Lesson 12
Lesson Objective:
As a result of this lesson, students will:
Key Glossary Terms:
The following glossary terms are used in Lesson 12.
Instructional Materials:
Teaching Sequence:
Reading:
Discussion:
NOTE TO TEACHER:
The issues raised by this trial are among the most important in this curriculum. The following questions related to the trial show that the study of the Holocaust is relevant to our time. The following questions might be raised in the jury’s deliberation.
(The first three questions may help in the discussion of consideration number 1 – the Oath of Hippocrates.)
1. What obligations do doctors have according to the Hippocratic Oath?
Suggestions for discussion: Referring to the Judge’s opening remarks, those obligations may be summarized as follows:
(See opening remarks and Dr. Bauer’s testimony)
2. Is there evidence that Dr. Schultz broke his Hippocratic Oath?
Suggestions for discussion: Victims of the “euthanasia” program were not volunteers and were killed by Dr. Schultz (and other doctors) for non-medical reasons. By participating in selections, he sent Jews to the gas chambers. He killed experimental subjects with lethal injections of poison and typhus. The evidence indicates that he harmed those in his care, administered “deadly medicine” and did not “benefit the sick.”
3. What is Dr. Schultz’s defense against the charge that he broke the Hippocratic Oath?
Suggestions for discussion: The doctor’s defense regarding his Oath is twofold: 1) He was dedicated to the health of the “most important patient,” the so-called Volksgemeinschaft, which he conceived as a “body” that needed to be purged of parasites and infection. 2) He claims to have been advancing the cause of medical science for the future health of Germans.
(The next three questions may help in the discussion of consideration number 2 - established moral principles, that is, generally accepted standards of right and wrong.)
4. Would Dr. Schultz's experiments be justified if he had, in fact, advanced medical science and discovered a vaccine for typhus or tuberculosis?
Suggestions for discussion: IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT NO SUCH VACCINES WERE DISCOVERED, DESPITE THE IMPLICATION OF DR. SCHULTZ’S TESTIMONY THAT HE AND HIS COLLEAGUE LEARNED ENOUGH ABOUT TUBERCULOSIS TO SAVE LIVES AFTER THE WAR. NO ADVANCES IN MEDICAL RESEARCH WERE MADE. This question also includes the issue of the ends justifying the means. Could the search for a cure for some disease justify experiments on human beings at Auschwitz? As Dr. Wald points out the subjects were not volunteers, their human rights as individuals were violated as all respect for life was gone.
5. Does Dr. Schultz have ethical standards, and does he strictly abide by them?
Suggestions for discussion: Students might argue that Dr. Schultz had his beliefs and faithfully followed them. How can one judge his view of life and his behavior as long as they were consistent with his own code of morality? This raises the question of whether there can be one ethical standard of behavior for everyone, something that includes a recognition of the “human status.” One Nuremberg Justice wrote that Nazi crimes were “crimes against the human status,” that is, against the diversity of human life and against the common status of human existence. Human beings, he argues, must respect other human beings because they share the same status and because they are different from each other. Acting in strict accordance with one’s own standards does not mean the standards are necessarily good or the actions are morally correct.
6. Was Dr. Schultz’s standard of behavior, his ethical code, criminal?
Suggestions for discussion: The single most important standard for Dr. Schultz was usefulness. If people could work, they would live. Dr. Schultz refers to this as “a clean moral code.” As one survivor noted: “Why kill us right away when they could kill us while getting some work out of us?” Dr. Schultz’s ethical code did not include standards like the sanctity of life, respect for the individual or respect for life itself. The philosophy of life unworthy of life guided his behavior. Dr. Schultz abided by his beliefs that future generations were threatened by Jews and other “inferior races.” He even speaks of saving his grandchildren from danger. Since he so firmly believes in the threat from Jews and since he obviously loves his children and grandchildren and his people, can he be guilty of crimes against humanity? Whether or not his ethical code was criminal depends on whether there is a universal moral law requiring all people to respect the dignity of others. If so, then it is wrong to treat people as mere objects or as means to an end. (The next question may help in the discussion of consideration number 3 – obligation to German law.)
7. Should a person obey a state order without question? Can individuals be allowed to determine whether a state law is just or unjust? What is the standard by which to determine whether a law is right or wrong – especially in a country that prides itself in being a country of laws (like Germany or the U.S.)?
Suggestions for discussion: These questions pose one of the more difficult problems raised by the War Crimes Trials, and a problem that has continued to haunt civilized people. Dr. Schultz argued that he obeyed the law and was a “law-abiding citizen.” He claimed that had he not participated in the “euthanasia” killings, the selections and the experiments, he would have been disobeying the law of the land. The point to be made is that law is not inherently good or just. Dr. Bauer suggests that conscience may conflict with the law – thinking citizens have a duty to distinguish just laws from unjust ones.
Homework Assignment:
Assign Reading 12C, “Juror’s Ballot”
Assign Reading 12D, “Rescue in Denmark”