In 1933, a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring), to be effective 1 Jan 1934. Any German was a target if suffering from any of the following mental conditions that were expected to be hereditary: congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia or manic-depressive insanity. Other expected herediatry conditions included: epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism. Within a few years, up to an estimated 400,000 Germans were involuntarily sterilized in pursuit of this national goal of “racial hygiene,” to eliminate handicapped descendants. Most operations, often by female tubal ligations or male vasectomies, were done in 1934-37.[Image: Propaganda poster showing the financial burden to society of hereditary disabilities. Text translates as “You are sharing the load! A genetically Ill Individual Costs Approximately 50,000 Reichmarks by the Age of Sixty.”] Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, by Robert Proctor. - book suggestion.