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Why Ordinary People Do Bad Things for the State

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States of Violence and the Civilising Process

Part of the book series: Critical Criminological Perspectives ((CCRP))

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Abstract

On 1 October 1939 Adolf Hitler issued a Fuhrer order. It said simply:Hitler’s order, backdated to 1 September 1939, set loose what became known as Aktion T4, a state policy that enabled German physicians to diagnose patients as ‘incurably sick, by critical medical examination and then to kill these patients’ (Proctor 1988: 177). Over 270,000 people with various mental illnesses or with physical disabilities and deemed to be ‘useless’ or ‘life unworthy of living’ were killed by teams of doctors and nurses in Germany. In addition, state policy mandated the use of starvation diets such as the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior’s Starvation Diet Decree of November 1942, authorizing diets designed to kill patients.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The study of mirror neurons is a hotly contested field. The fact of their existence seems well agreed upon, as is their role, e.g. in empathy (Rizzolatti and Craighero 2004; McGilchrist 2011). After that the claims made are controverted (Heyes 2009; Hickok 2009).

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  1. School of Global, Urban and Social Studies RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Rob Watts

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Watts, R. (2016). Why Ordinary People Do Bad Things for the State. In: States of Violence and the Civilising Process. Critical Criminological Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49941-7_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-49941-7_10

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-49940-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-49941-7

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