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CRIME

Doctors set to examine Nazi-era crimes

The president of the German Doctors’ Association, Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, has opened the door to the country’s medics to examine their role in the Third Reich.

Published: 16 November 2008 10:57 CET
Doctors set to examine Nazi-era crimes
Memorial for victims of Josef Mengele. Photo:DPA

Hoppe clearly spoke of their responsibility during the systematic killing of patients during the Nazi’s rule – tackling the subject for the first time, according to Focus magazine on Sunday.

Quoting from a speech he made during a medical historical meeting at Gießen University in Hesse, the magazine says he said “death and suffering was caused, ordered and administered without pity,” by medics during the Nazi time.

The admission that doctors took part in Nazi crimes has been an insidious process for the medical community, he told the magazine.

He added that when the scientific investigation of what he called the darkest chapter of German medical history was finished, the question would be posed as to how the medical community could ask for forgiveness from the victims and their families.

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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