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Hereditary Health Court
The Hereditary Health Court (German: Erbgesundheitsgericht, EGG), also known as the Genetic Health Court, was a court that decided whether people should be forcibly sterilized in Nazi Germany. That method of using courts to make decisions on hereditary health in Nazi Germany was created to implement the Nazi race policy aiming for racial hygiene.
The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring in Nazi Germany was passed on July 14, 1933, effective January 1934. This law gave rise to the profuse making of the health courts. The Sterilization law permitted complete authority to forcibly sterilize any citizen, who in the opinion of court officials, suffered from genetic disorders, many of which were not actually genetic. When the court outcome was sterilization for the individual in question, the court ruling could be appealed to the Higher Hereditary Health Court (Erbgesundheitsobergericht, EGOG), also known as Hereditary Health Supreme Court. Dr. Karl Astel was in charge of the Hereditary Health Supreme Court from 1934 to 1937. The Hereditary Health Courts were responsible for the sterilization of 400,000 persons in less than a decade of operation.
The Hereditary Health Courts were structured uniquely in comparison to the rest of the Reich judiciary. Each court was chaired by a judge from the local magistrate court alongside two physicians. Additionally, those ordered to be sterilized had the right to appeal their decisions and there were appellate courts specifically created to hear such cases, chaired instead by a judge of the Oberlandesgericht. The courts were not technically independent institutions and were classified as subordinate parts of the local magistrate courts and district appellate courts. The presidents of the district courts also determined the number of deputies and medical staff members at their discretion.
Women in general were not involved in the decision making, even when it most often was directly carried out on them. Sterilizations and abortions (almost no castrations) were common responses to deviancy. This was largely due to the fact that women had very little to no say in the inner circles of decision-making courts. The men making the decisions were often much more sympathetic to the plights of other men.
Nazi officials also tended to offer tax breaks to those families who were hereditarily preferred, encouraging that they produce more offspring. Usually it was a mix of unemployment, family balance, and social welfare that were considered for appropriate approaches.
The activities of the higher (appellate) Hereditary Health Courts were suspended in November of 1944 by order of the Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War.
The Nazi authority assigned the nickname "model U.S." to America for playing a prominent role in constructing their policy on race in Germany. Eugenicists in the United States were aware and very pleased at having influenced Nazi legislation. The German Sterilization Law was affected by the California sterilization law and modelled after the Model Eugenic Sterilization Law but was more moderate. The Model Eugenic Sterilization Law required people who were mentally retarded, insane, criminal, epileptic, inebriated, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and economically vulnerable to be sterilized. On the other hand, the German law called for sterilization in cases of mental retardation, schizophrenia, manic-depression, insanity, hereditary epilepsy, hereditary blindness, deafness, malformation, and Huntington's chorea.
Some respondents were described by Lothrop Stoddard, an American eugenicist, visiting the Nazi state in 1939. That day were tried an 'apelike man' who had married a Jewish woman, a manic depressive, a deaf and mute girl, and a 'mentally retarded' girl. After being witness to the trials, he reported the Sterilization Law was being carried out with strict provisions and that the judges of the Hereditary Health Courts were almost too conservative. He reported on his experience with extreme support for the Hereditary Health Court, and went as far to say that the Nazi's were "weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way".
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Hereditary Health Court
The Hereditary Health Court (German: Erbgesundheitsgericht, EGG), also known as the Genetic Health Court, was a court that decided whether people should be forcibly sterilized in Nazi Germany. That method of using courts to make decisions on hereditary health in Nazi Germany was created to implement the Nazi race policy aiming for racial hygiene.
The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring in Nazi Germany was passed on July 14, 1933, effective January 1934. This law gave rise to the profuse making of the health courts. The Sterilization law permitted complete authority to forcibly sterilize any citizen, who in the opinion of court officials, suffered from genetic disorders, many of which were not actually genetic. When the court outcome was sterilization for the individual in question, the court ruling could be appealed to the Higher Hereditary Health Court (Erbgesundheitsobergericht, EGOG), also known as Hereditary Health Supreme Court. Dr. Karl Astel was in charge of the Hereditary Health Supreme Court from 1934 to 1937. The Hereditary Health Courts were responsible for the sterilization of 400,000 persons in less than a decade of operation.
The Hereditary Health Courts were structured uniquely in comparison to the rest of the Reich judiciary. Each court was chaired by a judge from the local magistrate court alongside two physicians. Additionally, those ordered to be sterilized had the right to appeal their decisions and there were appellate courts specifically created to hear such cases, chaired instead by a judge of the Oberlandesgericht. The courts were not technically independent institutions and were classified as subordinate parts of the local magistrate courts and district appellate courts. The presidents of the district courts also determined the number of deputies and medical staff members at their discretion.
Women in general were not involved in the decision making, even when it most often was directly carried out on them. Sterilizations and abortions (almost no castrations) were common responses to deviancy. This was largely due to the fact that women had very little to no say in the inner circles of decision-making courts. The men making the decisions were often much more sympathetic to the plights of other men.
Nazi officials also tended to offer tax breaks to those families who were hereditarily preferred, encouraging that they produce more offspring. Usually it was a mix of unemployment, family balance, and social welfare that were considered for appropriate approaches.
The activities of the higher (appellate) Hereditary Health Courts were suspended in November of 1944 by order of the Reich Plenipotentiary for Total War.
The Nazi authority assigned the nickname "model U.S." to America for playing a prominent role in constructing their policy on race in Germany. Eugenicists in the United States were aware and very pleased at having influenced Nazi legislation. The German Sterilization Law was affected by the California sterilization law and modelled after the Model Eugenic Sterilization Law but was more moderate. The Model Eugenic Sterilization Law required people who were mentally retarded, insane, criminal, epileptic, inebriated, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and economically vulnerable to be sterilized. On the other hand, the German law called for sterilization in cases of mental retardation, schizophrenia, manic-depression, insanity, hereditary epilepsy, hereditary blindness, deafness, malformation, and Huntington's chorea.
Some respondents were described by Lothrop Stoddard, an American eugenicist, visiting the Nazi state in 1939. That day were tried an 'apelike man' who had married a Jewish woman, a manic depressive, a deaf and mute girl, and a 'mentally retarded' girl. After being witness to the trials, he reported the Sterilization Law was being carried out with strict provisions and that the judges of the Hereditary Health Courts were almost too conservative. He reported on his experience with extreme support for the Hereditary Health Court, and went as far to say that the Nazi's were "weeding out the worst strains in the Germanic stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way".
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