The Medical Manipulation of Reproduction to Implement the Nazi Genocide of Jews

PDF
Published: Dec 31, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/cjp.20993
Keywords:
Nazi medicine reproductive life medical experiments eugenics euthanasia sterilization medical ethics
Beverley Chalmers
International Perinatal Health Consultant Kingston
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9345-4284
Abstract
Holocaust literature gives exhaustive attention to direct means of exterminating Jews, by using gas chambers, torture, starvation, disease, and intolerable conditions in ghettos and camps, and by the Einsatzgruppen. In some circles, the term “Holocaust” has become the ultimate description of horror or horrific events. The Nazi medical experiments and practices are an example of these. Nazi medical science played a central and crucial role in creating and implementing practices designed to achieve a “Master Race.” Doctors interfered with the most intimate and previously sacrosanct aspects of life in these medical experiments – reproductive function and behavior – in addition to implementing eugenic sterilizations, euthanasia, and extermination programs. Manipulating reproductive life – as a less direct method of achieving the genocide of Jews – has been less acknowledged. The Nazis prevented those regarded as not meeting idealized Nazi racial standards – and particularly Jewish women – from having sex or bearing children through legal, social, psychological and biological means, as well as by murder. In contrast, they promoted reproductive life to achieve the antithesis of genocide – the mass promotion of life – among those deemed sufficiently “Aryan.” Implementing measures to prevent birth is a core feature of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. As with many other aspects of the Holocaust, science and scientists were inveigled into providing legitimacy for Nazi actions. The medical profession was no exception and was integrally involved in the manipulation of birth to implement the Holocaust.
Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (preferably in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Beverley Chalmers, International Perinatal Health Consultant Kingston
Full Professor (Retired)
References
Annas, George. “The Changing Landscape of Human Experimentation: Nuremberg, Helsinki and Beyond.” In Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich: Historical and Contemporary Issues, edited by John J. Michalczyk, 106-114. Kansas City: Sheed and Wade, 1994.
Baer, Hester, and Elizabeth Baer. “Introduction.” In The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women, edited by Hester Baer and Elizabeth Baer, 13-51. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000.
Black, Edwin. Nazi Nexus: America’s Corporate Connections to Hitler’s Holocaust. Washington DC: Dialog Press, 2009.
Bock, Gisela. “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Society: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State.” In Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust, edited by John K. Roth Carol Rittner, 161-186. New York: Paragon House, 1993.
British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee. “Interrogation Report No 518. Ref No Aiu/Pir/137. Target No: C24/744, Bwce/N/Int/”T”/1 162.“ London: Imperial War Museum, 12 June 1947.
Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wipperman. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Caplan, Arthus. “The Relevance of the Holocaust in Bioethics Today.” In Medicine, Ethics, and the Third Reich: Historical and Contemporary Issues, edited by John J. Micahalczyk, 3-12. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1994.
Chalk, Frank, and Kurt Jonassohn. The History and Sociology of Genocide. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Chalmers, Beverley. Birth, Sex and Abuse: Women’s Voices under Nazi Rule. Surrey, UK: Grosvenor House Publishers, 2015.
Chalmers, Beverley. Family-Centred Perinatal Care: Improving Pregnancy, Birth and Postpartum Care. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Chalmers, Dana Lori. “The Influence of Theatre and Paratheatre on the Holocaust.” Master Thesis, Concordia University, 2008.
Cohen, Elie. Human Behaviour in the Concentration Camp. London: Free Association Books, 1988.
Cornwell, John. Hitler’s Scientists: Science, War and the Devil’s Pact. New York: Viking, 2003.
Czech, Danuta. The Auschwitz Chronicle 1939-1945. Translated by Barbara Harshav, Martha Humphreys, and Stephen Shearier. New York: Henry Holt, 1990.
David, Henry, Jochen Fleischhacker, and Charlotte Hohn. “Abortion and Eugenics in Nazi Germany.” Population and Development Review 14 no. 1 (1998): 81-112.
Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. USA: Penguin Books, 2005.
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich at War. New York: The Penguin Press, 2009.
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. USA: Penguin Books, 2006.
Glass, James M. Life Unworthy of Life: Racial Phobia and Mass Murder in Hitler’s Germany. New York: Basic Books, 1997.
Government, US. “Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. Official Text in the English Language. Published at Nuremberg, Vol XXIX.” 1947.
Greene, Joshua M. Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor. New York: Broadway Books, 2003.
Grodin, Michael. “Historical Origins of the Nuremberg Code.” In Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich: Historical and Contemporary Issues, edited by John J. Michalczyk, 169-194. Kansas City: Sheed and Wade, 1994.
Grodin, Michael A, George J. Annas, and Leonard H. Glantz. “Medicine and Human Reich: A Proposal for International Action.” In Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich:Historical and Contemporary Issues, edited by John J. Michalczyk, 199-209. Kansas City: Sheed and Wade, 1994.
Hanauske-Abel, Hartmut M. “Not a Slippery Slope or Sudden Subversion: German Medicine and National Socialism in 1933.” BMJ: British Medical Journal 313, no. 7070 (1996): 1453-1463.
Herzog, Dagmar. “Hubris and Hypocrisy, Incitement and Disavowal: Sexuality and German Fascism.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, no. 1/2 (2002): 3-21.
Höss, Rudolf. Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant of Auschwitz. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. Edited by Steven Paskuly. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.
Jones, Adam. Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Routledge/Tayor & Francis Publishers, 2006.
Katz, Jay. “The Concentration Camp Experiments: Their Relevance for Contemporary Research with Human Beings.” In Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich edited by John J. Michalczyk, 73-86. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1944.
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: Profiles in Power. Edited by Keith Robbins. London: Longman, 1991.
Kogon, Eugen. The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them. Translated by Heinz Norden. New York: Berkeley Books, 1950.
Lagnado, Lucette Matalon, and Sheila Cohn Dekel. Children of the Flames: Dr Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1991.
Lengyel, Olga. Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz. Chicago: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1947.
Lengyel, Olga. “Scientific Experiments.” In Women and the Holocaust: Different Voices, edited by Carol Rittner and John K Roth, 119-129. New York: Paragon House, 1993.
Lewy, Guenter. The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books, Inc, 1986.
Liverpool, Lord Russell of. The Scourge of the Swastica. London: The Military Book Club, 1954.
Mazower, Mark. Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
Mitscherlich, Alexander, and Fred Mielke. Doctors of Infamy: The Story of the Nazi Medical Crimes. Translated by Heinz Norden. New York: Henry Schuman Inc, 1949.
Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial. “Homosexuals: Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945.” fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/USHMMHOM.HTM.
O’Mathúna, Dónai P. “Human Dignity in the Nazi Era: Implications for Contemporary Bioethics.” MBC Medical Ethics 7, no. 2 (2006): 1-16.
Poltawska, Wanda. And I Am Afraid of My Dreams. Translated by Mairy Craig. London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1964.
Posner, Gerald L, and John Ware. Mengele: The Complete Story. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000.
Seidelman, William E. “Medicine and Murder in the Third Reich.” Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies 13, no. 1 (1999): 1-9.
Spitz, Vivien. Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Accounts of Nazi Experiments on Humans. Boulder: Sentient Publications, 2005.
Yahil, Leni. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry. Translated by Ina Friedman and Haya Galai. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.