Justice, freedom, human rights, moral consciousness, courage, willingness to accept responsibility – what do these values and virtues cost? . . . On 18 February 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested by the Gestapo, after they had scattered copies of their latest leaflet around the Main University Building. Further arrests were made in the days following and, in several separate trials, the leading members of the White Rose were convicted by an inhuman regime and put to death. [Full text]
Category: Germany
Germany to probe Nazi-era medical science
Science
Soon after Hans-Joachim was born, it was clear that something was terribly wrong. The infant boy suffered from partial paralysis and spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy. In 1934, when he was 5 years old, his parents admitted him to an asylum in Potsdam, Germany, where clinical records described Hans-Joachim as a “strikingly friendly and cheerful” child. But his condition did not improve. He spent a few years at a clinic in Brandenburg-Görden, Germany, and then, on an early spring day in 1941, he was “transfered to another asylum at the instigation of the commissar for defense of the Reich”—code words meaning that Hans-Joachim, then 12, was gassed at a Nazi “euthanasia” center. His brain was sent to a leading neuropathologist. . . [Full text]
Decriminalize incest, says German gvmt’s ethics council
LifeSite News
A German advisory council on ethics has told the government it should decriminalize incest between consenting adults. But Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats have wasted no time in rejecting the advice.
On Wednesday the National Ethics Council voted, by a two-to-one margin, to call for the decriminalization of incest. “Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo,” the council explained in a statement. “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.” [Full text]
German Medical Association apologizes for physician complicty in Nazi atrocities
The German Medical Association has acknowledged and apologized for the participation of German physicians in Nazi programs of forced sterilization, euthanasia, and human experimentation. The statement also acknowledged that “leading members of the medical community” were involved. [Washington Post]