A German medical association has awarded a medal to a 92-year-old doctor who was a member of the SS suspected of carrying out Hitler's euthanasia policies, according to the magazine Der Spiegel to be published on Monday.
Dr Hans-Joachim Sewering was honoured for having "perfomed unequalled services in the cause of freedom of the practice and the independence of the medical profession, and to the nation's health system," according to a press statement by the German Federation of Internal Mecdicine (BDI).
Since 1978, Der Spiegel has published documents testifying that Sewering, while a doctor at tuberculosis clinic at Schoebrunn near Munich, sent a 14-year-old girl to die at a euthanasia centre carrying out secret Nazi policies of murdering members of society especially weak of body or mind. The US Anti-Defamation, a US Jewish organisation, claims Sewering sent a total of 900 children to their death at a euthanasia centre. Sewering has admitted to membership of the SS, an elite Nazi formation, but has always denied being responsible for euthanasia.
Der Spiegel said in its report, released in advance of the news magazine's Monday edition, that the BDI had declined any commentary on Sewering's Nazi past. Sewering, former head of the German doctors' association, was designated in 1992 as chairman of the World Medical Association but had to withdraw the following year under international pressure because of the accusations against him. |