Jan 01 2025
The dark history of eugenic thought in Germany from the nineteenth century
to today―and the courageous counter-voices.
In this episode, Robin Mills speaks with Dagmar Herzog about her new book
The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century
(Princeton University Press, 2024). Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi genocide
claimed the lives of nearly three hundred thousand people diagnosed with
psychiatric illness or cognitive deficiencies. Not until the 1980s would
these murders, as well as the coercive sterilisations of some four hundred
thousand others classified as “feeble-minded,” be officially acknowledged
as crimes at all. The Question of Unworthy Life charts this history from
its origins in prewar debates about the value of disabled lives to our
continuing efforts to unlearn eugenic thinking today.
to today―and the courageous counter-voices.
In this episode, Robin Mills speaks with Dagmar Herzog about her new book
The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany’s Twentieth Century
(Princeton University Press, 2024). Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi genocide
claimed the lives of nearly three hundred thousand people diagnosed with
psychiatric illness or cognitive deficiencies. Not until the 1980s would
these murders, as well as the coercive sterilisations of some four hundred
thousand others classified as “feeble-minded,” be officially acknowledged
as crimes at all. The Question of Unworthy Life charts this history from
its origins in prewar debates about the value of disabled lives to our
continuing efforts to unlearn eugenic thinking today.