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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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278 |
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| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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in the process of naming names at the top of the Nazi
medical hierarchy and that, consequently, medical colleagues helped bring about
his death.20
It would be too easy to
attribute Clauberg’s criminal medical behavior to his physical appearance
and resulting “complexes.” While there is no doubt that he could be
seen as a classical case of what Alfred Adler described as seeking extreme
forms of compensatory behavior for deep-seated feelings of bodily inferiority,
21 I would also stress his intense
relationship to Nazi ideology (stemming from a more or less typical historical
experience beginning with the First World War) along with his extraordinary
ambition within the Nazi system. A former student of his told how Clauberg,
though “a frightfully ugly dwarf” and “full of complexes,”
nonetheless was friendly to students and took them on weekend trips, and added,
“I liked him a lot then.” Even with his psychological aberrations,
that is, Clauberg might under a different regime have found a life pattern with
a manageable mixture of accomplishment, arrogance, and corruption. Or, to put
the matter another way, just as there are always Klehrs available for direct
killing, so are there always Claubergs available for ideological and
professional criminality and killing. Nazi institutions provided the ideal
climates for nourishing Clauberg’s compensatory grandiosity and
psychopathic tendencies. Auschwitz drew also on his research talent, which was
radically corrupted in the service of the “negative eugenics” of the
biomedical vision. |
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| X-Ray and Surgical Castration: Biomedical Patron and
Political Doctor |
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Horst Schumann differed from Clauberg in being not a
renowned specialist but a reliable “old Nazi doctor” (he joined the
Nazi Party and the SA in 1930) who was available for ruthless medical
enterprises. Schumann had been a leading figure in the “euthanasia”
program as the director of the killing center at Grafeneck. When that center
closed, he took over the one at Sonnenstein, subsequently became active in
project 14f13 as a member of the medical commissions visiting the camps, and in
that capacity had come to Auschwitz on 28 August 1941, and participated in the
selection of 575 prisoners sent to the Sonnenstein killing center (see pages
142-43). His qualifications for Auschwitz X-ray castration were more political
than medical.
In this case, Himmler played an even greater role in
formulating the experiments, together with Viktor Brack, the Chancellery
official active in both the “euthanasia” project and the
establishment of the death camps. In early 1941 Himmler and Brack were already
exchanging memos in which they shared a vision of “sterilization or
castration … by means of X-rays” on a massive scale (see pages
274-76). Brack later claimed that the idea originated with Himmler for
application to Jewish populations, especially in Poland, and also implicated
Reinhard Heydrich, the most ruthless voice around Himmler, but at the same time
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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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Page 278 |
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