64 Friday, August 1, 1981

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

A German Conference Analyzes Nazi Race Motives,
Blames Medical Profession, Sees Present Implications

Special School Teachers
(Editor's note: Liquida- doctors called for even was to die was always the occasional flute concerts to were still daily required to in Brunswick declared
make
selections.
boost
their
morale.
doctors'. They directed the
tion programs conducted more drastic measures.
What scientific criteria that every human being
Yet at the same time
Some of these doctors and extermination program.
by doctors during the
did
they use when making was capable of learning.
those
involved
in
the
kil-
There were occasional
Nazi era are exposed in professors were able to con-
decisions
to limit the per- Jansen described this as
lings
were
given
extra
ra-
an article by Eckart Spoo tinue their medical and complaints that non-
a revolutionary break
sonal freedom of patients?
tions
of
alcohol
—
which
doctors
were
interfering
teaching
practice
after
the
which appeared in the
with the past. At one time
was
obviously
necessary
to
in medical decisions — at
Present Day
Frankfurter Rundschau war.
special school teachers
Cologne professor of which Hitler assured help them overcome their
Implications
on June 29. It was re-
thought it their duty to
repugnance.
doctors
that
the
respon-
printed in the July 19 genetics Benno Muller-Hill
in Psychiatry
march their pupils off to
This
repugnance
often
issue of the German said that any claim by gene- sibility lay solely with
be sterilized.
How
close
is
the
psychiat-
tic science to fully under- them. They were the offi- led to resistance, which
Tribune of Hamburg.)
Concern at the conferee
rist's functional relation
took
different
forms
in
cers
of
a
movement
that
Hitler's liquidation pro- stand how intelligence and
for
the fate of the sick
with
the
state
institutions
various
institutions.
The
pursued the illusion of
0 aram and the role of doctors other mental faculties were
responsible for law and or- hand in hand with concern
predominantly
young
total
health.
in the process was discussed inherited was humbug. _
for the not-yet sick, concern
Hanover psychiatrist audience at the Hanover der?
at a conference at Hanover
But in those days this Hans Stoffels said that conference was particu-
What are the main about the humanity of a
University.
humbug was the dominant these doctors regarded their larly interested in this priorities in state policy society which in-
Under the program, hun- orthodoxy, proclaimed by
and in the psychiatrist's stitutionalizes its "problem,
mission as that of abolish- aspect.
deeds of thousands of sick renowned scientists such as
Doctors, nurses and or- mind: to help mentally ill people" and is only too glad
and handicapped people Prof. Karl Schneider of ing all suffering, so that derlies all played a part in and suffering people or to to pay the price. -
only
the
general
good
re-
This discussion is bound
were forcibly sterilized, kil- Heidelberg, who was gener-
resistance. There is evi- keep them under control,
to
lead to the conclusion
led in medical experiments ally considered to be an mained.
The victims of steriliza- dence that the murder prevent them causing a that the humanization of
and exterminated in gas idealistic doctor.
apparatus did not function disturbance?
tion
and
murder
were
the
society is not just a matter
chambers.
In the Third Reich,
quite as smoothly as was
Relatives were told that Schneider and others like means towards this insane wished.
Of course it is convenient of scientific information.
the victim had died sud- him were given ample utopia. The will to cure
Many obstacles have to be
After 1945, Prof. Werner for society to shove
denly. It was not uncommon opportunity to look for walked over mountains of
psychiatric patients into overcome before such in-
Heyde,
director
of
the
for appendicitis to be given proof of the allegedly in- dead.
euthanasia program, was huge 1,000-bed hospitals — sights are followed by polit-
as the cause, whether or not controvertible genetic
Motives Listed
given a good job in so to speak into final stor- ical action. Realistic reform
the appendix had already facts. Schneider, for
for Nazi Ideal
Schleswig-Holstein — age. And it is also conven- proposals for locally-based
been removed.
of Master Race
example, treated patients
under a false name, admit- ient to tranquilize them by forms of treatment have
But this soon became and then had them killed
The social scientists at tedly, but with the conni- pumping them constantly long existed and have pro-
known and resistance so that he could compare the conference analyzed the vance of many in high with drugs, regardless of ved successful in experi-
developed. One outspo- clinical and pathological motives behind this wish to places.
mental schemes such as
the side-effects.
ken opponent was Car- diagnoses.
The Federal Supreme
produce a pure, healthy,
However, it would be that in Hanover.
dinal Galen, of Munster.
But the reforms are not
professor strong and happy master Court acquitted a doctor more humane — and this
Hamburg
In 1941 Hitler ordered Julius
Hallervorden or- race by selection: the need who had selected more than point of view was argued being introduced be-
that the program be dered 500 human brains for to feel strong after losing
6,000 patients for death.
most forcibly by psychiatric cause the money is not
halted.
Delegates to the recent his laboratory and he got the First World War, the
What preoccupied confer- hospital staff — to allow there.
It only remains to point
educated and wealthy mid- ence delegates more than patients to live in a normal
conference, on "Psychiatry them.
Robert Ritter, who
dle class' fear of the rising anger at the failure of Ger- environment.
out that the Bonn govern-
and German Fascism," held
lower classes, the call for man justice to punish the
Prof. Wolfgang Jansen of ment could not see its way to
at the university's school of claimed to be an expert on
medicine, heard several an- the genes of gypsies, even the use of terror to stabilize criminals was how far such Bremen said: We have got supporting this - conference
in the Year of the Dis-
swers to the question of how argued that "pure gypsies" crumbling power inhuman methods continue to stop using terms such as —
doctors became involved in were less dangerous for the structures.
to be practiced in psychia- `endogenic, 'resistance to abled — a conference long
Also there was the wish to try.
the program. future of the German race
therapy' and 'incapacity to overdue 36 years after the
Two facile explanations than those people who had a break out of the frontiers of
Many scruples were ex- learn' when talking about end of Nazi barbarism.
Delegates said they
were dismissed right at the gypsy as a grandparent or the German state imposed pressed in general digcus- patients. These terms only
at the Versailles conference sion. Prof. Klaus Dorner of justify social exclusion and would like to see the confer-
start: that only a few black great-grandparent.
ence held again — this time
This man, whose appar- and to establish a great em-
Gutersloh Psychiatric Hos- violence."
sheep in the medical profes-
sion took part and that ently expert diagnosis led pire. Only a master race pital said that psychiatrists
The Association of in a psychiatric hospital.
these who did acted under many colleagues and nurses could claim the right to im-
to sterilize "one-eighth" pose its will on others.
compulsion.
But did the medical mass
gypsies to prevent the birth
German Attitudes
of "one-sixteenth" gypsies, murderers have no sense
and irreverent Shulamit
At least 10 are under 40.
By CARL ALPERT
got off scot free after the that what they were doing
Prepared the Way
Aloni, who survived the
HAIFA
—
When
the
was
wrong?
Did
the
hushing
war.
In view of the brutal (and massacre of the small
for Experimenting
Josef Mengele, who re- of the euthanasia program chairman of the 10th Knes- wholly unnecessary) projec- parties and managed to
The experts agreed that
there had been signs of ceived a doctorate of an- only serve the elitist inter- set pounded his gavel for tion of the Ashkenazi/ keep her seat as the sole
anti-human currents in thropology from Munich ests of the "priests of the the first meeting of that Sephardi confrontation into member of her dwindling
medical science well before and of medicine from cult of extermination" as body since the elections, he the election campaign it is Citizens' Rights Party.
1933. The "Prevention of Frankfurt University, Muller-Hill described faced a body of 120 members highly significant that the
The present Knesset con-
•
quite different in composi- electorate rejected that as
Genetically Diseased conducted brutal exper- them?
institutions
tains
only eight kibutz
iments
on
twins
at
Au-
tion
from
that
which
had
State
an
issue.
The
three
or
four
Offspring" Act of 1933 could
never have come into force schwitz on his own initia- called themselves, for served in the preceding fOur parties which openly ap- members, but even these
pealed for support on the are 6.5 percent of the 120
in July 1933 if it had not Live, not on orders from example, Charitable years.
anywhere
in
the
Nazi
Foundations
for
Institu-
Some
of
the
familiar
(and
basis of their Sephardi com- members, or double the
been prepared for years
noisy) personalities of the position polled a total of less ratio of kibutz population to
hierarchy. tional Care.
previously.
These and similar gro- past were gone. Instead than 50,000 votes from the the general population.
Heinrich . Himmler
Some psychiatrists at the
tesque and grimly ironic there were new faces, some almost two million cast.
time were clearly delighted merely gave his approval to
One would expect to find
that the state overrode legal Mengele's application. The euphemisms prove that of them no doubt destined to There can be nothing but the legal profession well re-
condemnation for Aharon presented in a legislative
objections to forcing doctors project was backed by the they regarded mass murder become familiar:
not just as unpopular but as
to report handicapped German Research Associa-
Yaakov Meridor, ship- - Abu Hatzeira who made body, but here there is a
immoral.
ping magnate, and said to this issue his principal surprise. There are only 17
patients to the authorities tion.
The directors of Schloss be the new great hope for plank, and thereby in- members with legal train-
Muller-Hill said that doc-
and that it forced people to
Hartheim extermination Likud's economic pro- flamed feelings.
tors had never been as
ing, down from 26 lawyers
be sterilized.
camp in Linz — where in- gram; Eliyahu Ben-
In 1939 a decree from Hit- highly respected as they
in the outgoing Knes—t.
Obviously, the Sephardi
mates from Mauthausen no Elissar, Israel's first am-
ler was published making it were in the Nazi state.
Even then there was
longer capable of working bassador to Cairo; Hayim electorate, who comprise siderable criticism of bile
possible for the incurablyCharles Darwin's teach-
almost
half
the
voting
popu-
were brought to be mur- Herzog, already familiar
sick to be granted the possi- ing that nature destroyed
shoddy drafting of much of
dered — told staff that the as former Israel ambas- lation, themselves refused the legislation.
bility of euthanasia. the weak and favored the
murder of the handicapped sador to the UN; Prof. to respond to this appeal.
This decree had been strong was perverted into a
The fact remains,
There are five professors
was a great achievement of Yuval Ne'eman, leader of
mission
to
murder
the
preceded by discussions
nonetheless,
that
of
the
120
in
the Knesset: two in
civilization
and
even
held
weak.
The
decision
on
who
in which some leading
the new Tehiya party
which is hostile to Begin Knesset members 88 are aeronautics, one in law, one
because of the latter's Ashkenazi Jews, 27 non- in physics, and one in
"moderation"; Avraham Ashkenazis, and five Arabs, sociology. In addition there
Shapiro, (Agudat Israel), according to a study by Prof. are poets, playwrights and
head of the Carmel rug Shevakh Weiss, himself a authors, economists, ar-
company who, the wits new member of the Knesset. chitects, educators and of
And speaking of course a considerable
say, favors a wall-to-wall
number of just ordinary
under-representation,
coalition.
people who happen to be
This is a young Knesset there are only nine
active in politics, but that's
and the bulk of the members women among the 120,
democracy, isn't it?
are in their 40s or early 50s. one of them the colorful

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New Faces in the 10th Knesset

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