Psychiatry, German Society, and the Nazi ‘Euthanasia’ Programme

Abstract

The paper begins by establishing the position of psychiatry after the First World War, concentrating upon the interplay between economy measures and limited reform during the Weimar Republic. Each therapeutic advance involved the definition of irremediable subgroups within the already socially marginalized psychiatric constituency. Nazi policy towards psychiatric patients during the 1930s involved further economy measures, and the introduction of negative eugenic strategies, were similar in kind if not degree, to those pursued in some other countries at that time. The decision to kill the mentally ill and physically disabled was taken by Hitler in order to clear the decks for war, and was justified with the aid of crude utilitarian arguments, as well as what limited evidence there was regarding popular attitudes on these issues. Many health professionals and psychiatrists accommodated themselves to policies which a few years later became one of the components of the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question', i.e. Hitler's vengeance against the Jewish people in circumstances of war he had envisaged much earlier.

Transnational Nationalism and Idealistic Science: The Alcohol Question between the Wars: Table 1.

“…70 This is where sterilisations-forced or otherwise-became one of the means in Germany: 'chronic alcoholics' were sterilised because their alcohol misuse was a manifestation of social or psychopathic damage. 71 The conferences debated relatively frequently the possibility of restricting the procreation of alcohol misusers. In his presentation, the physician Charles T. Stockard maintained that rather than being the problem, alcohol was the solution when it came to this 'class of weak mediocre people': 'Alcohol is one of the things that will tend to eliminate bad individuals, and inasmuch as from an economic standpoint they may not do much good or amount to much, why not use this means of eradicating them?'…”

Research and complicity: the case of Julius Hallervorden

“…Particularly influential was a 1920 publication by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, respectively professors of law and psychiatry, entitled Authorization for the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life . Historian Michael Burleigh observed that ‘Binding and Hoche deliberately conflated the issue of voluntary ‘euthanasia’ with the non-consensual killing of ‘idiots’ and the mentally ill’8 (p 215). The Nazis enthusiastically embraced this ideology and radically put it into practice, beginning with compulsory sterilisation of those regarded as unfit, followed by killing more than 100 000 handicapped patients, and ending with ‘the final solution’—massive extermination of Jews in the concentration camps 6…”