Free corps, corporations and colonialism

In this book, the author explores the question of whether there was a continuity from the medical practices of colonial doctors to those of Nazi doctors. Among the so-called Schutztruppen were doctors who supported the brutality of that era. German researchers conducted experiments in the colonies. Some older Nazi doctors had a colonial past. Other doctors often fought in Freikorps during the Weimar period, were members of veterans' associations, and student corporations. They frequently joined the NSDAP or the SA or SS even before the Nazi era began. How could doctors become murderers from 1933 to 1945, who typically participated in euthanasia for the criminal killing of the sick and disabled without legal basis? Were there specific biographical characteristics related to family background or socialization? Were there differences in the education or university training between euthanasia doctors and SS doctors in concentration camps on one hand, and the few doctors who resisted National Socialism on the other? Not all submitted to Nazi ideology; alongside too many perpetrators, there were only a few resisters among the doctors. The investigation of more than 100 euthanasia doctors and more than 100 concentration camp doctors reveals their biographical backgrounds. This is compared with that of medical NS resisters. All doctors came from the social upper class. What made some resist and others become NS perpetrators? What biographical characteristics distinguished them?.