Deadly medicine : creating the master race
(Book)

Also published: 2008.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-217) and index.

"Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race lays bare the critical role German physicians, scientists, public health officials, and academic experts played in supporting and implementing the Nazis' murderous program of racial eugenics that culminated in the Holocaust. This volume presents an array of new perspectives that shed light on this period and complements the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's extraordinary exhibition that chronicles this history. The exhibition, the first of its kind in the United States, examines Nazism's roots in biology and genetics dating back to the early 1900s. It illustrates how - in the name of utopian ideals - Nazi leadership, in collaboration with individuals in professions entrusted with the protection of life, subscribed to unbridled violations of human rights, and, ultimately, genocide." "With many never-before published photographs, images from rare Nazi publications, and historical artifacts, Deadly Medicine documents the impact of these Nazi policies and programs on its countless victims. Seven internationally recognized authorities provide the wider contextual framework for this compelling visual and documentary record. Their accompanying essays focus on key aspects of this history, introducing the reader to the origins of German racial hygiene during the early 1900s, the international history of eugenics, the sterilization and reproductive policies of the Third Reich, the formulation of the "science of race, " the Nazi "euthanasia" program, and the numerous links between "euthanasia" and the "Final Solution." The volume concludes with the insightful commentary of a German scientist who assesses the legitimacy of Nazi science and warns that never again should science "become the reason to justify injustices to a genetically defined group of humans.""--BOOK JACKET.