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The History Hour: Nazi eugenics and the year of the vuvuzela

Discussion & Talk

Hitler for HH.jpg

23/09/2023 GMT

Nazi eugenics and the year of the vuvuzela

BBC World Service - The History Hour, Nazi eugenics and the year of the vuvuzela

Adolf Hitler’s order to sterilise people, and the ‘world’s most annoying instrument’

We hear about Adolf Hitler’s order to sterilise people with disabilities, the fight for legal abortion in Italy and how the sound of the vuvuzela dominated the 2010 World Cup.

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear about the people with disabilities who were sterilised in Germany following an order in 1933, passed by the then Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

Also, we find out about the first man to descend into the “Gates of Hell”, the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan.

Plus the story behind the vuvuzela which was dubbed the “world’s most annoying instrument”.

Contributors:
Helga Gross who was sterilised in Germany as part of the Nazis’ eugenics order. This is an archive interview from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Dr Susanne Klausen, Julia Gregg Brill Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University.
Campaigner Emma Bonino who fought for legal abortion in Italy.
Explorer George Kourounis who was the first person to descend into the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan.
Paramedic Daniel Ouma who helped people injured in the Westgate Mall terror attack, in Nairobi, in Kenya, in 2013.
Freddie 'Saddam' Maake who claims to have invented the vuvuzela.

(Photo: Adolf Hitler. Credit: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

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