Karl Binding

Karl Ludwig Lorenz Binding (4 June 1841 – 7 April 1920) was a German jurist known as a promoter of the theory of retributive justice.

His influential book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens ("Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living"), written together with the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, was used by the Nazis to justify their T-4 Euthanasia Program.

After a short stay in Heidelberg, where he won a law prize, he moved back to Göttingen to finish his studies.

In the same year he married Marie Luise Wirsing and published Das burgundisch-romanische Königreich and Entwurf eines Strafgesetzbuches für den Norddeutschen Bund.

At this time he also became friends with Johann Jacob Bernoulli - an archaeologist, Jakob Burckhardt - an art historian, and Friedrich Nietzsche - a philosopher.

After becoming Leipzig University's rector and receiving his emeritus, he moved to Freiburg, where his wife died only a few days later at 71 years old.

In 1918, during the First World War, Binding left Germany to lecture German soldiers in Macedonia and Bulgarian intellectuals in Sofia.

This was the title of one of Binding's most infamous books, co-written by the psychiatrist, Alfred Hoche, and published in 1920.

Binding and Hoche are noted for the influence their work had on the Nazis and especially the Aktion T4 Euthanasia Program.

In this case suicide would be perfectly legal, but euthanasia, involving the killing of another person, even with their permission, would have to be treated as murder.

He was of the opinion that in a case of prosecution due to euthanasia, the court should differentiate between the taking of a healthy life and a terminally ill person.

Binding was of the opinion "that it is quite possible for a person under the age of 18 or for the mentally ill" to decide whether they want to live or die.

In the case of an unconscious person or the mentally ill, Binding allowed the final decision to be made by the mother.