Erbkrank () is a 1936 Nazi propaganda film directed by Herbert Gerdes.

Erbkrank was one of six propagandistic movies produced by the NS-Rasse und Politisches Amt (National Socialist Racial and Political Office), from 1935 to 1937 to demonize people in Germany diagnosed with mental illness and mental retardation. The goal was to gain public support for the T-4 Euthanasia Program then in preparation. This film, as the others, featured footage of patients in German psychiatric hospitals.

Erbkrank

Adolf Hitler reportedly liked the film so much that he encouraged the production of the full-length film Victims of the Past: The Sin against Blood and Race. In 1937, Erbkrank was reportedly showing in nearly all Berlin film theaters.

Erbkrank

Prior to World War II, the film was distributed in America through the Pioneer Fund.

Erbkrank

Notes and references

See also

Alles Leben ist Kampf

Das Erbe

Opfer der Vergangenheit

Life unworthy of life

Euthanasia

List of German films 1933–1945

Nazism and cinema

External links

Erbkrank via cine-holocaust

Erbkrank via Internet Archive

Online copy of the film hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

1936 documentary films

1936 films

Films directed by Herbert Gerdes

German black-and-white films

German documentary films

Nazi propaganda films

1930s German films

Aktion T4