Howard Israel | DENTISTS DURING THE NAZI REGIME: DR. SUESS, PRISONER DENTISTS & THE SS - Lessons in

The role of the medical profession in committing crimes against humanity during the Nazi regime has been studied extensively. Still, it is difficult to comprehend how a profession of healers morphed into executioners and researchers who abused and tortured people to promote the pseudoscience of “racial hygiene.” The history of the dental profession in Europe during the Third Reich has received little attention, although it is quite significant. The importance of learning this history today should be a high priority in dental education to reinforce the importance of ethical decision making in the care of each individual patient.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the history and fate of world renown dentist researchers at the University of Vienna who were purged from the faculty after the Nazi regime annexed Austria in 1938.
• Describe what happened to dentists who escaped from Europe to the United States and the prejudice they experienced by the dental profession.
• Describe the fate of dentists who became prisoners in concentration camps.
• Understand the role of Nazi dentists in academic institutions and concentration camps in committing crimes against humanity.
• Understand the role of dental gold and how it influenced Germany’s war machine.
• Consider how it was possible for healers of the medical and dental professions to became killers?
• Analyze how a political ideology that dictated public health policy could influence the healing professions.
• Answer the question - is it possible for this to happen again?
• Utilize the knowledge of the history of dentists during the Third Reich to reinforce the importance of ethics and humanity in dentistry and society today.