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Introduction
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73 Introduction Introduction 73 The Nazis were concerned primarily with the racial and genetic purity of the so-called Aryans, so they applied the most dramatic racial and eugenics policies first within the borders of Germany before moving on to the rest of the rapidly expanding Reich. Thus, our discussion of the impact that marriage prohibitions, forced sterilizations , and the T4 program had on the deaf community must focus on Germany and those parts of Middle Europe incorporated into the Third Reich. Written documentation, while fragmented by the destruction of records during the war and sometimes kept from public scrutiny during the Cold War, is most extensive for the German deaf community. It is important to remember that access to information about the deaf community is always circumscribed by the need to understand its language and cultural assumptions, yet historians from within and outside are delving into this period and exposing important new information and nuanced interpretations. The deaf community historian Jochen Muhs has interviewed many deaf Berliners who were eyewitnesses to the Third Reich. He reports that the experiences of deaf people were varied, not only as victims of National Socialism, but sometimes as active members of the Nazi Party and as perpetrators of injustice against other deaf people, especially Jews. He provides valuable details of how all deaf organizations were subsumed into one Nazi-controlled association— the Reich Union for the Deaf of Germany (Reichsverband der Gehörlosen Deutschlands or REGEDE)—an experience that all political , social, and professional groups in Germany shared. Muhs’s research is based on archival records that have only been available to scholars since the reunification of Germany and on Donna F. Ryan 74 Donna F. Ryan videotaped interviews that would have been very difficult for anyone except a member of the German deaf community to obtain. He provides information about the careers of several deaf Nazi adherents , including Fritz Albreghs and Heinrich Siepmann, as well as vivid images of deaf Brownshirts and Hitler Youth imitating their hearing counterparts by goose-stepping and singing the “Horst Wessel” song, the anthem of the Sturmabteilung (SA). Ignorance, fear, and the benefits of party affiliation—honors, fancy uniforms, and employment opportunities—lured deaf people to adhere to a philosophy that relegated them to second-class citizenship and subsequent persecution. Finally Muhs shows how deaf people suffered forced sterilization when their teachers denounced them to the authorities. Deaf Jews in Germany, doubly outcast, first suffered expulsion from the deaf community, then segregation from the larger society, and ultimately deportation to the death camps. The experience of deaf German Jews is an area that requires further investigation, for very few survived the war to bear witness to their persecution, except those lucky enough to emigrate in the 1930s. The racial and eugenics policies of the Third Reich damaged and destroyed communities as well as individual lives. As the Nazis coerced and consolidated deaf organizations and clubs into the REGEDE, they destroyed the rich diversity enjoyed by the deaf social , athletic, and political clubs before 1933. Fortunately, a portrait of that society survives in the 1932 silent film Verkannte Menschen (Misjudged People), written by Wilhelm Ballier, a Nazi sympathizer, and produced by Alfred Kell. Film historian John S. Schuchman describes and analyzes this important document and artifact. Faced with widespread unemployment and pervasive eugenics theories calling for the eradication of hereditary physical and mental disabilities, the makers of Verkannte Menschen hoped to disseminate a positive representation of deaf citizens to hearing Germans through the popular medium of film. Showing industrious deaf workers, enthusiastic deaf children learning speech and vocational training, and beautiful deaf athletes paying homage to the cult of physical perfection, Verkannte Menschen tried to counter stereotypes [54.196.114.118] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:19 GMT) 75 Introduction that linked deafness with low intelligence and poor achievement. The film closed with the figure of a muscular, blonde deaf Aryan and the plea, “Don’t pity; give them their rights: work and bread,” an image and an entreaty likely to resonate with a 1932 audience. With Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, the Nazi Party entered into a period of consolidation of its authority, known as the Gleichschaltung. By persuasion, coercion, and cajolery, the Nazis sought support, while simultaneously preparing the groundwork for their intended policy, the perfection of the German Volk and the elimination of hereditary defects and the reduction of the financial burden attributed to people with disabilities. As Schuchman explains, Nazi actions...