness to what was happening there

Navegación e historia de la ciencia: el incidente Laconia y la guerra total en la mar (Derecho de la Guerra) / Navigation and history of science: the Laconia incident and the total war at sea (The Laws of War)

El 12 de septiembre de 1942 el barco británico Laconia fue hundido en la costa de África occidental por el submarino U Boat 156 al mando del Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein. El Laconia transportaba 1.800 prisioneros de guerra italianos, 80 civiles y 428 soldados británicos y polacos. Tras el desastre, viendo la situación, Hartenstein inició su trabajo cumpliendo con el deber de socorro y desplegando una bandera de la Cruz Roja. A pesar de ello, un bombardero americano B-24 atacó ampliando el desastre. La propaganda británica desplegó la idea de que los submarinos alemanes atacaban sin contemplaciones. La "Orden Laconia" tampoco se cumplió del todo pues los alemanes siguieron socorriendo a pesar de la "letra" de dicha orden. El Jefe de Submarinos, Karl Dönitz, fue procesado en Nüremberg, el testimonio del Almirante Nimitz aclaró muchas cosas. Los muertos quedaron en el Atlántico. Descansen en paz

On September 12, 1942, the British ship Laconia was sunk off the coast of West Africa by the submarine U Boat 156 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein. The Laconia carried 1,800 Italian war prisoners, 80 civilians and 428 British and Polish soldiers. After the disaster, seeing the situation, Hartenstein began his work fulfilling the duty of relief and displaying a Red Cross flag. Despite this, an American B-24 bomber attacked thus expanding the disaster. British propaganda displayed the idea that German submarines mercilessly attacked convoys. The "Laconia Order" was not completely fulfilled because the Germans continued their help despite the "letter" of that order. The U-Boat Commander, Karl Dönitz, was prosecuted in Nuremberg, and the testimony of Admiral Nimitz clarified many things. Those who died remain in the Atlantic Ocean. Rest in peace

Massacre of Canadian Army Medical Corps personnel after the sinking of HMHS Llandovery Castle and the evolution of modern war crime jurisprudence.

SUMMARY: Events after the sinking of the hospital ship Llandovery Castle on June 27, 1918, by the German submarine U-86 outraged Canadians. Survivors aboard a single life raft gave evidence that many of the 234 souls lost had made it to lifeboats but were rammed and shot by the submarine. Many of those who died were nurses. Three German officers were charged with war crimes after the war. The submarine's captain evaded capture. The remaining two officers' defence that they were following the captain's orders failed and they were convicted. This ruling was used as a precedent to dismiss similar claims at the war crime trials after the Second World War. It is also the basis of the order given to members of modern militaries, including the Canadian Armed Forces, that it is illegal to carry out an illegal order.

The black legend on the Spanish presence in the low countries: Verifying shared beliefs on genetic ancestry.

OBJECTIVES: War atrocities committed by the Spanish army in the Low Countries during the 16th century are so ingrained in the collective memory of Belgian and Dutch societies that they generally assume a signature of this history to be present in their genetic ancestry. Historians claim this assumption is a consequence of the so-called "Black Legend" and negative propaganda portraying and remembering Spanish soldiers as extreme sexual aggressors. The impact of the presence of Spaniards during the Dutch Revolt on the genetic variation in the Low Countries has been verified in this study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A recent population genetic analysis of Iberian-associated Y-chromosomal variation among Europe is enlarged with representative samples of Dutch (N = 250) and Flemish (N = 1,087) males. Frequencies of these variants are also compared between donors whose oldest reported paternal ancestors lived in-nowadays Flemish-cities affected by so-called Spanish Furies (N = 116) versus other patrilineages in current Flemish territory (N = 971). RESULTS: The frequencies of Y-chromosomal markers Z195 and SRY2627 decline steeply going north from Spain and the data for the Flemish and Dutch populations fits within this pattern. No trend of higher frequencies of these variants has been found within the well-ascertained samples associated with Spanish Fury cities. DISCUSSION: Although sexual aggression did occur in the 16th century, these activities did not leave a traceable "Spanish" genetic signature in the autochthonous genome of the Low Countries. Our results support the view that the 'Black Legend' and historical propaganda on sexual aggression have nurtured today's incorrect assumptions regarding genetic ancestry.

Beyond Nazi War Crimes Experiments: The Voluntary Consent Requirement of the Nuremberg Code at 70.

The year 2017 marks both the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Code and the first major revisions of federal research regulations in almost 3 decades. I suggest that the informed consent provisions of the federal research regulations continue to follow the requirements of the Nuremberg Code. However, modifications are needed to the informed consent (and institutional review board) provisions to make the revised federal regulations more effective in promoting a genuine conversation between the researcher and the research subject. This conversation must take seriously both the therapeutic illusion and the desire of both the researcher and the research subject not to engage in sharing uncertainty.

The Nazi Physicians as Leaders in Eugenics and "Euthanasia": Lessons for Today.

This article, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg, reflects on the Nazi eugenics and "euthanasia" programs and their relevance for today. The Nazi doctors used eugenic ideals to justify sterilizations, child and adult "euthanasia," and, ultimately, genocide. Contemporary euthanasia has experienced a progression from voluntary to nonvoluntary and from passive to active killing. Modern eugenics has included both positive and negative selective activities. The 70th anniversary of the Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg provides an important opportunity to reflect on the implications of the Nazi eugenics and "euthanasia" programs for contemporary health law, bioethics, and human rights. In this article, we will examine the role that health practitioners played in the promotion and implementation of State-sponsored eugenics and "euthanasia" in Nazi Germany, followed by an exploration of contemporary parallels and debates in modern bioethics. 1.

Bodies of children in the Institute of Anatomy in Halle (Saale), Germany, between 1920 and 1945.

At the Institute of Anatomy and Cell Biology in Halle (Saale) 74 children's bodies of unknown historical provenance are being held in storage. The aim of this study was the evaluation of their identities, the circumstances of their acquisition, as well as the documentation of their individual characteristics. For these purposes, all bodies were comprehensively examined and photo-documented. Furthermore, CT-scans of 29 bodies were performed and information was collected from various local and national archives. Although most of the bodies were found to be those of stillborn children and infants, five children were between two and twelve years old, according to an age estimate by body-length and carpal bone analysis. The CT-scans revealed the cause of death for some of the children. The embalming method indicates that the bodies date from the first decades of the 20th century, and archival sources containing documents from 1920 to 1960 strongly suggest that these children's bodies were acquired by Institute of Anatomy between 1920 and 1942. During that period, a total of 2602 children's bodies were delivered to the Institute of Anatomy and registered in the communal burial records. At this point, there is no evidence that these children might have been victims of National Socialist crimes. It is planned to give them a dignified burial.

"Forgotten" Chapters in the History of Transcervical Sterilization: Carl Clauberg and Hans-Joachim Lindemann.

Transcervical sterilization is a non-surgical method of permanent female sterilization that is widely used and critically discussed. A review of the historiography of the method reveals that instances of its coercive use are not included in the historical account. This study offers a reexamination of the work of Carl Clauberg and Hans-Joachim Lindemann, to more deeply contextualize within the framework of current usage the coercive use of transcervical sterilization during the Third Reich and in postwar Germany. This inquiry is based on postwar criminal trial records on Clauberg, and on archival documents detailing Lindemann's activities in 1979. A comparative analysis examines arguments by medical historian Karl-Heinz Roth, and identifies shared characteristics and differences between Clauberg and Lindemann, their methods and scientific connections. The results demonstrate that the technique of transcervical sterilization has an abusive potential that may be explained as a function of the person of the physician, of the scientific method itself, and of societal and political influences. The analysis supports the argument that insights from the cases of Clauberg and Lindemann are transferrable geographically and over time, and have the potential to inform current medical practice, such as transcervical sterilization with the Essure device, whose historiographic exploration remains a desideratum.

Exploitation of the vulnerable in research: Responses to lessons learnt in history.

The Nuremberg Trials raised insightful issues on how and why doctors who were trained in the Hippocratic tradition were able to commit such egregious and heinous medical crimes. The vulnerable were considered to be subhuman, of decreased intelligence, of no moral status and lacking human dignity. The reputation of the medical profession had been undermined, professionalism questioned and the doctor-patient relationship damaged as a result of the Nazi medical experiments. The World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki has been hailed as one of the most successful efforts in rescuing medical research from the darkness of the scandals and tragedies in health research. The first Research Ethics Committee in South Africa was established in 1966 at the University of the Witwatersrand. From the mid-1970s other institutions followed suit. The promulgation of the National Health Act No. 61 of 2003, in 2004, resulted in strong protectionism for research participants in the country.

The missing, the martyred and the disappeared: Global networks, technical intensification and the end of human rights genetics.

In 1984, a group of Argentine students, trained by US academics, formed the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team to apply the latest scientific techniques to the excavation of mass graves and identification of the dead, and to work toward transitional justice. This inaugurated a new era in global forensic science, as groups of scientists in the Global South worked outside of and often against local governments to document war crimes in post-conflict settings. After 2001, however, with the inauguration of the war on terror following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, global forensic science was again remade through US and European investment to increase preparedness in the face of potential terrorist attacks. In this paper, I trace this shift from human rights to humanitarian forensics through a focus on three moments in the history of post-conflict identification science. Through a close attention to the material semiotic networks of forensic science in post-conflict settings, I examine the shifting ground between non-governmental human rights forensics and an emerging security- and disaster-focused identification grounded in global law enforcement. I argue that these transformations are aligned with a scientific shift towards mechanized, routinized, and corporate-owned DNA identification and a legal privileging of the right to truth circumscribed by narrow articulations of kinship and the body.

Unit 731 and moral repair.

Unit 731, a biological warfare research organisation that operated under the authority of the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s and 1940s, conducted brutal experiments on thousands of unconsenting subjects. Because of the US interest in the data from these experiments, the perpetrators were not prosecuted and the atrocities are still relatively undiscussed. What counts as meaningful moral repair in this case-what should perpetrators and collaborator communities do decades later? We argue for three non-ideal but realistic forms of moral repair: (1) a national policy in Japan against human experimentation without appropriate informed and voluntary consent; (2) the establishment of a memorial to the victims of Unit 731; and (3) US disclosure about its use of Unit 731 data and an apology for failing to hold the perpetrators accountable.

How the Anatomische Gesellschaft excluded unwanted members after 1945-among them Eugen Fischer and Max Clara.

The Anatomische Gesellschaft, an international Germany-based association of anatomists, was closed down in 1945, after the end of the "Third Reich". It was eventually re-founded in 1949, continuing its tradition from its foundation in 1886, based in large part on the membership prior to 1945. Newly available archival material reveals, however, that at least six members were explicitly prevented from re-joining the society. This includes Max Clara, who was accused of plagiarism and, at least implicitly, of basing his career on Nazi party support. It also includes Eugen Fischer, a leading anthropologist of the Nazi period, who was seen to be indirectly responsible for Nazi crimes like forced sterilisation or extermination of "anthropologically defined" groups of people. Therefore, Fischer's honorary membership, which had already been published in the membership directory, was revoked after a heated internal debate. Nevertheless, these exclusions cannot be interpreted as a self-directed "denazification" of the Anatomische Gesellschaft, as political activity in line with the Nazis was not the main criterion for these exclusions. Incidentally, the archival sources also reveal that Wolfgang Bargmann, who had been elected as the first post-war secretary of the Gesellschaft in 1949, resigned from this post after only one year in office because his management of this "Fischer affair" was felt to be too autocratic.

Nazi Dental Gold: From Dead Bodies to a Swiss Bank.

The removal of teeth containing gold fillings was part of the procedure in the concentration camps during WWII. This paper describes the part played by Nazi doctors and dentists.

Anatomy in the Third Reich - The Anatomical Institute of the Reichsuniversität Strassburg and the deliveries of dead bodies.

August Hirt (1898-1945) was director of the Institute of Anatomy of the Reichsuniversität Strassburg from November 1941 to November 1944. During this period, he was involved in many criminal activities: mustard gas experiments on prisoners of KL Natzweiler-Struthof, creating a collection of Jewish skeletons by gassing 86 Jews from KL Auschwitz in the Struthof-Natzweiler gas chamber, and involvement in experiments on phosgene gas performed by Otto Bickenbach. Extensive literature exists on these crimes. However, there has been very little work completed on the so-called normal activity of the Institute of Anatomy of which he was head and in particular the question of deliveries of corpses. We estimate that between 244 and 724 bodies were delivered to the Anatomical Institute of the Reichsuniversität Strassburg between 1942 and 1944. In the course of our investigations, we have determined the identity of 232 corpses received between 1942 and 1944, the vast majority of Soviet prisoners of war from two hospitals for prisoners of war (Strassburg and Mutzig). Other sources of dead bodies have been found, such as hospital patients and French citizens who had been executed by shooting. Most of the corpses were used for dissection by medical students, but many anatomical preparations were also made from the bodies. The bodies were buried during and after the war, but the fate of the anatomical and histological specimens is unknown. Newly discovered archival record allowed us to identify and find three jars with tissues from the 86 gassed Jews. These pieces were in the Museum of the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Strasbourg. At this point the following proposals are made: (1) opening of the Medical Faculty of Strasbourg archives, (2) creation of an historical commission, (3) identification and publication of the complete inventory of all preparations at the Strasbourg Anatomical Museum, (4) research of the fate of the dry and wet preparations made under National Socialism, (5) verification of histological slides, embryological specimens and the tissues from the institutes already existing under National Socialism, (6) verification of the pieces of the Museum of Forensic Medicine, (7) publications of these results and information of the press and (8) creation of a memorial for the victims of the NS delivered to the Institute of Anatomy.