“Racial hygiene” or “Aryan purity” laws of Nazi Germany decreed that people with hereditary and incurable diseases be sterilized or euthanized. The policies were adopted from eugenics, a popular theory in the U.S. Candidates, beginning with children and later extended to adults, were evaluated by German Genetic Health Courts. The policy was originally aimed at weeding out those with mental illnesses. It was then applied to physical disabilities, but carefully, since Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, had a congenital club foot. From 1933-1939, an estimated 360,000 Germans were sterilized. Euthanization was carried out by lethal injection, but later speeded up by the use of gas. Among those affected were midgets. Some, who escaped from Germany, subsequently appeared as Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Read more about Nazi Germany and the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
