FYSEMR 23H – Medicine in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—Anatomy as Example for Changes in Medical Science

FYSEMR 23H – Medicine in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—Anatomy as Example for Changes in Medical Science

Semester: Spring
Offered: 2025
Instructor: Sabine Hildebrandt
Meeting Time: W, 3:00 – 5:00pm

Medicine in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust—Anatomy as Example for Changes in Medical Science from Routine to Murder

This seminar introduces students to the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust as an extreme example of antisemitism and racism, and of crimes against humanity and genocide. These included medical crimes, which, thus far, are the most thoroughly documented examples of ethical transgressions of health care professionals. They include forced sterilizations, the “euthanasia” systematic patient murder program, and forced brutal medical experiments on the living and the dead. However, under conditions of oppression by the same political system, some health care professionals chose to retain the healing powers of medicine.

Anatomy in Nazi Germany is an example of ethical transgressions in the medical sciences that reveals the complex relationships between scientists and the Nazi regime. Changes of the traditional anatomical body procurement manifested in the use of many bodies of Nazi victims in teaching and scientific investigations. Research gradually moved from routine studies to murder, from the anatomy lab to the Nazi prison system and then to the concentration camps. Ultimately, anatomists were complicit with the government through their role in the complete destruction of the perceived “enemies” of the Nazi regime.

This history of medicine can thus serve as a model for the recognition of patterns and common roots with other histories of discrimination, oppression, and atrocities. Also, there are continuities and legacies from this history that reach into the present and have relevance for today’s education and practice in the health professions.

Class Notes: First-Year Seminars are available only to first-year students. You may apply to both Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 First-Year Seminars via the FYS lottery between July 15 and August 19, 2024 at 11 a.m.

You may apply to as many seminars each term as you would like, but we recommend you apply to at least six in fall and three in spring.

As part of your application, you must provide a brief statement on why you are interested in each seminar. You will be notified of lottery results for both fall and spring seminars at 5 pm on Weds, August 21. If you are unsuccessful in the lottery, you may still join any seminar with open seats. A list of open seminars and instructions on next steps will be available on the First-Year Seminar Program website August 22.

For more details please visit the Harvard Course Catalog.