Medicine in the Third Reich: An Exploration of Changes in the University of Berlin Medical Department under National Socialism

Abstract

National Socialism caused pervasive ideological shifts in all areas of German culture and education, particularly the medical profession. The attitude of anti-Semitism and the practice of racial hygiene were prevalent, even in the midst of conducting sound science and training healers for the medical field. How could healers also be killers and how could scientific discoveries occur alongside racial experimentation? This paper examines the changes within the University of Berlin’s medical department including the gradual shift of totalitarian control of physicians in Germany, the expulsion and replacement of Jewish faculty, and the changes to the medical school curriculum. As a result of these changes, an argument is made that nearly all physicians during the Nazi period contributed to this scientific paradox.