Reproductive Violence:

Forced Sterilization Under Nazi Rule

Lauren Nogay

Dr. Tobias Brinkmann

History 426: Holocaust

21 April 2017
 Nogay 1

Many historical fields of study, including Holocaust studies, discuss violence in terms of

the number of murders and deaths. While the act of murder is particularly disturbing, focusing on

violence solely through the lens of death allows perpetrators to escape appropriate culpability

from the other kinds of violent crime. This marginalizes survivors of violent atrocities. Taking

such a limited view of violence paints an incomplete picture of history.

Nazis committed a wide array of crimes against innocent civilians. Victims of the Nazis

suffered beatings, starvation and sterilization, amongst numerous other kinds of violence. Those

who miraculously survived such horrible treatment suffered the physical and mental

repercussions for the rest of their lives. At times, the inherent violence in forced sterilization is

overlooked or underappreciated. This topic is particularly difficult to confront, as it blends

multiple types of violence. Forced sterilization is a type of violence simultaneously physical,

psychological, and sexual in nature.

Ultimately, forced sterilization served the purpose of contributing to the realization of the

societal ideal that the Nazis sought. Nazis used forced sterilization as a way to eliminate

undesirable elements from society through a legal means. Like many other countries in the the

early twentieth century, such as the United States, Germany had legal avenues for forced

sterilization. With the popularity of Social Darwinism during this time, many laws existed that

allowed for the forced sterilization of individuals with congenital illnesses and disabilities. These

laws were easily, and frequently, misused. In this way, Nazi Germany was not an exception, but

rather a part of a trend. However, the Social Darwinist policies of the Nazis took a much harder

line than its contemporaries. For example, about 400,000 people were sterilized over the course
 Nogay 2

of twelve years under the Third Reich. This number can be compared to about 64,000 victims of

forced sterilization in the United States over the course of about 60 years.1

Nazis used involuntary sterilization as a means to an end of their larger goal of racial

purity and supposed genetic superiority in Germany. Forced sterilization was an aspect of a

larger population control campaign, the same one that resulted in the murder of millions of

people. Through this, while sterilization may seem like a somewhat better alternative than

outright extermination, the two were linked in that they served the same ultimate goal.

Furthermore, like extermination, forced sterilization terrorized victims, both on a physical and

psychological level.

Methods of Sterilization

To understand the implications of sterilization, one must first understand how the Nazi

physicians sterilization performed them. Most frequently, men became sterile by way of

vasectomy. To sterilize women, Nazi physicians generally used ligation of the ovarian tubes.

Compared to vasectomy, tubal ligation is a much more invasive, and therefore risky, procedure.

Because of this, many more women died as result of botched sterilization.2 These more

traditional methods of sterilization occurred primarily in Germany as result of the Law for the

Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases. At times, physicians also used these methods

on inmates of the concentration camps. However, in-camp sterilizations have a much more

1
Carol Poore, Disability in Twentieth-Century German Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
2007), 78.
2
Forced Sterilization, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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complicated history. From March 1941 to January 1945, SS doctors performed sterilization

experiments in both the Auschwitz and Ravensbrck concentration camps.3

In 1943 and 1944, research gynecologist and Nazi party member Carl Clauberg tested

chemical methods of sterilization on women in Auschwitz.4 Healthy females under fifty (some of

which as young as fourteen) were taken from the selection ramp to become Claubergs test

subjects. Without explanation, Clauberg would begin to perform a gynecological exam. During

this, he would inject formaldehyde directly into his victims cervix with the purpose of rendering

them infertile. Rosalinde de Leon, a survivor of Claubergs experiments, testified that the

injections were so painful, that nurses had to sit on the victims arms in order to restrain them.5

After the injections, medical staff would confine the victims to a hospital bed for a week, where

their abdomens would swell and they would suffer from a high fever. Clauberg would then

repeat these injections at intervals of several weeks or months. At times, Clauberg would later

perform further experiments in artificial insemination and hysterectomy to test the effectiveness

of these experiments.

Around the same time as Claubergs experiments, Horst Schumann began to perform

sterilization experiments using x-ray machines. Unlike Clauberg, Schumann experimented on

both male and female prisoners in Auschwitz. Using two Siemens x-ray machines, Schumann

would irradiate the reproductive organs of his victims, pressing their bodies between the two

machines.6 Through this experiments, Schumann hoped to develop a cheap, fast, and easy way to

sterilize large groups of people. Additionally, Schumann hoped that due to his non-invasive

3
Ellen Ben Sefer, Forced Sterilization and Abortion as Sexual Abuse in HBI Series on Jewish Women:
Sexual Violence against Women during the Holocaust, ed. Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel
(Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2010), 33f.
4
Carl Clauberg, United State Holocaust Memorial Museum.
5
Benedict, Susan and Jane M. Georges, Nurses and the sterilization experiments of Auschwitz: a
postmodernist perspective, Nursing Inquiry Vol. 13 Issue 4 (2006), 277.
6
Horst Schumann, Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
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method, potential victims would be unaware of what was being done to them. However, these

experiments would leave the victims with severe burns on their groins, abdomen, and buttocks.

These wounds frequently became infected due to poor sanitation both during the medical

procedure and more generally within the camp. Hansi Keating, a former camp inmate who in an

interview recalls seeing young male victims of x-ray sterilization experiments, states that few

lived very long after their abuse because of infection.7 Among those who managed to survive the

immediate aftermath of their mistreatment, Schumann would usually then perform a

hysterectomy or castration to test the effectiveness of the treatment. Sterilization by radiation

failed to achieve any of its goals, yet the experiments still continued.

Many of Claubergs and Schumanns victims perished as result of their mistreatment. A

lack of regard of the humanity of their patients led to careless and botched operations. Infection

was extremely common due to poor sanitation in the operating room and in the camp. The camp

officers later murdered many experimentation victims who managed to survive survive both the

initial operation and its aftermath in the gas chambers, as they had witnessed grotesque crimes

that actively violated the Hippocratic Oath. Because of this, less than one hundred of the

estimated one thousand in-camp sterilization experiment victims survived the war.8 Those who

did survive suffered lifelong physical and psychological trauma.

Purposes of Forced Sterilization

7
Hansi Keating, interview with Day 41 of 70 Days of Testimony: Hansi Keating on Camp Experiments,
USC Shoah Foundation (2015).
8
Benedict and Georges, Nurses and sterilization experiments in Auschwitz, 284.
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The Nazis are perhaps the the most famous proponents of eugenics in the early twentieth

century, however they were not alone in their beliefs. Eugenics is defined as the science of

improving human genetics through selective breeding. This idea was not unique to the Nazi

Party, as English scientist Sir Francis Galton originally developed it. The concept of eugenics

was popular and generally accepted in both Western Europe and in the United States during this

time.

The concept of eugenics and racial hygiene is predicated on the belief that some

individuals are biologically inferior to others. This carries the obvious issue of determining who

has the power to define exactly what makes someone biologically inferior. In Nazi Germany,

public health measures aimed to improve the health of the overall population by eliminating

traits deemed detrimental to society. They called this process racial hygiene. Elimination of

these traits could be accomplished both through exterminating the person carrying such a trait, or

preventing that person from reproducing. Preventing someone from reproducing entailed either

sterilization, forced abortion, or marriage restrictions. By eliminating these undesirable

elements, Nazis thought that it would reduce the government spending needed to support

invalids, as well as improve the genetic pool as a whole.

Early on, the policy of racial hygiene culminated in the 1933 Law for the Prevention of

Offspring with Hereditary Diseases. Article One of this law both provides justification for forced

sterilization, and also lists the types of conditions that could be subject to sterilization. The law

states that anyone may be sterilized if ...there is a high probability that his offspring will suffer

from serious physical or mental defects of a hereditary nature.9 It then lists nine conditions that

were eligible for sterilization. Some of these conditions are quite specific, like hereditary

9
Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, July 14, 1933.
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epilepsy, while others, like serious hereditary physical deformity, are quite vague.

Interestingly, this law lists chronic alcoholism as a hereditary disease eligible for sterilization.

Across multiple other articles, this law provides justification for others to submit another

person for sterilization. Someone could create a sterilization application on another persons

behalf if that person had a mental deficiency or was not yet eighteen years old.10 In Article

Twelve, the law specifically allows for sterilization against an individuals will. For example, a

state physician could submit an application for the sterilization on behalf of one of his patients.

Around ninety percent of all sterilization applications were approved.11 Many would-be victims

appealed this decision, but less than three percent managed to win their appeal.12 Once a

sterilization application was created and accepted, resisting the completion of the procedure

could result in deportation to a concentration camp.

This law has one glaring omission once one considers other well known beliefs of the

Nazis conception of genetic purity. It makes no specific mention of sterilization based on a

racial justification. Racial groups commonly targeted by the Nazis in other regards, such as Jews,

Gypsies (Sinti and Roma), and Afro-Germans, have no specific mention in this law. However,

this does not mean that this law did not affect these people. Because others could submit an

individual for sterilization, any justification could be given, whether it was factual or not. The

vague language of the law, listing conditions like congenital mental deficiency and serious

hereditary physical deformity, meant that a physician could subvert giving a racially based

justification for sterilization.

Victims of Forced Sterilization

10
Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, July 14, 1933.
11
Poore, Disability in Twentieth-Century German Culture, 78.
12
Suzanne B. Evans, Forgotten Crimes (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004), 110.
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A perceived sense of inferiority underlies the diverse group of those chosen for

sterilization. As discussed above, in an effort to engineer an ideal society, Nazis wanted to

eliminate elements of society that they perceived to be undesirable. To them, this would create a

society of supposedly biologically superior individuals, free from the burden of disease and

inferior races. Between the years 1934 and 1939, it is estimated that upwards of 200,000 people

were sterilized in Germany as result of the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary

Diseases.13 This does not include the numerous instances of forced eugenic abortion or marriage

restriction. However, in many instances eugenic sterilization and abortion happened

simultaneously. Into the 1940s, the rate of forced sterilization slowed within Germany, as efforts

turned from gradual elimination to complete extermination of these undesirable individuals.

However, forced sterilization continued within the camp system.

The Mentally Ill

Individuals with cognitive disabilities and mental illness represented the majority of

sterilization victims within Germany. Article One of the Law for the Prevention of Offspring

with Hereditary Diseases, which lists the conditions eligible for sterilization, includes the mental

conditions of congenital feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, and manic-depression (what is

now known as bipolar disorder).14 It also includes chronic alcoholism, which here can be viewed

as a condition caused by a mental illness. One can define the vague term of congenital

feeblemindedness with a wide array of developmental and intellectual disabilities. However, its

13
Karl Kessler. Physicians and the Nazi Euthanasia Program, International Journal of Mental Health,
Vol. 36, No. 1, The Holocaust and the Mentally Ill: Part III: Euthanasia (2007), 7.
14
Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, 1933.
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vague nature permitted it to be used against asocial elements, such as prostitutes, sexually

promiscuous women, political dissidents, and petty criminals.15

The Nazis managed to directly and effectively target individuals with mental diseases and

disabilities despite not having a definitive list of these individuals. Of the 200,000 German

sterilization victims, an estimated 25.4 percent of these people were sufferers of schizophrenia.

Additionally, 3.2 percent were sufferers of manic-depression and 2.4 percent were alcoholics.

52.9 percent of all sterilization victims fall into the broad category of congenital

feeblemindedness.16 In total, about 84 percent of German sterilization victims suffered from a

mental disease or disability, or at least an alleged one. These numbers make it clear, at least

initially, Nazis targeted sufferers of developmental and mental disorders with this sterilization

law.One should note that the conditions most commonly subject to sterilization were those that

generally require long term medical care, such as schizophrenia. The Nazis viewed these

individuals as particularly burdensome to the system, as many lived in government-run care

facilities.

Many potential victims of sterilization had their application created by their physician.

Furthermore, institutions built to assist and support these types of people, especially homes for

the invalid, created application for their patients at high rates. Because of Articles 2 and 3 of the

Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Disease, other individuals could create the

application for sterilization oh behalf of the would-be victim. Article 3 specifically states that

sterilization applications could be created by a state physician or the head of places like hospitals

15
Donna F. Ryan and John S. Schuchman, Deaf People in Hitlers Europe (Washington DC: Gaullaudet
University Press, 2002), 55.
16
Poore, Disability in Twentieth Century German Culture, 78.
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or penal institutions.17 This demonstrates a betrayal of both the professionals and institutions

sworn to protect these individuals.

Individuals with Congenital Illness and Disabilities

Individuals with congenital illness and disabilities represent a smaller, yet still

significant, percentage of sterilization victims. The Law for the Prevention of Offspring with

Hereditary Diseases allows for the sterilization of individuals with epilepsy, St. Vitus Dance

(now known as Huntingtons Chorea, which is a genetic disorder that causes deterioration of

nerve cells in the brain), hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, and the vague category of

serious hereditary physical deformity.18

Much like the mentally ill victims of forced sterilization, many sterilization victims with

hereditary disease had their sterilization application created by doctors and institutions meant to

assist and support them. Many schools for the deaf specifically promoted sterilization.19 In

response to a letter from a man he had submitted for sterilization, Edwin Singer, the director of

The Institute for the Deaf in Heidelberg, wrote The fact that you have no children should not be

seen as a misfortune. Better to have no children, than one who is blind or deaf or epileptic.20

Because of the complicated bureaucracy of institutions for the deaf and blind, some deaf and

blind victims of involuntary sterilization may not have been hereditarily so. In at least one case,

a girl at the Pauline Home in Winnenden was sterilized for deafness, despite the fact that she was

17
Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, 1933.
18
Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, 1933.
19
Evans, Forgotten Crimes: 112-126.
20
Evans, Forgotten Crimes, 116.
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born with full hearing and only became deaf after an accident.21 This shows an institutional

willingness to sterilize perceived inferior elements, even if the justification did not hold up.

Restitution to German individuals who suffered involuntary sterilization, especially for

reasons of disabilities, has been fraught with difficulty. This is likely due to the fact that the

disabled are not viewed as primary victims of Nazi persecution. Though the Law for the

Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases was declared invalid, German courts have

upheld that the law followed proper procedure at the time. One individual, who also happens to

also be Jewish, was sterilized for deafness and sued for restitution. He lost his case, as the court

determined that because he actually was deaf, and the law at the time allowed for the sterilization

of deaf individuals, his rights were not violated.22 This demonstrates the complicated

bureaucracy and law surrounding forced sterilization.

Ethnic and Religious Minorities

Sterilizations as result of the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary

Diseases only affected Germans, as it was a German law. As discussed above, this law makes no

specific mention of race, such a Jews, Gypsies (Sinti and Roma), or Afro-Germans. However,

this does not mean that ethnic and religious minorities did not suffer as result of this law. Ethnic

minorities living in Germany who suffered from the various conditions listed in law also fell

victim to it. Furthermore, the vague wording of the law coupled with the fact that others could

submit the application meant that racially motivated sterilization could happen under the guise of

something like congenital feeblemindedness.

21
Evans, Forgotten Crimes, 120
22
Evans, Forgotten Crimes, 158.
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Jews and Gypsies were the overwhelming majority of victims of in-camp sterilization

experiments. Doctors like Schumann and Clauberg specifically used the accessibility of camp

inmates to conduct experiments that they knew were unethical. Jews comprised the majority of

Claubergs victims.23 In-camp victims of sterilization were also more likely to perish, as inmates

lived in very unsanitary conditions. While the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with

Hereditary Diseases did not target ethnic minorities explicitly, ethnic minorities still very much

suffered from Nazi sponsored forced sterilization. This is unsurprising, as we know that the Nazi

conception of genetic purity included both the elimination of genetic disability and supposed

inferior races.

Implications of Forced Sterilization

The implications of the Nazi policy of forced sterilization reach beyond the personal lives

of the victims. Most apparently, forced sterilization was part of the Nazis larger goal of

population control and racial purity. However, the implications of forced sterilization extend

deeper than simply being a detail of the complicated web of Nazi racism.

Gendered Violence

Like most other cases of government sanctioned forced sterilization, Nazi sterilization

efforts disproportionately targeted females. Male sterilization is a simpler procedure that carries

far fewer risks, and has a much shorter recovery time. Despite this, females remain the more

frequently targeted victims of sterilization. Furthermore, the invasiveness of female sterilization

means that it has more room for infection. Between the years of 1934 and 1937, 80 men and 400

23
Carl Clauberg, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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women died during sterilization operations in Germany.24 These disproportionate numbers

demonstrate how differently females suffered from sterilization. By focusing on the sterilization

of females while male sterilization is much easier, Nazi sterilization efforts became a gendered

form of violence. This is not to say that females suffered more from sterilization, or any other

form of Nazi persecution for that matter. This simply highlights the unique experience of female

victims that can be lost without proper examination.

One can easily recognize the the sexual violence inherent in forced sterilization. This is

especially clear in instances like Claubergs experiments where women had formaldehyde

injected into their cervix. This is not to say that male sterilization victims were not sexually

violated, as all victims of involuntary sterilization were sexually violated. However, one must put

this into the larger context underlying sexual violence towards females during this time. Women

also suffered sexual violence in the forms of forced abortion and rape under Nazi rule. To fail to

take into account the sexual violence suffered by women, along with the violated senses of worth

and femininity that goes along with sexual assault, marginalizes female suffering.

The basis of the Nazi sterilization campaign was to eliminate inferior elements from

society. The fact that women were more likely victims of sterilization combined with the fact the

sterilization experiments mostly focussed on women, shows that the Nazis placed blame for

damaging the gene pool on women. Obviously, both a man and woman share equal

responsibility for the creation of a child, and both parents can pass on their genes, so this is

illogical. This is likely part of the larger paternalistic underpinnings of the Nazi regime.

Put into the larger context of Nazi policy and ideology, sterilization assaulted both

motherhood and femininity. The larger Nazi propaganda campaign promoted motherhood

24
Gislea Bock, Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization,
and the State, Signs, Vol. 8. No. 3, Women and Violence (1983), 414.
 Nogay 13

amongst Aryan women. On one hand, the Nazis encouraged women considered to have

desirable traits to bare many children, while on the other, women considered to have undesirable

traits had their ability to bare children forcibly taken from them. In a 1934 speech to the National

Socialist Womens League, Hitler defines the female sphere as containing her husband, her

family, her children, and her home.25 Once put into that context, stripping a woman of her

ability to reproduce means stripping her of her identity as a woman. Essentially, this means a

female cannot be a woman without a family. She has no place of belonging. While both men and

women suffered from forced sterilization, women suffered in a unique way that should not be

overlooked.

Blending of Physical and Psychological Violence

One can easily recognize the inherent physical and sexual violence in forced sterilization.

Human beings had their reproductive organs mutilated, usually against their will. This left these

victims with lifelong physical consequences ranging from scarring to disease. However, the

violence of forced sterilization lays deeper than just the suffering of the human body. Losing the

ability to procreate left victims with lifelong psychological issues.

On one level, involuntarily losing the ability to procreate by means of force represents a

loss in self agency that can never be recovered. Eugenic sterilization also imposes a sense of

inferiority on its victims. Eugenic sterilization had the purpose to eliminate detrimental elements

of society. This forces a victim of eugenic sterilization to confront the fact that they were viewed

as a burden on society.

On a concrete level, victims of forced sterilization have attested to the lifelong

psychological issues that they have experienced as result of their sterilization. In many instances,
25
Hitler, Adolf, Speech to the National Socialist Womens League, September 8, 1934.
 Nogay 14

silence speaks louder than words. In this case, the relative few number of victims who have

spoken about their experience of being forcibly sterilized speaks to a degree of severe emotional

trauma. One man who chose to speak about his experience by saying I feel very dispirited and

am ashamed of my castration. The worst thing is that I have no future anymore. I eat very little

and still grow fat.26 Another man who had been engaged five times, stated that his finces

would end the engagement once they found out about he could not make children.27 Another

person, a woman, stated that a fianc ended their engagement because he did not want a wife

with a Hitler Cut.28 These people are among numerous other sterilization victims who reported

that their sterilization affected their ability to become married. In this way, the physical trauma

of forced sterilization also contains a strong aspect of emotional trauma.

Conclusions

Forced sterilization is a too frequently overlooked aspect of Nazi violence. While there

are survivors of forced sterilization, sterilization still has an important link to death and

extermination. Because of the careless attitude that Nazi physicians had towards the people they

sterilized, frequent infection often led to death. In the case of in-camp sterilization, short term

survivors of the sterilization were later killed for the purpose of cadaver research or for simply

baring witness to crimes. This makes sterilization a crucial component that should not be

overlooked or underappreciated while discussing Nazi atrocities.

Forced sterilization targeted a diverse group of people, yet these people still have

something in common. Targets of involuntary sterilization all had something about them that the

Nazis perceived to be inferior. Forced sterilization was part of an effort to eliminate or enslave

26
Hermann Langbein, People in Auschwitz (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 486.
27
Langbein, People in Auschwitz, 487.
28
Evans, Forgotten Crimes, 122
 Nogay 15

supposedly inferior elements of the German population. The wide variety of the people targeted

demonstrates the narrow ideal of genetic superiority that the Nazis held, and provides deeper

insight into Nazi eugenics.

The importance of forced sterilization should not stop at its relation to death, racism, or

the final solution. One must pay attention and appropriately consider the survivors of sterilization

and the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that they endured. Forced sterilization blends

multiple forms of violence, with which victims of such crimes had to reckon. The complicated

and taboo nature of sterilization forced many victims to suffer in unwarranted shame and silence.

Shifting historical narratives of violence away from only what causes immediate death would

help to remedy the taboo nature of violence of this sort. Victims of violence that is psychological

or sexual in nature deserve appropriate recognition of their suffering.

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postmodernist perspective, Nursing Inquiry Vol. 13 Issue 4 (2006): 277-288.
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Women: Sexual Violence against Women during the Holocaust, ed. Sonja M. Hedgepeth
and Rochelle G. Saidel (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2010): 33c-35h.
Bock, Gisela, Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization,
and the State, Signs, Vol. 8. No. 3, Women and Violence (1983): 400-421.
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 Nogay 16

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