Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe

by Dagmar Herzog

Since the defeat of the Nazi Third Reich and the end of its horrific eugenics policies, battles over the politics of life, sex, and death have continued and evolved. Dagmar Herzog documents how reproductive rights and disability rights, both latecomers to the postwar human rights canon, came to be seen as competing―with unexpected consequences.

Bringing together the latest findings in Holocaust studies, the history of religion, and the history of sexuality in postwar―and now also postcommunist―Europe, Unlearning Eugenics shows how central the controversies over sexuality, reproduction, and disability have been to broader processes of secularization and religious renewal. Herzog also restores to the historical record a revelatory array of from Catholic and Protestant theologians who defended abortion rights in the 1960s–70s to historians in the 1980s–90s who uncovered the long-suppressed connections between the mass murder of the disabled and the Holocaust of European Jewry; from feminists involved in the militant "cripple movement" of the 1980s to lawyers working for right-wing NGOs in the 2000s; and from a handful of pioneers in the 1940s–60s committed to living in intentional community with individuals with cognitive disability to present-day disability self-advocates.

Genres: History, Disability, Nonfiction, Eugenics, Grad School

176 pages, Paperback

Published April 14, 2020

About the author

Dagmar Herzog (born 1961) is Distinguished Professor of History and the Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has published extensively on the histories of sexuality and gender, psychoanalysis, theology and religion, Jewish-Christian relations and Holocaust memory, and she has edited anthologies on sexuality in the Third Reich, sexuality in twentieth-century Austria, and the Holocaust.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational and nuanced information on the topic with an extremely interesting list of notes and sources to browse.

It was especially intriguing reading this after almost two years of being stuck in a pandemic in Europe. After hearing "don't worry, only the elderly and disabled will suffer" and "they had underlying conditions anyway" from 95% of people since March 2020, and after reading about the DNRs that are being pushed onto covid patients with (S)LDs, I feel like Unlearning Eugenics was an almost ironically optimistic choice for a title from the 'before times'.

[Ash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super informative and good book about this topic. Def a rec!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO good!!