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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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73 |
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| “Euthanasia”: Direct Medical
Killing |
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senior doctors were involved in killing, they soon gave way
to younger men, and some of the young doctors were quickly elevated to senior
status. Killing doctors came to be chosen apparently for their combination of
inexperience and political enthusiasm.59
At Brandenburg, for instance, Dr. Eberl was twenty-nine years old when
he learned to operate the gassing mechanism. The man later assigned to assist
him, Dr. Aquilin Ullrich, was only twenty-six. Ullrich testified that his
duties hardly required medical knowledge. He and Eberl did no more than make a
“superficial inspection” of the naked patients in the anteroom of the
gas chamber, which at the time he found “inexplicable”; subsequently
he came to realize that “the presence. of the physician at that moment was
used to calm the mentally ill and camouflage the killing process.”60
Another doctor, who first worked as an
assistant at a killing center, was informed by his immediate superior that
“a physician, according to the law, had the last say, and he therefore had
to re-examine the arrivals.” Later he was informed by Dr. Nitsche, one of
the “senior experts,” that these pro forma
“‘examinations’ before the death chamber served mainly to calm
the conscience of the doctor who has to carry out the killing.”
61 The Nazis were clearly aware of the
psychological importance of the medical “as if” situation to the
doctors involved.
For the most part, the “examination”
consisted of the doctor simply checking on the fact that patient and chart
coincided — the right person was being killed — and using the
occasion to help decide which false diagnosis would be appropriate (consistent
with the patient’s record and appearance) for the death certificates soon
to be issued. Reversing a decision about a patient’s death at that point
was extremely rare, probably limited only to a few discovered to have been war
casualties of some kind.62* The fundamental
significance of that pseudo examination was medical legitimation of murder.
Many of these patients were apparently deceived. A man who worked at
the Hadamar killing center told how a patient he had known for many years, said
to him on the way to the gas chamber, “We will have a real bath now and
get other clothes.”63 When patients were
not deceived and did resist, they were quickly subdued by physical force,
though even this could resemble ordinary treatment of psychiatric patients.
What happened next makes clear the doctor’s responsibility for the entire
killing sequence: |
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After doors were closed, the air was sucked out
of the gas chamber . through a ventilator by the same doctor who carried out
the earlier “examination.” Then for about ten minutes, carbon
monoxide was let in [by that doctor] and its effect observed through a small
window. As soon as he thought that those shut in had died, he had the gas
chamber |
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* In Württemberg, only
twenty-nine patients, mostly war veterans, were saved. |
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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