Death and Deliverance [Paperback]

Michael Burleigh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2002

Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazis systematically murdered as many as 200,000 mentally ill or physically disabled people whom they stigmatised as 'life unworthy of life'. This book is the first full-scale study in English of this complex and covert series of operations known as the 'euthanasia' programme. Using a wealth of original archive material, Michael Burleigh considers the role of all those involved in the programme: bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, health officials, lawyers, clerics, and also parents, relatives and the patients themselves. 'History writing is rarely this moving, or so admirably, effectively, moralistic' - David Ceserani, "The Guardian". 'This is a terrible book. Everyone ought to read it. It is difficult to believe that this account could be improved upon.' - Anthony Storr, - "The Times". 'Outstanding and chilling [Michael Burleigh] provides one of the most penetrating insights yet written into the individual mentalities - and the resulting collective "mentality" - of Nazism.' - Niall Ferguson, "The Sunday Telegraph". 'An impressive and harrowing book whose suppleness, fluency and accretion of case histories and anecdotes particularise the horror.' - Jonathan Meades, "Mail on Sunday".

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A chilling documentation of what happened in Germany when the Nazis seized power and put their ideas on eugenics and euthanasia into action. Burleigh (International History/London School of Economics; coauthor, The Racial State, not reviewed) points out that the Nazi program began with a humanitarian rationalization: Mentally and physically disabled children were subject to ``mercy killing'' as a form of deliverance. Soon, however, ``mercy killing'' evolved into the elimination of ``life unworthy of life'' as the Nazi killing machine expanded to include more and more victims, and as political, legal, moral, and religious opposition was quashed by the fear of reprisals and totalitarian power. Burleigh demonstrates how Nazi eugenics perverted German medicine and science: Scientists approved the sterilization of some 400,000 people between 1934 and 1945 to eradicate ``degenerative heredity'' in order to ``improve the race.'' Doctors, particularly psychiatrists, were encouraged to falsify medical records, give lethal injections, starve patients, and use other creative means of murder while ignoring the age-old dictum of the physician, ``Do no harm.'' Burleigh also details how asylum populations were decimated as managers, bureaucrats, lawyers, doctors, nurses, and other professionals, corrupted by monetary awards and promotions, played their parts in the Nazi murder industry. Daily killings became routine as Nazi propagandists extolled social Darwinism. Burleigh describes how victims were targeted, including Jews, foreigners, enemies of the Reich, gypsies, and those who lacked ``labor values.'' Occasional accounts of humanity brighten the grim story, as medical Schindlers saved patients from death by listing them as valuable workers who were badly needed. After the war, some of the Nazi eugenicists, tried at Nuremberg and in German courts, were executed, while others received light sentences. Most melted into the general population under new identities. A notable contribution to the history of Nazi Germany--and a sobering reminder of what can happen when the claims of science, bureaucracy, and expertise go unchallenged. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'History writing is rarely this moving, or so admirably, effectively, moralistic' David Ceserani, The Guardian; 'This is a terrible book. Everyone ought to read it. It is difficult to believe that this account could be improved upon' Anthony Storr, The Times; 'Outstanding and chilling [Michael Burleigh] provides one of the most penetrating insights yet written into the individual mentalities - and the resulting collective "mentality" - of Nazism.' Niall Ferguson, The Sunday Telegraph; 'An impressive and harrowing book whose suppleness, fluency and accretion of case histories and anecdotes particularise the horror.' Jonathan Meades, Mail on Sunday

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 950 pages
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan (February 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330488392
• ISBN-13: 978-0330488396
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,616,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remembering the forgotten victims, July 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Death and Deliverance: 'Euthanasia' in Germany, c.1900 to 1945 (Paperback)

An extraordinary and deeply moving book. Burleigh documents in meticulous and scholarly detail the mass murder of psychiatric patients, and exposes the obscene justification of this as "mercy killing" (incidentally providing a fascinating and horrifying survey of the way in which the Nazi "euthanasia" program helped create the bureaucratic machinery later used to run the concentration camps). Instead of allowing the sheer weight of numbers to render the victims anonymous, he uses haunting photographs and details of some of the murdered adults and children to "bring them to life" and make vivid the humanity which the Nazis were unable to see. Anyone interested in the rights of the mentally handicapped and mentally ill should read this book

5.0 out of 5 stars great book, June 24, 2011

By 

Winifred Hinson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Death and Deliverance: 'Euthanasia' in Germany, c.1900 to 1945 (Paperback)

The best English language book available on Nazi euthansia...Burleigh's ironic style and meticulous research make a difficult subject a pageturner...