Murder and Nursing Neglect of Tuberculosis Patients in the Clinics of the Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme under National Socialism

Patrick Bernhard
Completed research project
Funded by the ‘Research Network Old-age Provision’ of the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme
Project coordination: PD Dr. Winfried Süß

The project, funded for two years from 1 May 2015 by the ‘Research Network Old-age Provision’ of the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme, investigated the treatment of tuberculosis patients in facilities of the Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme, which was structurally involved to a significant extent in the health politics of the ‘Third Reich’. The combating of the widespread disease tuberculosis counted among the tasks of the Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme. 

At the heart of the enquiry was the question of to what extent during the war years Germans and foreign forced labourers suffering from tuberculosis, who were considered a burden on the health service, were murdered in the framework of the second wave of ‘euthanasia’, which commenced in 1942, by means of systematic neglect, food deprivation and the administering of overdoses of certain medicines in hospitals and sanatoriums. The historically interested public repeatedly and critically addressed this subject. Thus far, however, historical scholarship has only insufficient knowledge at its disposal – not least as a result of the problematic availability of sources – regarding the second wave of ‘euthanasia’. Unclear are especially the structures, scope and practices of killing tuberculosis patients who were regarded as an economic and social burden for the Nazi health service. This was what the study is interested in researching. It examined, on the one hand, the concrete medical and nursing treatment of tuberculosis patients in facilities and in-patient clinics of the Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme and, on the other hand, enquired after the protagonists and those responsible for any cases of patients being murdered and explores their leeway in decision-making. In addition, the project took for the first time a comprehensive look at the complex interplay between national, regional and local levels of action. Ultimately, the project made a contribution to a) the history of the Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme, b) research on perpetrators under National Socialism, and c) the social history of German national insurance in the ‘age of extremes’.