The Doctors' Trial
Ethical Reflections on Judgment at Nuremberg
Following the liberation of the National Socialist (Nazi) concentration camps in 1945, political pressure was applied to bring the perpetrators of 'crimes against humanity' to justice. Although similar ethical abuses had been committed by Japan (particularly in Unit 731), Japanese physicians were offered immunity if they agreed to turn over experimental data to the U.S. military. In fact, the U.S. government falsely claimed that there was “no evidence” that Japanese physicians had ever experimented on humans. Thus, the subject of war crimes focused solely on Germany.
The U.S. Government Prosecutes Minor German Physicians
There were 12 separate trials — the most prominent being the Major War Criminals Trial against German military leaders. This trial was joined in by all Allied Powers, including Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
There was also a separate Doctors’ Trial prosecuted solely by the United States. Of the 23 accused defendants, 20 were relatively minor German physicians or medical researchers. Only two doctors were prominent members of the Nazi party. Leading physicians from the Third Reich such as Pernkopf (anatomy), Rudin (eugenics), and Schneider (euthanasia) never were indicted.
The Trials Begin in Nuremberg, Germany
The trials were conducted in Nuremberg, Germany, for practical reasons. Nuremberg had one of the few courthouses in Europe that had not been destroyed by Allied bombing raids. The city also held a symbolic connection to the infamous Nuremberg Laws, by which Nazi leaders had stripped Jews of basic rights, including the right to own businesses and to hold private property.
The 23 German defendants in the Doctors’ Trial were indicted on October 25, 1946. The indictments covered four separate counts:
- The Common Design or Conspiracy
- War Crimes
- Crimes Against Humanity
- Membership in a Criminal Organization
Nazi Doctors Deny Wrongdoing
In one of the many ironies of the Doctors’ Trial, the U.S. military prosecutors did not originally intend for the German defendants to be arraigned on any charge other than murder. According to Weindling (2001), the U.S. prosecutors hoped to use Nazi SS Records confiscated from Heinrich Himmler to prove criminal homicide. As legal strategy evolved, however, ethical considerations arose in unexpected ways from the trial testimony.
The initial attitude of the defendants was outright denial of wrongdoing. Indeed, one of the Nazi defendants (Kurt Blome, Deputy of the Reich Health Leader) maintained that the “exhibition patients” used in the high altitude experiments at Dachau were treated well.
According to Blome’s testimony, the prisoners “lived in a specially selected room and they were well nourished. They received cigarettes. They were always presented, and were once introduced to Himmler at the occasion of his visit, and Himmler made big promises to them in case they survived, and told them they would be released.”
The Nazi Doctors Introduce a Novel Defense
Later, the defense introduced by the defendants' lawyers proved even more startling. During the trial, cartons of evidence were presented that showed how human experimentation was part of “accepted medical procedure.” Furthermore, many of the abuses condemned by prosecutors were similar to experiments conducted by U.S. doctors over the preceding 100 years — including the infamous 1944 malaria experiments on Illinois prisoners.
In response, Governor Dwight Green of Illinois hastily formed a committee intended to rebut allegations that the malaria experiments at Stateville Prison were unethical. The deliberations by the Green Committee were published in 1948. Among their observations, the Green Committee insisted that serving as a subject in a medical experiment was no different than other “meritorious services” performed by prisoners in confinement, including “working in a barber shop, the kitchen, the shoe shop or furniture shop.” Whether the Green Committee felt that any of the prison duties listed were as hazardous as being injected with malaria was not discussed.
Ultimately, however, the defense strategy had no impact. Rather than debate whether or not Nazi medical research was comparable to human experimentation performed by U.S. scientists, the prosecutors ignored the issue. Instead of focusing on the larger problem of Nazi research on German civilians, the prosecutors concentrated on abuses involving non-German political prisoners solely for military purposes.
Judgment at Nuremberg
On August 19, 1947, final judgment was issued. Sixteen defendants were found guilty of one or more of the four counts, while 7 defendants were acquitted.
The Military Tribunal responsible for prosecuting Nazi war crimes felt it necessary to go beyond the verdict. Searching for an ethical foundation, the Military Tribunal set forth “certain basic principles” concerning experimentation on human subjects that must be observed by future scientists. These principles came to be known as the Nuremberg Code (1947).
References
Blome K. 1946. Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Karl Brandt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 13 December 1946, 0930-1430, Justice Beals, presiding. In: Harvard Law School Library. Nuremberg Trials Project. A Digital Document Collection. 2003.
Green Committee. 1948. Ethics governing the service of prisoners as subjects in medical experiments: Report of a committee appointed by Governor Dwight H. Green of Illinois. JAMA. 136(7):457–458.
Weindling PJ. 2001. The origins of informed consent: the International Scientific Commission on Medical War Crimes, and the Nuremberg Code. Bull. Hist. Med. 75:37–71.
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