In the early 1920’s racial hygiene became recognised as an element of the German medical service. German universities educated physicians in racial hygiene and the establishment of the Nationalist Socialist Physicians League in 1929 began the coordination of the nazi medical policy.
While Hitler will undoubtedly have read a number of books throughout his youth that put him onto the path of racial purity one book in particular stands out. A man called Ernst Haeckel who had strong feelings on the ideas of race and eugenics, he recommended in his books that abnormal infants and sickly adults should be eliminated to stop the spread of bad genes. The relation between his programme and the euthanasia programme is clear; the euthanasia programme started with the killing of approximately 5000 children; while developing to include adults 2by August 1941 in total possibly 70,000 had been put to death. There is no direct evidence that Hitler read these books but he did grow up in a time when his books were best sellers and so it would have been quite difficult not to become familiar with them, which would again support the idea that the program was based around purity theories and not anything else.
Whether it was mainly due to books or not, Hitler certainly became accustomed to the ideas that were floating around, this racial theme of Hitler’s can not only be seen, but also is emphasised clearly in his actions as party leader. In 1931 RuSA was set up (Race and Settlement Office) to ensure high racial quality of recruits for his loyal SS. It can be strongly argued that this was implemented to lay the groundwork for Germanys future racial policy. Hitler obviously had some very strong feelings on this issue after all, after December he extended RuSA’s objectives to also screen any prospective brides of SS agents. The ultimate goal of the department and of Hitler was to form a racially superior stock from which future German leadership would come. The euthanasia programme can be seen simply as an extension of this plan to achieve this goal of purification, in 1931 he started with his party in 1933 he made the next step with the sterilization law and then in 1939 with the development, from the idea of sterilization to the euthanasia programme.
The euthanasia program itself was undoubtedly based around racial purity theories, Hitler it would seem, obvious from Mein Kampf and other assumptions as to where he picked up his ideas, was keen on the idea of a genetically perfect ‘Aryan Race’ and initiated the cleansing process firstly with sterilisation laws followed by the euthanasia program and the Holocaust, to rid Germany of all its imperfections. A statement from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography would lead us to believe that he had a clear aspiration to rid the German population of the weak permanently, it would take somewhere in the region of 600 years. He at least, it would seem clearly had a program!
Science was used to try and justify the series of schemes implemented by Hitler and the Nazis on the grounds that the handicapped and degeneratives were more likely to pass on their diseases. Eugenists such as Alfred Ploetz were financed by the state to find reasons why the ‘Aryan’ race were superior, the major point made was as mentioned that the inferior races were more likely to get hereditary illnesses. This belief along with the sterilization law of 1933 would make it seem that the Nazis were just trying to rid the population of genetic diseases, which is a racial purification; further progressions just consolidate the story. He used science to justify anti-Semitism. Sterilization moved onto alcoholics, depressives and people with learning difficulties when there was no proof at all that these illnesses were hereditary, their actions were not backed by science and they knew this. The phrase “ eugenics began as a utopian scientists promise to improve all mankind and became the Nazi rationale for mass murder”, taken from ‘Science and the Swastika’ a TV documentary, sums it up perfectly.
At the base of almost all Hitler’s actions was the idea that the German ‘blonde haired’ and ‘blue eyes’ race was superior and that this was the Germany that should be promoted and extended through the extermination of the weak. The whole story of the reasoning behind his doings can really be concluded with his eventual move onto the extermination of the Jews in the holocaust, the Jews were simply the next step in a logical scheme to purify Germany. The fact that the holocaust was undoubtedly a question of racial purification helps support the evidence of his reasoning behind previous moves, in that he had the cleansing of the German race always on his mind. The T-4 (code name for euthanasia headquarters) expertise and facilities were transformed after first exterminating the weak, disabled and outcasts into the beginnings of the long process of the killing of the Jews and of all of Germanys impurities.
Chapter 2
The idea that economics played an influential role must also be recognised, the fact that by exterminating institutionalised patients a lot of money would be saved, space would be made and doctors would be freed up to help elsewhere is an interesting one. These obvious benefits would have undoubtedly been on Hitler and his party’s minds when initiating the program. Especially as Germany was in the mist of war this would have been a particularly strong argument at the time as freeing up space and money would have been necessary. It also makes logical sense; that if the weak of society are killed then a stronger more efficient country will remain and so the economy will in due course improve in strength as well. 3Hitler once said “If Germany was to get a million children a year and was to remove 700-800,000 of the weakest, then the result might actually be an increase in strength” at the Nuremberg Party rally on 5th August 1929. This proves that even before he got into power he had strong ideas on the matter and it would seem basic aims on a program that he was later to implement.
The euthanasia programme can actually be looked at in two stages between 1939-41 the programme when at the start of the war with a stronger economy was indeed more centred on the idea of purifying the German race. However the program was halted for a short time in 1941, after an increase in public suspicion and a public denouncement by Bishop Clemens von Galen on 3 August, it was temporarily halted on the 24th August 1941. Yet despite the pause the euthanasia program did not stop. Patients and now also war cripples were given the lethal injection or overdose in the period that has become known as the ‘wild euthanasia’ time. Space and money were now much more vital and so the re-enactment and continuation of the program can be argued was much more centred on economics. Mental hospitals were getting cleared out to make way for injured soldiers and the extra money that was being made available was now not a bonus but a necessity. At first the worry had been the burden of the inferior on society but as the war progressed it became the burden of the soldiers that required the program to continue. Obviously the reasoning behind the initial start of the program will not have been forgotten only that the economic factor will have played a larger part in the second part of the program than it did previously.
Ideas had already been circulated as already mentioned largely by Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding in their book where the point is emphasised that during war with a weakened economy due to the financial strains of fighting it is not fair to the rest of the German people if money was continually wasted on a cause that was not seen as particularly important, the book attempted to bring it across to the German people in a way, that made the idea of euthanasia 4“not a crime, not an Immoral act, not brutal, but a permissible and beneficial act”. They stressed the economic cost of keeping patients institutionalised and equipped with full time medical care. It argued strongly for the need for a “higher morality, to cease implementing the demands of an exaggerated concept of humanity and an exaggerated view of human life at great cost.”
There is no doubt that this was on the Nazis’ and more importantly Hitler’s mind seen by the governments production of a number of films trying to bring this point across, however how important this was in the decision making process of actually starting the programme is debatable.
The T-4 planners had decided to make feature films in line with Goebbel’s dictum that ‘the best propaganda works imperceptibly’. Broadly speaking the objectives were to give sentiment and understanding to the killings and hence assure the German publics consent. The economic factor was strongly emphasised as it was felt it was more of an idea that the German people could get behind, also by keeping the procedures medicalised with medicine committees more support was gained. 18 million people saw films such as ‘I accuse’ and ‘The Inheritance’ which showed the social consequences of hereditary impairment and the benefits gained from their passing also enjoyed full houses, were particularly influential. Reactions were of course not all positive but a great many agreed with the basic concept and in the benefits that the pleasant termination could bring, especially while the country was fighting a war.
It must also be noted that the economic ‘story’ if that was all it was, was also given to the SS doctors who were carrying out the gassing, a man involved later said “Economic statistics played a particularly important part in the talks. For example it was demonstrated how many houses could be built for the sums of money spent on looking after the mentally ill, or how many deprived orphans could be educated with this money.” From Nazism 1919-1945 vol.3 Pridlam and Noakes, page 419.
Also as mentioned the idea was introduced into the school curriculum, children were given sums to do in class where they would work out how much money could be saved from a program like that of the euthanasia one, and then were informed what else the money could be spent on e.g. on giving newly wed couples money to help them get started.
However this idea of economics that was relayed onto the German population and the SS themselves cannot be overestimated in importance, after all the main purpose of the films, speeches and classes were to gain support. So as mentioned the people were not given the full facts on what was going on or on what was planned only bits that the state thought the people would loosely back, so that they could continue to eliminate the weak without a large public uproar which would make the continuation of the program difficult.
It is undeniable that on Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933 he, as leader of the Nazi party put in motion a program that would develop over the years with the overall aim of achieving a pure, strong ‘blonde haired’, ‘blue eyed’ Aryan race. The original sterilization law of 1933 paved the way for further development into the euthanasia programme and later the holocaust. There were of course differences between the euthanasia program and the holocaust, sterilization and the euthanasia program could be passed off in the time of war, however the extermination of an entirely healthy race could not. However the ideology that undermined the law of 33 and the program of 1939 did go some way in explaining their next move be it an unjustified one. Hitler, who was at the centre of all this was unarguably hooked on the idea of a perfect race illustrated in Mein Kampf and understood when analysing the period in which he grew up. Also simply from his actions such as setting up organisations such as RuSA, with laws like that of the Nuremberg and with recorded ‘raves’ of his, the argument that the movement was solely based on racial purity theories is a particularly realistic one. Although, to say that the issue of economics was an irrelevant one would be false, it is true that large proportions of evidence of this being an influential factors is from propaganda but merely by the fact that films, speeches and books were written about the idea proves that it was very much on their minds. This interpretation becomes a much more significant one in the second phase of the euthanasia programme when the development of war has had a real effect on the country. Like many a story in history there are of course two sides two a story, but the way Hitler and the Nazis ruthlessly went about the extermination of all Germans that weren’t in his mind perfect leads to a stable conclusion that this underlying belief of Hitler’s played a part in almost all decisions made by the Nazis not least in the commencement of the euthanasia programme in 1939.
Word Count: 2994
Bibliography
Euthanasia and the Third Reich, Article by Michael Burleigh
The SS state Article by Martyn Housden from the Modern history review.
Inside Nazi Germany-Detlev J.K. Peukert (St. Ives, Cornwall 1987)
The War Against the Jews-Lucy S.Dawidowicz (St. Ives 1975)
Nazism 1919-1945 Vol.3 – J. Noakes and J. Pridlam (Exeter 1988)
From ‘Mercy Death to Genocide’ by Julian Reed-Purvis
The Nazi Doctors-Robert Jay Lifton (USA 2000)
1 Article, History Review, March 2003, Julian Reed-Purvis
2 Nazism 1919-1945 vol.3, Pridlam and Noakes, Page 403.
3 Nazism 1919-1945 vol.3, Pridlam and Noakes, Page 394.
4 Extract from Hoche and Binding book, ‘Permission for the destruction of worthless life’ from Pridlam and Noakes, Nazism 1919-194 vol.3, Page 392.
