Health Group’s President-Elect Admits He Belonged to Nazi SS
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FRANKFURT, Germany — The German president-elect of the World Medical Assn. admitted Saturday that he belonged to the Nazi SS before World War II, saying that German youths did not realize Adolf Hitler’s aims at the time.
Dr. Hans J. Sewering, 76, also denied accusations that he sent a retarded teen-ager to her death in 1942 by transferring her from a hospital to a clinic known to have practiced euthanasia under the Nazis.
Sewering, speaking by telephone from his office in Dachau near Munich, said he belonged to the SS-Cavalry from mid-1935 until the beginning of World War II in 1939 “because I earned money there. I was a student.”
He defended his time with the SS-Cavalry. He said many German youths joined such organizations after the Nazis took over, not realizing Hitler’s plans.
The Chicago-based American Medical Assn. asked Jan. 7 that Sewering withdraw his name from the presidency of the world organization. The AMA is a member of the World Medical Assn.
The SS, or Schutzstaffel, were Hitler’s feared elite troops, responsible for many atrocities during World War II.
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