On the Normalization of Organized Brutalities: An Organizational Sociological Analysis of the Euthanasia Institution Hadamar (Organisationsstudien)

This book takes an organizational sociological perspective on the systematically carried out mass murders in the context of Nazi euthanasia in Hadamar. On the basis of numerous theoretically elaborated as well as empirically proven organizational mechanisms, it is shown how these illegal practices were "normalized" in an extraordinary way by and for the personnel, who were not trained or otherwise predisposed to murder. The acts thus became a legitimate expectation of action, while at the same time the organizational integration had a desolidarizing, demoralizing, and responsibility-relieving effect. This book is a translation of an original German edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Contents 1: Beyond Simple Explanations: An Introduction to Euthanasia 1.1 The Organizational Involvement of the Perpetrators and Acts: A Puzzle in Need of Explanation 1.2 Methods, Sources and Obstacles of (Organizational) Sociological Euthanasia Research 1.3 Aktion T4: An Empirical Case Sketch of the Gas Murder Phase 2: Research Agenda: On Organized Brutalities 2.1 Memberships and Formal Expectations: Conformity and Obedience 2.2 On the Concept of the Zone of Indifference 3: On the Normalization of Illegal Practices 3.1 The Institutionalization of the Killings 3.2 The Rationalization of the Killings 3.2.1 On the (Alleged) Legality of the Eugenic Action 3.2.2 Recalibration 3.2.3 Denial of Responsibility 3.2.4 Victim Denial 3.2.5 Denial of Harm 3.2.6 For the Benefit of the Higher Purpose 3.2.7 Euphemistic Vocabulary 3.3 The Socialization of the Killings 3.4 Critical Reflection: Interdependencies and Empirically Based Queries 4: The (Temporary) Stop of Aktion T4 4.1 After the Stop: Alternative Activities of the Personnel 4.2 Characteristics of the Second Murder Phase 5: Air War, Disaster Medical Response and the Hadamar Asylum 6: The Second Murder Phase in Hadamar 6.1 The Medication Murders in Hadamar: The Basic Sequence of Events 6.1.1 Medical Primacy 6.1.2 The Hierarchization of Patients 6.1.3 Personnel Continuities 6.1.4 Responsibility Diffusion 6.1.5 The Cycle of Killings 6.1.6 Lack of Exit Options 6.2 Maintained Knowledge Structures and Continued (Interactional) Experiences 7: Conclusion: The Normalization of Organized Brutalities 7.1 Research Perspective(S): The Analytical Generality of the Elaborated Theses 7.2 Conclusion: Condemnations and Consciousness of Guilt Source List References