The Nazi eugenics begins with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring that calls for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from alleged genetic disorders.
Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring (German: Gesetz zur Verhtung erbkranken Nachwuchses) or "Sterilisation Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, (and made active in January 1934) which allowed the compulsory sterilisation of any citizen who in the opinion of a "Genetic Health Court" (Erbgesundheitsgericht) suffered from a list of alleged genetic disorders many of which were not, in fact, genetic. The elaborate interpretive commentary on the law was written by three dominant figures in the racial hygiene movement: Ernst Rdin, Arthur Gtt and the lawyer Falk Ruttke. The law itself was based on the American Model Eugenical Sterilization Law developed by Harry H. Laughlin.
Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of "Nordic" or "Aryan" traits at its center.Eugenics research in Germany before and during the Nazi period was similar to that in the United States (particularly California), by which it had been heavily inspired. However, its prominence rose sharply under Adolf Hitler's leadership when wealthy Nazi supporters started heavily investing in it. The programs were subsequently shaped to complement Nazi racial policies.Those targeted for destruction under Nazi eugenics policies were largely people living in private and state-operated institutions, identified as "life unworthy of life" (Lebensunwertes Leben). They included prisoners, degenerates, dissidents, and people with congenital cognitive and physical disabilities (erbkranken)- people who were considered to be feeble-minded. In fact being diagnosed with "feeblemindedness" (in German, Schwachsinn) was the main label approved in forced sterilization, which included people who were diagnosed by a doctor as, or otherwise seemed to be:
Epileptic
Schizophrenic
Manic-depressive (now known as bipolar)
Cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy
Deaf and/or blind
Homosexual or "transvestites" (which at the time was used to refer to intersex and transgender people, particularly trans women)
Anyone else considered to be idle, insane, and/or weak as per "feeblemindedness"All of these were targeted for elimination from the chain of heredity. More than 400,000 people were sterilized against their will, while up to 300,000 were killed under the Aktion T4 euthanasia program. Thousands more also died from complications of the forced surgeries, the majority being women from forced tubal ligations.
In June 1935, Hitler and his cabinet made a list of seven new decrees, in which number 5 was to speed up the investigations of sterilization.An attempt to relieve the overcrowding of psychiatric hospitals, in fact, played a significant role in Germany's decision to institute compulsory sterilization and, later, the killing of psychiatric patients. [...] Hitler's letter authorizing the program to kill mental patients was dated September 1, 1939, the day German forces invaded Poland. Although the program never officially became law, Hitler guaranteed legal immunity for everyone who took part in it.In German, the concept of "eugenics" was mostly known under the term of Rassenhygiene or "racial hygiene". The loanword Eugenik was in occasional use, as was its closer loan-translation of Erbpflege. An alternative term was Volksaufartung (approximately "racial improvement").