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The Effects of Sterilization Law on the Deaf in Nazi Germany

In the era of Hitler it was know in our history classes that Hitler was out to kill the Jewish people, but it was not just the Jewish, yet those who did not have the high standards that Hitler imposed. His plan was to vanish people who were weak physically impair such as blind, deaf, and feeble minded. How was he able to get away with it, well it was through of forced abortions, the Sterilization Law, the Teachers Collaborators, and Deaf Collaboration: REGEDE. Forced abortion: In the time before War World I Hitler plans were to get the Fascist rulers such as the accomplices from the medicine, jurisprudences, and the education in which the law was for the Prevention of the Offspring with Hereditary Diseases. This gives physicians under this law of the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases to kill a life. Women who were deaf, blind, feeble minded were pronounce unworthy to have children. Therefore, about 662 deaf women were reported to be compulsory sterilizations, yet 57 women reported to have been forced to terminated their abortions. This is just a status of those who reported, many others were remained uncounted due that they were ashamed. In addition, there were single women who kept their abortions in silent. Although of those 57 women were prepared to speak in relation to the termination of their pregnancies. These women were ominous on how these pregnancies termination were carried out, yet without their consent. The physicians still performed abortions even after the sixth month in violation of the law in which 23 women reported their termination during or even after the six month. Here is a table of month of pregnancies in which the abortions were performed. Table 4.1 page 85.

Month	Respondents N=57	Percentage 3rd month or earlier	8	14.04 4th month	9	15.79 5th month	10	17.54 6th month	10	17.54 7th month	4	7.01 8th month	2	3.51 9th month	7	12.28 No month given	7	12.28

Hitler rose to power in German in January 1933 when he was named chancellor. Not too long after that his dreams of purifying the gene pool of Germany began to take form. July 14 1933 is a date in history that cannot be forgotten. This day Nazi Germany passed a law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Disease or commonly known as the Sterilization Law. The basic breakdown of this law is that any person who suffered from any hereditary disease would be subject to sterilization by surgical method. Some of the so called “defects” which would put a person in risk of sterilization are but not limited to schizophrenia, deafness, blindness, feeblemindedness, manic depressive disorders and many others that could fit in this list. But it didn’t stop there, the law also included any person who was born with an anatomical defect or was considered an alcoholic. Not satisfied with Law, almost two years later Hitler amended the Law by adding a clause permitting forced abortions to women who would have been subject to sterilization. The majority of people were turned in by health authorities such as doctor and nurses, and deaf school officials such as teachers and directors. To notify the individuals letters were sent to those who fitted the category for sterilization, the people where allowed to protest the decision but over 90% of those petitions were denied. Also they tended to target teenagers of the age of fourteen and over because their parents did not have and jurisdiction over them and therefore could not protest in behalf of their children. There were two men that where in the Deaf community/ Deaf teachers but supported Nazi Germany and their names were named Siepmann and Alreghs. Siepmann was the head of the German Deaf Athletic Club that had Deaf boys and girls in the club but he was trying to train those kids into future soldiers for Nazi Germany. Albregh made a social organization named REGEDE, which was a deaf group that supported Hitler because that group lost their independence and that’s how they became supporters to Nazi power. The group in 1934 had 3,900 registed members that supported the Nazi party. Albreghs’ promoted Nazi racial ideology found its most potent expression in REGEDE’s activities, where close collaboration of the deaf organization with party organs and Nazi institutions was a matter of course that involved genetics. Also some Deaf people just joined the Nazi party because they thought it would protect them from the sterilization law. But the Nazi Party still forced sterilization among the Deaf supporters they forced 5 of the 1,215 deaf members. Also Old Timers Club of Kassel said, “ That the hearing must sacrifice their lives as soldiers. The deaf do not need to be soldiers but sterilization is a sacrifice like a soldiering.” In chapter 3 of Crying Hands the teachers from hearing schools didn’t turn in their deaf students as much as the teachers did in the deaf schools. If the students resisted to go to the hospital to be sterilized by the third attempt, “…police, put in handcuffs, beaten, and delivered to the hospital.” (pg. 46) The teachers were turning in the deaf students because Hitler had seized his power of Germany and he had the mental capacity to overrule the teachers of the deaf to forcibly make them go to be sterilized. Eventually, Hitler would be able to invent what would be like a human death assembly line known as the T4 Killings. Hitler would have any human that had any sign or looked mentally disabled or even by race and deafness. In Hitler’s eyes, if you weren’t made in his ‘image’ of blonde hair blue eyes, you weren’t good enough to him. Hitler considered these people “burdensome existences”. (pg. 160) The gas chambers were disguised as showers, from there the lifeless bodies would be looked over and the doctor’s would steal their gold teeth, etc. After that, the bodies would go to the crematorium. These T4 killings are known as “wild euthanasia” (pg. 164) and there isn’t even an approximate number of how many victims were a part of the T4 killings.

Works Cited Biesold, Horst. Crying Hands Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany. Trans. William Sayers. Paperback Edition 2003, Thrid printing 2015. Washington: Gallaudet University Press, 1999.