Published on Mar 6, 2013
Filmmaker Andreas Nowak's excellent documentary, Ein ganz normaler Arzt ('A perfectly normal doctor'), dealing with crimes committed during the Second World War, won the Austrian Dr. Karl Renner Prize for Journalism in 2000. The purpose of this video is to make this documentary available to a wider audience, complete with English subtitles, because it so clearly illustrates some of the important concepts put forward by Andrzej Lobaczewski in his ground-breaking work on psychopathy and psychopaths in power, Political Ponerology (http://www.amazon.com/Political-Poner...). Nowak's film exposes the systematic practice of euthanasia - so-called "assisted death" - on disabled babies and children that took place during the Second World War. While there were undoubtedly many physicians and nurses involved in such crimes throughout the Third Reich, A Perfectly Normal Doctor focuses on Nazi doctor and psychologist Heinrich Gross, who was at one time in charge of an Austrian hospital where 800 children were killed. Only two cases were ever brought against Gross; one a few years after the end of World War II which resulted in a conviction for manslaughter but which was later overturned on a technicality, and another in 2005, 6 months before his death, where the case was dismissed on the grounds that Gross was suffering from dementia. After his crimes, Gross enjoyed a 50-year long, high-profile career as a court-appointed expert in psychopathology. What makes this documentary particularly important is that it not only exposes the pathological nature of the Nazi regime but also the 'Western liberal democracy' that came afterwards, which allowed 'ex-Nazis' like Gross to retain (or continue their rise into) positions of power over others
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