Existence without life

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Existence without life
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1941/42
Rod
Director Hermann Schwenninger
script Hermann Schwenninger
production Tobis Filmkunst GmbH

Existence without life - Psychiatry and humanity is a 1942 produced NS - propaganda film . The director was Hermann Schwenninger , one of three managing directors of the Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH (Gekrat), a front company of Aktion T4 , the central institution for the mass murder of patients in the Third Reich . Schwenninger had also written parts of the screenplay for Ich klage an . The commission for the film came from the Führer’s office and it was produced by Tobis Filmkunst GmbH .

The film did not reach the cinemas , but was shown to perpetrators of the euthanasia program and other multipliers. All known copies of the film were after the war as lost, but found themselves after the turn of eight rolls of film in a DDR - Film Archive . The first drafts for the film were made in 1940.

action

The subject of the film is the demand for the killing of mentally ill patients: “Mental illness as a hereditary disease” is the “greatest danger to public health”. Anyone who is "afflicted" with it is "burdened with the heavy burden of fate: an existence without life".

Embedded in its play framework is a short history of psychiatry. A professor fighter explains the successes in treating mentally ill to a student. Treatment with electric shocks and insulin shocks are shown . Shortly before the turn of the century, numerous new institutions were added for an ever larger number of patients. In the presence of the film there would be 1,000 institutions with around 400,000 patients who would have to be looked after by 2,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses. There is complaint about the accommodation of the patients in culturally and historically valuable buildings in beautiful landscapes that are not noticed by the patients.

The second core of the argument is the suggestive portrayal of sick individuals and a descriptive voice. A group of “idiots” in Hartheim is commented on: “We see here, as it were, in the distorting mirror of the future destined for them”. A group of “idiots” in Kindberg , also a killing institution, says: “Cripples in body and soul, misery, a burden to themselves and others, like ghosts without will, imagination and feeling”. Further examples from other institutions follow, including the Grafeneck euthanasia facility . The director of a “big asylum” appears as an expert: 73% of the parents of his “incurable fosterlings” would be for “redeeming” them.

film records

For the film, Schwenninger shot the entire course of the Nazi euthanasia program, including the transport of the frightened patients to the killing centers, and through an observation window also the murder in the gas chamber of the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing center . During the year and a half of production, the film team visited 20 to 30 institutions throughout the Reich. The Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, Washington (DC) contains 8 pre-cut rolls for the film.

Demonstrations

The film was only screened in a closed circle.

In March 1942 the film was premiered in front of 28 doctors. The largest group were the reviewers of Aktion T4 and members of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft ( Max de Crinis , Hans Heinze , Werner Heyde , Paul Nitsche , Carl Schneider ). In addition, there were Herbert Linden (Reich Ministry of the Interior), Otto Wuth (psychiatrist in the army medical services), three top politicians in the health administration of Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg, and Hellmuth Unger .

On December 22, 1942, the film was shown at the Military Medical Academy in Berlin . The invited audience consisted of top officials from the SiPo , Gestapo , RKPA , the Reich Statistical Office , the Reich leadership of the Hitler Youth , doctors from the Army Medical Inspection , the Air Force medical inspector, eight doctors from the Military Academy and the director of the Berlin Health Department.

In January 1943 Arthur Nebe had Dasein ohne Leben shown in front of hundreds of SS officers who enthusiastically recorded the film.

Copies of the film were lost, although there were at least six copies that were in circulation with Nazi organizations, the SS and Wehrmacht staff. It was assumed that the copies were destroyed before the Allied invasion .

After the fall of the Wall, 8 rolls of film were found in a film archive in the GDR .

See also

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Killing centers were in Grafeneck , Brandenburg (Havel) (old prison), Bernburg , Hadamar , Hartheim , Pirna-Sonnenstein , the six murder sites of the "T4" campaign

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Existence without life. In: Parts of the film on YouTube. Retrieved December 21, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Ernst Klee : What they did, what they became . Frankfurt a. M. 1990, p. 83.
  3. ^ Peter Zimmermann: Propaganda films of the NSDAP. (PDF) Retrieved March 7, 2014 .
  4. ↑ EXISTENCE WITHOUT LIFE . Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive USHMM.
  5. ↑ Jay LaMonica: University Faculty for Life . Ed .: University Faculty for Life. ISSN  1097-0878 , Compulsory Sterilazatio, Euthanasia, and Propaganda the Nazi Experience, pp. 195 f . (English, uffl.org [PDF]).
  6. ^ Karl Heinz Roth et al .: Film propaganda for the annihilation of the mentally ill and handicapped in the 'Third Reich' . In: Reform and Conscience. 'Euthanasia in the Service of Progress , 2nd edition 1989, ISBN 978-3-940529-72-5 , pp. 125-196, 178.
  7. ↑ Ernst Klee: Views . Time. September 15, 1995.