'Imbeciles' Explores Legacy Of Eugenics In America

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Dr. Wieck, you referred to novel National Socialist measure introduced, among them sexual sterilization.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

When I was 14, back in 1961, I saw Stanley Kramer's brilliant movie "Judgment At Nuremberg." It was about the war crimes trial of Nazis after World War II. There was a stunning scene in which a witness, a Dr. Wieck, is testifying about novel techniques of the Nazis, like the sexual sterilization of those considered physically or mentally weak. The German defense lawyer, played by Maximilian Schell, who won an Oscar for that performance, reminds the witness that sterilization in the name of improving the gene pool didn't begin with the Nazis or in Germany. And he read from a High Court ruling in another country that defended the practice. That ruling justified sterilization in order to prevent our being swamped by incompetence. Why wait for the imbeciles - that was the scientific term of the day - to starve or turn to crime?

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG")

MAXIMILIAN SCHELL...