History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust

Headline: Nazi "Mercy Killings" Symptomize State Rule

Publication Date: Sunday, October 19, 1941
Historical Event: German Bishop Condemns The Killing Of People With Disabilities
This database includes 143 articles about this event
Tags: Gannett full page downloadable; Deportation and Mass Murder; Resistance; Anti-Nazi Protest and Activism; Eugenics and People with Disabilities
Article Type: Editorial or Opinion Piece
Newspaper: Daily Clarion-Ledger/Clarion-Ledger
Location: Jackson, Mississippi
Page Section and Number: 6
Author/Byline: --
Image Text: . Nazi "Mercy Killings Symptomize State Rule The courageously outspoken Bishop of 1 Muenster, Count Clemens August Von , Galen, who has defied the Nazis ' outside his doors before, has given confirmation to rumors that the depravity and inhumanity of the rulers of Germany have reached the ' point where they, are putting to death thousands of inmates of insane asylumns in the name of "mercy killing." Bishop von Galen, daring whatever vengeance may be taken against him, has exposed and denounced the killings of "mental defectives, invalids and the incurably sick" because by the definition of the Nazis they are "unproductive," and has delivered his indictments from" his pulpit. His words are worth pondering here because they bring a reminder of what can happen when the state, or government, becomes the master instead of the servant of the: people. The cardinal Nazi principle is that the nation is everything and the individual is ; nothing. The American principle . is that the individual has certain inviolate rights, which even the nation may not suspend or suppress. If that principle is ever forsaken, the American people will be laying themselves open to the same dangers now imposed on the Germans. As Bishop von Galen is quoted as saying at one point: "If it is once conceded that men have the right to kill 'unproductive fellow creatures and if it at first affects only poor helpless insane persons, then fundamentally the murder of all 'unproductive' persons is given full rein . . . Then none of our lives is safe any more; some kind of a commission : can put you on a list of 'unproductive' who, according to their decision, have become unworthy to live." The reaction of the German people to. the "mercy killing" program of the Nazis, will be significant. Their acceptance of it will leave no further doubt that they have degenerated to the lowest level that humans can sink to and still be classified as humans. Killing defenseless citizens of lands they have invaded is bad. enough. Killing the invalids and sick among their own peoples is even worse. . ." .'.
History Unfolded Contributor: Marlene K.
Location of Research: Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Euthanasia Program (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
Nazi Persecution of the Disabled: “Murder of the Unfit”
Bishop of Muenster Protests Killings

Bibliography

Aly, Götz, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross. Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Burleigh, Michael. Death and Deliverance: "Euthanasia" in Germany c. 1900-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

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