Talk:Life unworthy of life

Major Issue
Undoubtedly, this is an important Nazi concept to be presented. However, "lebensunwertes Leben" simply does not refer to Nazi mass killings and genocide justified by racist or political considerations. The two cited references are too weak to establish this link. This does not make the concept any better. It is important to keep the different motivations clearly separate - in only to clearly discuss any interrelations. Best regards, jan--Trinitrix (talk) 11:24, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Addition: References: "The Nazi Docotors" is an important book by Lifton. It is not a book on ideological concepts, however. Cited from WP: "His most influential books, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (1967), Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans—Neither Victims nor Executioners (1973), and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (1986), focused on the mental adaptations made by humans in extreme wartime environments—whether as survivors of atrocities or, in the latter case, perpetrators. In each case Lifton believed that the psychic fragmentation experienced by his subjects was an extreme form of the pathologies that arise in peacetime life due to the pressures and fears of modern society. [...] The Nazi Doctors was the first in-depth study of how medical professionals rationalized their participation in the Holocaust, from the early stages of the T-4 Euthanasia Program to the extermination camps."

So I think it is fair to say that the concept "lebensunwertes Leben" gave ideological justification to the T-4 program and anyone involved in it. But the justification for the genocide of the European jews, e.g., rested on other ideological foundations.

All material going beyond T-4 should be either removed or properly verified.

Best regards --Trinitrix (talk) 13:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

People with learning disabilities
Surely this group of people should be included, alonside people with physical disabilities? Having said that, I'm not sure what the best phraseology is: I work in this field in the United Kingdom and the above phrase is the one felt (currently) to be appropriate: however, I'm aware that other idioms are used elsewhere in the world - some of which (such as "mentally retarded") would be seen as deeply offensive in the UK. Have I just bought and opened a can of worms? Dom Kaos (talk) 12:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've now changed "the physically disabled" to "people with disabilities", to reflect the fact that those with learning disabilities (UK term) were also victims, rather than just people mobility or sensory impairments Dom Kaos (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The term is 'learning difficulties' (it was chosen by some people as a collective description if one was to be used) except that this is an inclusive term so is absent from the Community Care Act for obvious reasons. It is instructive that characteristics whish may have the effect of learning difficulties are criteria for abortion. Binding and Hoche live on.Keith-264 (talk) 10:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

This page was tagged for tone; I removed the word 'tragic.' Is it an improvement? I think it is a good idea to go into this philosophical concept because it explains the motivations and thinking behind the holocaust & related murder programs of the Nazis.

Slavs
They were never a main target of the National Socialists, it's like adding POW's to the list. Paulus Caesar

Yes they were Hitler Stated that Slavs were lesser races and should be salves or killed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.13.118.232 (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Planned parenthood
Even though abortion might be considered murder by some, it is certancly not as selective as the NAZI policy. Putting a link from this page to "Planned_Parenthood_of_America" implies otherwise.

Was this page written by a middle school student? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.104.3.15 (talk) 03:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Poor translation
"Life unworthy of life" is a poor translation of this concept. The real meaning -- this is how it is understood by most Germans familiar with the history -- is "life unworthy of living", or "life unworthy of being lived". "Life unworthy of life" is circular and linguistically absurd, equally so in German. The very attachment of the term "euthanasia" to this programme indicates that this is how it was understood even by its perpetrators. Can we rename this article?--Rhombus (talk) 21:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It may appear 'linguistically absurd', but it is commonly used - see . RashersTierney (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As a professional English translator I have to say I agree with the first comment, at least as regards the English term - but not as regards the German one. German doesn't have a direct equivalent to English verbal nouns such as "living", and instead uses the infinitive form of the verb, which in this case just happens to match the word for the noun "life" ("Leben"). What this means is that the German phrase is clearer (less circular) to German-speakers than the over-literal English translation is to English-speakers - and that in turn means that the translation "life unworthy of life" is a poor one. The fact that it is commonly used simply tells me that not many English-speakers know German, and that people tend to copy what they've seen elsewhere. A poor translation is a poor translation, and the Internet is replete with them - especially as non-native users of English often take it upon themselves to post articles in English without getting them checked by native speakers. I've just come across the German phrase in a text I'm translating, and I instinctively rendered it as "life unworthy of living", with "life unworthy of being lived" as an even clearer, but more cumbersome, alternative. Then I wondered what Wikipedia had done with it, and found my way to this talk page.213.127.210.95 (talk) 15:47, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I've also just looked at the titles of the Spanish and Italian articles on the subject, and both mean "life unworthy of being lived" (Spanish "vida indigna de ser vivida", Italian "vita indegna di essere vissuta"). Both titles are in my opinion clearer, and hence better, than the English one - the more literal translations "vida indigna de vida" and "vita indegna di vita" would in fact be almost meaningless. In Spanish and Italian the "leben(s)-" part of "lebensunwertes" has correctly been recognised as a verb ("living", or "being lived") rather than a noun ("life"), whereas in English it has not.213.127.210.95 (talk) 16:04, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

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More Issue
If Timothy Snyder is to believed then the notion of statelessness and the complete lack of protections that result from statelessness are more responsible for many killings in occupied Polend, and other regions, than any extension of the Aktion T4 program -- which was, by express permission of 'the fuhrer' and by experience, limited to the confines of the German state...which did not include Poland or any 'occupied' territor. Therefore, to say that any killings in Nazi Occupied Poland were a result of Aktion T4 is WRONG. It is better to say that Aktion T4 and the extra-judicial killings shared common goals, than to say one followed from the other. They shared similar aims, but were not part of the same program. This is is important because the Nazi's were not limited in their killing in one instance (Einsatzgruppen) and were limited -- at the least-- by a doctors order in the instance of 'Aktion T4.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by TreebeardTheEnt (talk • contribs) 01:47, 6 August 2019 (UTC)