Over the decades I have read deeply on the subject of the totalitarian states that emerged in the first of the 20th century.
While reading this morning I came across an article, seemingly written just before the opening of the Nuremberg trials.
As you may recall, led by the United States, that judicial proceeding laid down rules of conduct that forbade torture, mass execution, and genocide during wartime. For more than a half century, the Nuremberg trials has been held up to the world as a shining beacon of America's commitment to humanity and decency and law.
(Nuremberg, Germany) In the most comprehensive investigation to date of health professionals’ involvement in the German Government’s "enhanced" interrogation program (EIP), Physicians For Human Rights has uncovered evidence that indicates the Hitler administration apparently conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in German custody. The apparent experimentation and research appear to have been performed to provide legal cover for torture, as well as to help justify and shape future procedures and policies governing the use of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques. The PHR report, Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program, is the first to provide evidence that German medical personnel engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after the outbreak of war in 1941, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture.
This evidence indicating apparent research and experimentation on detainees opens the door to potential additional legal liability for the German Military and SS, and Hitler-era officials. There is no publicly available evidence that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the alleged experimentation and research performed on detainees was lawful, as it did with the "enhanced" techniques themselves.
"The SS and Germany Army appear to have broken all accepted legal and ethical standards put in place since the First World War to protect prisoners from being the subjects of experimentation," said Frank Donaghue, PHR’s Chief Executive Officer. "Not only are these alleged acts gross violations of human rights law, they are a grave affront to America’s core values."
You may recall, the crime of the Hitler regime were considered so great an affront to humanity that the United States did the right thing, and organized war crimes' trials, and executed the most egregious defenders.
If you are interested in reading the full report, you can find it here:
The Torture Papers
We are indeed fortunate as citizens of the United States that we are have a Constitutional and legal framework, and a civilian controlled government committed to the rule of law, that insures such a terrible series of acts could never happen under the auspices of our government, and by extension, us, the American People.
We are fortunate that the professional associations of psychology and psychiatry in our nation are so strong that they would simple refuse to allow their members to participate with the military in this criminal, immoral, and unethical activities.
"If health professionals participated in unethical human subject research and experimentation they should be held to account," stated Scott A. Allen, MD, a medical advisor to Physicians for Human Rights and lead medical author of the report. "Any health professional who violates their ethical codes by employing their professional expertise to calibrate and study the infliction of harm disgraces the health profession and makes a mockery of the practice of medicine."