How Ethics Failed — The Role of Psychiatrists and Physicians in Nazi Programs from Exclusion to Extermination, 1933–1945
Journal: Public health reviews
Year: 2012

Background: Disregard of Hippocratic medical ethics by major leaders in the Public Health establishment and the leadership role played by physicians during the Nazi era in Germany (1933–1945) pose continuing challenges for later generations to investigate and disclose. Aims: We review the history of evolution from humiliation of mental patients, other ill and disabled individuals and targeted ethnic groups to humiliation, sterilization, and “involuntary euthanasia” (a euphemism for medical murde