Letter to the Editor

Reply to Gejman, Gershon, and Lerer and Segman

To the Editor:

Many far-reaching issues are raised in the letters ofGejman [1997], Lerer and Segman [1997], and Gershon[1997], and I cannot hope to respond to all of them here.I respect the opinions expressed by these authors inthis difficult area, although I do disagree with some oftheir conclusions. I want to begin by stating that whenI started working on the abstracts and reanalyses ofthe work of Rudin and his colleagues, I was only mod-estly familiar with the later history of the Rudin schooland their relationship with the Nazis. Knowing morenow, I can appreciate that our initial conclusion thatthe lack of knowledge of this body of work was largelydue to the language barrier and what we termed ‘‘pre-sentism’’ was incorrect. Clearly, the relationship be-tween Rudin and the Nazi regime, whatever its precisenature, has cast a pale over his work and that of hiscolleagues that continues to this day.

Should this self-imposed censorship of what Lererand Segman [1997] term ‘‘Nazi-tainted science’’ con-tinue? Have Edith Zerbin-Rudin and I been culpable ofviolating an implicit agreement in our field to expelthis work from the scientific corpus? These are, as I seethem, the key issues I will try to address. There are fivemain points I would ask the readership of this journalto consider.

First, neither Gejman [1997], Lerer and Segman[1997], nor Gershon [1997] attempt to argue that thedata that serve as a basis for Rudin’s work were col-lected in an unethical manner or that individual sub-jects in his studies were directly harmed through theirparticipation in his research. Thus, the questionsraised about the review and citation of Rudin’s workdiffer in a critical way from previous issues raisedabout the citation of experiments with human subjectswhich were conducted in egregiously unethical waysthat profoundly harmed the participants [Caplan,1993], examples of which would include the high-altitude and hypothermia experiments carried out inDachau during the second world war [Taylor, 1992].That is, there was nothing innately unethical about thescientific work that Rudin conducted. Instead, it is the

political beliefs of Rudin, and the manner in which hiswork was used both by himself and others, that is thecause of their objection.

Second, both Lerer and Segman [1997] and Gershon[1997] charge us with examining three papers on Ru-din’s ‘‘work’’ or ‘‘career.’’ This is not entirely accurate.In one article, we reviewed the work of what has beentermed the ‘‘Rudin school,’’ a very small percentage ofwhich was in fact conducted by Rudin himself. Of theapproximately 48 references in our overview of workfrom this school [Zerbin-Rudin and Kendler, 1996],only one was authored by Rudin. In the second paper,we indeed reviewed Rudin’s famous monograph on asibling study of schizophrenia [Kendler and Zerbin-Rudin, 1996a]. The third paper was solely authored byBruno Schulz [Kendler and Zerbin-Rudin, 1996b].

Readers might be interested in this description ofSchulz by Eliot Slater, who worked in Rudin’s institutein 1934:

. . . I was assigned to the care of Bruno Schulz whowould see that the facilities were made available formy proposed study into the genetics of manic-depressive disorder . . . From my point of view he wasperfect, warm, friendly, endlessly helpful, acutely in-telligent, hard-working, with a fine sense of researchdiscipline . . . Schulz’s political integrity was theequal of his scientific honesty. He could not stand theNazi ideology and never compromised with it [Slater,1971].

Schulz never joined the Nazi party to the detrimentof his academic career. Let me note a few details aboutother scientists working in Rudin’s clinic, whose workwe had planned to review. Juda was an Austrian whowas apolitical and never joined the Nazi party. Shereturned to Innsbruck after the war to take charge of achildren’s home. H. Luxenburger was an active Catho-lic and deeply disliked the Nazis. In 1935, he publiclycontradicted as absurd the theory of Streicher that anAryan women who had a child from a Jew would latergive birth only to half-Jewish children even if the fa-ther were Aryan. For these remarks, he was bannedfrom future public lectures during the Nazi regime. He,too, refused to join the Nazi party. Neither Oppler norHoffmann, authors of key studies on the offspring ofschizophrenic probands [Oppler, 1932; Hoffmann,

*Correspondence to: K. Kendler, MD, PO Box 980126, Rich-mond, VA 23298-0126.

Received 19 February 1997; Revised 26 February 1997

American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics) 74:461–463 (1997)

© 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

1921], was ever on the staff of Rudin’s clinic. Is it fairthat, because of their association with Rudin, the workof these individuals should also be excluded from ourscientific heritage?

Third, the enthusiasm for eugenics displayed by Ru-din was very common in those working in human ge-netics from the 1880s through the early 1940s. As out-lined by Kevles [1985], Rudin was far from the onlyresearch worker who could be seen as providing anintellectual basis for the pseudoscience of Nazi eugen-ics. Eugenics was openly advocated by many of thefounding fathers of biometrical genetics includingFrancis Galton, Karl Pearson, and Ronald Fisher.Pearson investigated the differences between Jewishand Gentile children in East London, concluding thatthe Jews ‘‘while no less intelligent than Gentiles,tended to be physically inferior and somewhat dirtier’’[quoted in Kevles, 1985].

In the United States, 11 states passed laws permit-ting involuntary sterilization in the early years of thiscentury. Between 1907–1941, around 38,000 steriliza-tions for eugenic purposes were carried out in theUnited States [Barondess, 1996]. A paper in the Ameri-can Journal of Psychiatry in 1942 called for the killingof retarded children as ‘‘nature’s mistakes’’ [Kennedy,1942]. Other active discussions of forcible euthanasiaoccurred in US journals up until the time the Nazihorrors were discovered [Proctor, 1992].

Fourth, the only study of Rudin’s that we reviewedwas performed prior to the first world war and waspublished in 1916, 17 years before the Nazis came topower in 1933 and 21 years before Rudin joined theNazi party in 1937. Gejman [1997], Lerer and Segman[1997], and Gershon [1997] would argue, I assume,that his actions in later adult life should cast a paleover the scientific work conducted decades before. Icannot help but feel some concern over the idea of suchretrospective censorship.

Fifth, when Lerer and Segman [1997] refer to ‘‘thelong-held consensus against publishing Nazi-taintedscientific data’’ and Gershon [1997] considers our ef-forts to be a whitewash because, in examining the sub-stantive and methodologic features of Rudin’s work, weacknowledge but fail to discuss extensively the politicaland ethical issues surrounding it, I think we need to beclear that they are, directly or indirectly, advocatingcensorship of the scientific literature. They suggestthat certain data (e.g., ‘‘Nazi-tainted’’) should be ex-punged from the scientific corpus or can be reportedonly if accompanied by comprehensive historical dis-cussion of the sort that is not required of other data.

I think that Lerer and Segman [1997] and Gershon[1997] need to face a logical consequence of their posi-tion: who is to determine what data belong in the sci-entific corpus and what are the criteria for exclusion?For all their horror, the Nazis have no monopoly oninhumanity or on genocide, as recent events in centralAfrica and the Balkans amply demonstrate. If scien-tists are found to have contributed to these actions, arewe not impelled to censor their scientific contributionsas well? What rationale could be established for cen-soring only scientists who are involved in genocide?

What about scientists who use their scientific skills todevelop terrible weapons such as germ warfare, theneutron bomb, or napalm? What about those who po-litically persecute other scientists who disagree withtheir scientific position (e.g., Lysenko)? What about sci-entists who commit egregious personal crimes such aschildhood sexual abuse or murder? Where do you stop?

I raise these issues not to trivialize them, for I ap-preciate both the magnitude of Nazi crimes and thestrength of the revulsion that they induce in the in-formed individual. However, history has repeatedlyshown that censorship is a dangerous thing: easy toestablish with a sense of moral purpose, but then easilyabused.

I personally believe that a strong argument can bemade for excluding from the scientific corpus, or forciting only with special reference, data which were col-lected in an illegal or egregiously unethical manner[Caplan, 1993]. However, I feel uncomfortable at theproposal that we censor, or require ‘‘special treatment’’(e.g., that these data may be cited only if accompaniedby extensive discussions of historical context, etc.), fordata collected by scientists whose political acts or opin-ions are abhorrent to us. If these criteria were to begenerally applied, I am concerned that they could domore harm than good to the scientific enterprise, theintegrity of which should be of concern to us all.

REFERENCES

Barondess JA (1996): Medicine against society: Lessons from the ThirdReich. JAMA 276:1657–1661.

Caplan AL (1993): How should science handle data from unethical re-search? J NIH Res 5:22–24.

Hoffmann H (1921): Studien uber Vererbung und Neuentstehung geistigerStorungen. II. Die Nachkommenschaft bei endogenen Psychosen (Stud-ies on the heredity and origin of endogenous psychoses). Monographienaus dem Gesamtgebiet der Neurologie und Psychiatrie, No. 26.

Gejman PV (1997): Letter to the editor: Ernst Rudin and Nazi Euthanasia:Another stain on his career. Am J Med Genet 74:455–456.

Gershon ES (1997). Letter to the editor: Ernst Rudin, a Nazi psychiatristand geneticist. Am J Med Genet 74:457–458.

Kendler KS, Zerbin-Rudin E (1996a): Abstract and review of ‘‘Studien uberVererbung und Entstehung geistiger Storungen. I. Zur Vererbung undNeuentstehung der Dementia praecox’’ (Studies on the inheritance andorigin of mental illness. I. On the problem of the inheritance and pri-mary origin of dementia praecox). Am J Med Genet 67:338–342.

Kendler KS, Zerbin-Rudin E (1996b): Abstract and review of ‘‘Zur Erb-pathologie der Schizophrenie’’ (Contribution to the genetics of schizo-phrenia). Am J Med Genet 67:343–346.

Kennedy F (1942): The problem of social control of the congenitally defec-tive: Education, sterilization, euthanasia. Am J Psychiatry 99:13–16.

Kevles DJ (1985): ‘‘In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses ofHuman Heredity.’’ Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress.

Lerer B, Segman RH (1997): Letter to the editor: Correspondence regard-ing German psychiatric genetics and Ernst Rudin. Am J Med Genet74:459–460.

Oppler W (1932): Zum Problem der Erbprognosebestimmung. Uber dieErkrankungsaussichten der direkten Nachkommen von Schizophrenenin Schlesien (On the problem of heredity prognosis. Morbidity risks ofthe direct descendants of schizophrenics from Silesia). Z Gesamte Neu-rol Psychiatr 141:549–616.

Proctor RN (1992): Nazi doctors, racial medicine, and human experimen-tation. In Annas GJ, Grodin MA (eds): ‘‘The Nazi Doctors and the

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Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation.’’ NewYork and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 17–31.

Slater E (1971): Autobiographical sketch: The road to psychiatry. InShields J, Gottesman II (eds): ‘‘Man, Mind, and Heredity.’’ Baltimoreand London: The Johns Hopkins Press, pp. 1–23.

Taylor T (1992): Opening statement of the prosecution, December 9, 1946.In Annas GJ, Grodin MA (eds): ‘‘The Nazi Doctors and the NurembergCode: Human Rights in Human Experimentation.’’ New York and Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–93.

Zerbin-Rudin E, Kendler KS (1996): Ernst Rudin and his genealogic-

demographic department in Munich: An introduction to their familystudies of schizophrenia. Am J Med Genet 67:332–337.

Kenneth S. Kendler*Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and

Behavioral GeneticsMedical College of Virginia/Virginia

Commonwealth UniversityRichmond, VA

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