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The fate of the mentally ill in Germany during the Third Reich1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Joachim-Ernst Meyer
Joachim-Ernst Meyer*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Göttingen, Germany FRG
*
2Address for correspondence: Professor J. E. Meyer, Psychiatrische Klinik, von Sieboldstr. 5, 3400 Göttingen, Germany FRG.
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Synopsis

This paper surveys the measures taken against mental patients in Germany during the National Socialist regime. It covers the eugenic sterilization programme, the killing of handicapped children, the so called Action T4 (the killing of adult psychiatric patients) and the second phase of Action T4 after its official termination, i.e. between 1941 and 1945. The possible social and political causes of these measures, and the attitude of German psychiatrists to them are discussed. In particular, attention is drawn to a prevalent fear of national degeneration, to social Darwinism, and the ideas of Binding & Hoche on ‘permission for the extermination of worthless life’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , August 1988 , pp. 575 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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Footnotes

1

Based on the 10th Aubrey Lewis Lecture, delivered at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, on 4 November 1987.

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