German Professors and Nazi Crimes:
The Medical Profession and Its Role in Nazi Policy

Dr. Patricia Heberer, historian with the Center for Advanced Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, addresses the role that medical professionals played as planners and implementers of Nazi racial hygiene policy. She explains how physicians worked to apply two significant aspects of Nazi policy: compulsory sterilization and the clandestine "euthanasia" program, the Nazis' first program of mass murder.

Listen to an interview with
Jean Zeldin & Susan Bachrach

From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany's government led by Adolf Hitler promoted a nationalism that combined territorial expansion with claims of biological superiorityâ”an "Aryan master race"â”and virulent antisemitism. Driven by a racist ideology legitimized by German scientists, the Nazis attempted to eliminate all of Europe's Jews, ultimately killing six million in the Holocaust. Many others also became victims of persecution and murder in the Nazis' campaign to cleanse German society of individuals viewed as threats to the "health" of the nation.