Germany’s doctors ask forgiveness for Nazi-era crimes

Medical association apologizes for human experiments, sterilization and euthanasia

27 May 2012, 5:29 am

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Auschwitz's Block 10, where medical experiments were conducted on the camp's inmates. (CC BY-SA, VbCrLf, Wikimedia Commons)

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s medical association has adopted a declaration apologizing for sadistic experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazis.

In the statement adopted earlier this week in Nuremberg, the association said many doctors under the Nazis were “guilty, contrary to their mission to heal, of scores of human rights violations and we ask the forgiveness of their victims, living and deceased, and of their descendants.”

In addition to performing pseudo-scientific experiments on concentration camp inmates, German doctors also were key to the Nazi’s program of forced sterilization or euthanasia of the mentally ill or others deemed “unworthy of life.”

The medical association says “these crimes were not the actions of individual doctors but involved leading members of the medical community” and should be taken as a warning for the future.