Murderers in white coats--the physicians' plot against Stalin
Olsen, B.; Stalin, J.
Tidsskrift for den Norske Laegeforening Tidsskrift for Praktisk Medicin Ny Raekke 117(30): 4395-4398
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 0029-2001 PMID: 9456584 Document Number: 469803
During the Moscow trials in 1936-38 several doctors were sentenced for participating in the murders of party leaders. As others who were accused, the doctors willingly confessed to crimes they could not possibly have committed. A second doctors' plot took place in the autumn of 1952. This time nine doctors, six of them Jews, were arrested for the attempted murder of political leaders. Only the unexpected death of Josef Stalin prevented a new wave of terror. With the single exception of Genrikh Grigorjevitsj Jagoda (1891-1938), head of the NKVD (KGB's predecessor), all those sentenced under the Moscow process are now rehabilitated. The participants of the second doctors' plot were rehabilitated immediately after Stalin's death.