(Mirror.)

Christian Keller was also interested in the developments in Germany. The famous German book Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens (Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life) by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoches (Binding and Hoches 1920) was introduced by Keller in the journal Nyt Tidsskrift for Abnormvaesen in 1926. The book was one of the most historically influential books in favour of legal euthanasia (Dowbiggin 2005, 78; Brody and Cooper 2014).

Against the backdrop of the depressing situation in Germany after World War I, Keller found the idea of euthanasia ‘understandable’, but like in his 1904 article, he ended up dismissing the thought (Keller 1926).

He was interested in German eugenics. In 1926. When the Weimar Republic still existed.

Steincke was without question the foremost political exponent of eugenics in Denmark, and he made no secret of his intention of diminishing the number of Danes with disabilities (Hansen 2005, 27–30). ‘It is not easy to come up with good arguments for taking care of the physically and mentally abnormal individuals’, he wrote in the medical journal Ugeskrift for Laeger:

Thus, if society is not able to kill them, a minimum of social policy is crucial simply due to the fact that, in the long run, the existence of tainted individuals will deteriorate the fit, and, accordingly, the average intelligence of the population will decrease. (Steincke 1928, 1140; Pedersen 2014, 118).

As minister of Justice and later on minister of social affairs in Social‐Democrat governments in the 1920s and 1930s, Steincke was the key force behind compulsory institutionalisation of people with mental disabilities and the first sterilisation and castration acts (Hansen 2005, 39–41). As mentioned earlier, only very few Danes objected to these initiatives.

[…]

During the [Fascist] occupation of Denmark (1940–1945) euthanasia was discussed in wider circles. One of the main reasons for this was a famous [Fascist] propaganda film which was warmly received by the Danish public. In 1941, the Danish cinemas showed the German film Ich klage an [I wail on].

The film had been made following a direct order from Joseph Goebbels. The main purpose of the film was to make the German public more supportive of the Aktion T4. From his SS staff, Heinrich Himmler had reports saying that people living close to the institutions where the killing of thousands of Germans took place were against the Aktion T4.

Furthermore, there was critique from the church, and both Protestant and Catholic churchmen protested against euthanasia T4. In order to change the public view on euthanasia, Himmler had suggested a propaganda film on the issue. The result was Ich klage an (Sørensen 2014, 265–266).

The film is about a doctor with an ill wife who is suffering from the incurable disorder multiple sclerosis. The young beautiful wife is slowly and painfully paralysed, and she begs her family to put her out of her misery. Her husband chooses to take matters into his own hands and kills his wife by giving her an overdose. He is consequently charged with her murder, and the last part of the film follows the trial against the doctor.

At the end of the film, the doctor accuses the law of letting the incurably ill suffer by preventing euthanasia. Ich klage an ends without a conviction, leaving the decision guilty or not guilty to the public (Sørensen 2014, 268).

The German film company Ufa based in Copenhagen effectively used the film in Denmark. The company arranged public meetings where Ich klage an was discussed, and at the movie’s premiere in Copenhagen on 10 December 1941 many prominent Danish doctors, legal professionals and politicians were invited to see the film.

In the Danish cinemas, the company made polls with ballot boxes. The cinema audience was requested to either convict or acquit the doctor. Usually, a large majority decided to acquit the doctor (Sørensen 2014). Danish film reviewers were very positive towards Ich klage an. On 11 December 1941, the newspaper Berlingske Tidende described it as a ‘masterpiece’, Aftenbladet found it ‘unforgettable’, and Politiken concluded that it was ‘a film you must see’.

[…]

A large number of people with mental disabilities were sterilised or castrated in Denmark. More than 1012 castrations were performed during the period 1929–1967 (Sand 1964; Graugaard 1997). About 80% of these were conducted on people with mental disabilities.

Furthermore, at least 11,000 sterilisations were performed in the same period (Koch 2000). Radical treatments, such as the surgical intervention frontal lobotomy, were used on more than 300 patients with mental disabilities — including many children, the youngest being only 6 years old (Kragh 2010, 344–345).

[…]

Step by step public opinion and discourse about people with mental disabilities began to alter. Christian Keller’s two island institutions were closed in 1961; the 1934 and 1935 acts on compulsory sterilisation and castration were formally abolished in 1967, and one comprehensive sterilisation act based on voluntariness for all categories was passed (Koch 2000, 354).

This was followed by legislation on free abortion in 1973. In the 1970s, it was no longer comme il faut to describe people with mental disabilities as ‘defective’, ‘abnormal’ or ‘feeble minded’. Accordingly, euthanasia was rarely associated with mental disability in the 1980s.

Yet ideas about euthanasia did not vanish completely in the 1980s, but the focus shifted from mental disability to terminal illness.

(Emphasis added.)

The author nearly overlooks the practice of medical malpractice during the Fascist occupation, kindly stating that

the occupation did not lead to any change in the Danish eugenic policy. There was no equivalent to the Norwegian Quisling government and its introduction of more extreme eugenics legislation (Hansen 2005, 61). […] The lack of confrontation with the [Reich] also applied to Danish psychiatry; the patients were not exposed to the same harsh treatment as in Poland, Russia and France, and no increase in mortality rates can be detected in the reports from the Danish mental hospitals during the [Fascist] occupation (Kragh 2006). The same applies to Danish disability institutions in the 1940s (Kragh, Jensen, and Rasmussen 2015, 65–66).

Nevertheless, it is pretty easy to infer from the data that medical malpractice only continued throughout the Fascist occupation. The Reich being uninvolved in this phenomenon only makes the professionals look worse because now nobody can defend them by arguing that somebody must have forced them to abuse patients. Evidently, though, the author seems to have little interest in the fate of Danish mental patients under Fascism.