In the Shadow of the Reich: Nazi Medicine discusses how the philosophy of eugenics led to The Holocaust

Last Thursday evening in one of my social work classes, we watched a documentary about the role of health professionals in the Holocaust. The film’s title was In the Shadow of the Reich: Nazi Medicine.

I’ve watched my fair share of depressing documentaries, particularly about the Nazi Regime thanks to my social work background. However, In the Shadow of the Reich may be the most unsettling one yet. The film, made up of old and new footage, personal accounts, expert thoughts, and graphic photography discusses the role of medical professionals in the Holocaust, and how their unethical abuse of power led to some of the most disturbing human practices accounted for.

What was most shocking to me about this documentary was its exposition of how the evolution of the Nazi thinking began in the United States. During the years preceding WWII, a huge craze swept across academia: the philosophy of eugenics, which is essentially the idea of selective breeding within the human race. Many academics praised this idea, particularly Americans. They believed it was the future of our race. The United States was the first country to implement mandatory sterilization (usually by highly invasive surgery) among humans in mental health hospitals. The common population saw mental disorders as tied with immorality and social filth, so the idea of forcefully prohibiting those with conditions such as mental retardation and schizophrenia from reproducing was justified as a form of mass-cleansing, purifying the human race for all. I was shocked to learn this practice originated in the U.S. and surprised I had not heard about it before.

Germany, also a huge believer in eugenics, copied our “hygienic” practice and then grew from it. Hitler defined human “filth” not only as the physically handicapped and mentally challenged, but also by race, hence including Jews. Once Hitler introduced mass sterilizations, he decided to go ahead and just perform mass deaths (by gas chambers) to those deemed “irreversibly ill”. One particularly troubling note – many German parents, so ashamed of their handicapped children, would approve of sterilization surgery or death of their child, in the name of purifying the race. This mindset of racial purification is what led so many people to justify the Holocaust as it was happening. In order to keep the race clean and uncontaminated, Nazis forced Jews and other minorities to live in Ghettos, where starvation and disease grew rampant. Eventually, the concentration camps came along, furthering this same ideology.

The main theme of the film was to explore the research-motivated experiments performed on Jews and physically and mentally handicapped individuals at the concentration camps, all in the sake of science and bettering the rest of the human race. For example, German doctors designed studies that tested human tolerance of high and low altitude pressures. They’d change the pressures so violently and to such extremities, causing the (involuntary) research subjects to die slow, excruciatingly painful deaths by lung explosion. The doctors reasoned that the studies would benefit pilots, so therefore their motives were in the right place. The film goes on to discuss the various torturous experiments performed on camp prisoners. The most difficult to learn about were all of the studies performed on children, such as the pouring of toxic liquids into their eyes, with the hopes of learning how to transform brown eyes into the color blue. When the children just ended up sickly or blind, they’d dispose of them (by sending them to the gas chambers), as they were seen as nothing but easily replaceable for the next study.

After WWII, a handful of the Nazi doctors were tried in an international court. However, experts estimate that 45% of German doctors were active members of the Nazi party and involved in the design and implementation of these horrific research studies. As odd as it is to comprehend, these doctors seemed to believe that their actions were perfectly in line with their ethics due to the benefits for the ‘Aryan race’ outweighing any costs.

Although I don’t think I would choose to watch this dark documentary again, I found it to be incredibly eye-opening and revealing, particularly for someone in the mental health profession. And even in today’s world, versions of this philosophy still exist. As discussions of health care reform are ever-present among us, I’ve heard such comments about how we waste too much of our money on the sick and old—we’d be better off without them. It scares me to reflect on how this mentality can develop. We must all remember that every human deserves a life of dignity, respect, and accessibility to resources. In order for true progression in humanity, this belief needs to become a universal one.