Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich

The item was used and should have been wiped clean, it was delivered with what appears to be splattered soda all over the cover, really sticky I had to peel off the plastic bubble wrap from the book, yes you knew, I will clean it for you!

This is the only biography of Karl Brandt available. It's also the penultimate biography of Brandt. I ordered this sight unseen, because I study Aktion T-4 -- but also because I know one can depend upon the author's source material. Schmidt's research is impeccable. Much of the book's information hasn't been readily available to English speakers.Although Brandt claimed otherwise at his trail, he was neck-deep in T-4 and Nazi human medical experiments. For almost every one of Brandt's denials, there is a letter or document to prove He Lied. Brandt obviously believed in "euthanasia" (read: murder) of the mentally and physically disabled. And as he either tacitly and/or directly approved of human experimentation, he falls into the same category as Mengele and Clauburg. With Brandt, it was all about power. He began as one of Hitler's attending physicians and ended up a perfect monster.Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich should be required reading for all medical ethicists and students of the Holocaust; it should be in every library. I say this not only because the book is superbly written and researched, but also because it illustrates the banality of evil -- and how easy it is for the power-hungry to buy into the idea that one is superior to others.The photographs of Brandt are disturbing. Brandt was a handsome man with a wife and child. He went on Nazi pleasure trips, which were photographically documented. In every picture, his face is serene. It's eerie.I'm a disabled person. I'm also a scholar. This is one of four books I'll put in my "run kit" during fire season. It's that important.

This book, though interesting, contain no more information than the information about him already out in other books that are not dedicated to his biography. Except for some details of his upbringing and private family, most information is well known, still, I enjoy it and read it in full.

Ulf Schmidt put in a voluminous amount of research on the subject. The result: a thoroughly revealing, detailed account of Karl Brandt. This book should stand alongside those that have thoroughly examined facets of Third Reich in an objective a scholarly fashion. A herculean effort chocked with details and insight. I am going to re-read it. Highly recommend.

No complains

A really good book! Well done and with so much research :)

Like the rest of the reviewers on this site, I concur that the author did a great service by making this otherwise overlooked figure available to English speaking readers and researchers. I also concur that the most interesting, yet chilling aspect of this book was that Karl Brandt was a true believer in the T4 program.It was also interesting to see that Brandt tried to paint himself as a follower of Albert Schweitzer, the famously humanistic and empathic German doctor. According to the book, Brandt did approach Schweitzer in order to become part of his missions in Africa. This book was certainly instrumental in my own research. My conclusion is that Brandt's generation turned its back on an otherwise humanistic tradition in German medicine, which was exemplified by Albert Schweitzer, but also by Rudolf Virchow and Alexander Von Humboldt.The book reveals, but really should have expanded upon, the fact that Brandt was torn away from this humanistic tradition by the likes of Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, two disciples and close friends of Friedrich Nitezche. Binding and Hoche are famous for popularizing the "Lebensunwertes Leben" (Life Unworthy of Life) medical concept which would become the justification for National Socialism's eugenic and euthanasia policies, namely the T4 Program. This is how otherwise thinking individuals like Brandt would support the program even when questioned about it in the Nuremberg Trials. This was the most interesting part of this book, seeing how Brandt justified the alleged "good intentions" behind the murders.This book is historically significant for all of those modern day Progressives whom still persist to this day in supporting all social engineering programs that place social planners like Brandt in charge of life and death decisions. Eugenics cannot exist outside of a highly collectivized and centrally planned society, where an elite group of central planners decides whom lives, who dies, who contributes to society and in what way they are to contribute. You simply cannot embark upon the task of creating a "master race" if those in the periphery, the so-called "unfit", are allowed the free-will to decide their own fates. This was the collectivist aspect of "National SOCIALISM's" eugenic policies, that any and all aspects of German society were subordinate to the collective goal of "racial hygiene". Hitler's National Socialism is about as far away as you can get from "laissez-fair" or "limited government", and a prime example of a "centrally planned" society where every aspect of human existence was decided by the "Total State" (Hitler's term).This book establishes that Brandt truly believed he was doing both society and those handicapped individuals a favor by freeing up the resources they consumed. This was, after all, the message behind all of those Nazi Party propaganda films the Nazis released in support of their eugenic policies. Brandt, a doctor whom would otherwise be found giving blood in order to save German soldiers, was a man that would dispense with the lives of the handicapped when he deemed their lives were a drag on resources of the government or society. Coincidentally, this week the Los Angeles Times revealed that California doctors sterilized over 140 women against their will, and on the basis of fraudulent diagnosis, because the doctors believed they were saving the government and society's resources by doing so. It is incredible that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned.