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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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359 |
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| Dr. Auschwitz: Josef
Mengele |
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who worked still more closely with Mengele, said
similarly, “To advance one step in the search to unlock the secret of
multiplying the race of superior beings destined to rule was [for Mengele] a
‘noble goal.’”37
Teresa W. was aware of that view, and expressed skepticism about it
because she “did not hear anything from Mengele” that suggested this
goal. But I had the impression that she was no longer quite certain about
Mengele’s goals. There was still another rumor, that Mengele “wanted
to pair up female twins with male twins, and … they should have sexual
relations … to see if twins would be born of twins.” A related rumor
was that twins’ sperm would be used to impregnate “German
ladies,” so that they could have twins in turn; or that twins’ blood
would be injected into the veins of German women, ostensibly for the same
purpose.
Over all, most prisoner doctors were more skeptical than
Teresa W. about the quality of Mengele’s work with twins. Dr. Jan W.
thought him very “superficial” as a researcher and, after looking at
fragments of notes from the research kept in the Auschwitz Museum, said that
“no scientist would take [them] seriously.” (The notes consist only
of a few columns of figures, and it would be difficult to draw from them
conclusions of any kind.) One prisoner doctor put the matter simply and
absolutely: “He wanted to be God — to create a new race.”
In evaluating these various views, there is no doubt about the truth of
the first position: namely, that Mengele was continuing work with twins
initiated by others and possibly, himself in the Frankfurt and Berlin
institutes, stressing genetic determinism. Earlier in my work I thought that
this perspective, along with Mengele’s scientific and academic ambition,
accounted for his twin research, and that the vision of learning the secret of
multiple births was the fantasy of others. Now I am not so sure. The evidence
seems to me consistent with at least the possibility that Mengele had the
ambition of extending his genetic determinism toward some form of racial
application: the use of knowledge of genetic factors that influence the
formation of twins to stimulate that formation in particular situations.
He also might have wished to use what he learned from twins for the
genetic cultivation of superior individuals, not necessarily twins themselves.
While these purposes fall far short of the grand vision of “repopulating
Germany,” they would be consistent with German national goals at the time
and certainly with Nazi ideology. They would also be consistent with something
else his friend Dr. B. told me: that Mengele’s work had bearing on
selecting national leaders “not [on a] political basis but [on a]
biological basis.” In other words, Mengele might have wished to use
genetic insights derived from twin research both for “breeding”
desirable leaders (Teresa W. saw him as “like a stud owner”) and for
selecting them from among existing contenders.
But we cannot be certain
about Mengele’s precise motivations. W., who worked so closely with him,
said to me at one point: “To hear his confession — his answers to
different questions people might put to him — would |
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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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