Nazi Policy and Cultural Minorities

Nazi Policy and Cultural Minorities During World War II, Nazi policy gripped Eastern Europe, afflicting its peoples with unspeakable acts of cruelty and depravity. Known as the Holocaust, this was a setting in which some of the worst aspects of man's psyche emerged. A plan for extermination of ethnic impurity, known as the Final Solution, informed the German perpetration of genocide, executed through the encampment, abuse and slaughter of millions, with Jews, gypsies and other cultural minorities being specifically targeted. The cultural minorities here noted would include many of those considered to be on the fringe of German society and, in the early running of the Nazi regime, would serve as defenseless groups upon which to test strategies relating to the Cultural isolation and the so-called Final Solution. The policies which Hitler pursued amongst the handicapped are indicative of both the philosophical premise of Aryan purity and the sheer sadism which were perpetrated by the Nazis. Indeed, according to recent sources featured by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the handicapped, mentally ill and physically impaired were among the first Germans to be targeted by purification initiatives. This would be an early initiation of the terminology and methodology which would ultimately distinguish the 'Final Solution,' in which Hitler would attempt the mass extermination of the Jews. Persecution of the handicapped created a precedent, with the notion of 'euthanasia' suggesting that the outright murder of the mentally or physically impaired should be seen as mercy-killing. This type of language underscored the clinical approach taken by the Nazis to effect this 'purification' of the people. As the Holocaust Museum reports, "The 'euthanasia' program required the cooperation of many German doctors, who reviewed the medical files of patients in institutions to determine which handicapped or mentally ill individuals should be killed. The doctors also supervised the actual killings." (TVC, 1) In this way, the Nazis would begin the process of purifying society by initially targeting those who were most defenseless and establishing institutional acceptance for this type of behavior. Indeed, though the Final Solution concerning the extermination of Jews would not be fully implemented until the early 1940s and under an intensification of the larger war, the treatment of the physically and mentally impaired showed early indications of this inevitable outcome. Hitler was, in fact, influenced in shaping his policies by the published works of prior German thinkers. Herewith, "the idea of 'mental death' and killing the handicapped swept rapidly through Germany. In 1931, a group of psychiatrists met in Bavaria to discuss the sterilization and killing of those with chronic mental illnesses. By 1936 the practice of killing the socially unfit was so common that it was mentioned only incidentally in a German medical journal." (TVC, 1) To the German policy-makers, this conformed with the creation of a more genetically perfect race of people, making the official killing of the handicapped a matter of national pride. It was this same concept which began to impose harsh discriminatory tactics against homosexuals. In fact, in a most ironic twist referent to Nazi sadism, the treatment of homosexuals was often documented to exceed in its abuse but also in its sexual manipulation, this group. Specially recipient of abuse in the concentration camps, homosexuals were guilty of a crime against Germany in their simple state of being, even as this discrimination was not passed along to German SS guards and other Nazis notoriously documented as having sodomized and sexually abused homosexual inmates. In addition to their relegation to concentration and death camps, homosexuals were subjected to the abuse of German's Nazified medical community. To this end, "in 1935, a new law legalized the 'compulsory sterilization (often in fact castration) of homosexuals.' A special section of the Gestapo dealt with them.Along with epileptics, schizophrenics and other 'degenerates', they were being eliminated." (Laska, 1) The selected phraseology suggests that there is an inherent intent to develop a 'moral hygiene' befitting of the Aryan race. Therefore, in addition to those persecuted for these differences, groups such as those in the sex profession would face the same ironic mandate and exploitation. Prostitutes were subjected to harsh state control, wherein all brothels were to be operated by public officials. Independent streetwalking was considered a crime and in fact, this situation allowed for the easy use of sex workers as sex slaves for guards, soldiers and even prisoners. To this latter claim, "between 300 and 400 women were forced to become sex workers in brothels in ten concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen." (Speigel, 1) The contradiction between the state restriction and the state employment of prostitution speaks to the litany of internal ironies which are apparent in Nazi purification. Ultimately, in each of these capacities, we can see that the racial and bloodline-based claims precipitating Nazi purification were in many ways little more than a device by which to exact power over various populations. Indeed, fascism would be very much inclined by the pursuit of unchecked authority over individual actions and collective behavioral tendencies. That this notion would be employed to the end of literally eliminating all those on the fringe of German, and ultimately European society, demands greater philosophical speculation. However, the approach taken demonstrates a clear and multi-stratified front by which the Nazis hoped to eventually produce a culture forced into a cruel and unnatural homogenization.