Tracing the rise of racist and eugenic ideologies, Henry
Friedlander explores in chilling detail how the Nazi program of
secretly exterminating the handicapped and disabled evolved into
the systematic destruction of Jews and Gypsies. He describes how
the so-called euthanasia of the handicapped provided a practical
model for the later mass murder, thereby initiating the
Holocaust.
The Nazi regime pursued the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, and the
handicapped based on a belief in the biological, and thus absolute,
inferiority of those groups. To document the connection between the
assault on the handicapped and the Final Solution, Friedlander
shows how the legal restrictions and exclusionary policies of the
1930s, including mass sterilization, led to mass murder during the
war. He also makes clear that the killing centers where the
handicapped were gassed and cremated served as the models for the
extermination camps.
Based on extensive archival research, the book also analyzes the
involvement of the German bureaucracy and judiciary, the
participation of physicians and scientists, and the nature of
popular opposition.