Gustav Boeters

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Gustav Emil Boeters (3 December 1869 – 28 January 1942) was a German physician. He became known during the Weimar Republic for his public calls for forced eugenic sterilization, which he also addressed to German state parliaments and the Reichstag in the form of draft bills (known as the "Lex Zwickau").

Biography

Gustav Boeters was born in Chemnitz. He studied medicine in Leipzig (1889 and 1893), where he was also active in the Burschenschaft Arminia zu Leipzig fraternity. After his state examination in 1893, he received his license to practice medicine in May 1894 and his doctorate in June 1894. He traveled for a time to the United States as a ship's doctor. Between 1902 and 1903, Boeters worked as an assistant physician at the Pirna State Sanatorium. He then settled as a general practitioner in Leutzsch near Leipzig. In 1904 he passed the examination to become a state physician. In 1908 he became district and vaccination physician in Döbeln, and in 1919 in Marienberg. From 1922 he worked as a medical councilor in Zwickau. In 1926 he retired. On December 1, 1930, he joined the NSDAP. In 1936 he moved to Berlin.

Career overview

The "sterilization apostle"

Boeters' conviction of racial hygiene led him to advocate the sterilization of "mentally inferior" persons. Following the U.S. model, he was already carrying out sterilizations, while at the same time calling for legal regulation of this practice. In 1921, for example, Boeters convinced the medical director of the Zwickau State Hospital, Heinrich Braun, to sterilize three boys and one girl, which was illegal under the law in force at the time.[1] In 1925, he claimed to have achieved 63 operations on a voluntary basis.[2] Boeters turned himself in for the sterilizations, with no response from the prosecutor's office.

In addition, Boeters addressed a petition to the Saxon government in May 1923. In nine points he proposed not only the sterilization of children born blind, deaf-mute or "stupid" at state expense. He demanded that the operations also be extended to corresponding inmates of nursing homes and sanatoriums, as well as to blind, deaf, stupid, epileptic and mentally ill persons who were willing to marry. In addition, morality criminals and women with two or more illegitimate children without recognized paternity were to be sterilized, as well as, on a voluntary basis, criminals who could have portions of their sentences waived for this purpose. Boeters published his proposals in various journals, triggering a lively debate.

The Saxon Ministry of Justice stated that the question of sterilizations was legally doubtful and that a law was desirable for clarification. Nevertheless, the idea was considered worthy of attention. Boeters' propaganda, however, was exaggerated and only harmful to the cause. In June 1924, Saxony proposed to the Empire Health Office that sterilization for eugenic reasons be permitted on a voluntary basis.[3] The Prussian State Health Council deliberated on December 1, 1923, essentially following the recommendations of its expert Karl Bonhoeffer, who advised against state-legalized forced sterilizations and instead recommended allowing voluntary sterilizations for eugenic purposes.[4]

Controversy about the "Lex Zwickau"

Boeters was anything but satisfied with this emerging consensus. He began a campaign, gave public lectures and contributed in various newspapers and magazines, including the medical professional organ Der Kassenarzt and the journal of social Protestantism, Innere Mission. He called on the German physicians:

A tremendously important cultural task awaits its solution by the German medical profession! In addition to already unbearable and constantly increasing economic burdens, we are threatened with the destruction of the spiritual prosperity of the German people — their downfall in a flood of spiritually and morally inferior existences, the vulgarization of our race and thus the elimination of Germany from the ranks of the cultural nations. Who can still avert the impending danger in the last hour? No one more than the German medical profession! [...] I urgently request all colleagues in town and country to search for mentally inferior persons etc. [...] and to operate on as many cases as possible or to assign them to suitable colleagues.[5]

The reaction was predominantly critical. Especially the fact that Boeters wanted to treat deaf-mutes and blind people in the same way as the mentally ill met with clear opposition. But psychiatrists like Ludwig Wilhelm Weber also questioned the definiteness of such terms as "mentally inferior" and the heritability of mental illness.[6] Albert Moll reproached Boeters with the fact that a safe eugenic prognosis, which could justify sterilizations, was not yet possible at all.[7] The journal Das Tage-Buch also published an article about the "sterilization apostle" Boeters in 1925, in which he was accused of losing the sense of reality.

In Saxony, Boeters had in fact already been regarded several times as mentally unstable. The authorities suspended him as a medical officer as early as 1922 because he was unfit to the job. In 1925, it was decided to transfer him to early retirement; internally, Boeters was regarded as a notorious "querulant." Boeters himself, on the other hand, felt persecuted and in 1924 accused the Saxon Foreign Ministry of sabotaging his publications. At the same time, he continued his propagandistic activities undeterred.

Thus, in 1925, with the help of Auguste Forel, Boeters submitted a bill to the German Reichstag on "The Prevention of Unworthy Life by Operative Measures," which he called the "Lex Zwickau" and also forwarded in various versions to the German state parliaments. Thirteen state parliaments dealt with it; only one, the state parliament of the Free State of Schaumburg-Lippe, spoke out in favor by 1927.

Effect and significance

While the actual "Boeters controversy" died down around 1927, the debate about eugenically indicated sterilizations continued in connection with an intended major reform of criminal law. Boeters had thus at least succeeded in triggering a serious debate on the subject, although his own role in this remained controversial among contemporaries. Another contributing factor was that in various other publications Boeters put forward theses that were considered untenable by the scientific community of the time. For example, he explained high recidivism of sexual offenders by a malfunction of the gonads in the testicles and recommended castration to free the individual suffering from it.[8] Likewise, he advocated voluntary castration to cure homosexuality.

The Saxon physician Rainer Fetscher warned in 1931 that Boeters should not be regarded as the father of efforts to sterilize.[9] Magnus Hirschfeld, on the other hand, commented in 1930 in his Geschlechtskunde: "I have come to the conclusion, after getting to know Boeters and his work more closely, that this man, filled with high ideals, is mostly misjudged. Even if he occasionally uses too sharp expressions in the form of attack and defense, even if one does not consider his point of view to be correct, either in principle or in detail, it remains a great merit of Boeters to have put the important problem of sterilization up for thorough discussion."[10]

Works

  • "Die Lösung eines schwierigen Sexualproblems". In: Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift 76 (1929), pp. 1683–1686.
  • Über den primären Gallenblasenkrebs und seine Beziehungen zu Gallensteinen. Leipzig, Univ., Med. Fak., Diss. (1894).
  • "Lex Zwickau. Entwurf zu einem Gesetz für den Deutschen Reichstag über "Die Verhütung unwerten Lebens durch operative Maßnahmen" in der Fassung vom 18. Oktober 1925". In: Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft 13, No. 4 (1926/1927), pp. 139–140; also in: Zeitschrift für ärztliche Fortbildung 22, No. 24 (1925), p. 767; Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift 73, No. 13 (1926), p. 552.
  • "Die Kastration von Sexualverbrechern". In: Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift 77 (1930), pp. 369–70.
  • "Die Berechtigung zu sterilisierenden Operationen." In: Zeitschrift für ärztliche Fortbildung 21, No. 16 (1924), pp. 506–507.

Notes

  1. ↑ Braun, Heinrich (1924). "Die künstliche Sterilisierung Schwachsinniger," Zentralblatt für Chirurgie 51, pp. 104–106.
  2. ↑ Boeters, Gustav (1925). "Die Unfruchtbarmachung Geisteskranker, Schwachsinniger und Verbrecher aus Anlage," Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte und Krankenhausärzte 38, p. 341.
  3. ↑ Schwartz (1995), pp. 274–304.
  4. ↑ Bonhoeffer, Karl (1924). "Die Unfruchtbarmachung der geistig Minderwertigen," Klinische Wochenschrift 3, pp. 798–801.
  5. ↑ Boeters, Gustav (1924). "Aufruf an die deutsche Ärzteschaft," Ärztliches Vereinsblatt für Deutschland 51, pp. 3–4.
  6. ↑ Müller, Joachim (1985). Sterilisation und Gesetzgebung bis 1933. Husum, pp. 60–63.
  7. ↑ Seeck, Andreas (2003). Durch Wissenschaft zur Gerechtigkeit? Textsammlung zur kritischen Rezeption des Schaffens von Magnus Hirschfeld. Münster: Lit, p. 119.
  8. ↑ Kerchner, Brigitte (2005). "Körperpolitik. Die Konstruktion des „Kinderschänders“ in der Zwischenkriegszeit." In: Wolfgang Hardtwig, ed., Politische Kulturgeschichte der Zwischenkriegszeit 1918–1939. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 253.
  9. ↑ Schwartz (1995), pp. 136, 317.
  10. ↑ Hirschfeld, Magnus (1930). Geschlechtskunde auf Grund dreißigjähriger Forschung und Erfahrung. Stuttgart: Püttmann, p. 42.

References

  • Bryant, Thomas (2012). "Sexological Deliberation and Social Engineering: Albert Moll and the Sterilisation Debate in Late Imperial and Weimar Germany," Medical History, Vol. LVI, No. 2, pp. 237–54.
  • Heidel, Caris-Petra (2008). "Schauplatz Sachsen. Vom Propagandazentrum für Rassenhygiene zur Hochburg der Kranken-"Euthanasie"." In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke, ed., Tödliche Medizin im Nationalsozialismus. Von der Rassenhygiene zum Massenmord. Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, pp. 119–48.
  • Medizinalrat Dr. Gustav Boeters: "Lex Zwickau", privater Entwurf für ein Sterilisationsgesetz, 1924, und drei Stellungnahmen aus Betheler Akten, 1932. In: Anneliese Hochmuth: Spurensuche. Eugenik, Sterilisation, Patientenmorde und die v. Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel 1929–1945. Bielefeld (1997), pp. 212–15.
  • Mildenberger, Florian Georg (2002). … in der Richtung der Homosexualität verdorben. Psychiater Kriminalpsychologen und Gerichtsmediziner über männliche Homosexualität 1850–1970. Zugl.: Wien, Univ., Habil.-Schr. Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript-Verlag.
  • Schwartz, Michael (1995). Sozialistische Eugenik. Eugenische Sozialtechnologien in Debatten und Politik der deutschen Sozialdemokratie 1890–1933. Bonn: Dietz.
  • Vossen, Johannes (2008). "Die Umsetzung der Politik der Eugenik bzw. Rassenhygiene durch die öffentliche Gesundheitsverwaltung im Deutschen Reich (1923–1939)". In: Regina Wecker et al., eds., Wie nationalsozialistisch ist die Eugenik? Internationale Debatten zur Geschichte der Eugenik im 20. Jahrhundert. Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau, pp. 93–106.
  • Weindling, Paul (1989). Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945. Cambridge, New York, Oakleigh, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
  • Zehmisch, Heinz (2002). "Das Erbgesundheitsgericht," Ärzteblatt Sachsen 13, No. 5 (2002), pp. 205–207.

External links

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