Stages of transgression: Anatomical research in national socialism

Abstract

While it is well documented that German anatomists used bodies of victims of the National Socialist (NS) regime for teaching and research purposes in all German anatomical departments, the gradual transformation of traditional and accepted anatomical methods to inhumane acts committed by anatomists and facilitated by a criminal government has not been explored in detail. However, the development of atrocities in anatomy in NS Germany can be traced through several stages of ethical transgression. Scientific anatomy is based on the initial transgression of the invasion of the intact dead human body for the purposes of science and depends on societal permission for its methods. The NS period brought new and specific transgressions, which ranged from the inclusion of NS victims in the traditional sources of body procurement to an escalation of transgressions in anatomical research, and finally to the ultimate transgression in which anatomists performed medical experiments on still living victims and contributed to their death.