The Precursor to the Holocaust: Adolf Hitler\u27s Economic and Ethnic Persecution of the Disabled Community

The murder and sterilization of disabled victims under the Third Reich, my paper will argue, was a significant precursor to the actions subsequently taken during the Holocaust. Grounded in both primary and secondary evidence, my paper analyzes Hitler’s economic and ethnic opinion of German’s disabled community and its legacies for other persecuted groups, including most notably the Jewish community. This research introduces a thesis that combines both ethical and economic persecution as exhibiting an intertwined relationship – thus filling a gap in literature. Hitler considered disabled individuals an economic “drain” because they were unable to work. He also believed that the mere existence of disabled individuals would threaten the nature of the Volksgemeinschaft, or the “pure” Aryan race. In response, Hitler passed the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring , which succeeded in sterilizing many disabled individuals. Such views and policies, originally targeting disabled individuals were soon extended to the Jewish community throughout the Holocaust. To this day, the propaganda Hitler created to communicate his discriminatory economic and ethnic viewpoints of disabled people persist, now in the form of ableism. The persecution and murder of disabled victims under Adolf Hitler’s power, as I will explain, raises important ethical questions regarding the amount of power a state holds over disabled individuals in a conservatorship