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The phrase "life unworthy of life" (in ) was a Nazi designation for the segments of populace that, according to the racial policy of the Third Reich, had no right to live and thus, were to be "exterminated." This concept formed an important component of the ideology
Ideology

An ideology is a set of aims and ideas, especially in politics. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society....
 of Nazism
Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
 and eventually led to the Holocaust.

The expression first occurs in the title of a 1920 book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens, (Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life) by Karl Binding
Karl Binding

Karl Ludwig Lorenz Binding was a Germany jurist known as a promoter of the theory of retributive justice. His influential book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwertem Lebens , written together with the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, was used by the Nazism to justify their T-4 Euthanasia Program....
 and Alfred Hoche
Alfred Hoche

Alfred Erich Hoche was a German psychiatrist well-known for his writings about eugenics and euthanasia....
.

e considered to be "deviant" or a "source of social turmoil" in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
 and the occupied Europe fell under this designation.






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The phrase "life unworthy of life" (in ) was a Nazi designation for the segments of populace that, according to the racial policy of the Third Reich, had no right to live and thus, were to be "exterminated." This concept formed an important component of the ideology
Ideology

An ideology is a set of aims and ideas, especially in politics. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society....
 of Nazism
Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
 and eventually led to the Holocaust.

The expression first occurs in the title of a 1920 book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens, (Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life) by Karl Binding
Karl Binding

Karl Ludwig Lorenz Binding was a Germany jurist known as a promoter of the theory of retributive justice. His influential book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwertem Lebens , written together with the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, was used by the Nazism to justify their T-4 Euthanasia Program....
 and Alfred Hoche
Alfred Hoche

Alfred Erich Hoche was a German psychiatrist well-known for his writings about eugenics and euthanasia....
.

Nazi categorization

Those considered to be "deviant" or a "source of social turmoil" in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
 and the occupied Europe fell under this designation. The "deviant" category included the mentally ill, people with disabilities, political dissidents
Dissident

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When individual dissidents unite in a common cause they may become known as a dissident Political movement....
, homosexuals, intermarriage partners
Miscegenation

Miscegenation is the mixing of different Race , that is, marriage, cohabitation, having human sexuality and having children with a partner from outside one's racially or ethnically defined group....
, and criminals
Crime

Societies define Crime as the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some Government or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment.The word crime originates from the Latin crimen , from the Latin root cerno and Greek ????? = "I judge"....
. The "social turmoil" category included the clergy
Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. The term comes from the Greek language ?????? - kleros, "a lot", "that which is assigned by lot" or metaphorically, "heritage"....
, Communists, Jews, Roma
Roma people

The Romani are an ethnic group of Europe tracing their Origins of the Romani people to middle kingdoms of India.The Romani are Romani diaspora with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, with more recent diaspora populations in the Americas and, to a lesser extent, in other par...
, Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses is a restorationism, Millenarianism Christianity religious movement. Sociology of religion have classified the group as an Adventism sect....
, "non-white" or non-Caucasian peoples, and a variety of other groups in society. More than any other of these groups, the Jews soon became the primary focus of this genocidal
Genocide

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise genocide definitions, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ....
 policy.

The concept culminated in Nazi extermination camps, instituted to systematically murder those who were unworthy to live, according to Nazi ideologists. It also justified various human experimentation
Nazi human experimentation

Nazi human experimentation was a series of controversial medical human experimentation by the Germany National Socialist German Workers Party in its concentration camps during World War II....
, and eugenics
Nazi eugenics

Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's Nazism and race social policies that placed the improvement of the Race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" , including but not limited to the Crime, Degeneration, Gleichschaltung, feeble-minded, History of homosexual people in...
 programs, as well as Nazi racial policies.

Development of the concept


According to the author of Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide psychiatrist
Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry and is certified in treating mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy....
 Robert Jay Lifton
Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton is an United States psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform....
, the policy went through a number of iterations and modifications:

"Of the five identifiable steps by which the Nazis carried out the principle of "life unworthy of life," coercive sterilization
Nazi eugenics

Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's Nazism and race social policies that placed the improvement of the Race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" , including but not limited to the Crime, Degeneration, Gleichschaltung, feeble-minded, History of homosexual people in...
 was the first. There followed the killing of “impaired” children in hospitals; and then the killing of “impaired” adults, mostly collected from mental hospitals, in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas. This project was extended (in the same killing centers) to “impaired” inmates of concentration and extermination camps and, finally, to mass killings in the extermination camps themselves."


The concept has recently been used by conservative scholar Robert P. George
Robert P. George

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law....
 to demarcate between types of killing acceptable and unacceptable to a conservative world-view. In his argument, the taking of life in the course of legal execution or war may be acceptable if it is done in pursuit of a moral or other purpose, while the ending of life for reasons unacceptable to a conservative frame of mind, such as assisted suicide, embryo research or abortion are judged to be always undertaken solely on the basis of "life unworthy of life".

See also

  • Glossary of the Third Reich
    Glossary of the Third Reich

    This is a list of words, terms, concepts, and slogans that were specifically used in Nazi Germany.Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members....
  • Nazi eugenics
    Nazi eugenics

    Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's Nazism and race social policies that placed the improvement of the Race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" , including but not limited to the Crime, Degeneration, Gleichschaltung, feeble-minded, History of homosexual people in...
  • Action T4
    Action T4

    Action T4 was a program, also called Euthanasia Program, in Nazi Germany spanning October 1939 until August 1941, during which physicians killed 70,273 people specified in Adolf Hitler secret memo of September 1, 1939 as suffering patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination," but described in a denunciation of th...
  • Department of Film (Nazi Germany)
    Department of Film (Nazi Germany)

    The Department of Film was one of five departments that comprised the Nazi propaganda of the NSDAP, established by Adolf Hitler in 1933 as part of the Reichspropagandaleitung....
  • Nazism and race
    Nazism and race

    Nazism developed several theories concerning races. They claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy among "human Race "; at the top was the "Nordic race" or "Aryan race", followed by lesser races....
  • Triumph of the Will
    Triumph of the Will

    Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various List of Nazi Party leaders and officials at the Congress, including portions of speeches by Adolf Hitler, interspersed with footage of massed party members....


External links

  • by Dr. Stuart D. Stein, University of the West of England
    University of the West of England

    The University of the West of England is a university based in the England city of Bristol. Its main campus is at Frenchay, Bristol, about five miles north of the city centre....