Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: "By Trust Betrayed" - a review Summary: Nazi Euthanasia program and discussion of participants From: Ken McVayFollowup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Nizkor Project, Canada Keywords: Bouhler,Brandt,euthanasia,Gallagher,T4 Archive/File: places/germany/euthanasia/trust.rvw Last-Modified: 1994/12/06 BOOK REVIEW Hugh Gregory Gallagher, "By Trust Betrayed (Patients, Physicians, and the License to Kill in the Third Reich)" New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1990 In the years 1939-1945, unprecedented numbers of people, most falling into one of the groups "Jews", "political dissidents", "homosexuals", or "disabled," were put to death in Nazi Germany. Hugh Gallagher's latest book tells this story in terms of the last of these groups. As World War II began in September 1939, Adolf Hitler signed an order which was to generate unprecedented opposition in the later years of the Third Reich, especially when one con- siders the usual consequences of opposition to Hitler. Hitler authorized Philip Bouhler [Reich Leader] and Karl Brandt M.D., to begin an experiment in "final medical assistance" for those disabled members of the German population judged (by the medical profession) to be "incurable." The wording of this secret order was, like all such documents, carefully chosen; physicians were "given a license to kill," not "authorized to do so." Thus were dozens of Third Reich physicians to escape judgement, to continue their practices after the War almost as though nothing had happened. [Ed. note: Information about the T4 program is available via World Wide Web, URL "http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/places/germany/euthanasia"] In the couple years following signing of the order, the "Aktion T-4" program thus authorized became the experimenta- tion ground for killing techniques that were to be effec- tively used against Jews in the later stages of the War. By now, the images of Auschwitz and Treblinka taken by Allied photographers at the end of the War, are firmly etched in the collective conscious (or unconscious, for those who still deny them) of Western society. The timing and results of the campaign against disabled Germans was to be such, that locations such as Hadamar and Absberg would never achieve this same level of notoriety, and images of the more than 200,000 persons with disabilities thus dispatched, would not find their way into Western memory. This exercise in "final medical assistance" was played out as the ultimate result of two key philosophical concepts, heartily embraced in (but not unique to) Germany: Eugenics, and Social Darwinism. To those not familiar with the history behind these ideas, Gallagher's book is a good introduction. One Nazi Party official described National Socialism as "applied biology," as the Nazi state succumbed to the idea that the biological ideas published by Darwin 65 years previously, were the key with which to conduct human affairs and strengthen public health. The place of the German medical profession in this charade was central to the successes of T-4 before it was terminated. Far from being run by two-bit politicians such as Goering or Ribbentrop, T-4 was run with the full cooperation of several hundred German MDs, with Karl Brandt in technical leadership of the program. Most of the remainder of the approximately 15,000 German doctors acquiesced in the program, with opposition from a very small minority. The majority were kept in line with a combination of fear, "blood-cement," ostracism, and the "Game of Chicken." Many of them were to congratulate themselves on breaking loose from the foolish and "unscientific" sentiments of the past which had previously served as the check against such behavior, in what was surely the ultimate abnegation of the Hippocratic oath. Ultimately, German churches were the only effective force which stood between persons with disabilities and Aktion T- 4, before the War ran its course. Through the constant opposition of courageous personalities such as Bishop August Graf von Galen, who openly opposed the euthanasia program and escaped the long arm of the Gestapo due to his fame, German public sentiment was finally brought to bear against T-4. Thus, the program became one of Hitler's few defeats in German public policy. Hugh Gallagher, as a person who was disabled by polio, reflects on his experiences of "Otherness," of the Dark Side of man which causes discrimination against him and other people like him. In reflecting on these matters and observing that "the feelings which drove the German doctors to do what they did are, in fact, everywhere," i.e. the fear of those who are different and loathing of the vulnerability of disabled persons, he implies the important question: can it happen again, or happen elsewhere? As he observes that eugenics and Social Darwinism were in favor in both Europe and the United States during the rise of the Nazis, he implies it is a possibility, but never comes out and says so. In a sense, Gallagher's excellent research is incomplete without some sense of an answer to this important question. Richard Rubenstein has attempted to answer the question in his treatise about the Holocaust, "The Cunning of History." After discussing how modern society has been able to use secularization and rationalization to achieve a bureaucratic objectivity that allows the systematization of terror, indifference to personal elements, and the achievement of totally dominating slavery (a tradition of slavery which, he observes, has been deeply embedded in Western civilization since the start of recorded history), Rubinstein comes to a startling conclusion: the Holocaust was the expression of some of the most profound tendencies of 20th century civilization, and they were NOT unique to Germany. There is no good reason why Aktion T-4 could not happen elsewhere under the right conditions; a good argument could be made that it would be extreme arrogance to argue otherwise. Today, the situation we see is merely a matter of degree: poverty is just another word for slavery. Both bureaucracy and the dangerous Dark Side of the human psyche are still very much in evidence. The hope for the future is that the concepts of "inclusion" and "community" which now represent the leading-edge of disability activism, can function as an antidote against these long-standing problems. ==> Our thanks to: Ed Arnold * NCAR * POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 * 303-497-1253(voice) 303-497-{1298,1137}(fax) * internet: era@ncar.ucar.edu * bitnet: era@ncario compuserve: internet:era@ncar.ucar.edu Followups to alt.revisionism
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