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by
William Federer - subscribe to his daily American
History minute online at www.AmericanMinute.com
888-USA-WORD
 _________________________
Even before the rise of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich, the way
for the gruesome Nazi holocaust of human extermination and cruel
butchery was being prepared in the 1930 German Weimar Republic through
the medical establishment and philosophical elite's adoption of the
"quality of life" concept in place of the "sanctity of
life."
The Nuremberg trials, exposing the horrible Nazi war crimes, revealed
that Germany's trend toward atrocity began with their progressive
embrace of the Hegelian doctrine of "rational utility," where
an individual's worth is in relation to their contribution to the state,
rather than determined in light of traditional moral, ethical and
religious values.
This gradual transformation of national public opinion, promulgated
through media and education, was described in an article written by the
British commentator Malcolm Muggeridge, entitled "The Humane
Holocaust," and in an article written by former United States
Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, M.D., entitled "The Slide to
Auschwitz," both published in The Human Life Review, 1977 and 1980
respectively.
Malcolm Muggeridge stated: "Near at hand, we have been accorded,
for those that have eyes to see, an object lesson in what the quest for
'quality of life' without reference to 'sanctity of life' can
involve.... the great Nazi holocaust, whose TV presentation has lately
been harrowing viewers throughout the Western world.
In this televised version, an essential consideration has been
left out - namely, that the origins of the holocaust lay, not in Nazi
terrorism and anti-Semitism, but in pre-Nazi Weimar Germany's acceptance
of euthanasia and mercy-killing as humane and estimable....
It took no more than three decades to transform a war crime into
an act of compassion, thereby enabling the victors in the war against
Nazi-ism to adopt the very practices for which the Nazis had been
solemnly condemned at Nuremberg."1
The transformation followed thus: the concept that the elderly and
terminally ill should have the right to die was promoted in books,
newspapers, literature and even entertainment films, the most popular of
which were entitled Ich klage an (I accuse) and Mentally Ill.
One euthanasia movie, based on a novel by a National Socialist doctor,
actually won a prize at the world-famous Venice Film Festival!
Extreme hardship cases were cited which increasingly convinced the
public to morally approve of euthanasia.
The medical profession gradually grew accustomed to administering death
to patients who, for whatever reasons, felt their low "quality of
life" rendered their lives not worth living, or as it was put,
liebensunwerten Lebens, (life unworthy of life).2
In an Associated Press release, published in the New York Times, October
10, 1933, entitled "Nazi Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain;
German Religious Groups Oppose Move," it was stated:
"The Ministry of Justice, in a detailed memorandum explaining
the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code, today announced its
intentions to authorize physicians to end the sufferings of the
incurable patient.
The memorandum...proposed that it shall be possible for physicians
to end the tortures of incurable patients, upon request, in the interest
of true humanity.
This proposed legal recognition of euthanasia - the act of
providing a painless and peaceful death - raised a number of fundamental
problems of a religious, scientific, and legal nature.
The Catholic newspaper Germania hastened to observe: 'The Catholic
faith binds the conscience of its followers not to accept this
method'...
In Lutheran circles, too, life is regarded as something that God
alone can take....
Euthanasia... has become a widely discussed word in the Reich....
No life still valuable to the State will be wantonly
destroyed."3
Nationalized health care and government involvement in medical care
promised to improve the public's "quality of life."4
Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining government medical care was a
contributing factor to the growth of the national debt, which reached
astronomical proportions.
Double and triple digit inflation crippled the economy, resulting in the
public demanding that government cut expenses.5
This precipitated the 1939 order to cut federal expenses.
The national socialist government decided to remove "useless"
expenses from the budget, which included the support and medical costs
required to maintain the lives of the retarded, insane, senile,
epileptic, psychiatric patients, handicapped, deaf, blind, the non-rehabilitable
ill, and those who had been diseased or chronically ill for five years
or more.
It was labeled an "act of mercy" to "liberate them
through death," as they were viewed as having an extremely low
"quality of life," as well as being a tax burden on the
public.
The public psyche was conditioned for this, as even school math problems
compared distorted medical costs incurred by the taxpayer of caring for
and rehabilitating the chronically sick, with the cost of loans to newly
married couples for new housing units.6
The next whose lives were terminated by the state were the elderly in
institutions who had no relatives and no financial resources.
These lonely, forsaken individuals were needed by no one and would be
missed by no one.
Their "quality of life" was considered low by everyone's
standards, and they were a tremendous tax burden on the economically
distressed state.7
The next to be eliminated were the parasites on the state: the street
people, bums, beggars, hopelessly poor, gypsies, prisoners, inmates and
convicts.
These were socially disturbing individuals incapable of providing for
themselves, whose "quality of life" was considered by the
public as irreversibly below standard, in addition to the fact that they
were a nuisance to society and a seed-bed for crime.8
The liquidation grew to include those who had been unable to work, the
socially unproductive, and those living on welfare or government
pensions.
They drew financial support from the state, but contributed nothing
financially back.
They were looked upon as "useless eaters," leeches, stealing
from those who worked hard to pay the taxes to support them.
Their unproductive lives were a burden on the "quality of
life" of those who had to pay the taxes.9
The next to be eradicated were the ideologically unwanted, the political
enemies of the state, religious extremists, and those
"disloyal" individuals considered to be holding the government
back from producing a society which would function well and provide
everyone a better "quality of life."
The moving biography of the imprisoned Dietrich Bonhoffer chronicled the
injustices.
These individuals also were a source of "human experimental
material," allowing military medical research to be carried on with
human tissue, thus providing valuable information which promised to
improve the nation's health .10
Finally, justifying their actions on the purported theory of evolution,
the Nazi's considered the German, or "Aryan," race as "ubermenschen,"
supermen, being more advanced in the supposed progress of human
evolution.
This resulted in the twisted conclusion that all other races, and in
particular the Jewish race, were less evolved, and needed to be
eliminated from the so-called "human gene pool," ensuring that
future generations of humans would have a higher "quality of
life."11
C. Everett Koop, M.D., stated:
"The first step is followed by the second step. You can say
that if the first step is moral then whatever follows must be moral.
The important thing, however, is this: whether you diagnose the
first step as being one worth taking or being one that is precarious
rests entirely on what the second step is likely to be...
I am concerned about this because when the first 273,000 German
aged, infirm, and retarded were killed in gas chambers there was no
outcry from that medical profession either, and it was not far from
there to Auschwitz."12
Can this holocaust happen in America?
Indeed, it has already begun. The idea of killing a person and calling
it "death with dignity" is an oxymoron. The
"mercy-killing" movement puts us on the same path as pre-Nazi
Germany.
The "quality of life" concept, which eventually results in the
Hegelian utilitarian attitude of a person's worth being based on their
contribution toward perpetuating big government, is in stark contrast to
America's founding principles.
This philosophy which lowers the value of human life, shocked attendees
at the Governor's Commission on Disability, in Concord, New Hampshire,
October 5, 2001, as they heard the absurd comments of Princeton
University professor Peter Singer.
The Associated Press reported Singer's comments: "I do think that
it is sometimes appropriate to kill a human infant," he said,
adding that he does not believe a newborn has a right to life until it
reaches some minimum level of consciousness.
"For me, the relevant question is, what makes it so seriously
wrong to take a life?" Singer asked.
"Those of you who are not vegetarians are responsible for
taking a life every time you eat. Species is no more relevant than race
in making these judgments."13
Singer's views, if left unchecked, could easily lead to a repeat
of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, if not something worse.
Add to that unbridled advances in the technology of cloning, DNA test
which reveal physical defects, human embryos killed for the purpose of
gathering stem cells to treat Diseases...and a haunting future unfolds
before us.
President Theodore Roosevelt's warning in 1909 seems appropriate:
"Progress has brought us both unbounded opportunities and unbridled
difficulties. Thus, the measure of our civilization will not be that we
have done much, but what we have done with that much.
I believe that the next half century will determine if we will
advance the cause of Christian civilization or revert to the horrors of
brutal paganism.
The thought of modern industry in the hands of Christian charity
is a dream worth dreaming.
The thought of industry in the hands of paganism is a nightmare
beyond imagining. The choice between the two is upon us."14
In his State of the Union address in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt
stated:
"There are those who believe that a new modernity demands a new
morality.
What they fail to consider is the harsh reality that there is no
such thing as a new morality.
There is only one morality. All else is immorality.
There is only true Christian ethics over against which stands the
whole of paganism.
If we are to fulfill our great destiny as a people, then we must
return to the old morality, the sole morality....
All these blatant sham reformers, in the name of a new morality,
preach the old vice of self-indulgence which rotted out first the moral
fiber and then even the external greatness of Greece and Rome."15
In biblical comparison, Jesus showed mercy by healing the sick and
giving sanity back to the deranged, but never did he kill them.
This attitude was exemplified by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose
version of "death with dignity" is to gather the dying from
off the street, and show compassion to these rejected and abandoned
members of the human race, all the while knowing that they may only
survive for another half hour.
Her "mercy-living" movement goes to great trouble to house,
wash and feed even the most hopeless and derelict, because of inherent
respect for the "sanctity of life" of each individual.
This attitude is summed up in her statement:
"I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry
Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or
gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love
Jesus."16
Will America chose the "sanctity of life" concept, as
demonstrated by Mother Teresa, or will America chose the "quality
of life" concept, championed by self-proclaimed doctors of death
court decisions - such as in the case of Terri Schiavo - and continue
its slide toward Auschwitz?
What kind of subtle anesthetic has been allowed to deaden our national
conscience?
What horrors await us?
The question is not whether the suffering and dying person's life should
be terminated, the question is what kind of nation will we become if
they are? Their physical death is preceded only by our moral death!
---
1 Malcolm Muggeridge, "The Humane Holocaust," The Human Life
Review, Winter, 1980. Ronald Reagan, Abortion & The Conscience of
the Nation (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc. 1984; The
Human Life Foundation, Inc.), pp. 85 - 87.
2 C. Everett Koop, M.D., "The Slide to Auschwitz," The Human
Life Review, Spring, 1977; quoting from Leo Alexander, "Medical
Science Under Dictatorship," New England Journal of Medicine, July
4, 1949, 241:39 - 47. (C. Everett Koop, M.D., originally delivered as an
address to The American Academy of Pediatrics, on the occasion of his
receiving the William E. Ladd Medal, the highest honor given to
pediatric surgeons in America.) Ronald Reagan, Abortion and The
Conscience of the Nation (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc.
1984; The Human Life Foundation, Inc.), pp. 61 - 63. Die Freigabe der
Vernichtung liebensunwerten Lebens (Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy
of Life) 1920. Adolf Jost, Das Recht auf den Tod (The Right to Death)
1895. Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors (N Y: Basic Books, 1986), p.
27.
3 New York Times, October 10, 1933, Associated Press release, "Nazi
Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain; German Religious Groups Oppose
Move." Noah H. Hutchings, "Nazi Euthanasia" (Oklahoma
City, OK: Bible in the News, published by the Southwest Radio Church,
P.O. Box 1144, Oklahoma City, OK 73101, October 1996), Vol. 1996, No.
10, p. 16.
4 Koop, p. 70.
5 Ibid., pp. 61, 70. Muggeridge, p. 90. The World Book Encyclopedia 19
vols. (Chicago, IL: Field Enterprises, Inc., 1957), vol. 7, p. 2975.
6 Koop, pp. 61 - 63; Muggeridge, pp. 86 - 89.
7 Ibid,
8 Ibid, 9 Ibid, 10 Ibid, 11 Ibid,
12 Koop, pp. 67 - 70.
13 Peter Singer. October 5, 2001, comments at the Governor's Commission
on Disability, Concord, New Hampshire. Harry R. Weber, Associated Press,
Boston Globe,10/5/2001 17:46 "Singer gets respectful
reception." http://www.boston.com/dailynews.
14 Roosevelt, Theodore. 1909. Noah Brooks, Men of Achievement -
Statesmen (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904), p. 317. George Grant,
Third Time Around (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Inc., 1991), p.
118. George Grant, The Quick and the Dead (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1981),
p. 134. John Eidsmoe, Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ
(Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 1992), pp. 296-297.
15 Roosevelt, Theodore. 1905, in his State of the Union address. David,
L. Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt: American Monarch (Philadelphia: American
History Sources, 1981), p. 44. George Grant, Third Time Around
(Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Inc., 1991) pp. 118-119.
16 Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Statement. Bless Your Heart (series II)
(Eden Prairie, MN: Heartland Sampler, Inc., 1990), 10.15. Muggeridge,
pp. 91 - 92.
Other sources include: Fr. Virgil C. Blum, S.J. & Charles J. Sykes,
"The Lesson of Euthanasia," The Human Life Review, Spring,
1976. A.J. Dyck, "The Value of Life: Two Contending Policies,"
Harvard Magazine, Jan., 1970, pp. 30 - 36. Henry Friedlander, The
Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (N.C.:
University of North Carolina Press, 1995). Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi
Doctors: Medical Killing & the Psychology of Genocide (Basic Books,
1986). William Brennan, Medical Holocausts: Exterminative Medicine in
Nazi Germany and Contemporary America (Norland, 1980). William Brennan,
Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives (Chicago, IL:
Loyala University Press, 1995; 3441 N. Ashland Ave. Chicago, IL. 60657).
Eleanor Schlafly and John D. Boland, "Word Warfare: Giving Evil a
Tolerable Name" (Mindszenty Report, Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation,
P.O. Box 11321, St. Louis, Mo. 63105), Apr. 1996, Vol. 38, No. 4.
"Protection of Life" series, Sanctity of Life or Quality of
Life, Law Reform Commission of Canada. Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett
Koop, M.D., What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (1979).
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