Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany by Benedict, Susan; Shields, Linda;

Short description:

Beginning in the late 1930s, the National Socialism government of Germany began a program of killing individuals with mental or physical disabilities. Six "killing centres" were established. By August 1941, knowledge of the killings had spread to the general public and Hitler called for the program to end. This, however, did not end the killings. The gas chambers were dismantled and taken to the concentration camps, but the killing of psychiatric patients continued at many institutions throughout the Reich. Over 70,000 people were killed at the established centres and in psychiatric hospitals, with an estimated 10,000 being killed by nurses. This book offers a pioneering and startling historical analysis of the ways in which nurses were involved in and central to the success of the Nazi "euthanasia" program.

Long description:

This book is about the ethics of nursing and midwifery, and how these were abrogated during the Nazi era. Nurses and midwives actively killed their patients, many of whom were disabled children and infants and patients with mental (and other) illnesses or intellectual disabilities. The book gives the facts as well as theoretical perspectives as a lens through which these crimes can be viewed. It also provides a way to teach this history to nursing and midwifery students, and, for the first time, explains the role of one of the world’s most historically prominent midwifery leaders in the Nazi crimes.

"a groundbreaking and chilling historical analysis of a medical system in which death becomes a medical cure and nursing professionals view their allegiance to the state, their superiors and society above that of individual patients." – Michael Grodin, Boston University

"All the contributions present a compelling aggregation of the current status of research and give us a good picture of this field. The result is a work that should especially be recommended to health care professionals, midwives and their teachers, while it also outlines the current status of research for historians of the period and medical historians." -Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf, University of Potsdam

"The editors of this book do nurses and the public a great service by examining the little-known but crucial role of nurses in the Nazi euthanasia programs.

Each chapter of this small but densely packed book deals with a different aspect of nursing and midwifery involvement in the Nazi euthanasia regime, information often surprising as well as disturbing."-Nancy Valko, National Association of Prolife Nurses

Table of Contents:

1. Setting the Scene  Linda Shields  2. Fertile Ground for Murder  Susan Benedict  3. Nursing During National Socialism  Thomas Foth, Jochen Kuhla and Susan Benedict  4. Psychiatric Nursing During the Era of National Socialism  Susan Benedict, Mary Lagerwey and Linda Shields  5. The Medicalization of Murder: The "Euthanasia" Programs  Susan Benedict  6. Meseritz-Obrawalde: A Site for "Wild Euthanasia"  Susan Benedict  7. Klagenfurt: "She Killed As Part of Her Daily Duties"  Susan Benedict  8. German Midwifery in the "Third Reich"  Wiebke Lisner and Anja Peters  9. From History to Memory: Using the "Euthanasia" Programs to Teach Nursing Ethics  Ellen Ben-Sefer and Dganit Sharon  10. Changing Perspectives: From "Euthanasia Killings" to the "Killing of Sick Persons"  Thomas Foth  11. Conclusion  Linda Shields and Susan Benedict