Alex J. Kay

“On 14 July, less than six months into Hitler’s chancellorship, the legal basis for forced sterilisations was created by virtue of the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses). According to this law, which came into force on the first day of 1934, someone could be sterilised without their consent if their progeny were expected to have serious physical or mental hereditary defects. Between 1934 and 1945, more than 300,000 men and women in Germany and Austria – where the law came into force on 1 January 1940 – were forcibly sterilised by order of the hereditary health courts specially set up for this purpose. Around 5,000 of them, predominantly women, did not survive the surgery. It was not uncommon for people to commit suicide before or after the procedure. This was particularly true of women, in an evolving political climate that set great store by eugenically fit, prolific motherhood.”
― Alex J. Kay, Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing