When Good Doctors Go Bad: the psychology behind the Nazi experiments of the third Reich

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Abstract The formidable psychology behind the experiments conducted by the Nazi doctors of the Third Reich, at times, may be difficult to fathom. However, in the book Nazi Doctors (2000), the author, Robert J. Lifton, is markedly dexterous in his addressing of such a concept. “Killing someone already dead need not be experienced as murder. And since Jews, long the Nazis’ designated victim, were more generally perceived as carriers of death, or bearers of the death taint, they became “doubly dead.” Just as one could not kill people already dead, one could do them no harm however one mutilated their bodies in medical experimentation” (p. 151). When Good Doctors Go Bad: the psychology behind the Nazi experiments of the third Reich Why did Hitler’s Nazi doctors, if they were among the top in their profession, precariously abuse the field of medical experimentation by using humans as their subjects for perverse experiments? These accredited “angels of death” (Bulow, 2008) were among the most prolific doctors of the third Reich. The most notorious were Joseph Mengele, Carl Clauberg, Herta Oberheuser, Karl Brandt, and Johann Kremer. The assistants to these doctors, as well as other doctors that were less well-known, must also be recognized. Since it is difficult to envisage the reality of these experiments and those behind it, we must delve into the minds of the medically wicked. In order to fully understand its methodological underpinnings, there must be a catalyst behind the motives of these professionals that enabled them to implicate themselves in such sinister medical practices. Unfortunately, at this point in time, a steadfast code of international medical ethics had not been established yet. As a direct result, the Nazis doctors were able to get away with these abhorrent research and

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