Readings on Fascism and National Socialism Part 14

[Footnote 125: _My New Order_, pp. 195-196.]

[Footnote 126: Huber, _Verfa.s.sungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches_ (Hamburg, 1939), p. 31.]

[Footnote 127: _Ibid._, p. 32.]

NATIONAL-SOCIALISM AND MEDICINE Address by Dr. F. Hamburger to German Medical Profession. Translated (in part) from _Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift_, 1939, No. 6.

Medical men must beware of pride, a pride which is certainly wide-spread and which leads to the disparagement of the practical doctor and medical layman, and then further to the disparagement of the craft of nature healers. The practical doctor and the nature healer on the one hand tend towards an understandable disparagement of medical science and a.n.a.lysis and, on the other hand, tend towards superficiality. The superficiality of the opponents of science is, however, as unhappy an affair as the pride of the so-called scientists, but the one group should not demean the other. This would lead to successful cooperation to the advantage of the sick and health of the community.

Academic medicine and nature healers generally have one thing in common, that they underestimate the significance of automatism and suggestion. In this regard there is an absence in both camps of the necessary criticism and clarity. Successes are noted with specific methods without any confirmation as to whether or not suggestion and faith alone have not produced the improvement in the patient.

National-Socialism is the true instrument for the achievement of the health of our people. National-Socialism is concerned with the great significance of inherited traits and with the insight into the working of spiritual forces upon the body, with the study of the power of custom and, along with this, of the significance of education and nurture. (Hamburger here complains about the luxurious arrangement for dealing with the mentally ill in contradistinction to the neglect of Folk-health. This he attributes to the era of liberalism with its stress upon the single individual. He here also attacks the Socialism of Social Democracy and its conception of a Community of Equal Men.

This is a false Socialism.)

So we scientists and doctors simply and soberly affirm the principle of strength of faith and the nationalist socialist principle of Positive Christianity which does not prevent us from the inspired consideration of natural and divinely willed phenomena. We doctors must never forget the fact that the soul rules the body.

Soul forces are the most important. The spirit builds the body.

Strength springs from joy. Efficiency is achieved despite care, fear, and uncertainty--We speak here of thymogenetic automatism or the automatism of harmony ("thymogenetische automatismus oder stimmungsautomatismus"). The autonomous nervous system achieves, under the influence of joy, the expansion of the blood vessels in skin and muscle.... The muscular activity incited by joy means the use of calories and stimulation of appet.i.te. Muscular contraction pulls and draws at the bones, ligaments are tensed, breathing deepend, appet.i.te increased ... A child influenced by the daily exercise of joy develops physically strong and powerful. ... The Soul care (Seele Sorge) of the practical doctor is his most significant daily task alongside of prescriptions and manipulative dexterity.

Soul-care in the medical sense is a concern for the wishes, hopes and fears of the patient, the considered partic.i.p.ation in his fate. Such a relationship leads to the all-important and generally recognized trust in the doctor. This faith, in all cases, leads to the improvement, often even to the elimination of symptoms, of the disease. Here we have clearly before us the great significance of thymogenetic automatism.

Academic physicians should not dismiss this because we do not know its biochemical aspects. (We must beware of regarding something as unacceptable because it is not measurable in exact terms, he warns.) We see its practical results, and, therefore, thymogenetic automatism must stand in the first rank as of overwhelming significance. Thus, also, the principle, strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude) stands firmly as an inescapable natural law.

We see the practical country doctor spreading courage and confidence.

For years too few doctors have seen clearly that gymnastic tourism and sport do more for health than all doctors taken together. And now we face the fact that a single man, a non-medical man (Hitler) through his great qualities, has opened up new avenues of health for the eighty million folk of Germany.

In the majority of cases things so happen that the doctor must act before making a diagnosis, since only the mis-educated patients, the one-sided intellectual patient, wishes in the very first place to know the diagnosis. But the unspoilt and properly ordered type of person wishes only to be relieved of his pain. For him the diagnosis is an interesting side issue but not the principle thing. We can thus also understand why we always meet the desire for a diagnosis placed first by the over-intellectualized Jewish patient. But that is not the case with most Aryan patients. They, from the first, come to meet the doctor with more trust. They do not entertain as many after-thoughts.

And I cannot help but remark that after-thoughts are hardly conducive to right results.

(After a discussion of the sterilization of the unfit and of inheritable diseases he turns to the subject of child bearing.)

It has been estimated that every couple should have four children if the nation's population is to be maintained. But we meet already the facile and complacent expression of young married people, "Now we have our four children and so have fulfilled our obligations"--What superficiality! Today we must demand a much higher moral att.i.tude from the wife than previously. Earlier it was taken for granted that a woman would bear a child every one or two years. But today in this time of manifold amenities of life, at a time when women is not denied access to these joys it is understandable that she is eager to partic.i.p.ate in them. Add to this that the knowledge of birth control is general today. Despite all this women must be encouraged to give birth during twenty years of married life to eight or ten and even more children, and to renounce the above-mentioned joys of life. She must decide as a mother of children to lead a life full of sacrifices, devotion, and unselfishness. It is only when these ethical demands are fulfilled by a large number of worthy wives of good stock that the future of the German nation will be a.s.sured.

Doctors are leaders of the Folk more than they know ... They are now quite officially fuehrer of the people, called to the leadership of its health. To fulfill this task they must be free of the profit motive. They must be quite free from that att.i.tude of spirit which is rightly designated as Jewish, the concern for business and self-provision.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arendt, Hannah--_The Origins of Totalitarianism_, N.Y., 1951.

Pt. III is especially directed to a discussion of the principles and consequences of fascism. The author gives an effective account of what "total domination" signifies in a reign of terror. Detailed bibliography.

Bodrero, Emilio--"Fascism" in _Dictatorship on Its Trial_, ed. by Otto Forst de Battaglia, London, 1930.

A brief, but significant, statement by a former Rector of the University of Padua and a Secretary of State to Mussolini.

Borgese, G.A.--_Goliath, The March of Fascism_, N.Y., 1938.

Well written from the point of view of an Italian humanist.

Brady, Robert A.--_The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism_, London, 1937.

An extremely thorough and doc.u.mented discussion of the economy of National Socialist Germany, its inst.i.tutions and its business practices.

See also: Brady's _Business as a System of Power_; chapters on Germany, Italy and j.a.pan. N.Y., 1943.

Childs, H.L. and Dodd, W.E.--_The n.a.z.i Primer_, N.Y., 1938.

A translation of the "Official Handbook for Schooling the Hitler Youth." In simple form including ill.u.s.trations, it is an excellent indication of the guiding principles of the German educational system.

Dennis, Lawrence--_The Coming American Fascism_, N.Y., 1936.

_The Dynamics of War and Revolution_, N.Y., 1940.

Two books by the only fascist theorist in America.

Fraenkel, Ernest--_The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship,_ N.Y., 1941.

By distinguishing between the "Prerogative State" and the "Normative State," the author gives an effective account of the attempt of the n.a.z.is to acknowledge an indispensable, if minimal, legal order, which was, comparatively speaking, independent of the extra-legal realm of violence.

Hartshorne, E.Y.--_The German Universities and National Socialism_, Cambridge, 1937.

A carefully doc.u.mented account of what happened in the various branches and departments of German universities under the n.a.z.is.

Hitler, Adolph--_My Battle_, N.Y., 1939.

Hitler's own vitriolic account of his attempt to rise to power.

La.s.swell, Harold D.--"The Garrison State," _American Journal of Sociology_, Chicago, Vol. XLVI, 1940-41, pp. 455-468.

A brief but incisive discussion of the structure of fascism.

Lilge, Frederic--_The Abuse of Learning: The Failure of the German University,_ N.Y., 1948.

A philosophical history of higher education in Germany, concluding with its fascist evolution.

Matteotti, Giacomo--_The Fascist Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination_, London, 1924.

A factual account by a liberal, who, until murdered, was a member of the Italian Senate.

Minio-Paluello, L.--_Education in Fascist Italy_, N.Y., 1946.

A detailed discussion of fascist education, including an historical introduction to pre-fascist education.