The Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (KWI) in Germany were supposed to be bastions of internationally renowned science, but were just as easily “coordinated” under National Socialism in Germany as the universities and public hospitals and clinics. The KWIs for brain research in Berlin and Munich, even partially founded by a Jew in the case of the latter, became primary sites for research related to the Nazi “euthanasia” programs. The transition from physiologic to pathologic research at each institute, facilitated by replacement of dissident neuroscientists with more loyal and ethically pliable neuroscientists, such as Spatz and Scholz, helped to set the stage for euthanasia research. Illustrated in this chapter is the fact that at least seven replacements of non-Aryans or dissidents at various levels significantly facilitated the coordination of the KWIs. One of these, Marthe Vogt, was not actually a dismissal, but a voluntary emigration from Germany in rejection of the Nazis.
Autobiography, Moral Witnessing and the Disturbing Memory of Nazi Euthanasia
