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I have been told that some experiments done by Nazi doctors became the precursor for some early work in radiotherapy and other cancer treatments.

Although, this may very easily be Nazi sympathizer propaganda. Maybe someone with actual knowledge of the beginnings of cancer research can enlighten me as to whether there is any truth to this claim?

adamaero
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Neil Meyer
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    IDK, the argument seems plausible http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/proctor-cancer.html and facts have no emotions... For all the bad the Nazis did, there were some breakthroughs from their efforts as well. – AthomSfere Nov 30 '14 at 17:05
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    As in http://xkcd.com/984/ (rockets rather than cancer treatment) – Henry Nov 30 '14 at 17:58
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    I do not think there is any sensible reason to suspect scientists working under bad regimes cannot produce good research. Generally, German scientist were among the very best in the first quarter of the 20th century, and, though some disciplines did suffer under the idealogical and plain racial prosecution, many continued to thrive, and medicine was certainly among them. There is quite a lot on this in the book [Hitler's Scientists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Scientists), by the way. – P_S Nov 30 '14 at 18:21
  • Probably better off on history.se? – Sklivvz Nov 30 '14 at 18:39
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    Do all German scientists from 1933 onward count as "Nazi doctors" for the purposes of this question? – ChrisW Nov 30 '14 at 20:28
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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_eponyms_with_Nazi_associations – Andrew Grimm Nov 30 '14 at 22:13
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    Let's not use the comment section to answer the question. – Oddthinking Nov 30 '14 at 23:03
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    How is one's affiliation with a particular political party (no matter how extreme) particularly relevant to their research? – Flimzy Dec 01 '14 at 00:28
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    @Flimzy Nazi medical researchers have a reputation for being quite unethical, to the point of torture and murder. They were actually the reason behind some of the first written rules about ethical medical experimentation. – raptortech97 Dec 02 '14 at 01:06
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    Is this question really "Were cancer treatments developed using knowledge obtained in Nazi Germany using practices which would have been considered unethical in liberal democracies of the same era?" – Reluctant_Linux_User Dec 02 '14 at 13:04
  • @raptortech97, that might affect the *ethics* of using the results of their research, but it doesn't mean that the information obtained wasn't *useful*. – Benjol Dec 04 '14 at 08:56
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    [related question on HSM](http://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/607/cancer-treatments-development-from-research-in-nazi-germany). – HDE 226868 Dec 04 '14 at 18:30
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    Voted to close as too broad. Unless we narrow this down to research done at a specific location (e.g. Auschwitz) this could include work that was done at a German university which did undergo Nazification at the time but that didn't always impact how the work was being done – rjzii Dec 06 '14 at 15:30
  • See [this question and answer on HSM](http://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/607/cancer-treatments-development-from-research-in-nazi-germany?noredirect=1#comment1365_607) – Reluctant_Linux_User Dec 07 '14 at 13:12

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Yes. See Proctor's The Nazi War on Cancer (1999). A few quotes:

German epidemiologists ... managed to prove, securely and for the first time anywhere, that smoking was the major cause of lung cancer. ...

More than a thousand medical doctoral theses explored cancer in one form or another in the twelve years of Nazi rule ... Cancer registries were established, including the first German registries to record cancer morbidity (incidence) and not just mortality (deaths). Efforts were made to strengthen prevention- oriented public health measures, including occupational safeguards, laws against the adulteration of food and drugs, bans on smoking, and programs to reduce the use of cancer-causing cosmetics, to name only a few. ...

One of the more arresting features of the Nazi anticancer effort was its emphasis on prevention.

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it was in Germany in the late 1930s that we first find a broad medical recognition of both the addictive nature of tobacco and the lung cancer hazard of smoking. ...

The Nazi war on tobacco shows that what most people would concede to be "good" science can be pursued in the name of antidemocratic ideals.

Also, separately, there is Pernkopf's Anatomy. Here's a recent New York Times story on its use (though not specifically for cancer): In Israel, Modern Medicine Grapples With Ghosts of the Third Reich.

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