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Abstract
My MA thesis investigates the role of eugenic ideology within the German medical establishment and how theories concerning “racial hygiene” (Rassenhygiene) enabled physicians to morally justify their role in the euthanasia killings inside German hospitals and the “Final Solution” in occupied Poland. While ideological bigotry cannot solely explain the motivations and rationales that prompted members within the German scientific community to participate in the Holocaust, ethnic racism provided physicians, scientists, geneticists, and the German populace an opportunity to rationalize the expulsion of “dangerous entities” within Germanic society.
I support these conclusions by introducing evidence from pre-war medical journals and post-war testimonies provided by several German euthanasia physicians. By primarily focusing on mid-level managers and bureaucratic functionaries of Hitler’s Aktion T4, my MA thesis exposes the Holocaust as an evolutionary construct orchestrated and implemented by an extensive segment of the German scientific community. After investigating the methodology employed in both Aktion T4 and Aktion Reinhard, I conclude that victims in both programs, and ultimately the Holocaust, were murdered in the name of biological necessity and for the benefit of the German Völksgemeinschaft (ethnic community).
