Hitler’s Female Physicians

There have been many books about the doctors of the Third Reich and their atrocities. Most of these books neglect the contribution of women in the medical profession. In this book, they are the focus of attention. The first section of the book explains the background of the Third Reich in general and medicine during this period in particular. It addresses the situation of female doctors and why there were relatively few of them. It goes on to detail the forms of transgression that occurred under Nazi rule—involuntary sterilization, euthanasia, and mass murder of Jews and other groups considered undesirable. The second part of the book is a collection of 38 alphabetically arranged biographies of individual female doctors who participated in these activities. It reports on the actions they took and what happened to them after the war. The final chapter draws some conclusions, which can be briefly summarized as follows: 1) the female doctors' role remains under-researched, 2) generally speaking, female doctors were also guilty, but their transgressions generally less gruesome than those of their male colleagues, 3) many of the deeds of female doctors are nevertheless shocking.