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Dying with Dignity? The End-of-Life Discourse in the Two German States, 1945-2000

有尊严地死去？

基本信息

批准号：
315143844
负责人：
Dr. Florian Greiner
金额：
--
依托单位：
Lehrstuhl für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte
依托单位国家：
德国
项目类别：
Research Grants
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
德国
起止时间：
2015-12-31 至 2020-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/315143844?language=en
关键词：
Dying Dignity End Life Discourse

项目摘要

The search for a “dignified” death is part of the debate surrounding the significance of dying in modern secular societies. What is the “best” place to die? Which part should hospitals play? To what extent should the end-of-life stage be prolonged with the help of medical advances? Such questions were consistently linked to an alleged “tabooization“ of death, especially after 1945, its most representative image being the “anonymous” act of dying in hospitals. Against this backdrop, this project analyses discourses on dying in both German states, taking into consideration contents and actors. Which factors made for a “good death” in the eyes of contemporaries, and by which means did they try to ensure a self-determined “death with dignity”? The investigation period starts in the early postwar years and has a focus on the flowering time of the debates since the mid-1960s. It ends at the turn of the millennium, thus also covers the reunification process. Comparing the two Germanies involves looking at the different political contours of both states on the one hand – which inevitably includes international perspectives –, while on the other hand also requiring the consideration of older lines of traditions and the Federal Republic and the GDR’s joint Nazi past. The starting point is marked by the hypothesis that, post-1945, death was subject to processes of differentiation, rationalization and scientification across both systems, triggering, in turn, new battles of interpretation revolving around human death. Thus a growing number of actors and different interests appeared on the end-of-life stage, not least due to the spiraling costs of dying: churches, the pharmaceutical industry, health care politicians, doctors, social scientists, the media as well as recently founded non-governmental organizations such as the hospice and euthanasia movements all took part in the debate, which consequently developed an increasing impact on the public. Along the three axes of “economization”, “popularization” and “solidarity”, this project examines the history of these battles of interpretation by analyzing a large number of published and archival sources, some of which have not been accessed before. Whilst historians have researched the topic of death to a fair degree in the context of sepulchral and funeral culture, dying has not as yet been the subject of extensive contemporary history studies. Here, the debate on death is understood to have a seismographic quality within the history of society in general that will shed light on conventions, social change and predominant normative structures. Dying, as this project presupposes, has always been a product of processes of negotiation and mediation. Hence, this study contributes to key topics in the field of contemporary history such as scientification, subjectification, and the history of ageing, amongst others.

寻求“有尊严”的死亡是围绕现代世俗社会中死亡的意义的争论的一部分。什么是“最好”的死亡地点？医院应该扮演什么角色？在医学进步的帮助下，临终阶段应该延长到什么程度？此类问题始终与所谓的死亡“禁忌”联系在一起，尤其是在1945年之后，其最具代表性的形象就是在医院的“匿名”死亡行为。在此背景下，本项目分析了德国两个州关于死亡的话语，考虑到内容和参与者。哪些因素构成了同时代人眼中的“善终”？他们又通过什么方式试图确保自我决定的“有尊严的死亡”？调查时期从战后初期开始，重点关注20世纪60年代中期以来争论的鼎盛时期。它在世纪之交结束，因此也涵盖了统一过程。比较两个德国一方面需要考察两个国家不同的政治轮廓——这不可避免地包括国际视角——另一方面也需要考虑旧的传统路线以及联邦共和国和东德共同的纳粹历史。起点以这样的假设为标志：1945年后，死亡在两个系统中经历了分化、合理化和科学化的过程，进而引发了围绕人类死亡的新的解释之战。因此，越来越多的参与者和不同的利益群体出现在临终阶段，尤其是由于死亡成本不断上升：教堂、制药业、医疗保健政治家、医生、社会科学家、媒体以及最近成立的临终关怀和安乐死运动等非政府组织都参与了这场辩论，从而对公众产生了越来越大的影响。该项目沿着“经济化”、“大众化”和“团结”三个轴，通过分析大量出版和档案来源（其中一些以前从未被访问过）来审视这些解释之战的历史。虽然历史学家在墓葬和葬礼文化的背景下对死亡主题进行了相当程度的研究，但死亡尚未成为广泛的当代历史研究的主题。在这里，关于死亡的辩论被认为在整个社会历史中具有地震学性质，它将揭示习俗、社会变革和主要规范结构。正如该项目所预设的那样，死亡始终是谈判和调解过程的产物。因此，这项研究对当代历史领域的关键主题做出了贡献，例如科学化、主体化和老龄化史等。