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| Dr Robert Jay Lifton |
THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical
Killing and
the
Psychology
of Genocide © |
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27 |
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| Sterilization and the Nazi Biomedical
Vision |
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medical emergency: “dangerous patients” and
“urgent cases” were people with hereditary taints still in the prime
of life. Among “urgent cases” were mentally deficient but physically
healthy men and women between the ages of sixteen and forty, schizophrenic and
manic-depressive patients in remission, epileptics and alcoholics under the age
of fifty, etc.17 Once a petition was heard
before a sterilization court, the die was pretty well cast. More than 90
percent of petitions taken before the special courts in 1934 resulted in
sterilization (though a screening process eliminated some before they got to
court); and fewer than 5 percent of appeals against sterilization, made to
higher courts, were upheld.18 But the
principle of legality was nonetheless extremely important, and the strict
secrecy surrounding court deliberations lent power and mystery to this
expression of medicalized authority.
The legal structure cloaked
considerable chaos and arbitrariness in criteria for sterilization (especially
concerning mental conditions, which resulted in the greatest number of
sterilizations) and concerning alleged hereditary factors. Inevitably, too,
political considerations affected diagnoses and decisions — as was made
clear by a directive from Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary and close
associate, instructing that the moral and political behavior of a person be
considered in making a diagnosis of feeblemindedness. The clear implication was
that one could be quick to label “feebleminded” a person seen as
hostile to the Nazis, but that one should be cautious indeed about so labeling
an ideologically enthusiastic Party member. Political currents and whims also
affected the project in various ways; and, despite its high priority, there
were undoubtedly periods of diminished enthusiasm for sterilization. No one
really knows how many people were actually sterilized; reliable estimates are
generally between 200,000 and 350,000.19
In association with the sterilization
laws, and as a further expression of racial policy, steps were taken to
establish a national card index of people with hereditary taints. Special
research institutes for hereditary biology and racial hygiene were set up at
universities — for example, the institute established by Otmar von
Verschuer, a professor at Frankfurt. These institutes sought genetic
information about individuals extending back over several generations, and made
use of hospitals, courts, and local and national health institutions. The
physician, as genetic counselor and policeman, could be the vigilant
“protector of the family that is free from hereditary defects.”
20 In other words, sterilization was the
medical fulcrum of the Nazi biocracy.
Fanatical
Genetics:
The Role of Ernst Rüdin The predominant medical
presence in the Nazi sterilization program was Dr. Ernst Rüdin, a
Swiss-born psychiatrist of international renown. Originally a student of Emil
Kraepelin, the great classical psychiatrist, |
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THE NAZI DOCTORS:
Medical Killing and the
Psychology of
Genocide
Robert J. Lifton
ISBN 0-465-09094
©
1986 |
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