Programa de tratamiento de drogas 2

The Law to Prevent Hereditary Sick Progeny was passed rapidly in July 1933 after the Nazis came to power on 30 January 1933. Based on a draft law of 1930, racial hygienists strengthened the compulsory element. The law imposed sterilization on categories of the sick and disabled, deemed hereditary. Schizophrenics, the feeble minded, Huntington’s chorea sufferers, those considered to be hereditarily blind and deaf, so- called ‘mental defectives’, and chronic alcoholics became subject to sterilization. Tribunals of two doctors and a lawyer decreed sterilization irrespective of the patient’s wishes. 1

Although not racial in terms of the categories for sterilization, the question arises of how compulsory sterilization was specifi cally Nazi, and how it was – to use a concept coined by the Allied war crimes investigator, Leo Alexander in 1949 – a ‘slippery slope’ towards racial research and lethal experiments? 2 _{The law marked a radical reorganization of public health: the}

newly instituted offi ces for race and heredity broke down the democratic structures of municipal health provision. 3 _{In practice, the law was open to}

radicalization beyond its strict letter – this can be seen with the singling out of racial groups for sterilization. A case in point was that of the ‘mixed race’ adolescents.

Sterilization was implemented rapidly from January 1934: overall, an estimated 360,000 Germans were sterilized. From 1940 the start of systematized killing of psychiatric patients meant that sterilizations diminished. Annexed Austria showed only approximately 6,000 sterilizations, but active participation in euthanasia. 4 _{Doctors conceived}

the law; they were involved in referrals and decisions as to who should be sterilized; and implemented the procedures. The dream of cleansing the

VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS OF NAZI HUMAN EXPERIMENTS

26

German race from hereditary pathogens involved a shift from the physician responsible for the individual sick person to assuming power over the racial body of the German people for the sake of ‘future generations’.

Nazi marriage laws meant the physician became a gatekeeper with rights over procreation: pre- marital health certifi cates ensured pedigrees free from genetic illness. Concepts of a genetic burden were extended to include forms of ‘antisocial behaviour’ such as criminality and addictions. Medicine thus offered Nazism a powerful technique of control; in return German doctors demanded powers to screen, segregate, and surgically operate. A patient, Wilhelm Werner, drew a series of cartoons on his plight at the Werneck hospital: he was being transported on a scientized juggernaut (‘Der Triumphzug der Sterelation’), and was the object of invasive tests and treatments. Werner was eventually a euthanasia victim. 5

Hereditary experts called for more research resources for the categories targeted by the sterilization law. The KWI for Psychiatry in Munich and the KWI for Anthropology in Berlin saw opportunities for research. Arthur Gütt, the public health offi cer in charge saw a direct link between science and racial policy. He wanted all records centrally archived and placed at the disposal of researchers. Coercive public health thus underpinned racial research. Gütt authorized the anthropologist Eugen Fischer (appointed chief judge at the Berlin sterilization court), the human geneticist von Verschuer and Rüdin (himself a judge and expert witness for sterilization cases) to have access to the records of sterilization courts for research purposes. Gütt requested that the Emergency Fund for German Science should make fi ve scholarships available. The Reich Health Offi ce was to collate all records of the hereditary health courts, and a special set of records was to be made available for research. 6 _{Fischer developed research into}

hereditary blindness and deafness, as experts drew a distinction between cases which were acquired and hereditary defects. Rüdin was to focus on psychiatric research, and Verschuer on internal medicine, paediatrics, surgery and orthopaedics. A special card index was to standardize details of sterilization cases. 7

In the event, sterilization was imposed unevenly, and research on clinical conditions was sporadic. The Munich psychiatric hospital of Eglfi ng-Haar compiled elaborate genealogical tables of patients. The hospital was also a noted centre of racial propaganda. Rüdin at the German Research Institute for Psychiatry developed research into schizophrenia and idiocy. The next stage on was that of invasive experiments: Rüdin and his assistant Käthe Hell conducted research at the Winnenthal institution, involving lumbar punctures in 1937. 8

Nazi legislation boosted the compiling of comprehensive genealogical tables known as ‘Sippentafeln’ linking crime, suicide, and mental and physical defects. Initially, there was no inclination to experiment. Later in the 1930s clinical studies showed a new interest in invasive research to establish what defects could be attributed to a genetic propensity for

ON THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: FROM EUGENICS TO EXPERIMENTS 27

deafness or to postnatal trauma. A paper in the Erbarzt , a supplement originally issued with the medical review, Deutsches Ärzteblatt , showed an interest in research in damaging hearing to determine what could then be deemed an acquired condition. 9

At the KWI for Anthropology, Verschuer set up clinics where he could conduct hereditary research. The clinic for study of tuberculosis and heredity was located at the Waldhaus Charlottenburg. Another clinic for care of the new born and infants was established at the Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria Haus for infant welfare, and supported by the Reich Health Offi ce and DFG. 10

Verschuer hoped that the clinic could refer twins to him. 11

Cases presenting at the infant welfare clinic were referred for sterilization. One of the doctors there, Alfred Dubitscher conducted research on antisocial families and their genealogies. (Later, he claimed to have deliberately faked four racial evaluations to protect the children from deportation.) 12 _{In 1936}

Verschuer moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he turned a former department of social medicine into one for racial hygiene and hereditary research. He continued to use clinical cases for research. Here, Josef Mengele conducted research for a medical doctorate on cleft palate. 13

Verschuer’s assistant, Hans Grebe completed a dissertation on hereditary blindness, having joined the NSDAP and SA in 1933. 14 _{He turned to}

research on the hereditary tendency to dwarfi sm (a condition termed Chrondrodysplasia) in 1938 with a circular to German health offi ces. He examined dwarves clinically and with X-rays. He met with resistance but used the powers of the Sterilization Law to enforce attendance at his clinic. 15