The introduction of blindness into the Sterilization Law passed by the Nazis in July 1933, was exceptional, even by the standards of the time. Prior sterilization bills had focused on mental and nervous disorders, and they almost always excluded blindness as a category. The wish to sterilize the blind cannot be explained solely as stemming from the eugenic or economic threat that they allegedly posed to German society; such threats were acknowledged to be marginal, and they paled in comparison to the perceived menace attributed to the so-called feeble-minded and mentally ill. What made blindness of special significance for Nazi lawmakers was its disciplinary status among geneticists as an indisputable demonstration of the validity of the laws of heredity to human maladies. Together with two additional disease categories—deafness and Huntington's chorea—blindness provided Nazi legislators with scientific legitimization that helped pave the way for the sterilization of the mentally ill. For the blind, it was therefore not the fanaticism of the Nazis but rather their aspiration to ground their policy in biological teaching that ultimately proved fateful.

中文翻译：

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纳粹为什么要给盲人绝育？遗传学和 1933 年绝育法的形成

即使按照当时的标准，纳粹在 1933 年 7 月通过的《绝育法》中将失明引入是个例外。之前的绝育法案侧重于精神和神经障碍，并且几乎总是将失明作为一个类别排除在外。不能将盲人绝育的愿望仅仅解释为源于他们据称对德国社会构成的优生或经济威胁；这种威胁被认为是微不足道的，与所谓的弱智和精神病患者所感受到的威胁相比，它们显得微不足道。对于纳粹立法者来说，失明具有特殊意义的原因在于它在遗传学家中的纪律地位，作为人类疾病遗传规律有效性的无可争议的证明。连同另外两种疾病类别——耳聋和亨廷顿舞蹈症 舞蹈病——失明为纳粹立法者提供了科学的合法性，这有助于为精神病患者的绝育铺平道路。因此，对于盲人来说，最终证明决定命运的不是纳粹的狂热，而是他们将政策建立在生物学教学上的愿望。