London, May 26 (IANS) The German Medical Association has apologised for the sadistic experiments carried out by Nazi doctors on Jews, Daily Mail reported Saturday.

The body has admitted that many doctors under Nazi-rule during the Second World War were guilty of scores of human rights violations.

German doctors performed pseudo-scientific experiments on concentration camp inmates, including at Auschwitz.

They were also key to the Nazi's programme of forced sterilisation or euthanasia of the mentally ill or others deemed unworthy of life.

In a statement made in Nuremberg this week, the German medical association said these crimes were not the actions of individual doctors but involved leading members of the medical community. The crimes should be taken as a warning for the future, it added.

Perhaps the most notorious Nazi doctor was Auschwitz medic Josef Mengele.

Known as the Angel of Death, he consigned arrivals to the gas chambers and carried out appalling medical experiments on Jews, most of whom died in agony without anaesthetic.

He escaped to Brazil at the end of the war and for decades was the most wanted Nazi war criminal. He died in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming, the Mail said.