Read Online Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 by Saul Friedländer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Saul Friedländer
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could remain in her school as her father had fought at Verdun. Nonetheless “it began to happen that non-Jewish children would say, ‘No I can’t walk home from school with you anymore. I can’t be seen with you anymore.’” 144 “With every passing day under Nazi rule,” wrote Martha Appel, “the chasm between us and our neighbors grew wider. Friends with whom we had had warm relations for years did not know us anymore. Suddenly we discovered that we were different.” 145
On the occasion of the general census of June 1933, German Jews, like everyone else, were defined and counted in terms of their religious affiliation and nationality, but their registration cards included more details than those of other citizens. According to the official Statistik des deutschen Reiches , these special cards “allowed for an overview of the biological and social situation of Jewry in the German Reich, insofar as it could be recorded on the basis of religious affiliation.” A census “of Jewry living in the Reich on the basis of race” was not yet possible. 146
VI
The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) was adopted on July 14, 1933, the day on which the laws against Eastern Jews (cancellation of citizenship, an end to immigration, and so on) came into effect. The new law allowed for the sterilization of anyone recognized as suffering from supposedly hereditary diseases, such as feeble-mindedness, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, genetic epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, genetic blindness, genetic deafness, and severe alcoholism. 147
The evolution leading to the July 1933 law was already noticeable during the Weimar period. Among eugenicists, the promoters of “positive eugenics” were losing ground, and “negative eugenics”—with its emphasis on the exclusion, that is, mainly the sterilization, of carriers of incapacitating hereditary diseases—was gaining the upper hand even within official institutions: A trend that had appeared on a wide scale in the West before World War I was increasingly dominating the German scene. 148 As in so many other domains, the war was of decisive importance: Weren’t the young and the physically fit being slaughtered on the battlefield while the incapacitated and the unfit were being shielded? Wasn’t the reestablishment of genetic equilibrium a major national-racial imperative? Economic thinking added its own logic: The social cost of maintaining mentally and physically handicapped individuals whose reproduction would only increase the burden was considered prohibitive. 149 This way of thinking was widespread and by no means a preserve of the radical right. Although the draft of a sterilization law submitted to the Prussian government in July 1932 still emphasized voluntary sterilization in case of hereditary defects, 150 the idea of compulsory sterilization seems to have been spreading. 151 It was nonetheless with the Nazi accession to power that the decisive change took place.
The new legislation was furthered by tireless activists such as Arthur Gütt, who, after January 1933 besieged the Nazi Party’s health department with detailed memoranda. Before long Leonardo Conti had Gütt nominated to a senior position at the Reich Ministry of the Interior. 152 The cardinal difference between the measures proposed by Gütt and included in the law and any previous legislation on sterilization was indeed the element of compulsion. Paragraph 12, section 1, of the new law stated that once sterilization had been decided upon, it could be implemented “against the will of the person to be sterilized.” 153 This distinction is true for most cases, and on the official level. It seems, though, that even before 1933, patients in some psychiatric institutions were being sterilized without their own or their families’ consent. 154 About two hundred thousand people were sterilized between mid-1933 and the end of 1937.
On the occasion of the general census of June 1933, German Jews, like everyone else, were defined and counted in terms of their religious affiliation and nationality, but their registration cards included more details than those of other citizens. According to the official Statistik des deutschen Reiches , these special cards “allowed for an overview of the biological and social situation of Jewry in the German Reich, insofar as it could be recorded on the basis of religious affiliation.” A census “of Jewry living in the Reich on the basis of race” was not yet possible. 146
VI
The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) was adopted on July 14, 1933, the day on which the laws against Eastern Jews (cancellation of citizenship, an end to immigration, and so on) came into effect. The new law allowed for the sterilization of anyone recognized as suffering from supposedly hereditary diseases, such as feeble-mindedness, schizophrenia, manic-depressive insanity, genetic epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, genetic blindness, genetic deafness, and severe alcoholism. 147
The evolution leading to the July 1933 law was already noticeable during the Weimar period. Among eugenicists, the promoters of “positive eugenics” were losing ground, and “negative eugenics”—with its emphasis on the exclusion, that is, mainly the sterilization, of carriers of incapacitating hereditary diseases—was gaining the upper hand even within official institutions: A trend that had appeared on a wide scale in the West before World War I was increasingly dominating the German scene. 148 As in so many other domains, the war was of decisive importance: Weren’t the young and the physically fit being slaughtered on the battlefield while the incapacitated and the unfit were being shielded? Wasn’t the reestablishment of genetic equilibrium a major national-racial imperative? Economic thinking added its own logic: The social cost of maintaining mentally and physically handicapped individuals whose reproduction would only increase the burden was considered prohibitive. 149 This way of thinking was widespread and by no means a preserve of the radical right. Although the draft of a sterilization law submitted to the Prussian government in July 1932 still emphasized voluntary sterilization in case of hereditary defects, 150 the idea of compulsory sterilization seems to have been spreading. 151 It was nonetheless with the Nazi accession to power that the decisive change took place.
The new legislation was furthered by tireless activists such as Arthur Gütt, who, after January 1933 besieged the Nazi Party’s health department with detailed memoranda. Before long Leonardo Conti had Gütt nominated to a senior position at the Reich Ministry of the Interior. 152 The cardinal difference between the measures proposed by Gütt and included in the law and any previous legislation on sterilization was indeed the element of compulsion. Paragraph 12, section 1, of the new law stated that once sterilization had been decided upon, it could be implemented “against the will of the person to be sterilized.” 153 This distinction is true for most cases, and on the official level. It seems, though, that even before 1933, patients in some psychiatric institutions were being sterilized without their own or their families’ consent. 154 About two hundred thousand people were sterilized between mid-1933 and the end of 1937.
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