Ernst Rüdin: Hitler’s Racial Hygiene Mastermind

Abstract

Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) was the founder of psychiatric genetics and was also a founder of the German racial hygiene movement. Throughout his long career he played a major role in promoting eugenic ideas and policies in Germany, including helping formulate the 1933 Nazi eugenic sterilization law and other governmental policies directed against the alleged carriers of genetic defects. In the 1940s Rüdin supported the killing of children and mental patients under a Nazi program euphemistically called "Euthanasia." The authors document these crimes and discuss their implications, and also present translations of two publications Rüdin co-authored in 1938 showing his strong support for Hitler and his policies. The authors also document what they see as revisionist historical accounts by leading psychiatric genetic authors. They outline three categories of contemporary psychiatric genetic accounts of Rüdin and his work: (A) those who write about German psychiatric genetics in the Nazi period, but either fail to mention Rüdin at all, or cast him in a favorable light; (B) those who acknowledge that Rüdin helped promote eugenic sterilization and/or may have worked with the Nazis, but generally paint a positive picture of Rüdin's research and fail to mention his participation in the "euthanasia" killing program; and (C) those who have written that Rüdin committed and supported unspeakable atrocities. The authors conclude by calling on the leaders of psychiatric genetics to produce a detailed and complete account of their field's history, including all of the documented crimes committed by Rüdin and his associates.

The First into the Dark: The Nazi Persecution of the Disabled

“…Rüdin helped formulate the 1933 Hereditary Health Laws and later advocated for the killing of genetically inferior humans. 292 Psychiatry in Germany suffered a poor reputation in the medical and general community before the 1914-1918 war and an even worse one following it. Psychiatrists seemed unable to provide any real relief for the suffering of returned soldiers, deeply traumatised by trench warfare.…”

Ernst Rüdin’s Unpublished 1922-1925 Study “Inheritance of Manic-Depressive Insanity”: Genetic Research Findings Subordinated to Eugenic Ideology

“…Rüdin became aware of this secret operation at the end of 1939 at the latest, but was not directly involved in its preparation or execution [ 8 ]. However, his backing may have influenced important decisions at the highest political levels in favour of killing patients [ 98 , 99 ]. Rüdin supported research projects which included killing designated patients for post mortem material [ 100 , 101 ].…”

“…Contemporary views of Rüdin’s work diverge widely, and are subject to ongoing controversy [ 13 , 90 , 99 , 106 ]. Some would strip him entirely of his rank as a scientist [ 15 ]; others credit him with the establishment of modern psychiatric human genetics through the development of the “empirical heredity prognosis” [ 8 , 31 , 40 ].…”

Pioneers in neurology: Felix Plaut (1877–1940)

“…Plaut's departmental directorship was taken over by longtime personal adversary Franz Jahnel, with whom Plaut had strained relations due to anti-Semitic hostility [4]. With the National Socialist party in power, the institute under Rüdin, an avowed eugenicist, justified atrocious programs promoting the racial hygiene movement including the sterilization and possibly even "euthanasia" of neuropsychiatric patients [9].…”