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America's Influence on the Deaf Holocaust

German Eugenics: Pre-WWII

Eugenics in Germany, often called “racial hygiene” was a movement determined to create the perfect race. In July of 1933 the first law regarding mandatory sterilizations was put into place: The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.

Mein Kampf

Germany took notice of America’s policies and sought to begin implementing them, German Physician G. Hoffman called America "a shining example in the matters of sterilization." (Cite Crying Hands) Hitler himself voiced his admiration of California's laws stating that they were working on a “better conception of [citizenship],”

American Eugenics: 1907-1926

Eugenics in Germany was heavily influenced and aided by the United States. In 1907 Indiana passed the first compulsory sterilization law, with California and Washington following suit in 1909. In 1914 Harry Laughlin published a model sterilization law authorizing the sterilization of “feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf; deformed; and dependent...orphans, ne'er-do-wells, tramps, the homeless and paupers,” in 1924 Virgina adopted a law similar to the model in order to alleviate financial burdens on the state.

Eugenics in the United States was widely accepted, and even played a role in other legislation, for example the Immigration Act of 1924.

Buck v. Bell

In 1927 the Indiana law was held up in the United States Supreme Court in Buck vs. Bell., the reasoning that if the state had the right to ask "people to die in its defense, it could ask 'for these lesser sacrifices in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence.'" The ruling allowed forced sterilizations of those who were “mentally deficient,” including the deaf, blind, and people with diseases, to continue and further cemented eugenics as a seemingly worthy endeavor.

German Eugenics: Post-WWII

Many deaf people in Germany after World War II are ashamed of this time both because of the sterilizations and because many had joined the Nazi party", said Jochen Muhs, vice president of the Deaf Federation of Berlin. For these reasons very little has been written about deaf people and this period of history.

Map of Sterilization States

American Eugenics: Post-WWII

After WWII, there was a shift in American eugenics largely because the atrocities of German eugenics had come to light, American Eugenics moved it’s focus from racial differences and “mental illnesses,” to social class differences; focusing on controlling populations of poor and increasing the births of upper and middle class people. Although sterilizations of “retarded” people continued into the 1970s, deaf were no longer classified as “retarded” by 1950.