Medizinethik im Nationalsozialismus. Entwicklungen und Protagonisten in Berlin (1939–1945). By Florian Bruns. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. 2009. Pp. 225. Cloth €46.00. ISBN 978-3-515-09226-5.

摘要

This book presents an attempt to show that there indeed was something calledrnmedical ethics during the Nazi regime, something viewed with much skepticismby many of today’s scholars. Florian Bruns makes his case by examining thernworks and deeds of some prominent medical leaders of the regime, ultimatelyrnfocusing on three stalwart Nazi doctors: Bernward Gottlieb, Rudolf Ramm,rnand Joachim Mrugowsky. He places the lives of these men in the context of arnmedical field they felt determined to change along the lines of their Nazi creed.rnBurns shows how much of medical practice during the century preceding thernNazi regime showed the imprint of Social Darwinism, stressing collective fitnessrnby promoting the well-being of the well-to-do at the expense of those deemedrnto be “less fit.” To that end, Dalton’s eugenics movement in Britain stressed thernimportance of increasing the birthrate of the former while minimizing thatrnof the latter. Both found great resonance in Germany as well, evidenced, forrnexample, by the success of such ardent promoters of collective fitness asrnWilhelm Schallmeyer and Alfred Ploetz, who popularized their ideas in well-rnread publications.