Posted on 03/30/2005 4:20:19 PM PST by BCrago66
The methods used for mass extermination in the Nazi death camps originated and were perfected in earlier use against people with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities. This article describes the historical context of attitudes toward people with disabilities in Germany and how this context produced mass murder of people with disabilities prior to and during the early years of-World War II. Several key marker variables, the manipulation of which allowed a highly sophisticated Western society to officially sanction the murder of people with disabilities, are examined. Important implications must continually be drawn from these sad events as we work with people with disabilities at the dawn of a new century.
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Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever?--Dr. Tergesten, in the propaganda film Ich Klage an! (I Accuse!, 1941)
Even given the passage of time and the necessary exposure of many people to commonly known historical events about Nazi Germany, some facts are more familiar than others. Historically, the focus has remained on the state-sanctioned genocide of the war years, which resulted in the extermination of Jews and to a lesser extent other populations, such as the Gypsies, political prisoners, and homosexuals (Yahil, 1987). In secular terms, images of death camps and the Nuremberg Trials represent the nadir of a humanitarian conflagration that began with the invasion of Poland in 1939 and ended with Germany's surrender and political and physical partitioning in 1945.
However, relatively little attention has been paid to significant precipitating historical events that served as a catalyst for what later became known as the Holocaust. These events, rooted in powerful societal and scientific perceptions of difference with parallel extensions in state policy and action, were intensified and codified with the rise of National Socialism and Hitler's assumption of power in 1933 (Aly, Chroust, & Pross, 1994; Friedlander, 1995). Official notions of difference, which would later find their most diabolical expression in the murder of the Jews, were first expressed in state-sanctioned killings of children and adults with a wide range of physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities.
I draw on the relatively few but important sources available in English to illustrate a neglected historical aspect of perceptions of people with disabilities for several purposes. First, I provide a description of the historical context under-girding perceptions of and attitudes toward people with disabilities in Germany and how this context produced mass murder of people with disabilities prior to and during the early years of World War II. Second, I examine several key marker variables, the manipulation of which allowed a highly sophisticated Western society via state law and policy to sanction the murder of people with disabilities. Third, I provide a brief synopsis of implications that can be drawn from this conflagration that influence work with and on behalf of people with disabilities in the 21st century.
People with Disabilities in Germany: Historical Underpinnings
The idea of societies disposing of people with disabilities was hardly new at the dawn of the 20th century. There is ample evidence that both medical and legal debates across Europe, including in Germany in the 19th century, included fatal solutions for inmates of asylums and others with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities. These historical attitudes gathered momentum, however, in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.
Treatment Prior to World War II
Along with the rest of Europe after the Enlightenment, Germany sought to address difficult issues related to people with disabilities. As in the United States, late-19th-century German efforts to meet the needs of this population consisted largely of custodial care either privately by family members and church institutions or in state asylums. These efforts were reflected in a significant increase in the number of publicly sustained German asylums, which increased from 93 in 1877 to 226 in 1913 (Burleigh, 1994). There was also a concomitant increase in the number of private institutions providing various levels of residential care to those with a wide spectrum of disabilities. This state of affairs remained relatively stable until World War I.
The outbreak of war in 1914 precipitated significant changes for people with disabilities across Germany. The logistics and material requirements of fighting a major conflict soon had social and economic repercussions among all sectors of the population. For asylum inmates, the most debilitating outcome was the wartime rationing of food. Caregivers, despite their best efforts, were unable to compensate for their patients' nutritional losses. At the Berlin-Buch asylum, for example, the average daily caloric intake for inmates decreased from 2,695 in 1914 to 1,987 by January 1918 (Burleigh, 1994). Unable to supplement their meager rations via hoarding or purchases on the public black markets, inmates soon deteriorated. In addition, most asylums strictly adhered to cost-cutting measures of less heating and clothing. Medicine, a critical need for the war effort, was relatively scarce for those in custodial care. These high levels of deprivation and neglect, along with overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions, soon led to marked increases in communicable diseases and elevated mortality rates. The relatively stable pre--World War I annual institutional mortality rate of approximately 5.5% escalated to 30% by the end of the war. In real terms, by 1918, more than 140,000 people had died in psychiatric asylums across Germany (Burleigh, 1994).
The privations of the war had a marked effect on perceptions of disability among institutional caregivers and the public. Caregivers generally acknowledged the deplorable state of affairs in asylums but also understood the necessity of shifting resources to those able to conduct the war effort. Among the general public, the war effort's reallocation of resources also highlighted the divide between those who were healthy and able to contribute and survive unaided, and those with disabilities, who could not. Thus, by the end of World War I, an implicit but palpable public perception of higher economic worth was attached to people without disabilities, and lesser worth was attributed to people with disabilities. Later, the economic worth of human life under the Nazis proved a key distinction for creating and sanctioning genocide against people with disabilities.
By 1918, a trend toward institutional contraction emerged. Many private and public asylums had closed. Others were transformed into convalescent homes for injured soldiers or hostels for refugees. Still others stood empty as supporting funds were redirected to convalescing patients with predictable recoveries who would again enter the workforce to help the country recover economically. Also, asylum populations remained low because of the now exorbitant cost of admitting and caring for new patients. These circumstances soon generated various models of cheaper outpatient treatment that controlled expenses and bolstered progressive social reforms attempting to soften the image of asylums as nothing more than prison warehouses.
Yes, as I posted, that is a disease of the liberal/leftist mindset, i.e. that all cultures are equal, all ways of life are equal, all 'perversions' are equal,...
They are not! Anyone with two functional brain cells can look with their own eyes and make this determination.
Ah yes, now all of Europe is accepting the concepts of euthnasia that were considered crimes against humanity at the end of WW2. Holland seems to be the leader, such a turn after its revulsion of Hitler during the 40s. And here in the USA, the spiritual descendants of Hitler's theories, the socialists and abortion backers are furthering his cause. How soon will we hear a call for the rehabilation of Hitler, because he lead the way in controlling health care costs and saving social security?
All worthy and interesting examples to point out and ponder over, surely.
No, no... we must show those WPPFF members savages respect
I'm writting in short-hand, which is the way it works on message boards, where there isn't time to write an essay with all the nuanced distinctions. I'm saying that I would not in principal outlaw all assisted suicide (see Oregon, where there is a assisted-suicide law.) I personally would confine assisted suicide to cases such as the terminally ill, who are of sound mind to make the decision, etc.
My point was in responce to rasblue, who seemed to blurr together assisted suicide and euthanasia. You can't argue that because in some cases assited suicide is alright, therefore euthanasia is alright, because in the later case one person is killing another, regardless of the wishes of the victim.
I misinterpreted your post COMPLETELY. I have proven myself the stupid one.
All apologies,
Ok.
The History Channel showed excerpts of that Nazi euthanasia film, where a husband kills his increasingly debilitated wife. It is presented as an act of love and would fit nicely today with the murder-Terry Schiavo, and
The World at War also had a life in Nazi Germany section and they showed a film of real mentally retarded and schizophrenics and why they should be eliminated.
If anyone hasn't seen these two programs, I recommend it to them.
Ooops on my part for not including this tag
/EXTREME MOCKING SARCASM
The arrogance of some people who think they know better than yourself in how you want to life or end your own life is disturbing.
Yes thats disturbing isn't it, that parents who loved and raised their child to womanhood would have a arrogance even to begin to know what their child would have wanted. Totally arrogant.. tsk tsk
Not really. Blame's all in this corner.
I'm sure that all the leftists who are presently experienceing some kind of depraved pleasure form the murder of Terri Schiavo not only call themselves "smart" and "enlightened," but call themselves "members of the reality-based community."
The standard has to be that you can be a Killer or a Doctor, but not both!
We might apply that to judges and lawyers as well.
You're likely right about that. Once a doctor gets the taste of blood, he can be almost as murderous as a bioethicist.
The bioethicists are my favorites. I've always had an interest in how the shamen convinced folks in ancient times to bring their kids down for a human sacrifice, and these guys prove that it's a very easy to convince people to kill the helpless and innocent.
I posted a link to it in the Bloggers & Personal forum on the 27th.
The arrogance of some people who think they know better than yourself in how you want to live your own life is disturbing.
Nope, but I guess great minds think alike. What happened is I wasn't sure if "useless eaters" was a Nazi or Stalinist expression, so I googled it and found the article.
Save your breath. rasblue is a canadian, I believe. :)
So true, as we have seen with the leftists in our own society.
It should also be noted that massive slaughters have never been halted through emotional appeals, begging for mercy, political pressure, or economic sanctions. Only overwhelming force, to the point of unconditional surrender, has worked.
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