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Article ID: CBB001212617

Die biopolitische Produktion “lebensunwerter” Subjekte im Rahmen der “Aktion T4”: Eine Re-Lektüre von “Ich klage an” (2013)

Sudhoffs Archiv: Zeitschrift fuer Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 97, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 57-80
Publication date: 2013
Language: German

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Historiography Propaganda Biopolitics Euthanasia Medical tests Medicine and politics National Socialism 20th century Germany

The history of the Nazi "euthanasia programme" named "Aktion T4" has been examined from a biopolitical perspective for some time. However, these studies have not focused on the analytics of biopolitical practices of subjectivization as an essential element of the Foucaultian concept. The use of such a theoretical approach can be used in combination with new and substantial empirical research results. The Heidelberg DFG research programme evaluated the "T4" medical records statistically in order to conclusively determine which features had significant importance for selection by the "T4" experts. The inability to work or having an incurable mental illness were the criteria by which psychiatrists and "T4" experts subjectivized patients as "lives not worth living". Considering these new results and a biopolitical approach as starting point, it is time to reconsider the Nazi "euthanasia" propaganda movie "Ich klage an" ("I Accuse", 1941). When scholars began to study the production process of the movie in the 1980s, they looked at the narrative and the movie characters from an instrumental perspective. In other words, they examined how the "T4" protagonists and filmmakers sought to create a film which affected the viewers' opinion in a specific way intentionally influenced by them. According to that line of thought, the character Hanna was neglected because she was considered to be the morally inoffensive disguise of the intended propaganda massage. However, two works from the 1990s which were gender history-oriented finally focused on Hanna and the way the film narrative turns her into a subject "not worth living". Based on these considerations, this article states its thesis. The criteria of the film to subjectivize Hanna share many basic characteristics with those of the subjectivization process of the "T4" victims. To prove this statement, the analytics of the movie are combined with the results of the DFG project. Through the combination of both types of sources, the examination of the subjetivization process of the "T4" victims is expanded upon through the incorporation of discursive and imaginative procedures. For this reason, the film is analysed from a narratological and aesthetic perspective. The article starts with a description of the spatial structure of the narrative, which serves to establish an ideal of a "life worth living". Subsequently, the analysis focuses on the staging of Hanna's body and her self-description -- both mean to show Hanna's regression from the norm of a "life worth living". Then, the case of Hanna is contextualized by the "T4" subjects. Due to the fact that incurable illness was a necessary feature of the victims, Hanna's husband's search for a cure for multiple sclerosis is also examined. The final part of the article deals with the research controversies regarding the importance of racial hygiene for the "euthanasia programme". Even in regard to this last question, which is also important in order to understand the subjectivization of the "T4" victims, the film offers interesting answers.

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Description Study of previous analysis of a movie dealing with euthenasia in Nazi Germany.

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