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The students preparing to put a Nazi eugenicist on trial

German psychiatrist and neurologist Ernst Rudin died without facing trial at Nuremberg. An Israeli group is planning to change that

July 16, 2018 13:40
Students at an earlier debate panel
2 min read

Ernst Rudin could be said to be the father of Nazi ideology. The German-based psychiatrist and neurologist was a proponent of “eugenics”, or racial “hygiene”.

But despite Rudin’s advocacy of racial purity — support which led to the murder of thousands of so-called “genetic defectives”, and thereafter to the murder of Jews — he never faced trial at Nuremberg, where leading Nazis were charged with crimes against humanity.

Instead, Rudin was rehabilitated after the war and died peacefully in 1952.

Now, for the first time, Ernst Rudin is to be put on trial, thanks to an energetic Israeli lawyer, Avi Omer, and a team of international legal experts.