Nurses in Nazi Germany : moral choice in history

This book tells the story of German nurses who, directly or indirectly, participated in the Nazis' "euthanasia" measures against patients with mental and physical disabilities, measures that claimed well over 100,000 victims from 1939 to 1945. How could men and women who were trained to care for their patients come to kill or assist in murder or mistreatment? This is the central question pursued by Bronwyn McFarland-Icke as she details the lives of nurses from the beginning of the Weimar Republic through the years of National Socialist rule. Rather than examine what the Party did or did not order, she looks into the hearts and minds of people whose complicity in murder is not easily explained with reference to ideological enthusiasm. Her book is a micro-history in which many of the most important ethical, social, and cultural issues at the core of Nazi genocide can be addressed from a fresh perspective.

McFarland-Icke offers gripping descriptions of the conditions and practices associated with psychiatric nursing during these years by mining such sources as nursing guides, personnel records, and postwar trial testimony. Nurses were expected to be conscientious and friendly caretakers despite job stress, low morale, and Nazi propaganda about patients' having "lives unworthy of living." While some managed to cope with this situation, others became abusive. Asylum administrators meanwhile encouraged nurses to perform with as little disruption and personal commentary as possible. So how did nurses react when ordered to participate in, or tolerate, the murder of their patients? Records suggest that some had no conflicts of conscience; others did as they were told with regret; and a few refused. The remarkable accounts of these nurses enable the author to re-create the drama taking place while sharpening her argument concerning the ability and the willingness to choose.

Rezensionen (3)

Doody's Book Review

Within the acknowledged limitations of historical research methodology, The author provides insight into the world of psychiatric nurses in Nazi Germany and some of the moral choices they made. Using documents such as institutional records, journal articles, texts, and post-war trial testimony, the author seeks to illuminate the professional ethics of psychiatric nurses who were direct or indirect participants in the murder of large numbers of mentally ill patients for whom they were responsible. The author addresses the apparent moral contradiction facing nurses who had a professional obligation to promote patient well-being yet participated in their patients' deaths through starvation, overdoses of medication, and preparation for transport to "killing centers." She notes that because patients were not viewed as objects of moral concern, even those who were opposed to such killing continued to efficiently fulfill their duties. The nurse reader may take umbrage with the author's use of the terms professional and professional ethics in reference to these nurses and their behaviors, especially given nursing's long-sought attempts to be characterized as a profession. Otherwise, these terms convey a meaning the reader will understand. It should be noted, however, that the lives, preparation, expectations, and institutional realities of psychiatric nurses of the Nazi era were vastly different from those of psychiatric nurses today. Political, social, and economic times were vastly different as well. Yet, some overarching themes of power and politics recur with familiarity in nursing today. Readers learn about the priorities of psychiatrists, administrators, and the state, the rigors of institutional life, and the effects of the foregoing on attitudes and behaviors of psychiatric patients and nursing staff. For example, the mentally ill were characterized as persons who were unable to be reasoned with, persons who were neither good nor bad, but ones who needed help to live a life worth living. In general, patients were not viewed as objects of moral concern. Their nurses were expected to follow prescribed speech and behaviors toward patients in order to create an appearance of good will. They were to foster trust and gain their patients' cooperation but remain on guard, never lying, but withholding information to protect the patient's emotional equilibrium. While previous chapters set the stage, chapter 8, "War, Mass Murder and Moral Flight," addresses psychiatric nurses' adaptation to the everyday practices of killing adults and children, exploring factors that affected their professional morality and caused so many of them to accept, or at least tolerate, their involvement in the deaths. Although the author periodically interjects her perspective, readers can draw their own conclusions about the adequacy of the nurses' claims of lack of moral responsibility for action or inaction. The author provides extensive chapter notes, many of which provide an interesting extension to the book. Additionally, the bibliography makes printed primary and secondary resources, as well as unpublished sources, readily identifiable to the reader. This book would be of special interest to students of nursing history and those who would explore the context in which the moral behavior of a group, or lack thereof, occurs. The author's dissertation has found fruitful expression in this work. Beverly Kopala, PhD, RN(Loyola University Niehoff School of Nursing). Copyright 2001, Doody Publishing

Choice-Rezension

McFarland-Icke examines the role of psychiatric nurses in carrying out Nazi policies of "racial hygiene," shifting focus away from doctors and psychiatrists to an occupational group of much lower status. The basic question remains the same--how could people whose training and system of values stressed healing and the preservation of life lend themselves to the sterilization and "euthanasia" programs of the Third Reich? Based primarily on instructional materials brought out by the nurses' professional organizations, personnel records from various institutions thought to have been destroyed during or after the war, and the postwar trial testimony of those involved in the intentional killing of 100,000-200,000 institutionalized patients between 1939 and 1945, this thoughtful, thorough, and nuanced study rejects easy answers to this question. Instead, the author seeks to explain how training, organization, and retraining under the Nazis prepared nurses to participate in murder. This was not, she shows convincingly, a matter of overt force, but a rather more subtle "dampening of alarm," which allowed the regime to enlist those who would kill for it without a guilty conscience as well as those who killed "in spite" of a guilty conscience. Cooperation took place in the gray area between agreement and the absence of objection. All levels. R. S. Levy; University of Illinois at Chicago

Library Journal-Rezension

Many scholars have examined the "euthanasia" policies that took place in Nazi Germany. While most studies look at the role of higher-level administrators and physicians, McFarland-Icke questions how the lower-level staff, the "ordinary Germans," reacted to orders to participate in these programs. The author researched personnel files, trial testimonies, and articles from German nursing journals and textbooks to analyze the training and behavior of nurses employed in mental institutions. Based on her dissertation, the book describes the history of German psychiatric nursing in the years leading up to and including the National Socialism era. This analysis shows how nurses were treated and furnishes insight into the coping strategies they developed. Prior knowledge of Nazi terminology, history, and programs is assumed. Recommended for academic and bioethics collections.--Tina Neville, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface	p. vii
Abbreviations	p. xvii
Chapter 1 Introduction Ordinary Germans Revisited: Nurses, Psychiatry, and Morality in Historical Context	p. 3
Chapter 2 Neither Riffraff nor Saints: The Ambivalent Professionalization of the Psychiatric Nurse	p. 14
Chapter 3 Educating Nurses in the Spirit of the Times: Weimar Psychiatry in Theory and Practice	p. 33
Chapter 4 The Evasiveness of the Ideal: Private and Professional Obstacles	p. 67
Chapter 5 Cleaning House in Wittenau: 1933 and the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service	p. 96
Chapter 6 Reeducating Nurses in the Spirit of the Times: Geisteskrankenpflege in the Service of National Socialism	p. 128
Chapter 7 Politics and Professional Life under National Socialism	p. 172
Chapter 8 War, Mass Murder, and Moral Flight: Psychiatric Nursing, 1939-1945	p. 210
Chapter 9 Concluding Remarks	p. 257
Notes	p. 265
Bibliography	p. 317
Index	p. 337

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