For the Betterment of the Nation, Self, and Science: How Nazi Physicians Distorted Medical Ethics in the Killing and Experimentation on ‘Hereditarily Ill’ Children

Jessica Zhuo

Co-Presenters: Individual Presentation

College: Division of General Education and Interdisciplinary Studies

Major: BA.UNDECIDED

Faculty Research Mentor: Goldberg, Adara  

Abstract:

This research examines the medical killing and experimentation on children deemed “hereditarily ill” during the Holocaust as a distortion of medical ethics under National Socialism. Tracing from its roots of eugenics from nineteenth-century scientific thought to its radicalized implementation in Nazi Germany, this research will demonstrate how medicine was transformed into an instrument of state violence. By placing Nazi medical practices in the context of earlier eugenic movements in Europe and the United States, the paper demonstrates how concepts initially presented as preventative or humanitarian were transformed into justification for coercion, forced sterilization, and mass murder.This analysis focuses primarily on physicians Hans Munch and Josef Menegele. Through these contrasting case studies, this research will reveal how nationalism rhetoric, career advancement, and claims of scientific legitimacy enabled physicians to abandon ethical principles such as patient autonomy and nonmaleficence. The Holocaust was a case study that highlights moral failure in which medicine was warped by political ideology. By analyzing how medical professionals rationalized their actions, this research highlights the dangers of allowing state ideology, pseudoscience, and professional self-interest to conceal ethical accountability, making it a lesson for modern medical ethics.