The Leopard Lily Project

This book tells the bewildering tale of one of the most insidious, yet almost forgotten crimes against humanity planned by the Nazis during the Third Reich. Soon after taking power in 1933, the Nazis introduced a program of involuntary sterilization of those German citizens who they considered unworthy of reproduction. These were predominantly, but not exclusively, people afflicted with hereditary diseases. Doctors were required to register with newly established health courts every known case of hereditary illness, including genetic blindness and deafness, manic depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy, congenital feeble-mindedness, Huntington’s chorea, and alcoholism. Common sterilization methods at the time required long recovery periods and often resulted in death, so when an Austrian dermatologist wrote to Himmler proposing that sterilization of 3 million Bolsheviks could be carried out with the South American plant Leopard Lily (dieffenbachia seguine seguinum, or dumb bane), Himmler, who was easily impressed by quacks, had his interest piqued. To connect the various strands of this complex story, this book explores Nazi ideology, their fascination with alternative medicine, particularly herbal medicine, and Himmler and his inclination towards pseudoscience, as well as other key individuals. Anyone with an interest in alternative medicine and pseudoscience, medical ethics, the history of medicine, or the Nazi regime will learn much from this previously untold story.