Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (german: Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses) or "Sterilisation Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, (and made active in January 1934) which allowed the compulsory sterilisation of any citizen who in the opinion of a "

Genetic Health Court The Hereditary Health Court (german: Erbgesundheitsgericht, EGG), also known as the Genetic Health Court, was a court that decided whether people should be forcibly sterilized in Nazi Germany. That method of using courts to make decisions on heredi ...

" () suffered from a list of alleged genetic disorders – many of which were not, in fact, genetic. The elaborate interpretive commentary on the law was written by three dominant figures in the racial hygiene movement:

Ernst Rüdin Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1874 – 22 October 1952) was a Swiss-born German psychiatrist, geneticist, eugenicist and Nazi, rising to prominence under Emil Kraepelin and assuming the directorship at the German Institute for Psychiatric Rese ...

, and the lawyer . While it has close resemblances with the American Model Eugenical Sterilization Law developed by

Harry H. Laughlin Harry Hamilton Laughlin (March 11, 1880 – January 26, 1943) was an American educator and eugenicist. He served as the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office from its inception in 1910 to its closure in 1939, and was among the most a ...

, the law itself was initially drafted in 1932, at the end of the Weimar Republic period, by a committee led by the Prussian health board.

Operation of the law

The basic provisions of the 1933 law stated that: The law applied to anyone in the general population, making its scope significantly larger than the compulsory sterilisation laws in the United States, which generally were only applicable on people in psychiatric hospitals or prisons. The 1933 law created a large number of "

s" (german: Erbgesundheitsgericht, links=no, EGG), consisting of a judge, a medical officer, and medical practitioner, which "shall decide at its own discretion after considering the results of the whole proceedings and the evidence tendered". If the court decided that the person in question was to be sterilised, the decision could be appealed to the " Higher Genetic Health Court" (german: Erbgesundheitsobergericht, links=no, EGOG). If the appeal failed, the sterilization was to be carried out, with the law specifying that "the use of force is permissible". The law also required that people seeking voluntary sterilizations also go through the courts. There were three amendments by 1935, most making minor adjustments to how the statute operated or clarifying bureaucratic aspects (such as who paid for the operations). The most significant changes allowed the Higher Court to renounce a patient's right to appeal, and to fine physicians who did not report patients who they knew would qualify for sterilisation under the law. The law also enforced sterilization on the so-called " Rhineland bastards," the mixed-race children of German civilians and French African soldiers who helped occupy the Rhineland. At the time of its enaction, the German government pointed to the success of sterilisation laws elsewhere, especially the work in California documented by the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

eugenicists E. S. Gosney and Paul Popenoe, as evidence of the humaneness and efficacy of such laws. Eugenicists abroad admired the German law for its legal and ideological clarity. Popenoe himself wrote that "the German law is well drawn and, in form, may be considered better than the sterilization laws of most American states", and trusted in the German government's "conservative, sympathetic, and intelligent administration" of the law, praising the "scientific leadership" of the Nazis. The German mathematician Otfrid Mittmann defended the law against "unfavorable judgements". In the first year of the law's operation, 1934, 84,600 cases were brought to

s, with 62,400 forced sterilisations. IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black, 2001 Crown / Random House, pg 96. He cites Henry Friendlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1995, p 35 Nearly 4,000 people appealed against the decisions of sterilisation authorities; 3,559 of the appeals failed. In 1935, it was 88,100 trials and 71,700 sterilizations. By the end of the Nazi regime, over 200 "Genetic Health Courts" were created, and under their rulings over 400,000 people were sterilized against their will.Robert Proctor,
Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis
' (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988): 108. Via Google Books. Along with the law, Adolf Hitler personally decriminalised abortion in case of fetuses having racial or hereditary defects for doctors, while the abortion of healthy "pure" German, "Aryan" unborn remained strictly forbidden.Henry Friedlander,
The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution
' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of Northern Carolina Press, 1995): 30. Via Google Books.

Notes

External links

"Eugenics in Germany : 'The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring'"
article from ''Facing History and Ourselves'' * United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Biological State: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 1933-1939
{{Authority control 1933 establishments in Germany 1933 in law Law in Nazi Germany Nazi eugenics Race and intelligence controversy Racial antisemitism Scientific racism Compulsory sterilization

Operation of the law

See also

Notes

External links