Psychiatrist Erik Thys<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Is-dit-een-pati\u00ebnt-1-196x300.jpg\")
Genocide in psychiatry<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAuthor Erik Thys, psychiatrist and artist, gives his own name to what has remained underexposed until now: the mass murder of some 400,000 psychiatric patients in Germany, Poland and Austria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the Nazi regime, before and during World War II. He calls this the Psychogenocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hitler, psychiatry and art<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Thys argues that Hitler's failed artistry and his psychiatric past contributed to revenge actions on psychiatric patients. And, at the same time, on modern art. His first doctor called him \u2018a psychopath with hysterical symptoms\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eugenics and Nazism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In a long but necessary prelude, the author describes the genesis of eugenics. This is the ideology that seeks to enhance the good (\u2018eu\u2019) genetic material of a population. This ideology was first present in the Anglo-Saxon countries and in Scandinavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Precursor to this ideology was the pseudoscientific connotation of the - originally biological - concept of degeneration. This later partly steered the Nazi extermination machine. In addition, social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) largely determined eugenics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
History of eugenics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The originator of the term \u2018eugenics\u2019 was Briton Galton, nephew of Charles Darwin. The former wanted to financially support families with high eugenics scores as early as 1905. And he wanted \u2018weaklings\u2019 to be placed in homes with a ban on procreation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the US, selective sterilisation was started in 1910. American Journal of Psychiatry ran a polemic in 1942 about killing \u2018congenitally defective\u2019 without consent. It referred to the extermination of patients in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From sterilisation to destruction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
In Germany, in 1903, the psychiatrist<\/em> R\u00fcdin (an associate of Kraepelin) advocated sterilising chronic alcoholics. This was a first beginning of the fight against the \u2018degenerates\u2019 (\u2018degenerates\u2019) and the \u2018inferiors\u2019. This programme ended only after<\/em> WWII. <\/p>\n\n\n\nFrom 1920, a stigmatisation and dehumanisation of the sick and disabled begins. This is when not only sterilisation but also \u2018der vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens\u2019 becomes openly debated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The role of psychiatrists, educators and the Church<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after the 1933 coup, surgical sterilisation became compulsory. In people with chronic alcoholism, certain mental illnesses, mental problems, hereditary physical deformities, blindness and deafness, among others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
German psychiatrists, pedagogues and church leaders hardly reacted. The German people were a \u2018people's body\u2019 from which the \u2018sick\u2019 pieces had to be cut out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Purebred art<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Thys, himself an artist, describes in detail the same movement Nazi Germany made from eugenics towards artists. The concept of degeneration and social Darwinism also determined the Nazis\u2018 \u2019purge\u2018 of their arts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The art world was divided into (kitschy, true-to-nature) \u2018Deutsche\u2019 art of healthy , purebreds on the one hand. And the \u2018entartete\u2019 art of moderns like Klee, Mondrian and Chagall on the other. In this perfidious strategy, modern artists were compared to (the demonised) psychiatric patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The medical and the language.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The plea for an \u2018Aryan\u2019 art was part of a general attempt by the Nazis to make the elimination, \u2018endl\u00f6sung\u2019, of \u2018minderwertigen\u2019 digestible among the population. And so to arrive at a genetically \u2018pure\u2019 Aryan race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way this happened was by putting stigmatisation in a medical context. And by using disgusting language in film, media and education. For example, \u2018empty human shells\u2019, \u2018ballast creatures\u2019, \u2018useless eaters\u2019, \u2018parasites\u2019, etc. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mass murder in psychiatry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The large-scale systematic killing of psychiatric patients was the first step in this. Psychiatric genocide began shortly after the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. That was when Hitler gave written authorisation to doctors for the \u2018Gnadentod\u2019 of \u2018incurably ill\u2019 patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, 5,200 children with physical or mental disabilities were murdered. Then 200,00 Polish psychiatric patients were exterminated. This was followed by the gassing of 73,000 German psychiatric patients. Finally, 15-20,000 \u2018useless\u2019 prisoners were killed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These massacres, coordinated from Berlin, were followed by the \u2018wild\u2019, decentralised killing of some 200,000 psychiatric patients until 1945. Through poisoning, neglect and starvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An exercise in genocide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Thys points out that the extermination of psychiatric patients was a sinister prelude to the Holocaust that followed. And this at two crucial points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the Psychogenocide, the expertise and organisation was developed, the personnel chosen that would then be used for the Final Solution. And secondly, the medical profession became the main actor in this process of mass destruction. This from the pseudoscientific eugenic paradigm and in the psychiatry<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPsychiatrists provided the expertise and ensured the concrete execution of the murder of psychiatric patients (concentrated in institutions). These medics later became heavily involved in the genocide behind the front and in the concentration camps. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The role of doctors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Even more shocking is the observation that the wild \u2018euthanasia\u2019 of psychiatric patients was done on the doctors' own initiative. Within their institutions. And faithfully following the systematics of centrally organised killings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In doing so, Thys points to the special link that existed between medicine and Nazi ideology. And the link that existed between extermination and medicine. For example, medical tribunals were set up for sterilisation. The infamous racial laws were public health laws. Patients<\/em> were sentenced to sterilisation or gassing based on medical diagnosis and selection by doctors. <\/p>\n\n\n\nGerman doctors constituted by far the proportionally largest professional group present in the Nazi organisation and in the SS. \u2018\u2019The mass murder had a medical aura across the board, with academics at the top and (...) doctors on the shop floor\u201d' (p.229).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Importance of this book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
This book is not just yet another confrontation with the most horrific period in human history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Constant links to contemporary issues also emerge. Like, for instance, the government's use of language (\u2018illegal immigrants\u2019). Or refugees as an economic burden. Biogenetics and euthanasia in psychiatric patients. The Vandereycken case we never knew about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end of the book, Thys highlights some of these issues separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a chilling, truly mind-boggling but extremely important book. A book everyone should have read. Especially those who serve our<\/em> vulnerable people.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"De genocide op tienduizenden psychiatrische pati\u00ebnten door het nazi regime in nauwe samenwerking met de psychiaters en de psychiatrische ziekenhuizen werd tot op heden onderbelicht. Het vormt een sinistere voorbereiding en op punt stelling van de latere Holocaust, de systematische moord op zes miljoen joden, samen met ook zigeuners en holebi’s. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88],"tags":[53,44,55,50,52,51,54,56,30],"class_list":["post-4446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-psycholoog","category-psychologische-problemen","tag-arts","tag-deontologie","tag-holocaust","tag-patient","tag-psychiater","tag-psychiatrie","tag-psychiatrisch-ziekenhuis","tag-psychogenocide","tag-psychotherapie"],"blocksy_meta":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6819,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions\/6819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Author Erik Thys, psychiatrist and artist, gives his own name to what has remained underexposed until now: the mass murder of some 400,000 psychiatric patients in Germany, Poland and Austria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the Nazi regime, before and during World War II. He calls this the Psychogenocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hitler, psychiatry and art<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Thys argues that Hitler's failed artistry and his psychiatric past contributed to revenge actions on psychiatric patients. And, at the same time, on modern art. His first doctor called him \u2018a psychopath with hysterical symptoms\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eugenics and Nazism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In a long but necessary prelude, the author describes the genesis of eugenics. This is the ideology that seeks to enhance the good (\u2018eu\u2019) genetic material of a population. This ideology was first present in the Anglo-Saxon countries and in Scandinavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Precursor to this ideology was the pseudoscientific connotation of the - originally biological - concept of degeneration. This later partly steered the Nazi extermination machine. In addition, social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) largely determined eugenics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
History of eugenics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The originator of the term \u2018eugenics\u2019 was Briton Galton, nephew of Charles Darwin. The former wanted to financially support families with high eugenics scores as early as 1905. And he wanted \u2018weaklings\u2019 to be placed in homes with a ban on procreation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the US, selective sterilisation was started in 1910. American Journal of Psychiatry ran a polemic in 1942 about killing \u2018congenitally defective\u2019 without consent. It referred to the extermination of patients in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From sterilisation to destruction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
In Germany, in 1903, the psychiatrist<\/em> R\u00fcdin (an associate of Kraepelin) advocated sterilising chronic alcoholics. This was a first beginning of the fight against the \u2018degenerates\u2019 (\u2018degenerates\u2019) and the \u2018inferiors\u2019. This programme ended only after<\/em> WWII. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From 1920, a stigmatisation and dehumanisation of the sick and disabled begins. This is when not only sterilisation but also \u2018der vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens\u2019 becomes openly debated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shortly after the 1933 coup, surgical sterilisation became compulsory. In people with chronic alcoholism, certain mental illnesses, mental problems, hereditary physical deformities, blindness and deafness, among others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n German psychiatrists, pedagogues and church leaders hardly reacted. The German people were a \u2018people's body\u2019 from which the \u2018sick\u2019 pieces had to be cut out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thys, himself an artist, describes in detail the same movement Nazi Germany made from eugenics towards artists. The concept of degeneration and social Darwinism also determined the Nazis\u2018 \u2019purge\u2018 of their arts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The art world was divided into (kitschy, true-to-nature) \u2018Deutsche\u2019 art of healthy , purebreds on the one hand. And the \u2018entartete\u2019 art of moderns like Klee, Mondrian and Chagall on the other. In this perfidious strategy, modern artists were compared to (the demonised) psychiatric patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plea for an \u2018Aryan\u2019 art was part of a general attempt by the Nazis to make the elimination, \u2018endl\u00f6sung\u2019, of \u2018minderwertigen\u2019 digestible among the population. And so to arrive at a genetically \u2018pure\u2019 Aryan race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One way this happened was by putting stigmatisation in a medical context. And by using disgusting language in film, media and education. For example, \u2018empty human shells\u2019, \u2018ballast creatures\u2019, \u2018useless eaters\u2019, \u2018parasites\u2019, etc. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The large-scale systematic killing of psychiatric patients was the first step in this. Psychiatric genocide began shortly after the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. That was when Hitler gave written authorisation to doctors for the \u2018Gnadentod\u2019 of \u2018incurably ill\u2019 patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First, 5,200 children with physical or mental disabilities were murdered. Then 200,00 Polish psychiatric patients were exterminated. This was followed by the gassing of 73,000 German psychiatric patients. Finally, 15-20,000 \u2018useless\u2019 prisoners were killed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These massacres, coordinated from Berlin, were followed by the \u2018wild\u2019, decentralised killing of some 200,000 psychiatric patients until 1945. Through poisoning, neglect and starvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thys points out that the extermination of psychiatric patients was a sinister prelude to the Holocaust that followed. And this at two crucial points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With the Psychogenocide, the expertise and organisation was developed, the personnel chosen that would then be used for the Final Solution. And secondly, the medical profession became the main actor in this process of mass destruction. This from the pseudoscientific eugenic paradigm and in the psychiatry<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Psychiatrists provided the expertise and ensured the concrete execution of the murder of psychiatric patients (concentrated in institutions). These medics later became heavily involved in the genocide behind the front and in the concentration camps. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even more shocking is the observation that the wild \u2018euthanasia\u2019 of psychiatric patients was done on the doctors' own initiative. Within their institutions. And faithfully following the systematics of centrally organised killings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In doing so, Thys points to the special link that existed between medicine and Nazi ideology. And the link that existed between extermination and medicine. For example, medical tribunals were set up for sterilisation. The infamous racial laws were public health laws. Patients<\/em> were sentenced to sterilisation or gassing based on medical diagnosis and selection by doctors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n German doctors constituted by far the proportionally largest professional group present in the Nazi organisation and in the SS. \u2018\u2019The mass murder had a medical aura across the board, with academics at the top and (...) doctors on the shop floor\u201d' (p.229).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This book is not just yet another confrontation with the most horrific period in human history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Constant links to contemporary issues also emerge. Like, for instance, the government's use of language (\u2018illegal immigrants\u2019). Or refugees as an economic burden. Biogenetics and euthanasia in psychiatric patients. The Vandereycken case we never knew about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the book, Thys highlights some of these issues separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a chilling, truly mind-boggling but extremely important book. A book everyone should have read. Especially those who serve our<\/em> vulnerable people.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" De genocide op tienduizenden psychiatrische pati\u00ebnten door het nazi regime in nauwe samenwerking met de psychiaters en de psychiatrische ziekenhuizen werd tot op heden onderbelicht. Het vormt een sinistere voorbereiding en op punt stelling van de latere Holocaust, de systematische moord op zes miljoen joden, samen met ook zigeuners en holebi’s. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88],"tags":[53,44,55,50,52,51,54,56,30],"class_list":["post-4446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-psycholoog","category-psychologische-problemen","tag-arts","tag-deontologie","tag-holocaust","tag-patient","tag-psychiater","tag-psychiatrie","tag-psychiatrisch-ziekenhuis","tag-psychogenocide","tag-psychotherapie"],"blocksy_meta":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6819,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions\/6819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psycholoog-jovo.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The role of psychiatrists, educators and the Church<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Purebred art<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The medical and the language.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Mass murder in psychiatry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
An exercise in genocide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The role of doctors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Importance of this book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n