Who belongs in the murder clinic? The trouble with Nebel im August

By Ylva Söderfeldt

Germany is obsessed with narratives – movies, TV-series, novels – about its 20th century history. The most successful exports in later years have dealt with Nazi crimes and GDR oppression, not to mention the many productions directed at national audiences. No doubt, several of these works have been both of an outstanding artistic quality as well as having contributed to public awareness about the past, not least also about the continuities into and effects on the present German society.

One of the current movies on this theme (in the theatre where I watched it, there were at least two other films about Nazi Germany currently on the program) is somewhat unusual in that it addresses the murdering of sick and disabled people during the Second World War. Based on a novel that was in turn based on an actual biography, Nebel im August (Gloom in August) tells the story of Ernst Lossa (Ivo Pietzcker), who was murdered at the age of fourteen in a clinic in Irsee on August 9, 1944.
Lossa was Yenish, a minority that suffered persecution under the Nazis, had lost his mother, and was furthermore considered to have behavioral problems, all factors contributing to his institutionalization. We encounter him in the movie as he is transferred to the clinic in Irsee after having been in a series of other facilities. The initial impression is twofold: Lossa appears relieved at the friendly attitude he encounters from the head clinician Walter Veithausen (Sebastian Koch), but reacts with fear and contempt when he meets his fellow inmates, protesting that he doesn’t belong among "idiots".

A young boy with shaved head Ernst Lossa (Ivo Pietzcker)  is being
viewed by a doctor Dr. Werner Veithausen (Sebastian Koch) standing behind him. Courtesy of StudioCanal.

Between working in the fields and daydreaming of emigration, Lossa however soon comes to witness what quietly goes on in the clinic: inmates are being killed. At first, they disappear in enigmatic transports, then given lethal doses of medicine or deliberately starved on the premises.
The story is told at a slow pace and offers the viewers an almost excessive amount of scenic footage. At the same time, it is packed with information. When the camera doesn’t sweep over a beautiful landscape or interiors reminiscent of Vermeer paintings, it follows the protagonists in dialogues that painfully incorporate as many facts as possible about the ‚euthanasia’ programs. The ideological backdrop, the bureaucratic particulars, the role of scientific research as well as the Catholic church: it’s all in there, represented in the clearest way possible. This makes the viewing tedious, and the experience more like reading a Wikipedia entry than following a story. It is thanks to the generally very good acting and in particular Pietzcker’s brilliant performance, as well as David Bennent in an outstanding supporting role, that the movie still manages to engage and touch the viewer beyond the mere telling of historical facts.

A nurse (Henriette Confurius) hands a drink to a boy in a hospital bed. Courtesy of StudioCanal.

This tendency to be overly pedagogic is a common trait for the genre and for German film in general (in a German detective story, you always know who the killer is, no mystery is tolerated). But it might also be due to the specific topic. The makers cannot anticipate that the viewers bring much previous knowledge into the theatre, and obviously felt it necessary to clearly lay out the facts in order to tell the story.

More troubling is the message that follows Ernst Lossa’s story throughout, and is articulated by one of his caretakers – and possibly, his killer  – "but he is a healthy boy!" The idea that Lossa "does not belong there" never quite leaves us even though his alliance shifts away from the staff and to his fellow inmates as the plot unfolds. This trope is all too familiar in narratives about the Nazi crimes against the sick and disabled: outrage tends to be directed especially at the abuse and murder of those who ‘weren’t even actually sick’ but ‘just’ labelled antisocial and degenerate. That line of reasoning, of course, implies that some people did ‘belong there’ and that certain illnesses and disabilities were, if not rightful, at least understandable grounds for extermination. From a public disability history perspective this particular presupposition  is precisely what needs to be questioned, and it is unfortunate that this production does not take the opportunity to do so.

Two boys with shaved heads(Niklas Post and Ivo Pietzcker) and a man (David Bennent)
sit outdoors by a pile of potatoes looking amused and shocked. Behind them, men are making baskets.
Courtesy of StudioCanal.

Nebel im August
StudioCanal, Germany, 2016
Director: Kai Wessel
Screenplay: Holger Karsten Schmidt
Lead cast: Ivo Pietzcker, Sebastian Koch, Thomas Schubert, Fritzi Haberlandt, Henriette Confurius

Recommended Citation:
Ylva Södrfeldt (2016): Who belongs in the murder clinic? The trouble with Nebel im August. In: Public Disability History 1 (2016) 18.

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‘Whose idea was it?’ Institutionalisation, State Policy and the Intellectually Disabled in 1950s Ireland

By David Kilgannon

‘They took the liberty of doing things, and the things they have done were an awful lot of evil things … I was only a young, innocent boy and I went through evil things that I didn’t want to go through. I went through their devilish hands … I was only dirt.’ (Ryan 5.85)

Above is the pseudonymous account of Graham from the 2009 Report of the Irish ‘Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse’ (The Ryan Commission). Graham was sexually abused as a child at a Catholic run special-needs institution,  Our Lady of Good Counsel in Glanmire, Co. Cork. Tragically, Graham’s experience was far from exceptional, as the publication of the Ferns Report (2005), the McCoy Report (2007), the Murphy Report (2009) and the Ryan Report have highlighted the widespread institutionalisation and physical/sexual abuse of vulnerable children in Catholic run institutions in twentieth century Ireland. One strain of this wider phenomenon was the abuse of intellectually disabled children within institutions designed for their care. Concluding his testimony to the Ryan Commission, Graham posed a question. He asked: ‘Whose idea was it to grab children and fill their schools up with children, [the authorities] not knowing what was going on?’ (5.86)

To answer Graham’s question is challenging, as it requires an examination of state policy towards intellectually disabled children in the 1950s. This examination is necessary as the 1950s were a pivotal period for the establishment of the Irish system of disability care, in which Catholic run institutions became a central component of the state’s overall policy. Indeed, the 1950s saw a huge expansion in the capacity of Catholic Church run institutions to care for disabled children, growing from 1,168 residential places across seven institutions in 1950 to 2,620 places across fourteen institutions in 1960.

One reason for the propagation of Catholic institutional care lay in one of the predominant forces shaping state policy in 1950s Ireland, that of subsidiarity. This idea, which originated in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931), held that ‘the task of the state … was to facilitate activity by other groups and persons within the community but not to supersede these if they were working with reasonable efficacy.’ In the case of the intellectually disabled, subsidiarity meant encouraging the development of voluntary sector efforts to care for this group. The state should not involve itself directly in the care of the disabled, the encyclical describing such an idea as ‘a great evil and disturbance of right order.’ The spread of subsidiarity was aided by a more general shift in Irish governance methods from the late 1940s onwards, as the state became more committed to Catholic concepts of statehood. Thus, to create a system of publicly funded, but privately operated, institutions aligned with the dominant ethos of Irish public policy in the 1950s.

A second probable reason lies in bureaucratic inertia within the Department of Health. Minutes from a meeting in November 1953 discuss three possible avenues ‘for providing [further] accommodation for mental defectives.’ These options were: Catholic run institutions, Catholic managed institutions with lay staff or institutions operated by local councils. Yet, while there were three options, only Catholic run institutions were considered by the Department of Health. Indeed, even the initial November 1953 meeting to consider the three options focused solely on religious run institutions, the minutes bemoaned ‘the reluctance of male orders to undertake further schemes.’ At the same meeting, Dr. Dolphin (a senior civil servant within the Department) noted his plans to visit a number of religious orders, including the La Sagesse order in Liverpool, the Order of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary and the Augustinian Nuns, all to ‘enquire into their capacity for undertaking the care of Mental Defectives and the possible location of an institution which they might set up.’ Thus, both the prevailing trend within the state and the orientation of influential civil servants favoured an expansion of Church run institutions to care for the intellectually disabled.

This helps to account for the growth of these institutions in the 1950s, but not the lack of oversight from the state. The Ryan Commission alone, for example, noted the almost total absence of oversight from the state into conditions within church run institutions. A key reason for this may lie in the venerated position of Catholic religious orders in Irish life. Within the Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), the work of religious orders was almost incessantly portrayed as beyond reproach, with members of Parliament (Teachta Dála) describing how it was ‘a revelation to go into these institutions and see the spirit of devotion, self-sacrifice and loyalty’ displayed by orders like the Brothers of Charity in the care of the intellectually disabled. Such veneration of the role of religious orders may account for why Graham’s institution, Our Lady of Good Counsel in Glanmire, did not receive an official inspection from either the Department of Health or the Southern Health Board ‘between the period 1939 and 1990.’ (5.39)

Hence, to even begin to answer Graham’s question requires interrogating a diverse range of influences that shaped mid-twentieth century Ireland. These forces determined the acceptable form of care for children with intellectual disabilities, leaving the state as the funder for a network of privately run uninspected institutions. Combined with the norms that venerated the authority and probity of the clergy, the Irish state produced an toxically insular system of disability provision, in which the abuse described by Graham could truly flourish.

Pictures of the home ‚Our Lady of Good Counsel“ and the Ryan Commission report 

Works cited:

• Barrington, Ruth. Health, Medicine & Politics in Ireland, 1900-1970. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1987.
• Power, Andrew et al. Active Citizenship & Disability: Implementing the Personalisation of Support. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• Ryan, Seán et al. The Commission to Inquire into Child Child Abuse. Dublin, 2009.
• Whyte, John Henry. Church and State in Modern Ireland, 1923-1970. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1971.

Recommended Citation
David Kilgannon (2016): ‘Whose idea was it?’ Institutionalisation, State Policy and the Intellectually Disabled in 1950s Ireland. In: Public Disability History 1 (2016) 15.

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About the author:
David Kilgannon is a Wellcome Trust PhD researcher in the History Department of the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was previously a Hardimann Scholar and a Wellcome Trust MA student. His research looks at the varied experiences of persons with intellectual disabilities in Ireland from 1947 to 1996. His previous research looked at the experience of AIDS activists in Ireland from 1983-9. 
Academia.edu: https://insight-centre.academia.edu/DavidKilgannon

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