History Extra podcast The Third Reich's first genocide
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Jun 8, 2025 Dagmar Herzog, a history professor at the Graduate Center, CUNY and author of *The Question of Unworthy Life*, delves into the harrowing history of the Nazi regime's systematic extermination of nearly 300,000 individuals with disabilities. She discusses the chilling influence of eugenics and how societal attitudes toward disability allowed such atrocities to occur. Herzog highlights the bureaucratic methods behind the euthanasia program and the long struggle for recognition and reconciliation of these crimes in modern Germany.
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Nazi "Euthanasia" Program Explained
- The Nazis' euthanasia program killed around 300,000 people with psychiatric or cognitive disabilities, viewing them as burdens.
- They aimed for a "disability-free" nation by combining sterilization and murder fueled by racial hygiene propaganda.
Disability Attitudes Pre-Third Reich
- 19th century Germany established many institutions to care for people with intellectual disabilities, focusing on usefulness.
- Despite Christian charity values, death wishes for disabled newborns surfaced, as disability challenged faith and caused institutional embarrassment.
Eugenics Role in Disability Stigma
- Eugenics was an international movement promoting "healthy" births, but Germany used flawed heredity theories linking intellectual disability to family traits.
- This fueled fears that large population segments were undesirable, combining euthanasia dreams and sterilization agendas.
