The Hereditary Defective

National Socialist propaganda film produced by the Office for Racial policy of the NSDAP (Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP). The silent movie is shot in black and white and consists of two parts. It falls in line with the propaganda film "All life is struggle" (Alles Leben ist Kampf) from 1937 by the same director, Herbert Gerdes. Reportedly Hitler appreciated the movie so much that he ordered the production of a full length movie after seeing a screening. This propaganda documentary demonizes the mentally sick as "life unworthy of living" and aims to gain public support for the t4 Euthanasia programs. The film uses footage of actual patients of German asylum and psychiatric institutions. The film tries to worn about the "dangers" and costs for the German Volksgemeinscahft by mentally ill. It calls for an understanding, that sterilization of the depicted persons is urgently necessarily to keep derogatory hereditary material from being passed on to children. The movie calculates out, what these mental patients cost the German states. Also, a connection between genetic heritage and criminality is assumed in the slides. The movie states that the percentage of mentally ill and insane is higher among the Jewish population. In the last scenes, the movie inforces the idea behind "euthanasia" – that the prevention of hereditary deficiency is a good deed on the people it is imposed upon and a duty on the Volksgemeinschaft