On July 14, 1933, the Nazi German regime enacted the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases. This law mandated the forced sterilization of people identified as having certain conditions assumed to be hereditary. The nine conditions listed in the law were: “congenital feeblemindedness,” schizophrenia, “circular (manic-depressive) insanity” [today, bipolar disorder], hereditary epilepsy, “hereditary St. Vitus’ dance (Huntington’s chorea)” [today, Huntington’s disease], hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, severe hereditary physical deformity, and “severe alcoholism.”
Gerda D., a shopworker, was one of an estimated 400,000 Germans who were forcibly sterilized under this law. She was sterilized after a disputed diagnosis of schizophrenia. Later, Nazi authorities forbade Gerda to marry because of the sterilization.
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