Dasein ohne Leben (1941)

Directed by

Hermann Schweninger

Genre

documentary film

Country

Germany

Runtime

5 min

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This Nazi propaganda film argues that people with mental and physical disabilities are a danger to society and should be killed. It was made for officials involved in the euthanasia program, not for the public.

propagandisticclinicalunsettlinghistoricalhatefuldisturbingsomber

What happens

Dasein ohne Leben – Psychiatrie und Menschlichkeit (Existence Without Life – Psychiatry and Humanity) is a 1942 Nazi propaganda film about the physically and mentally disabled. The film labeled inherited mental illness as a threat to public health and society, and called for extermination of those affected. The film was not released to the public, but was shown to perpetrators of the euthanasia program and to other leading figures. All known copies of the film were thought to be lost, but after the politico-economic turnaround in the former GDR following reunification, eight reels of "the 23 rolls Schweninger shot for these films, complete with soundtracks" were found in 1989-1990 in Potsdam. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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