Dr. Leo Alexander was a consultant to the Secretary of War in the Nuremberg Trials. He had extraordinary access to accused Nazi war criminals in the medical community. He wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1949, arguing that compassionate killing of the terminally ill set the stage for the Holocaust:
“WHATEVER PROPORTIONS THESE CRIMES FINALLY ASSUMED, IT BECAME EVIDENT TO ALL WHO INVESTIGATED THEM THAT THEY HAD STARTED FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS. THE BEGINNINGS AT FIRST WERE MERELY A SUBTLE SHIFT IN EMPHASIS IN THE BASIC ATTITUDE OF THE PHYSICIANS. IT STARTED WITH THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ATTITUDE. . . THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS LIFE NOT WORTHY TO BE LIVED. THIS ATTITUDE IN ITS EARLY STAGES
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