Brain Science under the Swastika: Ethical Violations, Resistance, and Victimization of Neuroscientists in Nazi Europe

Product Description

Eighty years ago the largest genocide ever occurred in Nazi Europe. This began with the mass extermination of patients with neurologic and psychiatric disorders that Hitler’s regime considered “useless eaters”.

The neuropsychiatric profession was systematically “cleansed” beginning in 1933, but racism and eugenics had infiltrated the specialty long before that. With the installation of Nazi-principled neuroscientists, mass forced sterilization was enacted, which transitioned to patient murder by the start of World War II. But the murder of roughly 275,000 patients was not enough. The patients’ brains were stored and used in scientific publications both during and long after the war. Also, patients themselves were used for unethical experiments. Relatively few neuroscientists resisted the Nazis, with some success in the occupied countries. Most neuroscientists involved in unethical actions continued their careers unscathed after the war. Few answered for their actions, and few repented.

The legacy of such a depraved era in the history of neuroscience and medical ethics is that codes now exist to protect patients and research subjects. But this protection is possibly subject to political extremes and individual neuroscientists can only protect patients and colleagues if they understand the dangers of a utilitarian, unethical, and uncompassionate mindset.

Brain Science under the Swastika is the only comprehensive and scholarly published work regarding the ethical and professional abuses of neuroscientists during the Nazi era. The author has crafted a scathing tour de force exploring the extremes of ethical abuse, but also ways that this can be resisted and hopefully prevented by future generations of neuroscientists and physicians.

Review

“Encyclopaedic yet profoundly humanistic – never has such a profound analysis been presented on the little-known history of neuroscience and medical ethics during the Nazi era” — Hendrik van den Bussche, author of
Medical Science in the Third Reich and
Hamburg University Medicine in National
Socialism; Former Director, Institute of Primary Medical Care and Health Services Research,University Medical Center, Germany

“Drawing upon his years of research, Zeidman provides a detailed overview of the involvement of neuroscience in Nazi medical crimes, the persecution of Jewish neuroscientists, and the resistance of individual neuroscientists both inside and outside Germany. Anyone who wants to deal with this topic in the future will not be able to do without this book” — Hans-Walter Schmuhl, Faculty for History, Philosophy, and Theology, Bielefeld University, Germany

“Zeidman details the biographies of German-speaking psychiatrists with Jewish roots, revealing their disproportionate contributions to their specialty. At the same time, he shows the viciousness with which the Nazi regime persecuted these experts after January 1933. This book is a milestone in the historiography of the medical profession in modern times” — Michael H. Kater, author of
Doctors under Hitler; Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of History, York University, Toronto

“Zeidman explores critical facets of epistemology, ethical changes, as well as adversities in the medical research community during National Socialism, 1933 to 1945. In our current climate of global political upheavals and forced migration movements, this is a very timely and cautioning book” — Frank W. Stahnisch, AMF, Hannah Professor in the History of Medicine and Health Care, The University of Calgary, Canada

About the Author

Lawrence A. Zeidman,
Associate Professor of Neurology and Bioethics, Loyola University Medical Center, USA

Dr. Zeidman is from Chicagoland and is a board-certified clinical neurologist and neuromuscular specialist, along with being a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine, with joint appointments