The Doctors’ Trial was the first of twelve trials for war crimes of German doctors, held by United States authorities, they came as a result of the crimes and atrocities committed during the Holocaust against not only Jews, but also Poles, Russians and Roma Gypsies. It took a while for these criminal proceedings to actually be set up and put in motion because trials like these had never really been done before. A few different methods were discussed including Joseph Stalin’s proposal to execute 50,000 to 100,000 German staff officers, and Winston Churchill’s idea to possibly practice summary execution of the high ranking Nazis. Summary execution would mean death sentences without a trial. In the end, it was decided that a criminal trial would
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During this time span, twenty three leading German physicians and administrators were tried for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Chief of Counsel, Brigadier General Telford Taylor gave his opening statement saying, "The defendants in this case are charged with murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science. The victims of these crimes are numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A handful only are still alive; a few of the survivors will appear in this courtroom. But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected. For the most part they are nameless dead. To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals.” This was a powerful statement that really captured the attention of the room. One of the most effective elements of this opening statement was his ability to point out that these doctors had pledged themselves under oath to do no harm, and that they had deliberately broken this oath. He also argued that it was the people’s right to know what had lead these doctors to break such an oath, and to treat their follow human beings as something other than human. One recurring theme was the …show more content…
These physicians had conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners as well as participated in the “euthanasia” program. The “euthanasia” program was the systematic killing of those deemed “unworthy of life”, this included the mentally retarded, mentally ill, and physically impaired. Anyone that was unable to function in a “normal” daily routine was considered unworthy of living. As a result of this, the Nuremberg Code was created. This Code established the requirements for informed consent, absence of coercion, properly formulated scientific experimentation, and beneficence towards experiment participants. Voluntary Consent is essential. It also called for a new right of the subject to withdraw from participation in an experiment at any point. This was very different from the previous idea of Hippocratic ethics. Most strikingly, in Hippocratic ethics the subject relies on the physician to determine when it is in the subject's best interest to end their participation in an experiment. In the Nuremberg Code, the judges gave the subject as much authority as the physician-researcher to end the experiment.The Nuremberg Code is the most important document in the history of the ethics of medical research. Though, it still hasn't
During this time span, twenty three leading German physicians and administrators were tried for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Chief of Counsel, Brigadier General Telford Taylor gave his opening statement saying, "The defendants in this case are charged with murders, tortures, and other atrocities committed in the name of medical science. The victims of these crimes are numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A handful only are still alive; a few of the survivors will appear in this courtroom. But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected. For the most part they are nameless dead. To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals.” This was a powerful statement that really captured the attention of the room. One of the most effective elements of this opening statement was his ability to point out that these doctors had pledged themselves under oath to do no harm, and that they had deliberately broken this oath. He also argued that it was the people’s right to know what had lead these doctors to break such an oath, and to treat their follow human beings as something other than human. One recurring theme was the …show more content…
These physicians had conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners as well as participated in the “euthanasia” program. The “euthanasia” program was the systematic killing of those deemed “unworthy of life”, this included the mentally retarded, mentally ill, and physically impaired. Anyone that was unable to function in a “normal” daily routine was considered unworthy of living. As a result of this, the Nuremberg Code was created. This Code established the requirements for informed consent, absence of coercion, properly formulated scientific experimentation, and beneficence towards experiment participants. Voluntary Consent is essential. It also called for a new right of the subject to withdraw from participation in an experiment at any point. This was very different from the previous idea of Hippocratic ethics. Most strikingly, in Hippocratic ethics the subject relies on the physician to determine when it is in the subject's best interest to end their participation in an experiment. In the Nuremberg Code, the judges gave the subject as much authority as the physician-researcher to end the experiment.The Nuremberg Code is the most important document in the history of the ethics of medical research. Though, it still hasn't