The State Must Own Death
If the state is willing to sacrifice the lives of its soldiers, why are resources expended to keep mental patients alive? If the state is willing to kill its own soldiers, why can’t it kill human beings who are “worthless?” Beginning with this syllogism, we understand the origins of mass-murder in Germany: why the Nazis believed that the state had the “right” to kill. However, the question remains:

WHY DOES THE STATE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL ITS OWN SOLDIERS?

Genocide and the Geographical Imagination: Life and Death in Germany, China, and Cambodia

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This groundbreaking book brings an important spatial perspective to our understanding of genocide through a fresh interpretation of Germany under Hitler, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and China’s Great Leap Forward famine under Mao. James A. Tyner's powerful analysis of these horrifying cases provides insight into the larger questions of sovereignty and state policies that determine who will live and who will die.

James A. Tyner is professor in the Department of Geography at Kent State University.

Chapter II of James Tyner’s, Genocide and the Geographical Imagination is entitled, “The State Must Own Death.” It is the best synthesis of current research—articulating the origins and development of the Nazi’s “Euthanasia Movement”—and how medical killing led directly to the Holocaust.

Tyner cites the famous passage from the 1920 book by Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding, Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life, the foundational text justifying, authorizing, and generating state murder:

If one thinks of a battlefield covered with thousands of dead youth and contrasts this with our institutions for the feebleminded with their solicitude for the living patients—then one would be deeply shocked by the glaring disjunction between the sacrifice of the most valuable possession of humanity on the one side, and on the other the greatest care of beings who are not only worthless but even manifest negative value.

The message is clear: If the state is willing to sacrifice the lives of its soldiers, why should so many resources be expended to keep mental patients alive? If the state is willing to kill its own soldiers (its most valuable possession), why can’t it also kill human beings who are “worthless?”

Beginning with this syllogism, we can understand the origins of mass-murder in Germany: why Hitler and the Nazis believed that the state gave them the “right” to kill.

However, the question remains:

WHY DOES THE STATE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL ITS OWN SOLDIERS?