12 November 2025

In his magisterial book about the Nazis, ‘The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History’, Laurence Rees writes about the corruption of the medical profession in Nazi Germany. Six months after Hitler became Chancellor, the Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring was passed.

The law not only applied to Germans suffering from mental illnesses but also those suffering from hereditary blindness or deafness or any severe hereditary deformity. ‘Doctors now had to balance the care of the individual alongside the perceived welfare of the state.’ writes Rees.

Amazingly, there was little protest from the medical profession. How could this be? Rees explains. Around fifty per cent of doctors in Germany became members of the Nazi Party before Hitler came to power. This was a far greater proportion than any other profession.

Rees gives several reasons. Firstly, Nazism was a pseudo-science which appealed to medical people. Secondly, 25,000 doctors had fought in the First World War. The savagery had brutalised them. After the war, they had a tendency to be ‘practical and technical physicians, lacking in human compassion’.

Thirdly, doctors were willing to conform to the pressure of the Nazi regime. This was partially facilitated by the hierarchical structure of the profession. Their training nurtured obedience to authority. Fourthly, Jewish doctors were   eliminated and that gave doctors greater opportunity for personal and financial advancement.

‘More doctors also joined the SS than members of any other profession,’ writes Rees, ‘and many of these medical professionals would go on to play an important part in the murders of the Holocaust.’ They  gave credence to the selection of those who should die. The system was professionalised. Doctors corrupted.