Leo Alexander

Born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, Alexander was the son of a physician. His father, Gustav Alexander, was an ear, nose and throat doctor in Vienna, who had published more than eighty scientific papers even before Leo was born. His mother, Gisela Alexander, was the first woman awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Vienna.{{Cite book |last=Jacobsen |first=Annie |title=Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=2014 |isbn=978-0316221047}}

He graduated from the University of Vienna Medical School in 1929, interned in psychiatry at the University of Frankfurt. In January 1933, he went to Beijing Union Medical College in China for half a year as an honorary lecturer in neurology and psychiatry. But after Hitler taken power, he couldn't return to Germany, and was awarded a fellowship at a state mental hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts.{{Cite book |last=Jacobsen |first=Annie |title=Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=2014 |isbn=978-0316221047 |pages=107}}

He taught at the medical schools of Harvard University and Duke University. During the war, he worked in Europe under United States Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson as an army medical investigator with the rank of Major. After the war, he was appointed chief medical advisor to Telford Taylor, the U.S. Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, and participated in the Nuremberg Trials in November 1946. He conceived the principles of the Nuremberg Code after observing and documenting German SS medical experiments at Dachau, and instances of sterilization and euthanasia. Alexander later wrote that "science under dictatorship becomes subordinated to the guiding philosophy of the dictatorship."{{cite journal|doi=10.1056/NEJM194907142410201|author=Alexander, Leo|title=Medical Science under Dictatorship|journal=New England Journal of Medicine|year=1949|volume=241|pages=39–47|pmid=18153643|issue=2}}

Later, he served as assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University Medical School, where he stayed for almost 30 years. As a consultant for the Boston Police Department, Alexander was instrumental in solving the Boston Strangler case.Gale, 2007. He directed the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Boston State Hospital, where he researched multiple sclerosis and studied neuropathology. He arranged for the treatment of 40 German Nazi concentration camp victims who had been injected by Josef Mengele with a precursor to gas gangrene, and provided them with psychiatric therapy.New York Times, 1985. Alexander wrote several books on psychiatry and neuropathology, and coined the terms thanatology—defined as the study of death—and {{visible anchor|ktenology}}—the science of killing.{{cite journal | url=https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3586&context=jclc | title=War Crimes and Their Motivation: The SocioPsychological Structure of the SS and the Criminalization of a Society. | author=Alexander, Leo | journal=Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology |date=1948 | volume=39 | issue=3 | page=326}}

Alexander was a leading proponent of electroconvulsive (shock) therapy and insulin shock therapy.{{Cite journal|last=Alexander|first=Leo|date=1954-09-01|title=Outpatient Electroshock Therapy in Psychoses|journal=Medical Clinics of North America|volume=38|issue=5|pages=1363–1378|doi=10.1016/S0025-7125(16)34806-4|pmid=13193207}} According to psychiatrist Peter Breggin, Alexander – who was German-trained and German-speaking – was also an early eugenicist, and the failure of the Doctors' trial to bring psychiatrists to justice was due in part to Alexander being the chief investigator.{{Cite journal|last=R.|first=Breggin, Peter|date=1993-01-01|title=Psychiatry's role in the holocaust|url=http://content.iospress.com/articles/international-journal-of-risk-and-safety-in-medicine/jrs4-2-04|journal=International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine|language=en|volume=4|issue=2|doi=10.3233/JRS-1993-4204|issn=0924-6479|pmid=23511221|pages=133–48|url-access=subscription}}

Alexander died of cancer on 20 July 1985 in Weston, Massachusetts, survived by three children.

• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007. Reproduced in [http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC Biography Resource Center]. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007. Retrieved on May 5, 2007.
• {{cite journal|author=Kindwall, Josef A.|title=Doctors of Infamy (review)|journal=Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science|date=September 1949|volume=265|pages=190–191|jstor=1026587|doi=10.1177/000271624926500146|s2cid=144628729 }}
• {{cite journal|author=Marrus, Michael R.|title=The Nuremberg Doctors' Trial in Historical Context|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|year=1999|volume=73|pages=106–123|doi=10.1353/bhm.1999.0037|pmid=10189729|issue=1|s2cid=29831220 }}
• {{cite news|title=Dr. Leo Alexander, Psychiatrist, Fiance of Mrs. Anne|newspaper=New York Times|date=1969-12-07|page=106}}
• {{cite news|title=Dr. Leo Alexander, 79; Nuremberg Trial Aide|newspaper=New York Times|date=1985-07-24|page=B5}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090202150929/http://www.geschichte-erforschen.de/wissenschaft/euthanasie/index.htm (German) Hager, Maik, "Mit dem Verfahren der Euthanasie habe ich niemals das Geringste zu tun gehabt,...". Major Leo Alexander, Prof. Dr. Julius Hallervorden und die Beteiligung des KWI für Hirnforschung an "Euthanasie"-Verbrechen im Nationalsozialismus (www.geschichte-erforschen.de).]

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Category:American psychiatrists

Category:Austrian psychiatrists

Category:American neurologists

Category:Austrian neurologists

Category:Nuremberg trials

Category:Duke University School of Medicine faculty

Category:Harvard Medical School faculty

Category:Tufts University faculty

Category:Austrian Jews

Category:1905 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:20th-century American physicians