Eugenic compulsory sterilization in Sachsenhausen concentration camp: A rivalry between normative state and prerogative state in Nazi Germany.

Abstract

Compulsory sterilization during National Socialism was based on the “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring” dating from July 14 1933. German eugenic sterilization can – according to Ernst Fraenkel’s concept of the “dual state” – be considered a classic normative measure, since it grounded on a published law and was carried out by traditional state institutions. So it is surprising that among the sterilization victims were also inmates from concentration camps; the concentration camps operated by the SS were the prototypical instrument of the National Socialist prerogative state. The Berlin Hereditary Health Court alone conducted more than 110 sterilization proceedings against prisoners of Sachsenhausen concentration camp between late 1937 and mid-1942, which had been requested by the SS camp physician there. In my paper, I will examine the topic “eugenic sterilization and the concentration camp system” more closely with the example of the cases from the Sachsenhausen camp. The topic offers interesting insights into the juxtaposition and opposition of the normative and the prerogative state in Nazi Germany.

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.57820/mm.comments.2024.01