useless eater

English

Etymology

Calque of German unnützer Esser.

Noun

useless eater (plural useless eaters)

1. (Nazism) In the ideology of Nazi Germany, a person with a serious medical problem or disability, seen as requiring assistance from society but offering nothing in return.
   • 2021, Charlie English, The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Modernism, and Hitler's War on Art, Random House, →ISBN, page 174:

     Gerhard Kretschmar seemed perfectly to fit Hitler's idea of a “useless eater,” and when the KdF men informed him of the case, he leapt into action, summoning his personal physician, Karl Brandt, and ordering him to travel immediately to Leipzig to investigate.