The Devil's Castle
Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The Devil’s Castle delves into the forgotten history of eugenics and links it to present-day psychiatry to explain how we as a culture continue to get mind care so wrong
In The Devil’s Castle, Susanne Paola Antonetta weaves a haunting narrative that confronts the darkest chapters of psychiatric history while offering a bold vision for the future of mental health care. In 1939, the eugenics movement growing throughout the West did its worst in Nazi Germany. Through the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, five asylums and an abandoned jail were transformed into gas chambers. Tens of thousands of lives—predominantly adults with neuropsychiatric conditions—were extinguished in those structures, ultimately paving the way for the horrors of the Holocaust.
Interlacing her experiences of psychosis with the complex history of psychiatry, Antonetta sheds light on the intersections of madness and societal perceptions of mental difference. She brings to life the stories of Paul Schreber and Dorothea Buck, two historical figures who act as models for mind care and acceptance.
This gripping exploration traverses the spectrum of neurodiversity, from the devastating consequences of dehumanization to the transformative potential of understanding and acceptance. With The Devil’s Castle, Antonetta not only unearths the failures of our past, but also envisions a more compassionate, enlightened approach to consciousness and mental health care. This is a story of tragedy, resilience, and hope—a rallying cry for change that dares to challenge the limits of how we define and support the human mind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet and memoirist Antonetta (The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here) offers a striking study of the evolution of modern psychiatry. The narrative centers around the Sonnenstein, a fortress in Saxony famed at the turn of the 20th century for its progressive treatment of psychiatric patients that was later used in the Nazi Aktion T4 program, which euthanized the mentally ill. Antonetta explores the changing legacy of Sonnenstein, and of psychiatry at large, through the stories of two people: Paul Schreber, a late-19th-century patient committed for life to Sonnenstein after experiencing psychosis who later successfully argued for his liberation in court, and Dorothea Buck, a woman who, after her own series of psychotic episodes, was sterilized by the T4 program and went on to become a pioneer of psychiatric reform. Schreber and Buck—"madness's advocate" and "madness's philosopher," respectively—are captivating characters, and Antonetta draws parallels between their lives and her own experiences of psychosis and of treatment in the American psychiatric system. At times the writing feels almost free-associative in its lyricism: "My trips to Germany happened somewhere between sane time and mad time. Planes landed. We picked up rental cars.... Then I was a child again and Dorothea Buck was a teenager again and we walked together in the mud." Unique in its tone and its passion, this is an arresting and deeply resonant book.
