Description
This is the first full-scale biography of Karl Brandt, one of the most powerful figures of the Third Reich. It tells the story of his rise to power and influence at the heart of Hitler’s coterie of trusted advisors and confidants. It also tells of his execution after Nuremberg, and of the many thousands of 'patients' condemned to death as a result of his researches.As General Commissioner for Health and Sanitation Karl Brandt became the highest medical authority in the Nazi regime and played a major role in the organisation and implementation of the first mass killing programme of the Third Reich, the so-called ‘Euthanasia’ programme. He initiated experiments which were carried out on concentration camp inmates, and was eventually put in charge of biological and chemical warfare research. How was it that a rational, highly cultured, literate, idealistic and talented young professional could come to be responsible for mass murder and criminal human experimentation on a previously unimaginable scale? In this riveting biography, Ulf Schmidt explores in detail what we know and what we cannot know about one of the most intriguing of the Nuremberg Nazis.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Prologue
2. The Ambitious Idealist
3. Becoming Hitler's Doctor
4. Hitler's Envoy
5. The 'Euthanasia' Doctor
6. The General Commissioner
7. Detached Leadership
8. Human experimentation
9. Medical Supremo
10. Nuremberg
11. Trial
12. Under Sentence of Death
Notes
Bibliogrpahy
Index
Author(s)
Ulf Schmidt,
Dr Ulf Schmidt is Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent, Canterbury, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Research Associate at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford.
Reviews
"Remarkable new research by a German historian is revealing the ideological evolution of one of Hitler's closest associates. The research- which has taken nine years to carry out-shows how an apparently decent caring man metamorphosed into a mass murderer who was sentenced to death at Nuremberg." -BBC
,
"As British historian Schmidt shows, a belief in eugenics, combined with a dash of ambition, motivated Brandt...a man of culture and science who turned medicine into a tool of murder."
--Publishers Weekly
,
"An important contribution to the history of the Third Reich. In exploring the extensive web of relationships of the most powerful medical figure during the wartime period, he provides valuable insights into the institutional dynamics behind the criminal medical policies of the regime." - German History
,
"How such an intelligent and gifted young physician could betray everything that medicine – not to mention Western civilization – stood for, is the main theme of Schmidt's spellbinding book….Although Schmidt's book is historical and cannot be classified as part of the modern-day 'culture wars,' its conclusion carries a powerful lesson for medical ethics in our own time." - First Things
William Doino Jr. ,
“Ulf Schmidt’s excellent biography of Karl Brandt, a significant, though hitherto remarkably little-known, member of Hitler’s entourage casts significant new light on how a cultured, intelligent and idealistic doctor could so fervently believe in the principles of Nazi inhumanity that down to his execution he saw nothing wrong in eliminating the sick and infirm in the interests of a more healthy Volkskörper”.
Professor Sir Ian Kershaw,
'[An] excellent book' - Medicine, Conflict and Survival
,