What do you think?
Rate this book
Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich
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.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
6 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 1, 2017
Incredibly dense and exhaustive biography that not only tells us the full story of Brandt but also the way medicine was corrupted in the National Socialist era.The horrific experiments on concentration camp inmates and the appalling euthanasia project are authoritatively dealt with,its incredible that men of science got involved in such evil.Not an easy read but highly recommended
August 28, 2012
"Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor, Medicine and Power in the Third Reich" is the first full biography of Hitler's escort physician, who became the Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation, and the "Medical Supremo" responsible for Germany's infamous euthanization program and the horrifying medical experiments in concentration camps.
The Nuremberg trial judges declared that Brandt was guilty of crimes against humanity, rejecting his defense that euthanasia was a humane alleviation of human suffering and that the S.S. administrators bore full responsibility for whatever happened to inmates. He went to the gallows on June 2, 1948, the first of seven men condemned to death in the famous Doctors Trial.
Nothing in Ulf Schmidt's meticulously researched, if poorly written, book challenges the findings at Nuremberg. The chief value of Mr. Schmidt's biography is that he explores in excruciating detail how an idealistic man such as Brandt, who once applied to work with Alfred Schweitzer in Africa, came to believe in the virtue of mass murder. Just as important is Mr. Schmidt's argument that biography "can overcome the tension between depicting ‘everyday normality,' on the one hand, and unprecedented levels of violence and ‘political criminality' in the Third Reich, on the other."
Brandt, a native of Alsace, grew up in a region claimed by both the French and the Germans, and felt humiliated after his Germany's defeat in World War I. Following the lead of other family members, he was attracted to the study of medicine, regarding it as a way of benefiting humanity. He soon became attracted to figures such as Schweitzer, another Alsace native, who had built an international reputation as a quasi-messianic figure. In other words, Brandt could not resist leaders who had power, authority, and influence over masses of people. He had, in a word, an ambition to improve the human race.
Educated during the Weimar period, Brandt was exposed to eugenics, a "science" founded on the idea that the future of the human race depended on fostering the reproduction of healthy individuals and eliminating those that were defective. Euthanasia appealed to German doctors long before Hitler took power. And the key determinants in their thinking were race and community, not individuality. Individuals could be sacrificed, or euthanized, for the betterment of society as a whole. Institutions could better treat the healthy if the unhealthy were eliminated.
It might seem quite a switch from Schweitzer to Hitler, but as Mr. Schmidt shows, Hitler appeared as another messianic figure to the masses. Nazi iconography, superbly developed by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and others, depicted the Führer as a savior, descending from the clouds in his airplane or atop platforms towering over the cheering populace below him.
Meeting Hitler through the auspices of his wife, a famous athlete, Brandt quickly became part of the Führer's inner circle, accompanying Hitler, a hypochondriac, on his many trips before and during the war. Mr. Schmidt is especially adept at explaining how Brandt absorbed Hitler's style of "detached leadership." Also known as plausible deniability, the Führer's method of making decisions and delegating authority was to deliver roundabout lectures during which subordinates were supposed to glean what he wanted. Direct orders — even oral ones — were rare, which meant that Hitler's "will" was subject to considerable interpretation. If he did not like or did not want to take responsibility for an action or policy, he could always claim he was misunderstood. Brandt, in his turn, learned to usurp ever greater control over the mechanisms of government without ever approving, in so many words, the euthanizing of more than 70,000 German civilians between 1939 and 1941, or the horrors perpetrated by the infamous Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz. Indeed, Brandt could deny knowing the names of such doctors, and in many instances, Mr. Schmidt suggests, Brandt would have been telling the truth.
But how could Brandt claim his conscience was clear? He believed individual suffering was alleviated via euthanasia, and that dying in an experiment meant helping humanity. Either way, Brandt felt he was in the clear. As Mr. Schmidt puts it, there "could be no meaning for the individual, unless the person's death was considered to have meaning as a kind of ‘sacrifice' for the sake of the community."
Be patient with Mr. Schmidt. Phrases such as "the fact that" and "the ring of truth" occur with fatiguing regularity — not to mention passages first quoted, only to be then paraphrased. Despite these infelicities, he has produced an extraordinary study of an individual, a government, and an era that few biographies can hope to equal.
The Nuremberg trial judges declared that Brandt was guilty of crimes against humanity, rejecting his defense that euthanasia was a humane alleviation of human suffering and that the S.S. administrators bore full responsibility for whatever happened to inmates. He went to the gallows on June 2, 1948, the first of seven men condemned to death in the famous Doctors Trial.
Nothing in Ulf Schmidt's meticulously researched, if poorly written, book challenges the findings at Nuremberg. The chief value of Mr. Schmidt's biography is that he explores in excruciating detail how an idealistic man such as Brandt, who once applied to work with Alfred Schweitzer in Africa, came to believe in the virtue of mass murder. Just as important is Mr. Schmidt's argument that biography "can overcome the tension between depicting ‘everyday normality,' on the one hand, and unprecedented levels of violence and ‘political criminality' in the Third Reich, on the other."
Brandt, a native of Alsace, grew up in a region claimed by both the French and the Germans, and felt humiliated after his Germany's defeat in World War I. Following the lead of other family members, he was attracted to the study of medicine, regarding it as a way of benefiting humanity. He soon became attracted to figures such as Schweitzer, another Alsace native, who had built an international reputation as a quasi-messianic figure. In other words, Brandt could not resist leaders who had power, authority, and influence over masses of people. He had, in a word, an ambition to improve the human race.
Educated during the Weimar period, Brandt was exposed to eugenics, a "science" founded on the idea that the future of the human race depended on fostering the reproduction of healthy individuals and eliminating those that were defective. Euthanasia appealed to German doctors long before Hitler took power. And the key determinants in their thinking were race and community, not individuality. Individuals could be sacrificed, or euthanized, for the betterment of society as a whole. Institutions could better treat the healthy if the unhealthy were eliminated.
It might seem quite a switch from Schweitzer to Hitler, but as Mr. Schmidt shows, Hitler appeared as another messianic figure to the masses. Nazi iconography, superbly developed by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and others, depicted the Führer as a savior, descending from the clouds in his airplane or atop platforms towering over the cheering populace below him.
Meeting Hitler through the auspices of his wife, a famous athlete, Brandt quickly became part of the Führer's inner circle, accompanying Hitler, a hypochondriac, on his many trips before and during the war. Mr. Schmidt is especially adept at explaining how Brandt absorbed Hitler's style of "detached leadership." Also known as plausible deniability, the Führer's method of making decisions and delegating authority was to deliver roundabout lectures during which subordinates were supposed to glean what he wanted. Direct orders — even oral ones — were rare, which meant that Hitler's "will" was subject to considerable interpretation. If he did not like or did not want to take responsibility for an action or policy, he could always claim he was misunderstood. Brandt, in his turn, learned to usurp ever greater control over the mechanisms of government without ever approving, in so many words, the euthanizing of more than 70,000 German civilians between 1939 and 1941, or the horrors perpetrated by the infamous Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz. Indeed, Brandt could deny knowing the names of such doctors, and in many instances, Mr. Schmidt suggests, Brandt would have been telling the truth.
But how could Brandt claim his conscience was clear? He believed individual suffering was alleviated via euthanasia, and that dying in an experiment meant helping humanity. Either way, Brandt felt he was in the clear. As Mr. Schmidt puts it, there "could be no meaning for the individual, unless the person's death was considered to have meaning as a kind of ‘sacrifice' for the sake of the community."
Be patient with Mr. Schmidt. Phrases such as "the fact that" and "the ring of truth" occur with fatiguing regularity — not to mention passages first quoted, only to be then paraphrased. Despite these infelicities, he has produced an extraordinary study of an individual, a government, and an era that few biographies can hope to equal.
November 9, 2022
The second MASSIVE exhaustive and often exhausting book I've read in a row. I need to understand how the shift to authoritarianism slips to fascism slips to people doing all kinds of heinous, incredibly dark shit.
I do genuinely think this book helped me understand a bit at least. Simple answers for complex issues seems to be the thing. Too many people in hospitals? Kill the broken ones. More hospital beds. BIG BRAIN THINKING. Don't tell the Tories eh?
This is a difficult read. A heartbreaking read. A rage inducing read. But it's vital - absolutely vital - that people wake up and start understanding the extremely precarious nature of societies under extreme pressure.
Excellently researched and packed with the minutest details in order to trace who made which decisions when and how it all worked under crazypants. Striking is Brandt's insistence right till the end that he was doing the right thing.
It's a hard read for many reasons but I'm glad I did.
I do genuinely think this book helped me understand a bit at least. Simple answers for complex issues seems to be the thing. Too many people in hospitals? Kill the broken ones. More hospital beds. BIG BRAIN THINKING. Don't tell the Tories eh?
This is a difficult read. A heartbreaking read. A rage inducing read. But it's vital - absolutely vital - that people wake up and start understanding the extremely precarious nature of societies under extreme pressure.
Excellently researched and packed with the minutest details in order to trace who made which decisions when and how it all worked under crazypants. Striking is Brandt's insistence right till the end that he was doing the right thing.
It's a hard read for many reasons but I'm glad I did.
Read
January 29, 2023On uskomatonta, että Ulf Schmidt oli ensimmäinen, joka paljasti Aktion T4 -eutanasiaohjelman ensimmäisen uhrin. Aikaisemmat tutkijat olivat pitäneet sitä epäsensitiivisenä uhrin perhettä kohtaan. Perhettä, jotka olivat anelleet, että heidän lapsensa tapettaisiin.
Tämä ei ole kovin populaari teos, koska se perustuu pitkälti alkuperäislähteisiin. Alku on myös tahmea, kun siinä pohdiskellaan, mitä Karl Brandt tiesi Hitlerin naissuhteista. Kokonaisuutena suosittelen.
Tämä ei ole kovin populaari teos, koska se perustuu pitkälti alkuperäislähteisiin. Alku on myös tahmea, kun siinä pohdiskellaan, mitä Karl Brandt tiesi Hitlerin naissuhteista. Kokonaisuutena suosittelen.
January 10, 2011
Finished. Not as good as I had hoped, but has piqued my interest in reading more on the Nazi doctors.
What was the thinking that allowed them to shift from life-savers to life-takers? From professionals devoted to ending suffering to monsters actively causing suffering? I think human beings act from moral premises. What "principles" did they use to rationalize behaviors which we can so clearly see as wrong and inhumane?
These were the questions I was hoping to see answered by reading this book but did not have them sufficiently dealt with to leave me satisfied.
The story of Karl Brandt is an interesting one. He starts out as many young physicians do....but ended up participating in maneuvering for power within Hitler's inner circle. at the time Brandt was captured by the Allies, he was imprisoned and slated of execution by the Nazi's. Records make it look like he played a significant part in the murder of thousands of mentally ill- in part to open up hospital space for wounded soldiers, but also as part of the "purification" of the German people. He was eventually hung for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A major conclusion at the end of the Nuremberg doctor's trial was that medicine should never again be allowed to be controlled by government. Half a century later, that lesson has been lost.
What was the thinking that allowed them to shift from life-savers to life-takers? From professionals devoted to ending suffering to monsters actively causing suffering? I think human beings act from moral premises. What "principles" did they use to rationalize behaviors which we can so clearly see as wrong and inhumane?
These were the questions I was hoping to see answered by reading this book but did not have them sufficiently dealt with to leave me satisfied.
The story of Karl Brandt is an interesting one. He starts out as many young physicians do....but ended up participating in maneuvering for power within Hitler's inner circle. at the time Brandt was captured by the Allies, he was imprisoned and slated of execution by the Nazi's. Records make it look like he played a significant part in the murder of thousands of mentally ill- in part to open up hospital space for wounded soldiers, but also as part of the "purification" of the German people. He was eventually hung for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
A major conclusion at the end of the Nuremberg doctor's trial was that medicine should never again be allowed to be controlled by government. Half a century later, that lesson has been lost.
October 2, 2011
This was not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, in terms of both subject matter and the very dense scholarly, academic tone and style.
Schmidt omits nothing, and has surely produced the most extensive study of Brandt's life and crimes to date.
Would highly recommend for serious students of this topic, but the reader with a passing interest should probably look elsewhere. Exhaustive and exhausting read.
Schmidt omits nothing, and has surely produced the most extensive study of Brandt's life and crimes to date.
Would highly recommend for serious students of this topic, but the reader with a passing interest should probably look elsewhere. Exhaustive and exhausting read.
March 19, 2012
This book is thick reading. I was hoping to gain some kind of understanding of how those with a mission to heal could sublimate their humanity to the state, and use their power and authority to deal cruelty and death. I came away with more questions than I started with.
May 21, 2012
Great book if you want to learn more about the medical issues of the nazi regime.
January 1, 2018
Brand, misguided idealist.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews