How the corpses of Hitler's victims are still haunting modern science | Hacker News Reader

How the corpses of Hitler's victims are still haunting modern science

slate.com

42 pointsjseliger24 comments

Slate -- why go to all the way tho Nazi Germany, when an ambitious promoter and the Chinese government will bring them right to New York City:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/nyregion/30bodies.html?_r=...

"Under the settlement, the exhibit must display, on its Web site and with a sign at the entrance, a statement explaining that it is not able to confirm that the bodies being displayed were not Chinese prisoners who may have been victims of torture and execution, the attorney general’s office said."

There's obviously nothing admirable about Dr. Stieve or his source of bodies. But it seems a little misleading to say that these were corpses of "political dissidents". They were executed for passing information to the Soviet Union, with whom Nazi Germany was at war. Show me a country that doesn't execute spies under similar circumstances.

It's not misleading. It's fact.

  Political dissent refers to any expression that conveys 
  dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a 
  governing body, and such expression may take forms from 
  vocal disagreement to civil disobedience to the use of 
  violence. Historically, repressive governments have 
  sought to punish political dissent. The protection of 
  freedoms that facilitate peaceful dissent has become a 
  hallmark of free and open societies. [1]

(edit) Oh, and I just noticed a small difference here: they used "political dissidents", which is even more broad than "political dissenters":

  A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively 
  challenges an established doctrine, policy, or 
  institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause 
  they often effect a dissident movement. The word has been 
  used since 16th century in the context of religion. The 
  noun was first used in the political sense in 1940, with 
  the rise of such totalitarian systems as the Soviet 
  Union. [2]

And just so we're clear: the article covers many different corpses, not just political dissidents. From the first chapter of the story:

  In the mid-1930s, British anatomists described with envy 
  the “valuable sources of material” their German 
  counterparts had.

  The “sources of material” included many people the Nazis 
  sentenced to death for minor crimes, such as looting, and 
  many convicted for political crimes that particularly 
  incensed the regime, ranging from treason to the vague 
  offense of “defeatism.”

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_dissent [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissident

It's misleading to use a broad term like "dissident" instead of the more precise word, "traitor".

Is it? I'm not saying "dissident" is the best word, but it certainly seems less value-laden than "traitor".

They were helping the other side in the war. They were actively participating in the downfall of their government. I don't think it needs a less value-laden word.

There were also non-political corpses used.

A dissident is by definition not a traitor. From its first use in the Soviet Union to describe political dissidents, the term was used to describe people who would speak out against human rights violations committed by the state. You could hardly call that traitorous.

Now can we shut the fuck up about how the people who died fighting the Nazi regime might have been "traitors" ?

We're talking about people executed for passing information to the Soviet Union. Those are not dissidents by your definition.

Virtuous as their actions may have been -- or may not have, given that the difference between the Soviet Union and the Nazi regime was one of degree and not of kind -- they provided material aid to a foreign government then in arms against their own. Such behavior, whatever else may be said of it, is the very soul of treason, and those who engage in it may quite accurately be described as traitors.

Not until you let go of your problem with applying the word "traitors" to traitors who you personally admire. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people would be proud to be called a 'traitor to Nazi Germany.'

Sweden, for example. Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes committed in peacetime in 1921, and for those committed in time of war in 1976[1].

But if you meant do say "wouldn't have executed" instead of "doesn't execute," I guess a European country that did not exercise capital punishment for treason during WWII might be hard to come by.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Sweden

It's not like the Nazis had problems killing people who weren't spies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weisse_Rose for example.

Surely, Citizen, you're not arguing for a return to the dark days of the past, when words like 'treason' and 'espionage' had meaning.

Further down the article there are other examples:

  The “sources of material” included many people the
  Nazis sentenced to death for minor crimes, such as
  looting, and many convicted for political crimes that 
  particularly incensed the regime, ranging from treason to 
  the vague offense of “defeatism.”

As an example of this, Elfriede Scholz was sentenced to death for “undermining morale” in 1943 for saying she thought the war was lost.

This article claims that only a single anatomist, out of all 38 schools of anatomy in the Third Reich, left the field because of obviously executed criminals/dissidents showing up on dissection tables.

Perhaps the USA and the NSA are lucky that they've had 4 or 5 public dissidents/whistleblowers. Perhaps the usual response to immoral or unethical government or corporate actions is to just live with them.

I think there have been experiments that verify this fact: people are very susceptible to pressure, both from authority and peers, and will generally conform. Kind of scary when you think about it: even the anti-government movements today stem from a me-too groupism (tea party) and an authority trying to usurp another (right wingers).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

This is especially interesting when combined with this article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/world/middleeast/to-shape-... about textbooks for children. It's unbelievable to see how humans can be manipulated either as innocent children or even as highly educated doctors.

I'll just note that the US is a world leader in this space, something the article above failed to recognize: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/education/creationists-on-...

I would hardly say that article provides evidence of "being a world leader". Curriculum selection is a highly political process across the entire country. More generally school boards often attempt to engage in their own social engineering of children to suit their own views.

Its not like any of these creationist measures ever survive the judicial system.

The Tea Party isn't anti-government, it just as a very particular role of what government should do. E.g., Tea Party groups are very much for big, active government when it comes to excluding foreigners.

Even this is story is related to the NSA? Jeez.

I really don't understand how we can be the most ethical about treating people after they are dead... especially when we don't know their wishes. For example, my understanding is that before China was the popular source of cadavers, medical schools in the US procured their specimens from India. People routinely turned up downstream in the Ganges and their bodies would be unclaimed and at least put to some good use. If we were to bury them in a mass grave or cremate them... these would be equally offensive to many religions and yet is society really responsible for providing a plot of land in perpetuity for every single person who dies? Or more to the point... should a person's wishes be trumped by the wishes of society on their death? This kind of thing comes up (for different reasons) when discussing estate taxes and organ donation. I don't think there is a perfect answer because it depends on your politics.

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