The Nazi War on Cancer

by Robert N. Proctor

Book Overview

A troubling account of how good science can come from an evil regime

Collaboration in the Holocaust. Murderous and torturous medical experiments. The "euthanasia" of hundreds of thousands of people with mental or physical disabilities. Widespread sterilization of "the unfit." Nazi doctors committed these and countless other atrocities as part of Hitler's warped quest to create a German master race. Robert Proctor recently made the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691070512
• ISBN13: 9780691070513
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Almost Too Objective

This book was written in large part to correct the public impression that science under the Nazi regime was uniformly perverse, biased, and Mengele-monstrous. Instead, Proctor wants to show that legitimate scientific investigation was not only carried on, but even encouraged in the Third Reich. As much as everyone would like to discredit all research done by anyone associated with Nazism, Proctor points out that such blanket condemnation led to the world's subsequent dismissal of even valid cancer research that could have saved countless lives had it been considered. In order to illustrate this point, Proctor reviews many areas of cancer research done during the Nazi years. One of his chapters deals with the mass X-ray screenings instituted in many parts of Germany to detect tumors. In connection with this early initiative to root out cancer, Proctor makes the point that Nazi medicine never presented a monolithic front. At the same time these screenings were taking place, there was a large faction of German doctors objecting to them on the theory that X-rays promoted more cancerous growth than they detected. You might find this section of the book to be of particular interest in light of the current debate over mammographies. Another chapter deals with the German Government's concern over carcinogens in the workplace. German researchers did one of the first, most comprehensive studies linking asbestos and cancer. Then there's a chapter on German concern with the link between diet and cancer. This led to campaigns promoting whole wheat bread and fresh, organic produce. Much of this initiative overturned earlier, unscientific beliefs that held fresh fruit and vegetables actually promoted cancer. However, the section of the book dealing with the links that German researchers documented between tobacco smoking and cancer might be the most relevant to current debates. Smoking and cancer of the mouth had long been associated. But until Third Reich scientists began to do meticulous statistical studies and autopsies, few suspected a specific link between smoking and lung cancer. Then, as now, many tobacco manufacturers argued that factors such as auto exhaust were responsible for more lung cancer than cigarettes. However, Proctor cites comparative studies done by German scientists showing lung cancer rates in rural areas (where there were few cars in the 1930's) and heavily trafficked urban areas to be nearly identical. Also, women had markedly less lung cancer, likely as a result of Hitler's insistence that German women avoid cigarettes in order to keep themselves undefiled for childbearing. The Germans coined the term "passive smoking" and campaigned for smoke-free environments generally. The German studies could have been used to counter many arguments being made by smoking apologists today, but most of these studies were automatically ignored or dismissed due to their association with the Nazi regime. Therefore we are covering the same ground aga

Book Review

It is good reading but I was dissapointed to learn that the Nazis don't have a cure for cancer.

A Whole New Way to Think About Nazis

There's a lot of interesting material in this book: Nazi ideas of the proper diet, indications that the Nazi Institute for Cancer Research may have been a cover for developing bioweapons, and, of course, the chapter that has garnered the most attention: "The Campaign Against Tobacco". Throughout the book Proctor uses the Nazi concern with cancer to show that Nazi science, while often motivated by bizarre or evil notions, wasn't always shoddy. He also shows that it's a mistake to think of Nazi Germany as a totalitarian monolith that always reflected Hitler's will.For instance, while Hitler wanted to eventually ban smoking, he was ultimately defeated by cultural resistance to the notion and the desire to keep tobacco taxes coming in and tobacco exports leaving. Still, it was Nazi science that first indicated that smoking was harmful though its general emphasis on clinical studies with few patients caused it to be ignored by epidemiologists in other countries. However, the Anglo-American scientists who made their reputations by proving that smoking was a major cause of lung cancer were preceded more than 10 years by Franz H. Muller's dissertation on that link, the first "case-control epidemiologic" study to do so. And he did it in 1939 Germany. Besides its material on Nazi scientific efforts to diagnose, cure, and prevent cancer, the book also has some very interesting illustrations of Nazi public health propaganda. My favorite illustration, though, is of various animals giving the "Heil" salute to Goering who banned vivisection in 1933.My one quibble with the book is Proctor's insistence that his book provides no aid and comfort to those, like libertarian Jacob Sullum -- whose book FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: THE ANTI-SMOKING CRUSADE AND THE TYRANNY OF PUBLIC HEALTH is specifically mentioned in the final chapter -- who wish to link anti-smoking efforts with Nazis. I've never heard any anti-smoking activist propose euthanasia programs or putting people in concentration camps. However, the Nazi regime justified its coercive public health measures with the philosophy that your body was state property and "nutrition was not a private matter". And, as in modern America, economic rationales were given for the Nazi laws intended to make life difficult for smokers. Proctor also speculates, in the Prologue, that public health measures like the Nazi war on tobacco could have been one of the appealing tunes in the siren suite of Hitler's fascism. Not everyone became a Nazi to kill Jews. And not all the doctors who signed up with the Nazi Party were quacks. This book does provide some evidence that coercive public health measures that go beyond mere education can spring from a totalitarian impulse.

A Healthy National Interest

As we walk away from the twentieth century, its most publicized reign of terror, Nazi Germany, continues to confound many. Modern history has tirelessly portrayed the sheer evil unleashed on Europe by Hitler and the National Socialist Party. The Nazis, along with the Soviet Communists, ensured that the people of Central and Eastern Europe had to endure at least a half-century of life within the brutal confines of totalitarian society. However, the passage of time presents us an opportunity to see Nazism as something much subtler than an overpowering evil force. Historian Robert N. Proctor guides readers through Hitler-led Germany in "The Nazi War on Cancer." He examines a ruling regime and society grappling with health problems such as the exposure of factory workers to carcinogens in the plant, the damage caused by alcohol and tobacco use and the impact of poor diet. Proctor considers how public health concerns influenced the goal of creating a stronger, healthier and racially-pure population. The deliberation over public health during the Nazi era pushed German researchers and scientists ahead of their counterparts around the rest of the industrialized world in connecting many health problems to the fast-paced and often stressful twentieth century lifestyle. Proctor does not portray the German medical elite as being completely manipulated by the Nazis. In fact, many men of sceince used the Nazi takeover of Germany as an opening to purge Jews, Socialists and Communists from important research positions. Proctor concludes that the Nazi experience with public health gives us an opportunity to understand the appeal and triumph of fascism as more than an aberration. Overall, Proctor presents a solid study of German medicine under Nazi rule. He brings many interesting facts to light which may surprise many readers who picture the Nazis as an all-powerful wave washing over and consuming all of Germany. In presenting his study, Proctor is mindful that many may misuse his facts to discredit modern public health iniatives or to justify the existence of Nazism though he does not let this stop him from delivering a thougt-provoking interpretation of a little known aspect of twentieth century history.