German doctors were not forced by the Nazis to commit infanticide or eugenic murder between 1939-1945, nor to participate in death camp atrocities. Now, the German Medical Association has issued an unequivocal apology. From Art Caplan’s column:
Unanimously adopted by the delegates of the Physician’s Congress, the declaration says that contrary to popular belief doctors were not forced by political authorities to kill and experiment on prisoners but rather engaged in the Holocaust as leaders and enthusiastic Nazi supporters. The apology notes that “outstanding representatives of renowned academic medical and research institutions were involved” in organizing and carrying out the mass extermination of millions.
In the statement, the German doctors said they “remember the living and deceased victims and their descendants and ask them for forgiveness.” I don’t know if forgiveness will be forthcoming. But in the history of apologies for crimes and abuses carried out in the name of medicine this is the most important ever made. It does nothing to soften the horror of the Holocaust but it both ascribes responsibility where it belongs and ends any further efforts to deny or obfuscate what actually happened.
That doesn’t bring back the lives lost, but at least it does help set history straight. And, of course, none of the current members of the association bear any personal responsibility–undoubtedly making the apology easier to make. But it does help us accept that all that evil did not arise from “The Nazis,” which too often becomes a defense allowing us to rationalize our own anti humanism because we don’t goose step on parade.
The real potential for such evil arises when we reject human exceptionalism. That opens the door to rationalizing oppressing, exploiting, and killing those denigrated as the contemporary untermenchen.
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