Christian Goeschel

A sociological study of suicide in Germany during the chaotic later Weimar Republic years and the Third Reich. I didn't find it as interesting as I had hoped, but that's probably not the author's fault. He talks about suicides committed for political reasons as well as murders the Nazis committed and disguised as suicides, and he has a special chapter about suicide among the Jewish population, before and during the war.

In spite of what Nazi propaganda wanted people to believe, the suicide rate rose considerably during Hitler's regime. A state of war usually decreases the number suicides in a county (probably because of the feeling of national solidarity that war engenders), but even after World War II started the suicide rate didn't drop back down to pre-Hitler levels. As for the Nazi attitudes towards it, they saw suicide as a sign of racial weakness and believed it was better off if such people removed themselves from the gene pool -- although under certain circumstances, suicide in the SS could be seen as an honorable act.

A good enough read if you're interested in that sort of thing, which I happen to be.… (mehr)