For @Piers_Corbyn in solidarity and protest at his arrest. 'During the Weimar Republic in the mid-Twentieth Century, more than half of all German physicians became early joiners of the Nazi Party, surpassing the party enrolments of all other professions.' https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160252712000854

1. 'From early on, the German Medical Society played the most instrumental role in the Nazi medical program, beginning with the marginalisation of Jewish physicians, proceeding to coerced “experimentation,” “euthanization,” and sterilization, and culminating in genocide . . .'

2. ' . . . via the medicalisation of mass murder of Jews and others caricatured and demonised by Nazi ideology. Given the medical oath to “do no harm,” many postwar ethical analyses have strained to make sense of these seemingly paradoxical atrocities.'

3. 'Why did physicians act in such a manner? Yet few have tried to explain the self-selected Nazi enrolment of such an overwhelming proportion of the German Medical Society in the first place.'

4. 'This article lends insight into this paradox by exploring some major vulnerabilities, motives, and rationalisations that may have predisposed German physicians to Nazi membership . . .'

5. 'Professional vulnerabilities among physicians in general (valuing conformity and obedience to authority, valuing the prevention of contamination and fighting against mortality, and possessing a basic interest in biomedical knowledge and research)'

6. 'Economic factors and motives (related to physician economic insecurity and incentives for economic advancement), and Nazi ideological and historical rationalisations (beliefs about Social Darwinism, eugenics, and the social organism as sacred).'

7. 'Of particular significance for future research and education is the manner in which the persecution of Jewish physician colleagues was rationalised in the name of medical ethics itself.'

8. 'Giving proper consideration to the forces that fuelled “Nazi Medicine” is of great importance, as it can highlight the conditions and motivations that make physicians susceptible to misapplications of medicine, and guide us toward prevention of future abuse.'

9. 'One theory for Nazi doctors' abandonment of the ancient and most basic tenets of ethical medicine is that medical doctors tend to have an authoritarian personality, characterised by a strong adherence to rules and a weak ability to control more primitive, id-driven impulses.'

10. 'Other possible explanations have been rooted in theories of practitioner narcissism. They include an inflated sense of self-importance in shaping the future of the nation and a desire for career advancement and public praise.'