16 Facts About Alfred Hoche

Alfred Hoche was a major opponent of the psychoanalysis theories of Sigmund Freud.

Alfred Hoche was privately critical of the Nazis' euthanasia program after it claimed one of his relatives, despite its rationale being based on his own ideas.

Alfred Hoche begins his relatively short text by reminding readers that in the society of the day deaths caused by doctors were, in some cases at least, actually taken for granted.

Alfred Hoche stresses that none of these killings are actually legal, and although a doctor cannot always be sure of escaping prosecution, they are examples of where non-legal killings are accepted by the society of the day.

Alfred Hoche believed that the killing of patients which he claimed had neither value for society, nor for themselves, should be allowed.

Alfred Hoche was unable to establish an absolute rule for the first group as they had not all "lost their objective and subjective value of life" and so concentrated on the second group, which he presumed had already done so.

Again Alfred Hoche saw an important difference in the people belonging to this group and he split it accordingly.

Alfred Hoche divided the group into people that have entered this condition later in life after "being mentally normal or at least average for a period of their life" and in those that had either been born in the condition or where this had occurred in early childhood.

Alfred Hoche argued that anyone born with this condition could never have developed any emotional relationship to their environment or family, whereas a person who had lived normally for most of their life would have had this possibility.

Alfred Hoche argued that the "mentally dead" are easily identified, they have no clear imagination, no feelings, wishes or determination.

Alfred Hoche then begins to argue for the killing of the disabled for purely financial reasons.

Alfred Hoche postulated "that perhaps one day we will come to the conclusion that the disposal of the mentally dead is not criminally nor morally wrong, but a useful act".

Arguably this was to take place much faster than even Alfred Hoche had expected; a little more than a decade later, his ideas became part of German law.

Marchionini claimed that by 1950, Alfred Hoche would have rejected the idea, "had he experienced the inhumanities which doctors are capable of, if they are given the right to kill".

Alfred Hoche was interested in anatomy and took part in autopsies.

Alfred Hoche preferred people who had faced the guillotine: "because of the importance of the freshest possible material for investigation".