Dagmar Herzog’s sensitive, subtle, and damning new book explores the history and the afterlives of eugenics in Germany.
Very little in this book documents Habsburg or Austrian history, and yet it should be read by all of us who work on twentieth-century Central Europe. The pillars of eugenic thought identified by Herzog—a hierarchy of human worth, a belief that disability was a result of heredity, a sense of one’s own superiority, and the depiction of out-group “inferiors” as dangerous, disgusting, or pitiable—are crucial contexts no matter the backdrop (3). Herzog shows that these forms of “knowledge,” as produced by doctors, educators, and (religious) charity workers, were in place by the late nineteenth century. She documents their inculcation in Weimar Germany and their implementation in the mass “euthanasia” actions of the National Socialist era. Most importantly, Herzog shows the long shadow of such thinking that loomed over both the East and West German states.
Herzog clearly claims intellectual history as the basis of her project. Although the work she does to chart dehumanizing language and practices is crucial, her heart seems to lie in documenting the horizon of possibility: the counter-voices of those she calls “un-dehumanizers” and the arguments they made for the vulnerable among us. The delicate discursive analysis that underpins Herzog’s work reminded this reader, therefore, of the best kinds of cultural history; this is particularly true for her ability to zero in on the “discussability” of an issue or idea. For example, by tracing the publications and conference proceedings of Protestant theologians, pastors, physicians, and caregivers, Herzog clearly identifies the moment in 1931 when Protestant leadership in Germany “formally endorse[d] a hierarchization of human value” (60). In addition, the author’s almost anthropological interest in asking questions of experience—for example, how we experience vulnerability in society, or how our sense-making systems work—tilts the study squarely toward cultural analysis. Finally, as Herzog explores the brave work of “un-dehumanizers,” she pauses in the realm of the History of Emotions, pointing out that sometimes the most effective counter-balance to hierarchies of worth is in the realm of feeling, rather than intellect (96).
This is a masterful piece of work. Herzog sustains arcs of discourse over a long century of exclusion and brutality. In a kind of combined institutional history, the author puts pedagogues, doctors, and spiritual leaders all into conversation across time and through shifting meanings. Her clear, urgent prose propels the reader through the difficult subject matter. At every turn, the dangerous hierarchization of human value is countered by the arguments of those (too few) historical actors who argued that “dignity has no gradations” (62). The book’s use of images is especially thoughtful; they are chosen and carefully captioned so that they, often our only direct link to the individuals and communities targeted, can best connect us to human experience. Many of these images, like the preponderance of the historical actors highlighted, are of children. Such powerful reminders of the humanity of all of us impacted by eugenic thought include photographs of disabled children supporting each other in a group home in 1904 (19), portraits of cherished child residents in an institution during World War I (54), photospreads reproduced from a 1977 East German women’s magazine depicting “heartwarming, lovely” family moments that include, rather than exclude, children with disabilities (161 and 162), and pictures of children “with and without disabilities happily playing together” in a 1980s West German classroom (135).
The most effective parts of this study examine and explore varied German reactions to the murder of disabled people before and during the Shoah. Herzog has been here before. Her previous books, Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe (2020) and, especially, Sex After Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (2007), both feature a philosophical angle on how human behavior, some of it appalling, gets remembered and interpreted by the next generation (or two). Like those studies, her present work pauses in the realm of memory to illustrate how fragile our narratives are, and how difficult it is to process the trauma of the twentieth century. The shocking “lateness” of coming to terms with the past vis-à-vis the disabled in Germany only underscores the importance of difficult histories. What Herzog calls “antipostfascism” is perhaps the most encouraging of all the stances documented in the book: a willingness to push deeper into the official rejection of National Socialism and ask hard questions about the structures of injustice that will remain unchanged without careful moral and historical re-evaluation.
Herzog ably provides such a reevaluation. Moreover, her conclusion explicitly explores the refractions of the present onto the past, particularly in the realm of intellectual disability. “Time lags and postponements” in both othering the disabled and achieving justice are especially interesting for those of us seeking to understand the stories we tell ourselves and when they “stick” (202). Instances of “recursive returns” are equally valuable for historians to puzzle through, as our work is always unstable and unfinished. Although Germany is the setting for this story, it is one that needs to be told in every national setting. The Austrian experience should be documented next.
