The totalitarian structure of the Nazi State demanded fundamental
subordination of all principles of medicine to National Socialist
population policy and racial concepts. The most emphatic and repelling
expression of those new aims and goals came from the Nazi Director of
Public Health in the Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Arthur Guett, who
took office in 1933. In a book published in 1935 entitled “The Structure
of Public Health in the Third Reich,” Guett announced that “the
ill-conceived ‘love of thy neighbor’ has to disappear, especially in
relation to inferior or asocial creatures. It is the supreme duty of a
national state to grant life and livelihood only to the healthy and
hereditarily sound portion of the people in order to secure the
maintenance of a hereditarily sound and racially pure folk for all
eternity. The life of an individual has meaning only in the light of
that ultimate aim, that is, in the light of his meaning to his family
and to his national state.”
The entire public health policy of the Third Reich was put in line with
this pronouncement of principles. The Minister of the Interior, Frick,
reorganized the Health Department in his ministry in such a way that
police, public health, welfare administration and social services were
all coordinated in pursuit of these goals. The beginnings of this
reorganization started already in the summer of 1933 and were
substantially completed by 1936. All these activities were concentrated
under Dr. Guett, who was thus enabled to coordinate the practical
application of his policy with his theoretical principles. Even
psychiatric social service agencies, which did thorough and
well-organized work prior to 1933, were reduced to mere screening
stations for hereditary and racial selection.
All government-employed physicians had to take a special new course
lasting 18 months and had to be Party members. The German Red Cross was
likewise drawn into the orbit of the Nazi Party and the SS, in view of
Dr. Grawitz’ appointment as president of the Red Cross. In 1945, after
Grawitz’ suicide, the defendant Gebhardt succeeded him.
The Third Reich also completely reorganized the professional medical
societies. The German Medical Association and the Hartmann Bund were
abolished. All German physicians were reorganized through an
organization derived from the Reich Physicians’ Chamber. This National
Physicians’ Chamber was placed directly under a medical “fuehrer” with
the title of “Reichsaerztefuehrer.” This position was also held by
Conti. All doctors except those on active military duty were subordinate
to him. His regional deputies were selected from the ranks of active
National Socialists who terrorized the district branch societies. These
deputies, who usually strutted about in SA or SS uniforms, were
recruited mainly from the early members of the National Socialist
Medical Association. It was their job to bring pressure on physicians to
join and take part in various party organizations, such as the SA and
SS.
A command performance, especially for younger physicians, was attendance
at the so-called Fuehrer-School of German Physicians at Altrehse in
Mecklenburg, which had been organized by the defendant Blome. There
physicians were indoctrinated in the National Socialist point of view
and way of life. The so-called comradely association and sports activity
were merely window dressing for political spying. These courses finally
became compulsory and had to be attended for several months annually.
The general respect, in which doctors were held, sunk in view of the
decreasing level of general education and ability of the doctors. This
was partly due to the constant occupation of the physicians’ time with
Party functions, especially the time-consuming Party formations and
marches which made it impossible for young physicians to develop
scientific interests, so that recent graduates increasingly lost
understanding and inclination for serious scientific study and
long-range research.