Murderous science
Elimination by scientific selection of Jews, Gypsies, and others in Germany, 1933-1945
by Benno Müller-Hill
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Plainview, NY. 1998.
What can we learn about anthropology and psychiatry from the massive experiment of the National Socialist anthropologists and psychiatrists? I believe that I have made it clear that we are not dealing here with defects on the character of a few individuals, but rather with defects in psychiatry and anthropology as a whole. . . I have shown that the mythology of psychiatrists and anthropologists in the Third Reich revealed itself to be entirely evil, that is to say unjust, malevolent, destructive, and, in the last analysis, stupid.
. . . It would need a separate book to analyze the scientific charlatanism of the psychiatry of that time. The brain biopsies of old people which were regularly taken in the institute run by Professor de Crinis, Professor Heyde's watershock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy as a routine treatment for a variety of general disorders, the castration of homosexuals followed by hormonal implants; all these 'unbalanced excesses' reveal the mythological basis of this specialty, which is equally prevalent today. To remember the past requires an active effort and remembering is a prerequisite of mourning. All psychiatrists and every student of psychiatry should make this effort and, in doing so, should also give thought to the phrase: 'In the case of science where it can be said "this is no longer true," nothing is true.'
. . . In schizophrenia, for example, despite intensive investigations, no alterations in the brain have been found. It seems to me that to reduce other people to the status of depersonalized objects is of no help to them whatsoever. The 'scientific' psychiatrist does not console those in despair, he calls them depressed. he does not unravel the tangled thought-processes of the confused, he calls them schizophrenic. If he speaks to those in despair, to the confused, to those who think slowly, as a wise, friendly person speaks to another person, then he is no longer considered to be an objective scientist but a . . . well, what would he be? . . . Could it not be that as anthropology and psychiatry advance, the patient, the 'other person,' continually becomes more remote and less significant? is this whole style of investigation, together with its predictions, anything more than an ever more marked degradation of the individual until he becomes a mere cipher? It seems to me that the inexorable encroachment of science, which began in the eighteenth century during the Age of Enlightenment, on activities more properly belonging to the human individual who speaks and gives signs, has had unforseen and devastating effects. In science all that really matters is getting interesting, accurate results as quickly as possible; there is simply no time to talk to patients. Moreover, the language of the experts is a restricted, unelaborated jargon, composed of perhaps a maximum of a thousand words and is suitable only for communication among themselves. This 'pidgin' language is considered sacred and lay people are not allowed to use it. But it would be of no use to the patients to be able to speak it, since it does not describe reality as they would see it, but, rather, abstractions of abstractions. So conversation between patients and experts is increasingly difficult, if not impossible. And the introduction of machines in no way eases the situation, for the more expensive and complicated the machines, the more the investigator distances himself from the person who is being investigated. This attitude reduces the person to a subservient depersonalized object. Such a process formed the bond which held the psychiatrists, anthropologists, and Hitler together. (Excerpted from pages 108-111)