German medical association apologizes for Nazi-era crimes committed by doctors

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

German medical association apologizes for Nazi-era crimes committed by doctors
By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, May 25, 4:51 AM

BERLIN — Germany’s medical association has adopted a declaration apologizing for sadistic experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazis.

In the statement adopted earlier this week in Nuremberg, the association said many doctors under the Nazis were “guilty, contrary to their mission to heal, of scores of human rights violations and we ask the forgiveness of their victims, living and deceased, and of their descendants.”

In addition to performing pseudo-scientific experiments on concentration camp inmates, German doctors also were key to the Nazi’s program of forced sterilization or euthanasia of the mentally ill or others deemed “unworthy of life.”

The medical association says “these crimes were not the actions of individual doctors but involved leading members of the medical community” and should be taken as a warning for the future.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/german-medical-association-apologizes-for-nazi-era-crimes-committed-by-doctors/2012/05/25/gJQASXkDpU_story.html

[htuttle]

1. Better late than never, I suppose

[Lars77]

2. Sure, but were anyone waiting for it?

Seems a little odd, but it's of course a good general observation. The entire scientific community was involved though, not just doctors.

[lunatica]

5. The doctors who released this statement can only speak for themselves I assume

And whether an apology was awaited is irrelevant since it's these doctors who have initiated the apology show they believe an apology is due.

People who know they've done wrong many times will apologize even when no apology is asked for or expected. That shows it's an apology that comes from knowing that a wrong was done from the source of that wrongdoing. I'd say it's sincere.

[COLGATE4]

3. Pretty much 'too little, too late' in my view. nt

[lunatica]

7. Why?

This isn't an official government apology. This is doctors of this generation who feel the need to not only apologize for what previous generations of German doctors did, but to condemn that generation in the process.

I think it's never too little, too late. These are not the original doctors who perpetrated the atrocities. And the apology goes to the present Jews who lost many members of their families to the Holocaust.

[Swede Atlanta]

4. Isn't this 67 years late in coming?

Trust me, I am glad they have finally come clean but 67 years?

[lunatica]

6. This is a different generation of doctors and an apology is

never too late in coming. They may believe their generation needs to apologize to the current generation of Jews for what was done by and to the previous generations.

This is not an official government apology.

[Dokkie]

10. True

Also have to understand that the doctors are probably pushing 90s or in their late 80s and might not have the mental capacity to know exactly what they are apologizing for. Either way, its is way too late to be making any sort of apologies especially now that most of the victims of their experiments are dead now.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[davidthegnome]

9. I wonder if our own will ever apologize

Germany did terrible things under the Nazi regime. People from many walks of life took part in it to one extent or another. Yet I would say that they have, for the most part, learned from their past.

Here though, decades ago, during the height of the Eugenics movement, our own medical association forcefully sterilized tens of thousands of men and women. The apology for that...? Long time in coming. It's something that a lot of the people in this Country seem eager to simply sweep under the rug.

One thing about Nazi Germany is that it will not be forgotten easily. It rests heavily in the minds and hearts of generations of people and the people of Germany have, for the most part, acknowledged what took place and gone to great lengths to ensure it does not happen again.

Yet here in the land of the free and home of the brave, a whole lot of us would prefer to conveniently forget how close we came to our own version of Nazi power.

[Cal33]

12. The kids in school in Germany today are told what exactly Hitler had done. No holds

barred.

What does the average American kid know about what we had done to the Native
Americans? Not much. The estimated population of the Native Americans in North
America in 1800 was about 20 million. Their population today is between 4 and 5
million. About one-fifth of what it was 2 centuries ago. The population of that
of every other racial group had gone up nearly 10 times during the same period.
The Native Americans came very close to total extinction.

For instance, how many of us know that during the 18th and 19th Centuries, as we
were expanding westward, some of the local governments were paying $25 for every
Native American scalp -- man, woman and child? It's possible that Native Americans
learned about scalping from us. This was sheer genocide! Are we really that much
better?

He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.

[loyalsister]

15. My thoughts exactly

Some states have acknowledged and even granted settlements to people who were forcefully sterilized.
But at the federal level, I believe it has been swept under the rug.
Eugenicists here were well on their way to very broadly institutionalizing the ugliest possible racism and bigotry.

It would have gotten much worse here the NAZI atrocities had not been discovered during WW II.

[Solly Mack]

11. K&R

[azurnoir]

13. good enough but when will the US and especially NASA apologize

for using the data 'gained' in some of these 'experiments' as part of the initial studies for manned space flight?

[siligut]

14. We need a list of the atrocities

Some of them came to the USA after WWII and continued their work.