Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine its policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliamentary system or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifist for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

— Hermann Goering

Was this an admission or an accusation?

We just went through three years of what amounts to the mandates of 1933 (text is German), what else is stunningly similar?

From today's perspective, the "Third Reich" began with a surprise: in 1933, the vaccination practice, which had been liberalized shortly before, was not only retained, but even politically codified. Since the "seizure of power" there has been a noticeable skepticism about vaccination, even a rejection of coercive measures, which Winfried Süss rightly expressed astonishment about: "In a country [...] that [...] since the [...] seizure of power the individual rights to bodily self-determination in favor of the health of an imaginary 'national body' and thus increased the chances of such a vaccination being enforced, [...] this development can come as a surprise."60

How could the reticence in this important area of public health care be explained? Why was it that in 1933, of all things, were government claims to power abandoned when it came to providing for the “national body”? The ongoing debate about the Lübeck vaccination scandal offers an initial explanation for the concerns at the time. A second factor is rooted in the NS ideology itself, since vaccination raises serious problems from a “racial hygiene” point of view. Finally, immunization against disease is in sharp opposition to the idea of hardening and selection.

This was at least emphasized by numerous opponents of vaccination, who sensed the dawning of the dawn since the "seizure of power", especially since they were able to refer to authorities from the NS leadership in their criticism. The reference to a statement by Julius Schleicher, “Vaccination is a racial disgrace” 61, or the assertion that the Reich vaccination law “demonstrably was passed by the Jewish deputies Löwe, Lasker and Eulenburg, who called themselves the 'fathers' of this Law of April 8, 1974," 62 as the "German anti-vaccination medical association e.V." warned in October 1935. Rather unusual, however, was the rhyming form in which the “Vaccination research sheets” published at the end of 1933 declared the “elimination of compulsory vaccination” as a “basic condition [...] for the development and advancement of people and humanity”: “German people, have ' Nothing in common with vaccinations, / It is a mockery of all true health care, / And you don't want to be your gravedigger yourself, / Then you resolutely commit to the anti-vaccine nation!”63

…

This story is also a story of social change that has been gaining momentum since the late 1920s. At the end of the Weimar Republic, the attitude of state actors to coercive measures was already changing cautiously, but the "Third Reich" heralded the transition from coercion to voluntariness: while Weimar relied on state authority for vaccinations, politics took hold in the "Third Reich". Beginning that could be continued seamlessly after the end of the war133. Corresponding continuities can be found in the Federal Republic both in the fundamental voluntary nature of all programs - with the exception of smallpox vaccination, which remained compulsory even after the end of the war - and in the appeals with which participation in vaccination programs was called for. Up until the 1970s there was talk of an obligation, albeit less frequently for the “national community”134 than for “public health”. An instrumentalization of fears also continued after 1945. Vaccination was still promoted, sometimes quite drastically. One example is the Lower Saxony medical administration, which in early 1967 recommended all “parents who do not bring their children to oral vaccinations” via the “Bild-Zeitung” to visit a “home for paralyzed children”: “There they will come to their senses when they see the poor little ones walking with sticks or barely able to move.”135

Continuities can also be found in the expanded range of preventive measures that were established in the Nazi state. In addition to smallpox vaccinations, diphtheria and, where available, typhus vaccinations have been included in the preventive arsenal since the 1930s. During the war, the scarlet fever vaccination and finally even the controversial tuberculosis vaccination were added, which was expressly introduced as a voluntary measure in January 1945, especially since fears of vaccination damage were still an issue 15 years after the Lübeck vaccination scandal. Consequently, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, in its decree introducing vaccination in 1945, expressly pointed out "that the Lübeck accident" is not to be blamed on the vaccination technology "but was based on an unfortunate mix-up"136. Admittedly, these vaccinations were only used on a large scale in the immediate post-war period, which, from an epidemiological point of view, took on more catastrophic features than the Nazi era.

In the long term, the expansion of the range of vaccinations in the "Third Reich" paved the way for health policy since the 1950s, with the Federal Republic and the GDR proceeding differently. Smallpox vaccinations were compulsory in both Germanys. However, while in the West all further vaccinations were voluntary, in the East they soon went back to compulsory. Prophylaxis was too deeply enshrined as a basic principle of a new society in the GDR for people to want to take the risk of careless immunizations. The ubiquitous motto "Socialism is the best prophylaxis" also applied in reverse.

Ever wonder why people are being called 'nazis' for merely following the Nuremberg Code?