''Ich klage an'' (; en, I Accuse, italic=yes, link=yes) is a 1941

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

pro-

euthanasia Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different eut ...

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

film directed by

Wolfgang Liebeneiner Wolfgang Georg Louis Liebeneiner (6 October 1905 – 28 November 1987) was a German actor, film director and theatre director. Beginnings He was born in Lubawka, Liebau in Prussian Silesia. In 1928, he was taught by Otto Falckenberg, the directo ...

and produced by Heinrich Jonen and

Ewald von Demandowsky Ewald von Demandowsky (21 October 1906 – 7 October 1946) was a German film producer who held the office of a Nazi German '' Reichsfilmdramaturg'' and was head of production at the Tobis Film company in the Third Reich. Career Demandowsky was ...

. It was banned by Allied powers after the war.

Plot

A beautiful young wife suffering from

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

pleads with doctors to kill her. Her husband, a successful doctor himself, gives her a fatal overdose and is put on trial, where arguments are put forth that prolonging life is sometimes contrary to nature, and that death is a right as well as a duty. It culminates in the husband's declaration that he is accusing them of cruelty for trying to prevent such deaths.

Cast

Propaganda elements

This film was commissioned by Nazi propaganda minister

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

at the suggestion of Dr.

Karl Brandt Karl Brandt (8 January 1904 – 2 June 1948) was a German physician and ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) officer in Nazi Germany. Trained in surgery, Brandt joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and became Adolf Hitler's escort doctor in August 1934. A member of ...

, to make the public more supportive of the

Aktion T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of ...

euthanasia program. Key scenes from the film were personally inserted by

Victor Brack Viktor Hermann Brack (9 November 1904 – 2 June 1948) was a member of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) and a convicted Nazi war criminal, who was one of the prominent organisers of the euthanasia programme Aktion T4; this Nazi initiative resulted in th ...

, one of the prominent organisers of the program and later a convicted war criminal. The actual victims of T4 were in fact killed without their consent, or that of their families. Indeed, one cinema goer is alleged to have compared the film to the program and naively asked how abuses could be prevented from creeping into it. The SS reported that the churches were uniformly negative about the movie, with Catholics expressing it more strongly but Protestants being equally negative. Opinions in medical circles were positive, though there were doubts, especially though not exclusively in cases where patients thought to be incurable had recovered. Legal professions were anxious that it be placed on a legal footing, and in the few polls that were commissioned, the general population were said to be supportive.

References

Bibliography

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External links

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Full film at Archive.org
1941 films Aktion T4 Nazi propaganda films Films of Nazi Germany Films about euthanasia 1940s German-language films Censored films German black-and-white films German drama films 1941 drama films Films about multiple sclerosis German courtroom films 1940s German films {{1940s-Germany-film-stub