Nazism and nursing: a comment on relevance.

This paper suggest that it is crucial at the present time to look back and consider the role of nurses and the health-care system in the development of Nazi Germany. The paper points out that medical involvement in the Holocaust was extensive and underwritten by the subversion of science to political ends. Evidence is amassed which points to dangerous trends in the conduct of contemporary medicine and to the continuing capacity for institutionally endorsed abuses of human rights. It is suggested that nursing examine its role in the implementation of Nazi policies, so that its continuing susceptibility to political subversion can be recognised, evaluated and neutralised.