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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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132 |
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| “LIFE UNWORTHY OF LIFE”: THE
GENETIC CURE |
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been made into “a Godlike being”; that he was
the kind of man who had to “talk himself free” of problems, and would
contradict himself, and that people were too quick to rush to do what they
thought he wanted; and that, like all geniuses, he was psychologically unstable
and “what we doctors would call a psychopath.” S. described telling
Conti, before he himself went off to war, that “you cannot ask me to
follow a Führer. . . who I am convinced is no longer sane.” In the
end, however, S. exonerated Hitler by attributing his mental difficulties to
his medical mismanagement by Morell, the quack doctor, who constantly gave
Hitler drugs and created what Dr. S. was convinced were addictions to both
amphetamines and to intravenous glucose.* In this way, he invoked a medical
explanation for the errors and excesses of Hitler himself and the Nazi regime.
Concerning the concentration camps, Dr. S. said that those physicians
who worked there “had nothing to do with us” — that is, were not
part of the physicians’ groups he worked with or presided over. He
insisted that he had heard nothing of the camps. until after the war, that
doctors’ roles in experiments and selections were “disputed,”
that “the whole Himmler shop” responsible for it all was so secretive
that it was hard to learn the truth; and finally that “the doctors in
those institutions [camps] were the least National Socialist,” and
“if they had been genuinely National Socialist, they would have been at
the front!” — which is where Dr. S. went.
In 1943, when he
saw signs of Hitler’s “deterioration” and other “big
mistakes,” he went to see Conti and berated him for his shortcomings,
especially his failure to protect Hitler from Morell, and abruptly enlisted
with other old SA men in a Waffen-SS unit as a common soldier and left for the
Russian front. S. was seeking a form of purification, following an important
personal quest (“I wanted to experience war”), and, above all, sought
the mystical “front experience” associated with the First World War.
Referring again to his brother and father, he said, “All this left such an
impression on me that, even though I was leaving seven children, I volunteered
for ... this war experience, . . . right there at the front.” He was not
disappointed. He wrote glowingly about his experience as both common soldier
and military doctor, and added, “Humanly speaking and also from a
physician’s viewpoint, I would be lacking a great deal had I not lived
this.”
Johann S.’s life story illustrates the interaction of
historical forces with individual-psychological tendencies. Concerning that
interaction I would emphasize his intense belief in the immortal Volk;
the mystique of war and |
__________
*Dr. S. gave a
psychohistorical twist to the matter by saying that Hitler’s distress at
not being able to realize his dream of an alliance with England caused chronic
stomach trouble, which Morell was called in to treat. There is little doubt
that Morell was a charlatan, but there is dispute about whether he created
amphetamine or other addiction in Hitler. One study concludes that
“amphetamine toxicity is an extremely probable diagnosis”; but a
still more recent study concludes that no such addiction existed. 47 Whatever Hitler’s
relationship to amphetamine, one should recognize the danger of invoking
addiction as “the reason” for his or the Nazis’ extreme behavior
or negative historical direction. |
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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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