Euthanasia Program Research Articles

Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in PostNazi Europe by Dagmar Herzog

HERZOG, Dagmar – Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in PostNazi Europe. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2018. Pp. 171. Building on her previous work on sexuality in twentieth-century Europe, Dagmar Herzog’s new book, Unlearning Eugenics, further explores the ambivalent impact and meaning of the sexual revolution. In an impressive study that spans the period from the Third Reich to the present day, Herzog examines the intersections of disability and reproductive rights activism and eugenic thinking in post-1945 Europe. The book reveals the long-standing connection between debates about abortion and changing attitudes towards disability in European society. Specifically, Herzog historicizes political strategies currently used by abortion opponents who justify the limitation of women’s rights on the basis of “justice for the physically and cognitively disabled” (p. 3). In doing so, she shows how “unreflected insensitivities” regarding disability—employed on both sides of the abortion debate—have “come to haunt the abortion politics of the twenty-first century” (p. 9). As Herzog rightly points out, such political rhetoric carries even greater weight given the history of eugenics in Europe, embodied mostly violently in the Holocaust and the Nazi T4 euthanasia program. Consisting of only three chapters and an introduction, the book adopts a “lecture format” (indeed, the book is based on a lecture series Herzog gave at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2016). Employing this style, Herzog’s writing and argument are purposefully broad, with much of the historiographical and evidentiary discussion appearing not in the text, but in the extensive footnote section. While this structure may disappoint readers looking for a typical historical monograph, it allows Herzog to present a complex and intellectually challenging history in a much more accessible manner. Rather than providing definitive conclusions, Unlearning Eugenics instead offers the reader questions. What are the costs, meanings, and consequences of the liberal value change Europe experienced in the second half of the twentieth century? How have the rights of different marginalized groups been played off against each other? And what do contemporary political developments tell us about how the lessons of history have been learned? At its core, then, the book is a call to re-evaluate historically the success of European liberalism. The first chapter examines “previously neglected aspects” of the debates surrounding abortion in Western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, revealing how they have come to haunt contemporary reproductive rights in Europe (p. 16). In particular, Herzog challenges many of the common assumptions surrounding abortion. By historicizing abortion reform within a longer history of contraception and eugenic thinking, Herzog shows how early opposition to decriminalization was not so much about the protection of life (a much more recent phenomenon), but rather reflected long-standing anxieties about contraception and declining European birth rates. Moreover, Herzog emphasizes the importance of limiting widespread illegal abortion to the successful decriminalization of abortion throughout Western Europe in the 1970s. From this perspective, abortion reform becomes less of a success story for women’s rights and seemingly more of an attempt to bring women’s reproductive power under the control of the state once more. But the focus of the chapter is on disability and the striking continuities in eugenic thinking and argumentation across Europe even after the defeat of Nazism in 1945. As Herzog shows, feminist, legal and medical arguments in favour of liberalizing access to abortion often emphasized the importance of preventing the birth of disabled children, alongside other eugenic concerns, including fears of overpopulation in the developing world and among Europe’s working classes. The legacy of this eugenic thinking has now been challenged by disability rights advocates. But it has also been appropriated by right-wing politicians and NGOs, who are rhetorically instrumentalizing disability rights in the service of promoting a sexually conservative agenda. Importantly, Herzog shows both how this has shaped European politics and what this has meant for parents and their ability to selfdetermine the shape of their family. Indeed, Herzog is sensitive to how this new political landscape has complicated the ability to support and “passionately defend” disability rights, while also advocating for the rights of women to decide whether to keep or terminate a pregnancy on the basis of a...

Lebensunwertes Leben: Roots and Memory of Aktion T4

What the Nazis called Aktion T4 was a euthanasia program, officially started on August 18th, 1939. The registration operations for individuals with physical or mental handicaps were followed by forced sterilization and transfer to clinics organized to kill. In this article, I try to explain the mechanisms that allowed the memory of Aktion T4 to be preserved and passed from one generation to the next; memories of the “merciful death” of approximately 70,000 “lives unworthy of life,” that find themselves embedded in family records and family history. In the first section, I summarize the discussion that resulted from the theories of Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. Even if those theories do not in any way allude to the consequences that we have witnessed decades after their publication, they started a debate about the value of life and the legitimacy of human intervention in the selection of hereditary character traits, as well as the concept of race and the different methods and forms of theories and eugenics that were later adopted in Europe and in the United States. In the case of Germany, translated into Rassenhygiene, those concepts flowed into the Nazi project of purification of the German people. Through interviews with families who had a relative interned in one of the program's clinics spread across the Reich territory between 1939 and 1945, I investigate the evolution and passage of memories stored within the family sphere, paying attention to the generational steps and processes of trauma. These stories are born from a complicated process of reconstructing these memories via interviews. Their recollections were full of painful silences and negations, similar to the thought process which led the victims to live in a condition that they could not understand, and separated them from the world before they were each made to face a solitary death, far from any contact with their families. The trauma that I analyze concerns actions that had been carried out by previous generations; in the majority of cases, younger generations were not aware of the destiny of their murdered relatives and therefore tried to rebuild the stories of people who they never had the opportunity to meet. I examine the problematic relationship of those being interviewed with the end-of-life issue and also the sense of guilt which is generated by the awareness of crimes that were committed. Aktion T4 was not a crime committed outside the national borders, nor a crime that extended beyond the private sphere to the “others.” Instead, it existed within the most central and intimate place of Nazi culture: the family.

The Medical Manipulation of Reproduction to Implement the Nazi Genocide of Jews

Holocaust literature gives exhaustive attention to direct means of exterminating Jews, by using gas chambers, torture, starvation, disease, and intolerable conditions in ghettos and camps, and by the Einsatzgruppen. In some circles, the term “Holocaust” has become the ultimate description of horror or horrific events. The Nazi medical experiments and practices are an example of these. Nazi medical science played a central and crucial role in creating and implementing practices designed to achieve a “Master Race.” Doctors interfered with the most intimate and previously sacrosanct aspects of life in these medical experiments – reproductive function and behavior – in addition to implementing eugenic sterilizations, euthanasia, and extermination programs. Manipulating reproductive life – as a less direct method of achieving the genocide of Jews – has been less acknowledged. The Nazis prevented those regarded as not meeting idealized Nazi racial standards – and particularly Jewish women – from having sex or bearing children through legal, social, psychological and biological means, as well as by murder. In contrast, they promoted reproductive life to achieve the antithesis of genocide – the mass promotion of life – among those deemed sufficiently “Aryan.” Implementing measures to prevent birth is a core feature of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. As with many other aspects of the Holocaust, science and scientists were inveigled into providing legitimacy for Nazi actions. The medical profession was no exception and was integrally involved in the manipulation of birth to implement the Holocaust.

More on Asperger's Career: A Reply to Czech.

Czech's claims that my paper abounds with mistranslations, misrepresentations, and factual errors are refuted point-by-point, as is his declaration that the paper contains no relevant or new evidence. Asperger's statements that Franz Hamburger saved him from the Gestapo are reaffirmed and supported with a personal communication from Asperger's daughter, Dr. Maria Asperger Felder. Czech's criticism of anonymous peer reviewers and his call for retraction of my paper are, at best, unconstructive. In light of the current resurgence of authoritarian governments that promote xenophobic and racist ideology in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, it is essential that details about the Nazi euthanasia program continue to be recalled and deliberated, as they are in this exchange. I stand by my paper.

Non-complicit: Revisiting Hans Asperger's Career in Nazi-era Vienna.

Recent allegations that pediatrician Hans Asperger legitimized Nazi policies, including forced sterilization and child euthanasia, are refuted with newly translated and chronologically-ordered information that takes into account Hitler's deceptive 'halt' to the T4 euthanasia program in 1941. It is highly unlikely that Asperger was aware of the T4 program when he referred Herta Schreiber to Am Spiegelgrund or when he mentioned that institution 4 months later on the medical chart of another (unrelated) girl, Elisabeth Schreiber. Asperger campaigned vigorously from 1938 to 1943 to have his specialization, Curative Education, take priority in the diagnosis and treatment of disabled children over other fields that promoted Nazi racial hygiene policies. He neither disparaged his patients nor was he sexist. By 1938, he had identified the essentials of Asperger syndrome and described an unnamed boy whom he later profiled (as Ernst K.) in 1944. Rather than doing 'thin' research, Asperger made discoveries that were prescient, and some of his activities conformed to definitions of "individual resistance."

The Choice Without Real Chance to Choice: Hatches to the Portrait of professor D. Frank

The article is devoted to the biography of professor D. B. Frank who was a well-known scholar and psychiatrist. Frank graduated from medical faculty of Yurivski university. Later he worked in the leading clinics of the Russian empire. At the beginning of XX century he went abroad to take over the experience of theprominent European specialists. His aim was to enhance his professional level. As a doctor he participated in Russian-Japanese War and World War First. After the Soviet rule had been established, Frank worked in Kharkiv. In 1921 he got professor position in Katerynoslav Medical Institute. There he headed the Department of Psychology and later the Department of Psychiatry. During his Katerynoslav period he researched the phenomenon of cannibalism and then he published a monograph on this topic. He also worked in Igren psychiatric clinic that was in Dniproprtrovsk. During the Nazi occupation the physicians of that hospital had to kill mentally ill patients according to the order of the Nazis. Patients were given morphine, ammonia and other medical preparations. During the years of occupation, 1,200 patients were killed in this way. At the first stages of euthanasia program Franck's task was to select candidates for it – Jewish people, seriously ill patients and the communists. Nevertheless the cooperation with the Germans did not save his life. D. Frank was executed by shooting during the Holocaust as he was a Jew.

Remembering the ‘unwanted’ victims: initiatives to memorialize the National Socialist euthanasia program in Germany

ABSTRACTBetween 1939 and 1945, approximately 200,000 patients were murdered under the National Socialist euthanasia program in Germany and Austria. For many years, these victims were largely excluded from post-war commemorative culture and they are yet to attain legal equality with the victims of political or racial persecution. This article considers recent initiatives to commemorate the victims of euthanasia, focusing on three examples: 1) the national memorial and information point for the victims of National Socialist “euthanasia” killings in Berlin; 2) the web portal http://www.gedenkort-t4.eu” www.gedenkort-t4.eu; and 3) the national competition “Andersartig Gedenken”, which invited young Germans to design their own memorial.

Book Review: Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany: The “Euthanasia Programs

Book Review: Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany: The “Euthanasia Programs

Small size today, aquarium dumping tomorrow: sales of juvenile non-native large fish as an important threat in Brazil

ABSTRACT Informal sales of large-bodied non-native aquarium fishes (known as “tankbusters”) is increasing among Brazilian hobbyists. In this study, we surveyed this non-regulated trade on Facebook® from May 2012 to September 2016, systematically collecting information about the fishes available for trading: species, family, common/scientific names, native range, juvenile length, behavior, number of specimens available in five geographical regions from Brazil. We also assessed the invasion risk of the most frequently sold species using the Fish Invasiveness Screening Test (FIST). We found 93 taxa belonging to 35 families. Cichlidae was the dominant family, and most species were native to South America. All species are sold at very small sizes (< 10.0 cm), and most display aggressive behavior. The hybrid Amphilophus trimaculatus × Amphilophus citrinellus, Astronotus ocellatus, Uaru amphiacanthoides, Osteoglossum bicirrhosum, Cichla piquiti, Pangasianodon hypophthalmus, Datnioides microlepis and Cichla kelberi were the main species available. The southeast region showed the greatest trading activity. Based on biological traits, the FIST indicated that Arapaima gigas, C. kelberi and C. temensis are high-risk species in terms of biological invasions via aquarium dumping. We suggest management strategies such as trade regulations, monitoring, euthanasia and educational programs to prevent further introductions via aquarium dumping.

Determination of swine euthanasia criteria and analysis of barriers to euthanasia in the United States using expert opinion

AbstractTimely euthanasia on swine farms can help to reduce the incidence of poor welfare outcomes for compromised pigs (Sus scrofa) when recovery is prolonged or impossible. Timely euthanasia relies upon caretakers’ abilities to identify compromised pigs and administer euthanasia in various environments. To determine appropriate timelines and most common reasons for on-farm euthanasia, an online survey was conducted with members of the United States National Pork Board. Additionally, two focus groups were conducted to investigate barriers and possible solutions associated with timely euthanasia. Clinical signs related to poor locomotion (57.6%), prolapses (47.2%), and hernias (43.5%) were identified by the greatest percentage of respondents who believed immediate euthanasia was warranted, while a greater percentage of respondents believed euthanasia was not warranted for clinical signs related to the integumentary (90.3%), reproductive (75.8%), and respiratory (67.5%) systems. The most common reason for euthanasia was poor body condition in pre-weaned piglets and non-ambulatory or severely weak for both breeding and non-breeding pigs. In the focus groups, two themes were identified when evaluating barriers to euthanasia on-farm, and participants agreed that making timely decisions relies upon several dimensions of risk analysis. An unsupportive farm culture was identified as a critical barrier to timely euthanasia decision-making, suggesting that caretaker characteristics may play a role in the success of any timely euthanasia programme. This present study has highlighted areas for future research and demonstrated the need to extend educational efforts both to swine industry leaders and producers to improve overall animal welfare by ensuring timely euthanasia in swine.

From the Hallervorden-Spatz eponym to the molecular terminology

A combination of Niemann-Pick- and Hallervorden-Spatz diseases led to the death of a 17-year-old boy in 1994. Genetic counseling necessitated further investigations in 2017. Meanwhile, the nomenclature of Hallervorden-Spatz disease has been abandoned. The author analyze the reasons for this change. Professional activities of Hallervorden and Spatz during and after the Nazi euthanasia program are presented. Also, the scientific efforts that led to the discovery of the genetic background of the disease and ultimately to its new name are highlighted. In nazi Germany, a large number of mentally disabled were killed. The majority of pediatric-brains were transferred to the "Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung", led by Hugo Spatz, and was included in the "Hallervorden collection". Investigations exploring the connections between eponyms and nazi-activites started in the mid-1980s. This process was accelerated by the discovery of genetic alterations underlying disease entities, including neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA). NBIA has several subtypes, with the first being the disease described by Hallervorden and Spatz, and recently renamed to pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN). The case examined by the authors belongs to the third subtype, to the mitochondrial protein-associated neurodegeneration (MPAN). The works of the two noted neuropathologists strongly conflict with current ethical principles of human research studies. The buried "Hallervorden collection" in the Munich Waldfriedhof cemetery, and the memorial column erected there will remain a sad reminder of a time when a political system profoundly distorted the judgement of even academic physicians. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(43): 1723-1727.

Mass killing under the guise of ECT: the darkest chapter in the history of biological psychiatry.

Following its inception, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), rapidly spread all over the world, including Nazi Germany. Paradoxically, at the same time, the euthanasia programme was started in Germany: the extermination of people with intellectual disabilities and severe psychiatric disorders. In Lower Austria, Dr Emil Gelny, who had been granted a specialist qualification in psychiatry after three months of clinical training, took control of two psychiatric hospitals, in Gugging and Mauer-Öhling. In 1944, he began systematically killing patients with an ECT machine, something that was not practised anywhere else before or after, and remains unprecedented in the history of convulsive therapy. He modified an ECT machine, adding extra electrodes, which he fastened onto a victim's wrists and ankles to administer lethal electric shocks.

Vestiges and Witnesses: Archaeological Finds from the Nazi Euthanasia Institution of Hartheim as Objects of Research and Education

In Hartheim Castle, more than 30,000 people became victims of National Socialist euthanasia programs. In the course of building the memorial at the end of the 1990s, numerous structural remnants of the killing institution were found. In 2001 several pits with structural elements, some human remains, as well as belongings of people murdered were found by chance in the former castle garden. This contribution establishes the meaning these items have for research, as well as considerations and discussions about the possibilities of presenting the vestiges in museum form and how to use the latter for teaching projects.

Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century, by Konrad Jarausch

Reviewed by: Gary Bruce, University of WaterlooAs most travellers to Europe quickly realize, it is hard to sort out one's feelings about the continent. One can, for example, attend Berlin's Philharmonie, home to one of the world's greatest symphony orchestras. Before listening to the music inside, an interested tourist might be drawn to the small exhibition on the grounds of this German cultural icon. Here, she would learn that during the Nazi era, the euthanasia program, which killed more than 200,000 individuals with disabilities (including 5000 children), was housed at the same location: Tiergartenstrasse-4, or T-4 as the program came to be called. To be clear, the Berlin symphony today performs not down the street from the former T-4 headquarters, nor around the corner; it occupies the very same physical space.It is to this frustrating dual legacy that Konrad Jarausch turns in his sweeping synthesis of Europe in the twentieth century. How was it possible that Europe's worst traits materialized in an era when the health, education, and prosperity of most Europeans had improved dramatically? Jarausch frames his answer within the concept of modernity. Although there are many different understandings of the term modernism, most scholars would agree with Jarausch that the European modern age is characterized by large bureaucracies, factory production, nation-states, an almost slavish devotion to science and technology, and an urbanized population. For Jarausch, the challenge that Europe faced in the twentieth century, and continues to face, is how to harness the benign aspects of modernity while keeping its destructive forces in check.Although Out of Ashes is a history of Europe in its entirety, the emphasis is on the main powers of northern Europe. Countries such as Spain, Italy, Poland, and Yugoslavia appear in the narrative on occasion, but England, France, Germany, and Russia/Soviet Union receive sustained attention. The latter merit a place of prominence by virtue of their substantial economic and military power, but incorporating some of the most interesting aspects of recent transnational history, including the ability of smaller powers to influence larger ones, would have added more current texture to the traditional approach.Jarausch moves quickly from the opening section on European thirst for colonies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to discuss the path to the First World War. Eager to break free from the tired school question on the origins of World War I, Jarausch focuses on the reasons for the breakdown of peace instead of the causes of war. After all, given the long periods of peace and increasing international ties that had characterized the previous century, there was every reason to believe that Europeans would avoid war. Jarausch pins responsibility for the first of Europe's deadly wars in the twentieth century on the leaders of Europe's major powers who, in their narrow-minded self-interest, made catastrophic decisions that unravelled the European diplomatic order. Spreading the blame equally, with perhaps a touch more finger pointing at Russia for escalating a local crisis to a continental war, Jarausch echoes the view of most European historians that no single country was to blame. …

Hans Jacob and brain research on Hamburg "euthanasia" victims: "Awaiting further brains!"

Several neuropathologists conducted brain research on victims of so-called euthanasia programs carried out by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany from 1940 to 1945. Some published their results in German journals or books during and after the war. One of these neuropathologists was Hans Jacob of Hamburg, a former Nazi party member and the leader of the same laboratory previously run by Alfons Jakob (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). Though much has been published on the unethical actions of Jacob's fellow neuropathologist from Berlin, Julius Hallervorden, Jacob's actions were remarkably similar and have not been previously analyzed in the neuroscience literature. Jacob dissected at least 42 patient brains from euthanasia centers near Hamburg, and saved the specimens from at least 17 of them. He published a 1956 book chapter featuring 2 such specimens. Jacob was denazified, had a notable career, and never publicly addressed his actions during the war. His ethical violations may not have been on the same scale as Hallervorden's, but the effect of his work echoes to the modern era. As responsible researchers, we must always be conscious of the provenance of material provided and not succumb to opportunistic temptation despite the ethical consequences.

Mercy killing in neurology: The beginnings of neurology on screen (II).

The history of Neurocinema includes neuroethics, and this theme was first used in 2 films released in the 1940s in both Germany and the United States. Ich Klage An (I Accuse) is about "terminal" multiple sclerosis in a young woman and the decision to determine one's own fate. The protagonist anticipates becoming "deaf, blind, and idiotic" and asks her husband to administer a toxic drug dose, which he does. The film disturbingly suggests that the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is tantamount to a death sentence. Ich Klage An (1941) played during the medical murders era ("Aktion T-4" program) but has few references to National Socialism, except for judges with Nazi emblems on their robes making a brief Nazi salute and a jury chamber with a bust of Hitler. Party leadership agreed that the film made a deep impression, but the intended effect on the viewing public is largely unknown. An Act of Murder (1948) involves another young woman with an inoperable brain tumor. When her condition worsens during a trip, her husband deliberately crashes the car, killing her but surviving himself. A subsequent trial finds that she died of an overdose rather than the crash. The trial judge dismisses the murder charge, but the film argues the morals of mercy killing. These films came out during the Nazi euthanasia program and founding of the Euthanasia Society of America in 1938. The choice of neurologic disease by these filmmakers and scriptwriters to defend euthanasia is remarkable.

The moral purity of medicine: Is it time to get rid of eponyms related to Nazism?

The article considers eponymic names of predominantly diseases of central nervous system (Hallervorden-Spatz disease, etc.) which origin is related to physicians actively cooperated with Nazis during the Second world War. The participation of these physicians in euthanasia program and also in inhuman experiments on people implemented by Nazis in concentration camps is emphasized. The conclusion is made that the reason of all this is lacking of moral standards. It is proposed to exclude a number of eponymic names related to physicians actively cooperated with Nazis.

Psychiatry at the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Günzburg 1939–1945: The role of Ludwig Trieb, head of hospital administration during and after World War II

This paper analyses the involvement of Ludwig Trieb, the administrative head of a South German mental hospital, in the work of the headquarter of patient killings during Nazi rule in Germany, especially in the planning department of the “Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Heil- und Pflegeanstalten” after 1941. The paper is based on archival materials held at the Günzburg and Kaufbeuren mental hospitals (Swabia, Bavaria) and state, regional and judicial archives in Augsburg, Munich, Ludwigsburg and Berlin. Trieb was appointed administrative head of the Günzburg mental hospital (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Günzburg) in 1941. He was considered a very able administrator by the authorities, and in 1940 he was seconded to the staff of the head-quarter of ‘Aktion T4’ at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin. He worked as a member of a planning commission preparing a national register of mental hospitals with a focus on buildings and bed capacities. The planning commission’s work was linked with (a) the use of hospital facilities as required in the war effort, (b) with the aim of planning inpatient mental health care for a post-war German Reich, and it is likely to have been linked (not declared) (c) with the euthanasia programme. Post-war proceedings at an allied denazification tribunal and by the German public prosecution office led to (i) a ruling of Ludwig Trieb having been a ‘fellow traveller’ (Mitläufer), and (ii) failed to lead to court proceedings in post-war Germany. Some sources in the archival materials suggest proximity of Trieb’s work with the Nazi euthanasia programme.

Susan Benedict and Linda Shields, editors.Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany: The “Euthanasia Programs.”

Susan Benedict and Linda Shields, editors.<i>Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany: The “Euthanasia Programs.”</i>

Book ReviewsRum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American RepublicClassrooms and Clinics: Urban Schools and the Protection and Promotion of Child Health, 1870–1930Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World WarKriegskrankenpflege im Ersten Weltkrieg: Das Pflegepersonal der freiwilligen Krankenpflege in den Etappen des Deutschen Kaiserreichs [Nursing Care on the Battlefield During World War I: The Voluntary Carers Behind the Front

Book ReviewsRum Maniacs: Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American RepublicClassrooms and Clinics: Urban Schools and the Protection and Promotion of Child Health, 1870–1930Veiled Warriors: Allied Nurses of the First World WarKriegskrankenpflege im Ersten Weltkrieg: Das Pflegepersonal der freiwilligen Krankenpflege in den Etappen des Deutschen Kaiserreichs [Nursing Care on the Battlefield During World War I: The Voluntary Carers Behind the Front