Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany: The "Euthanasia Programs"

Abstract

Nurses and Midwives in Nazi Germany: The "Euthanasia Programs" Edited by Susan Benedict and Linda Shields (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014) (266 pages; $140.00 hardcover, $105.00 e-book)Nurses are charged with caring for the ill and putting others' needs before their own, which makes it hard for the general public to accept that nurses could intentionally harm their patients. In this book, Susan Benedict and Linda Shields challenge the assumed naivete and goodwill of nurses and propose that nurses are just as human and capable of immoral and unethical behavior as anyone else. This challenges the reader to look at nurses through a more complex, multidimensional lens. Nurses were not immune from the broadly accepted anti-Semitism and ideals set forth by the Third Reich in Germany and played an active role in ending the lives of approximately three hundred thousand patients with the so-called mercy killings. Benedict and Shields point out many similar present-day ethical dilemmas including nurse participation in executions, maternal-fetal screening services leading to termination of pregnancy, and force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.The chapters of this book are artfully organized to walk readers through the historical framework that sets the stage for digging deep into understanding the extent of nurses and midwives' involvement in the killing of their own patients. The beginning of the book lays a foundation for the reader to contextualize the rest of the book by providing a brief yet detailed history of the cultural and political underpinnings of Nazi Germany and the global eugenics movement. The book moves into explaining the structure of nursing and specifically psychiatric nursing under the Third Reich, addressing the minimal length and depth of nursing education and the expectation of obedience to physicians. The most important and disturbing sections of the book evolve out of the trial transcripts of nurses who were tried for the murder or assistance in murder of their patients. These testimonies provide noteworthy and impactful evidence to support Benedict and Shields' goal of demonstrating the extent of nurse and midwife involvement in the "euthanasia" killings. It was evident that most of the nurses felt a serious conflict between following orders to kill patients and the risk of punishment by a means as severe as death if they did not. A critical question raised in this book is, what is an individual's responsibility when functioning under a regime as threatening and intimidating as the Third Reich?The book also addresses the historically neglected role of midwives in labeling patients as disabled, thus condemning them to death. …