Culture Of Life 101 . . . “The First Time Around: Euthanasia In Nazi Germany”

By BRIAN CLOWES

(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of chapter 23 of The Facts of Life, a 150-page treatise on all of the aspects of euthanasia, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)

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“The Hippocratic Oath . . . is an honorable historical document, which, however, does not altogether fit present times. If it is to be applied today, the wording has to be changed very extensively, and in these reformulations a series of new oaths have been drawn up which have only a vague relationship to the ancient Hippocratic Oath…a [theory of] medicine based on the principle of nil nocere [“do no harm”] is a very impoverished medicine, and we are unfortunately not in a position to carry on medicine on that simple principle today” — Dr. Georg Weltz, who was responsible for the Nazi “cold experiments.”

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The Paramount Lesson. Many people believe that the sordid history of Nazi Germany’s euthanasia program is irrelevant to the current situation in the United States. They usually claim: “It could never happen here!”
However, a brief review of events in Europe during the first half of the 20th century should give us pause, because it could happen here — and, in fact, it is happening here.
There is one lesson that we must learn from the German euthanasia/eugenics horror. It is pivotal. It is absolutely basic. It is that all euthanasia begins with an “infinitely small, wedged-in lever.”
Psychiatrist Dr. Leo Alexander served on the staff of the Chief Counsel for Nazi War Crimes at Nuremberg. He originated this phrase when he said:
“Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in the basic attitude of the physicians. It started with the acceptance of the attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived.”
This attitude in its early stages concerned itself merely with the severely and chronically sick. Gradually, the sphere of those to be included in this category was enlarged to encompass the socially unproductive, the ideologically unwanted, the racially unwanted, and, finally, all non-Germans. But it is important to realize that the infinitely small wedged-in lever from which this entire trend of mind received its emphasis was the attitude toward the non-rehabilitable sick.
Most Americans think that the Holocaust began and ended with the extermination of Jews. This is a grossly incomplete view of this portion of German history, so a short review may help us understand both this history and how it mirrors what we are seeing today. It is revealing to compare the “progress” of euthanasia in Nazi Germany and the United States in order to highlight their striking similarities.
Step 1: Laying the Groundwork. Before any social movement can succeed, it must first convince the elite to support its primary objective(s) — and then it must set about convincing a sufficient number of ordinary citizens that its agenda is necessary in the name of human freedom and progress.
The corruption of the media is absolutely essential in order for this process to succeed. In the United States, this strategy has already worked brilliantly with birth control, abortion, divorce, pornography, homosexual “marriage,” and transgender rights. In other words, it is necessary that people adopt a herd mentality and firmly believe that they are serving some greater good.
After the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, various authors referred to the “Eichmann Effect,” where a person “. . . is willing to commit atrocities he would not normally commit when he sees himself as merely an instrument of some higher authority.”
This effect also occurs when physicians deceive themselves into thinking that they are merely doing the will of society by eliminating those who are a “burden” to it.
Preparing for Euthanasia in Nazi Germany. In 1877, the German biologist and philosopher Ernst Heinrich Haeckel wrote Lebenswunder [“Life Miracles”], which contained one of the first modern-day references to utilitarian or “economic’ euthanasia in Western literature:
“What a tremendous sum of pain and grief . . . what losses of property, private and public, could be spared, if only people would decide at last to release the absolutely incurable from their unspeakable ills with a dose of morphine.”
In 1895, Dr. Adolf Jost published his book Das Recht Auf den Tod [“The Right to Death”]. He outlined for the first time the “slippery slope” theory as it applies to euthanasia, a strategy still copied by euthanasiasts today:
“Of course, at first, strict limitations must be respected. For example, the right to die of lunatics will only come into consideration later, because consent of the patient is of course lacking, and this circumstance could easily, at least at the beginning of reform, be a disadvantage.”
In 1904, 30 years before the beginning of the practice of large-scale euthanasia in Germany, Dr. Haeckel asked: “What good does it do to humanity to maintain artificially and rear the thousands of cripples, deaf mutes, and idiots? Is it not better and more rational to cut off from the first this unavoidable misery which their poor lives will bring themselves and their families?”
Preparing for Euthanasia in the United States. During the pre-World War II push for euthanasia and eugenics, activists on both sides of the Atlantic not only shared the same ideas, but often communicated and cooperated with each other.
Charles E. Nixdorff, treasurer of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalization Society, restated Dr. Jost’s “slippery slope” theory when he wrote that the Society’s proposals were limited only to voluntary euthanasia — at first.
He “explained to some of the members who desired to broaden the scope of the proposed law, that it was limited purposely to voluntary euthanasia because public opinion is not ready to accept the broader principle. He said, however, that the Society hoped eventually to legalize the putting to death of non-volunteers beyond the help of medical science.”
In 1972, 30 years before the latest push for euthanasia gained momentum in the United States, State Rep. Walter W. Sackett Jr., MD, proposed a euthanasia bill for consideration by the Florida legislature. This bill was a concrete expression of Sackett’s concern that the state of Florida was spending far too much money on the ill, especially Down syndrome children:
“Five billion dollars could be saved in the next half century if the state’s mongoloids were permitted merely to succumb to pneumonia — a disease to which they are highly susceptible.”
The following year, American Nobel Prize laureate James Watson echoed the German Dr. Haeckel when he claimed:
“Most birth defects are not discovered until birth. If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, the doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
The members of the media have both a well-developed sense of moral righteousness and a blindness to evil as it is perpetrated in their own time. In the USA, the media’s role in promoting euthanasia mirrors that of the Nazis to an uncanny degree.
It is almost as if American media leaders simply plagiarized the plots from Nazi movies and television programs.
For example, Goebbels’ propaganda film Ich Klage An (“I Accuse”) was released in 1941. This “docudrama” portrayed a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis who was “mercifully” euthanized by her loving husband to the accompaniment of soft, soothing piano music.
In 1987, ABC released its propaganda film When the Time Comes, in which a woman suffering from cancer was “mercifully” euthanized by her loving husband to the accompaniment of soft, soothing piano music.
The next article will cover the continuing parallel progression of euthanasia in Nazi Germany and the United States, and will describe the succeeding three steps of the overall strategy: Dehumanizing the intended victims, testing the waters with the “hard cases,” and presenting euthanasia as an altruistic measure.