World War II caused the most destruction in all of the wars in history. During the time of the war, dramatic changes were occurring even in the way people lived their lives. Many historians research the painful topic of this war in hopes of finding clarification on why these societal changes transpired. Bronwyn Rebekah McFarland-Ike, for example, studies German nurses who partook in the Nazi’s racist agenda, either directly or indirectly. Nurses are trained to care for their patients, so how then, could nurses come to kill or aid in the killing of their patients? McFarland-Ike attempts to answer this question as she devotes her energy to researching the lives of nurses before and into the second World War, describing the practices and situations associated with nursing at the time, and explaining the crucial social and cultural matters at the center of the Nazi’s rule. McFarland-Ike’s Nurses in Nazi Germany enlightens its readers with interesting material; however, does it present enough evidence to be considered finished?
When writing about history, certain concepts are seen universally. These concepts were examined in detail many times during class discussion and are seen in McFarland-Ike’s work, as well. Chronology, or ordering events based on the dates they occurred, is seen throughout the entire text. McFarland-Ike goes so far as to arrange her chapters in chronological order. The second chapter examines laws and regulations dating back to 1919, while the fifth chapter breaks apart politics and law in 1933. Finally, the eighth chapter analyzes nursing during the second World War. By setting up the novel this way, McFarland-Ike is able to provide essential order for her readers.
Not only is chronology emphasized in McFarland-Ike’s text, humanity is central, too. Character is obviously important to McFarland-Ike seeing as she routinely uses anecdotes from different nurses to get her points across. For example, in the fourth chapter McFarland-Ike uses multiple excerpts from Berlin to prove how hard it was to be an “ideal” nurse at the time. She writes, “House 7, had a female visitor who was staying in [Nurse L’s] room, although he was on duty… House 2 once had sixteen people visiting who drank and made so much noise that the peace and quiet on the top floor of the house was disturbed and vigorous intervention was necessary” (p. 68). Using personal accounts, like these, in her work, reminds her readers that these psychiatric nurses are human, too. They wanted to have fun and live a life they were proud of, just like us. Using characters, then, allows McFarland-Ike to dive into her readers’ emotions; thus, making her arguments stronger and more convincing.
McFarland-Ike realizes that using only her knowledge to tell the story of nurses in Germany would be senseless. With that being said, she relies on other texts to help her gain a better foundation built upon dependability and credibility; citation is key to writing a strong historical piece. McFarland-Ike depends tremendously on three main citations throughout her novel. The first being Geistekrankenpflege, a psychiatric nurses’ journal that instructed nurses on how to handle their mentally ill patients. The other two were records of nurses at two separate Nazi institutions in Eichberg and Berlin. These two principal sources detail trials of nurses accused of participation in euthanasia measures. Without selecting these main citations, McFarland-Ike may have written a completely different novel. Her work combined with the work of the others allows her readers to see validity in her arguments.
McFarland-Ike’s entire book tries to answer how nurses could lend themselves to the “euthanasia” programs during Nazi Germany. Hence, her interest, like many historian’s, in causality. Instead of looking for one reason why nurses participated in murder, she considers many possible motives. McFarland-Ike hopes to show that aspects of organization and training by Nazis slowly led nurses to partake in homicide. Multiple causes led to the many deaths of patients in Nazi Germany and McFarland-Ike identifies and emphasizes this throughout her work. For example, she writes, “agreeing was different from not objecting” (p. 8) to the Nazi policy and that the Nazis would keep a “safe distance” (p. 6) between nurses and the actual killing. If Nazis would have been more open about what was actually happening, there may have been a very different outcome.
Although McFarland-Ike uses common concepts like chronology, character, citation, and causality in her text, there is still a lot of room for improvement. She titles her work Nurses in Nazi Germany, yet fails to explore the nursing profession entirely and rather focuses only on one type of nursing at the time: psychiatric nursing. With that, McFarland-Ike dedicates over one-third of her text to the period before World War II. Her research in the years leading up to World War II does give readers insight in how nurses were treated and expected to act; however, the title gives the impression that nurses’ decisions during Nazi Germany will make up most of the novel. Instead, only one chapter is truly devoted to the nurses’ experiences during the Nazi reign.
While McFarland-Ike intends to explain how psychiatric nurses were able to become “increasingly receptive to the idea of killing patients” (p. 6), readers acquire little knowledge about nursing at the time. McFarland-Ike does not describe training, requirements, or education anywhere in her text. In fact, McFarland-Ike writes, “Anja Reuter, for example, started off as a kitchen worker at Dalldorf institution in late 1919 and asked to be made a nurse in early 1921” (p. 69). McFarland-Ike goes on to explain that Reuter’s supervisor wrote nicely about her and was immediately promoted to nursing based solely on her supervisor’s kind words. So, it seems that individuals were able to become nurses simply and with little or no education in the field. Although McFarland-Ike states, “nurses often took up work with less than the desired amount of education and commitment” (p. 70), readers are never told what the “desired amount” actually was.
McFarland-Ike writes, “the methods of killing, as far as nurses were concerned, involved no violence and no blood; patients were sent away in buses, or, they fell into a sleep from which they did not awaken… most nurses seem to have adapted to murder under these circumstances” (p. 210). This proves that common agreement was the Nazis’ goal rather than complete submission of nurses’ personal values. McFarland-Ike also explains that nurses did not admit that they knew what was happening and instead, “nurses pointed to the fact that they had been trained to follow doctors’ orders… or they feared punishment” (p. 228). McFarland-Ike tries to prove, then, that psychiatric nurses were not different from the great majority of “ordinary Germans” (p. 5) who argued they should not be held accountable for any killings. She states, “[nurses] made choices, and their choices added up to the betrayal of thousands of people who were utterly dependent on them” (p. 13). McFarland-Ike fails to provide enough information to confirm her generalization that psychiatric nurses in Nazi Germany were not much different than other Germans at the time, though. Instead of providing readers with evidence, she continues to simplify the information gathered, in order to finalize her main objectives.
Although McFarland-Ike examined an interesting piece of the second World War, I was ultimately disappointed. Her novel, Nurses in Nazi Germany, focused more on what led up to the war rather than what occurred during it. I expected to learn more about what choices nurses had to make, instead of learning about the politics and administration at the time. I was interested in acquiring more information about nursing at this horrible time in history, seeing as I am in nursing school right now. I wondered what it took to become a nurse and what being a nurse truly meant in the 1930s and 1940s. McFarland-Ike’s book is composed of a lot of stimulating information; however, I believe she could have concentrated more on nursing as a whole at this time.