Child experiments are legacy of Nazi medicine

In Austria, several cases of medical experiments being carried out at children's homes in the 1960s have come to light. According to victims' reports, children living in the institutions were subjected to electroshocks and administered animal medications and malaria pathogens with the aim of preventing violent outbursts, bed-wetting and suppressing sexual urges. The legacy of Nazi medicine and an authoritarian Catholicism made such abuses possible, the left-liberal daily Der Standard explains: "In the 1960s, the doctors who had studied under National Socialism and whose teachers were in some cases sadistic monsters were at the height of their careers. Not just doctors, but also (university) lecturers, kindergarten teachers employed by the state and public officials had internalised this ideology of contempt towards other human beings. … But the 'scientific' Nazi sadism was also combined with the traditionalist Catholic authoritarian mentality. Thomas Bernhard referred to it as the 'Catholic-National-Socialist' upbringing under which he himself suffered. The terrible thing is that a 'strict' upbringing was broadly accepted by society."

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