Charles Edward of Saxe-Coburg: The German Red Cross and the Plan to Kill “Unfit” Citizens 1933-1945
Charles Edward was ruler of the German Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, president of the German Red Cross, and the grandson of Queen Victoria. He was closely allied with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the implementation of eugenic policies designed to improve German racial health. When war began in 1939, Hitler ordered a secret program of murder by poison gas and starvation to eliminate the mentally and physically handicapped “ballast people”; approximately 250,000 people were eventually killed.
Readers in medicine, law, sociology and history will be interested in this tragic story of a weak-willed, but powerful Nazi leader who facilitated this murderous program, even though one of his own relatives died in the “euthanasia” scheme. Although Charles Edward traveled to neutral countries during the war, he did nothing to broadcast the inhumane treatment of his own and thousands of other families whose relatives disappeared into the murder machine.
Alan R. Rushton, MD, PhD, practiced Pediatrics and Medical Genetics at Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, New Jersey, from 1980 until 2017, and served on the faculty of Princeton University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He was elected Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Royal Society of Medicine. He has authored articles for The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and The British Journal for the History of Science. His publications also include the books Genetics and Medicine in the United States, 1800 to 1922; Royal Maladies: Hereditary Diseases in the Ruling Houses of Europe; Genetics and Medicine in Great Britain 1600 to 1939; and Talking Back against the Nazi Scheme to Kill the Handicapped Citizens of Germany 1933-1945.
“This is a valuable, but disturbing, book, which shows how easily individuals and institutions can be corrupted into collusion with the most dire crimes against humanity. Most readers will be unaware of the horrific involvement of the German Red Cross in the Nazi programmes for systematically eliminating disabled children and adults, and of the central role in the crimes of its Director, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, a British-born member of the UK royal family. Fewer still will know of the deliberate silence of the International Red Cross organisation regarding these crimes, or of the persistent denial and cover up of any connection with them by the British government and royal family, extending to the present day. While these events may be in the past, the issues involved are as relevant today as they ever were, especially for scientists and medical workers. We should all be grateful to Rushton for documenting and exposing this shameful chapter of events.”
Sir Peter S. Harper, MD
University Research Professor (Emeritus) in Human Genetics, Cardiff University
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