Germany’s medical association apologizes over Nazi-era experiments

Association issues official apology over experiments on concentration camp inmates, as well as doctors’ roles in sterilization, euthanasia programs.

Germany’s medical association earlier this week adopted a declaration apologizing for experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazi regime.

In the statement in Nuremberg, the association said many doctors under the Nazis were “guilty, contrary to their mission to heal, of scores of human rights violations and we ask the forgiveness of their victims, living and deceased, and of their descendants.”

SS officers outside of Auschwitz. Richard Baer, Dr. Josef Mengele, Josef Kramer and Rudolf Hoess.

Germany's medical association earlier this week adopted a declaration apologizing for experiments and other actions of doctors under the Nazi regime.

In addition to performing pseudo-scientific experiments on concentration camp inmates, German doctors also were key to the Nazi’s program of forced sterilization or euthanasia of the mentally ill or others deemed “unworthy of life.”

The medical association says “these crimes were not the actions of individual doctors but involved leading members of the medical community” and should be taken as a warning for the future.

In April, on Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, Norway issued an apology for the arrests and deportation of Jews during World War II. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg expressed “deep regret” that this acts occurred in German-occupied Norway.

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By The Associated Press