On top of this, it is crucial to consider the impact of the social conditions within which these physicians operated. Economic conditions had deteriorated drastically in Germany in the early 1930s, and this affected physicians in many ways. By 1932 the incomes of 72% of doctors lay below the minimum amount needed for survival, and in this context, the Nazis looked quite appealing with their claims that they could bring order to the medical profession and restore jobs, money, and professional pride (Baumslag 48). Economic hardship impacted medical institutions as well, and that influenced doctors’ opinions on the necessity of extreme acts. For example, it was after the Depression struck that involuntary sterilization gained widespread support among doctors, as there were now huge …show more content…
Is it really that simple for ordinary individuals, especially those trained to save lives, to become murderers? While a thorough investigation of that question exceeds the constraints of this paper, one brief interpretation will be proposed, namely the concept of “doubling” put forth by Robert Jay Lifton, based on extensive research and interviews with former Nazi doctors. His findings suggest that a physician agreeing to participate in mass murder would soon undergo a psychological split of the self into two complete wholes. The sense of conscience would be transferred into the second self— which Lifton often refers to as the Auschwitz self— but with adapted criteria of right and wrong. Remaining loyal to the fatherland would be good, for example, while failing to protect the Aryan race would be bad. In this context, the second self could then commit murder, like by operating the gas chambers, without really interpreting it as murder, while the first self could be absolved of all responsibility (Lifton
The concepts discussed within the article regarding medicalization and changes within the field of medicine served to be new knowledge for me as the article addressed multiple different aspects regarding the growth of medicalization from a sociological standpoint. Furthermore, the article “The Shifting Engines of Medicalization” discussed the significant changes regarding medicalization that have evolved and are evidently practiced within the contemporary society today. For instance, changes have occurred within health policies, corporatized medicine, clinical freedom, authority and sovereignty exercised by physicians has reduced as other factors began to grow that gained importance within medical care (Conrad 4). Moreover, the article emphasized
Goldhagen's book however, has the merit of opening up a new perspective on ways of viewing the Holocaust, and it is the first to raise crucial questions about the extent to which eliminationist anti-Semitism was present among the German population as a whole. Using extensive testimonies from the perpetrators themselves, it offers a chilling insight into the mental and cognitive structures of hundreds of Germans directly involved in the killing operations. Anti-Semitism plays a primary factor in the argument from Goldhagen, as it is within his belief that anti-Semitism "more or less governed the ideational life of civil society" in pre-Nazi Germany . Goldhagen stated that a
instant postwar penal code of German, which remained first-degree murder could merely be 'for stand intentions' that did not incorporate 'unflustered' contribution in mass killing note. However, executor evidence as well as the Milgram note points that even at the time the wish to obey the group remains a most important ground for somebody performing a dissipated group act. They more or less constantly structure their conformity on “Just Following Orders,” (Estlund 221).
These doctors used their positions to aid the progress of the Nazi ideals as well as the success of the German military. Despite the terrible crimes the doctors committed, they believed that they were doing good. They helped to achieve a supreme race as well as a productive, healthy military. They were later punished for their crimes.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
Ordinary Men Christopher Browning describes how the Reserve Police Battalion 101, like the rest of German society, was immersed in a flood of racist and anti-Semitic propaganda. Browning describes how the Order Police provided indoctrination both in basic training and as an ongoing practice within each unit. Many of the members were not prepared for the killing of Jews. The author examines the reasons some of the police officers did not shoot. The physiological effect of isolation, rejection, and ostracism is examined in the context of being assigned to a foreign land with a hostile population.
While the concept of the profession began in the 17th century, our paper will focus more on the contemporary American history starting in the 1940s. Dr. Amos Johnson, a founder of the American Board of Family Practice, hired a hospital orderly named Henry Treadwell to assist in the daily activities of his office. Dr. Johnson’s practice in Garland, North Carolina, initiated the spread of the physician assistant model across the state. Dr. Eugene Stead and his general medicine residents at Duke University took interest in this idea. In 1942, due to the lack of adequate medical care during World War II, Dr. Stead created a three year medical doctorate fast-track program. This sparked the idea that perhaps one day he could implement a similar program to alleviate the physician shortage in the United States.
It has been said by many experts that there has been a surplus of physicians in the past, but that there will soon be a shortage of physicians. This shortage will have been instigated by many factors, and is predicted to have various effects on society, both immediate and long term. There have been proposed solutions to this shortage, but there is a fine balance to be found with these many solutions and factors. However, once this balance is found, the long-term mending of the physician shortage may begin.
It is only natural to dismiss the idea of our own personal flaws, for who with a healthy sense of self wanders in thoughts of their own insufficiency? The idea of hypocrisy is one that strikes a sensitive nerve to most, and being labeled a hypocrite is something we all strive to avoid. Philip Meyer takes this emotion to the extreme by examining a study done by a social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, involving the effects of discipline. In the essay, "If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably", Meyer takes a look at Milgram's study that mimics the execution of the Jews (among others) during World War II by placing a series of subjects under similar conditions of stress, authority, and obedience. The main theme of this experiment is giving subjects the impression that they are shocking an individual for incorrectly answering a list of questions, but perhaps more interesting is the results that occur from both ends of the research. Meyer's skill in this essay is using both the logical appeal of facts and statistics as well as the pathetic appeal to emotion to get inside the reader's mind in order to inform and dissuade us about our own unscrupulous actions.
Despite the decades of research, discussion, and debate on Hitler, many questions about him remain unanswered. Personally, as I encountered Hitler in my previous studies of history, I found it virtually impossible to reconcile the fact that a human being could conceive of such evil and that he could convince others to help him perpetrate it. This paper is an attempt to reconcile and answer at least some of my questions. Is it possible to find an explanation that reveals what motivated Hitler to commit such crimes? Did Hitler actually believe he was doing the right thing, or did he understand good and evil and simply chose to commit evil to further his own personal quest for power? Did Hitler, by himself, cause the Holocaust, or was Hitler simply a product of his environment, a manifestation of a festering anti-Semitic feeling that had existed in Germa...
The life of Heinrich Himmler is the perfect example of what happens when hatred and prejudice overpowers one’s conscience and morals.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage, 1997. Print.
"Science as Salvation: Weimar Eugenics, 1919–1933." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 27 May 2014.
The Nazi mass murder was not only the technological attainment of a society that was becoming industrial but the organization attainment of a bureaucratic society (Bauman, 32). Modernity has also seen an improvement in technology. Technology in recent decades has implied that it was possible for one nation to make use of the murder methods that distance the victim from the killers. Techniques were often sought to help reduce the physical proximity amid the victims and the perpetrator. The introduction of the gas chambers reduced the role of the killer to being named as the sanitation officer. As such the modern bureaucracy has served an integral role in facilitating holocaust. Nonetheless, bureaucracy alone does not lead to the start of the genocide. For bureaucracy to lead to the holocaust, it required interconnecting with another significant aspect of modernity named as the racism ideology. The source of race as an as scientific notion is a modern occurrence established during the Europen 19th century as the Darwinian thought of evolution and was applied to account for the differences between the societies. As such, Racism is an ideology that cannot exist without the modern science and the prevailing notion of progress. However, modernity not only enabled racism but required racism. With the start of the equality one of the Enlightenment ideals, the race,
If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.