© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
'I shall have no peace of mind until I have planted a seed of Nordic blood wherever the population stands in need of regeneration.'
Adolf Hitler
INTRODUCTION
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
At the heart of the Völkisch philosophy that underpinned National Socialism was the concept of 'rasse' (race), and there were two streams of thought that fed this fundamental concept.
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
for more information about the concept of race go to:
One stream, feeding the concept of 'race' was the occult teachings of individuals such as Madame Blavatsky, Lanz von Liebenfels and Dietrich Eckart (teachings derived from the most ancient of sources), and the other stream was derived from more recent speculation, fed by advances and discoveries in the biological science, and particularly genetics.
To a certain extent the latter 'stream' (the biological and genetic stream of thought) was not crucial, however, it very thoroughly paved the way for a more willing acceptance of the basically occult teachings on race - and made it far easier for those who took a 'rationalist' stance (mainly members of the 'Bildungsbürgertum' - hangovers of the so-called 'Enlightenment') to to give credence and support to the less well known, and to them, 'doubtful' teachings, derived from ancient wisdom and occult revelation.
And so it was possible for most levels of German society to accept the necessity of eugenics and 'Rassenhygiene' as a means to counteract the effects of 'Rassen Entartung' (racial degeneration) and thereby create a strong and healthy Reich.
What many Germans (and others), in the early days of the Third Reich, had practically no awareness of, however, was the fact that 'Regenerierung' (regeneration), in biological terms, was only the first step to an overarching process.
This process would not only create a pure race, but also regenerate all aspects of society, culture, and eventually spirituality - for as Adolf Hitler had explained to his closest associates - the process of 'Regenerierung' would be
'an act of creation, a divine operation, the goal of a biological mutation which would result in an unprecedented exaltation of the human race, and the appearance of a new race of heroes, demi-gods and god-men'.
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
But that was a hope for the future - and here we must go back to the Second Reich, and the various individuals in the scientific community who gradually became aware of the necessity to impose some form of 'Rassenhygiene' on the Germanic people, in order to prevent the effects of 'Rassen Entartung' (dysgenics - see below) destroying the race.
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EUGENICS
A GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Overview
The decline in 'genotypic' intelligence coincided with the dissemination of information about contraception.
For several centuries prior to 1800, married couples had natural fertility, essentially uninfluenced by efforts to limit it.
During this period, there was a strong taboo against sex outside of marriage, and many people never had children because they were too poor to marry.
Illegitimacy was rare and infant mortality was high, especially among the lower classes.
Harsh though it may have been, natural selection operated to maintain a healthy population, and to keep intelligence gradually increasing.
Then in the early 1800s, several books on contraception were published.
These ideas naturally affected the reading classes disproportionately.
Goodyear perfected the vulcanization of rubber, making it an ideal material for the mass production of condoms and diaphragms.
By the middle of the century, it was becoming apparent that educated people were having fewer children than the uneducated.
Charles Darwin worried about the fact that "the scum" of society were so prolific, and expressed deep concern about the future of civilization because natural selection had ceased to operate.
Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, coined the term 'Eugenics', and was its main proponent:
Eugenics
When one speaks on the subject of 'Eugenics' one must first state a few words on the subject of 'Utilitarianism'.
Within the philosophy of 'Utilitarianism' we find that those things which have utility, i.e. things of practical use, which fulfilling a survival need are given greater importance than things which are purely aesthetics, i.e. things of an emotional, artistic, or abstract nature.
Utilitarianism is most commonly understood in the maxim; 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one'.
Simply put, two people in a group of three wish to do one thing when the other wishes to do something else, by default the wishes of the two is of greater importance than the wishes of the one, unless other variables are added to the equation, such as the actions of the two having a negative impact on a group outside of the three.
Hence what must be determined is who the 'many' are and who the 'few' are.
If this phrase is applied to humankind in general then the grand scope of utilitarianism is realized, and taken to its logical conclusion the 'many' are found to not be those who currently live, but rather all future generations of humankind who may come to exist, and who may come to either benefit or suffer from the decisions or actions of their predecessors.
Hence the philosophy of 'Eugenics' is what is considered to be a 'Utilitarian' philosophy.
THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE RACE
'Eugenics' is the 'Utilitarian' philosophy and science concerned with making people better.
The word 'Eugenics' is the combination of two root Greek words 'eu' meaning 'good', and 'gen' meaning 'creation', hence 'Eugenics' means 'good creation' or 'good genetics'.
Though many believe the philosophy of 'Eugenics' to be relatively new in human history, it is actually one of the oldest philosophies known to humankind, predating even agriculture.
The ancients recognized the self evident truth that offspring are commonly born displaying the traits of their parents.
Ancient civilizations utilized this knowledge in the form of animal husbandry, and also in the circles of aristocratic breeding via arranged marriages.
Put simply the philosophy and science of Eugenics is the selective breeding of certain traits shown to be beneficial to a species, or the production a desired offspring, which displays the traits bred in them by the continual selection of specific traits over generations of controlled breeding practices.
In essence the science and philosophy of 'Eugenics' takes evolutionary selection out of the realm of nature and makes it a consciously directed act.
The theory of evolution is perfect in its simplicity, and describes how all living beings on earth are bound by the principals of mutation and natural selection, i.e. that all species (including humans) respond to environmental conditions, over lengthy periods of time, by adapting to changes in that species environment.
This adaptation occurs via 'selection', which is the process of those who are born with a genetic mutation that proves to give them a survival advantage over others of their species, being more likely to pass their mutation to future generations, due to their greater likelihood of surviving to breeding age.
In wild animals this process of natural selection is easily witnessed when the slowest gazelle is overcome by the lion allowing the faster gazelle to pass on its genes to future offspring.
Likewise the faster more cunning lion makes the kill, fending off hunger allowing it to pass on its superior hunting genes on to future generations.
This principal is best expressed in the maxim 'survival of the fittest', coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864, and later used as a metaphor for the principal of natural selection by Charles Darwin in the fifth edition of 'Origin of Species'.
All this appears to be obvious, but what becomes of a species that has reached the pinnacle of the evolutionary clime, becoming the very top of the food chain ?
What becomes of a species, with such advanced technological understanding and social structures that this species is able to keep the least fit of their species alive to breeding age, when otherwise the least fit would have perished under natural circumstances?
The theory of 'devolution' or more correctly 'degeneration' (Entartung) is equally as perfect as the theory of evolution in its simplicity, and states that a species becomes stagnant, and will actually regress and degenerate if it allows those who are the least fit to pass on their genes to future generations.
Common sense dictates that the traits which allow humankind to flourish are the traits of high intellect and physical health, high intellect being of prime importance above physical attributes such as strength and speed, though these are also of importance to an individual’s survival.
Likewise the lack of these attributes and hence the abilities that they bestow take away the survival advantage of the individual.
EUGENICS IN 20th CENTURY EUROPE
The modern philosophy of Eugenics was born out of an environment of social collapse and the decadence of the once noble societies of Europe.
It was seized upon by the movement of Völkisch Nationalism, who sought to reestablish the dominance of the noble qualities of the Aryan race.
Decades of historical, anthropological, and archaeological research led the intellectual elites of Germany to maintain that they were the descendants of a race, which had regressed or devolved from its original status as the 'Master Race' - a race which was far more intelligent, taller, and stronger than the average human.
This desire to reclaim the mantle of 'Master Race' led to the creation of various esoteric and occult societies in Germany, culminating in the creation of the 'Thule Gesellschaft', and later the NSDAP.
In the early years of the Third Reich, Hitler instituted a policy of 'Eugenics' which encouraged those healthy of intellect, and of physique to breed en mass, while instituting programs of sterilization for those mentally or physically unfit due to genetic mutations, and euthanasia of those born so hopelessly crippled or mentally handicapped that they could not possibly live any life other than a torturous one.
In modern times, however, mercy killings are considered unethical due to a sense of compassion that would rather see a person suffer than see that suffering alleviated in death.
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A further example of the National Socialist policy of Eugenics was the creation of the Schutzstaffel, (translated to defense corps, and abbreviated SS, or with stylized 'Armanen' Sig runes.)
The requirements of membership the SS was first that one had to prove their Aryan ancestry back to the fourth generation, and second that one must pass the mental and physical health standards of the military as well as being a minimum of 5 foot 11 inches tall.
Despite popular myth, not having blonde hair and blue eyes did not disqualify one from becoming a member of the SS, the recessive trait of blonde hair and blue eyes was simply considered a reemergence of traits which were once more common before historical 'miscegenation' occurred with inferior races.
Hitler knew that the generations of 'miscegenation', and bad breeding practices within Europe would disqualify large numbers in the population from being considered pure members of the 'Master Race', yet he considered White Nordic Europeans (Aryans) to be the closest descendants of the ancient Master Race.
It should be borne in mind, however, that the creation of the 'Herrenvolk' (master race) was not the final goal of Hitler's ambitions, and that Eugenics and Racial Hygiene were only tools in the first steps to the ultimate creation - the Übermensch - which went beyond mere biology, and into the realms of the metaphysical and the occult.
THE ORIGINS OF GERMAN EUGENICS
1890-1903
German eugenics cannot be understood without examining the conjunction of circumstances that collectively account for its origin as a movement.
Three contexts stand out as being particularly significant in shaping the early development of race hygiene: the social problems resulting from Germany's rapid and thorough going industrialization; the professional traditions of the German medical community; and the intellectual currency of the 'selectionist' variant of social Darwinism then fashionable among certain German biologists and self-styled social theorists.
These three contexts will be dealt with in turn.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017 |
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the newly unified German Empire was transformed from an agricultural into an industrial society.
The industrialization and urbanization process, expeditious and thorough as it was, produced profound changes in the social and economic structure of the young Reich, engendering a myriad of serious social tensions and problems.
Had Imperial Germany not possessed a rigidly authoritarian political structure shaped primarily by the self-interest of preindustrial elites and their allies in heavy industry, the social dislocations precipitated by industrialization would not have appeared so threatening to the stability of the state and the social order, but the Kaiser- reich was certainly no democracy, and, given the stranglehold that the landed aristocracy, the military, the barons of industry, and high-ranking members of the bureaucracy had on politics, these tensions and problems could not be effectively remedied.
Foremost among the problems afflicting the Reich as a result of this combination of political immobility and rapid social change was the rise of a radical labor movement.
The growing number of strikes, lockouts, and other forms of labor unrest, coupled with the growing success of the officially Marxist Social Democratic Party at the polls, provoked fear and anxiety among many middle- and upper-class Germans regarding the seemingly hostile, uncontrollable, and ever- increasing industrial proletariat.
In addition, there were other social problems that were viewed by Germany's Bildungsburgertum as posing a threat to the proper functioning of the state.
'Bildungsbürgertum' is a social class that initially emerged in mid-18th century Germany as an educated class of the bourgeoisie with an educational ideal based on idealistic values and classical antiquity. The 'Bildungsbürgertum' could be described as the intellectual and economic upper bourgeoisie in contrast to the 'Kleinbürgertum' (Petite bourgeoisie). The term 'Bildungsbürgertum' is a concept difficult to translate into English. The notion of the word "Bildung" has broader meaning than that of "culture", or "education", and is deeply rooted in the idea of the Enlightenment. The term also corresponds to the ideal of education in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Thus, in this context, the concept of education becomes a lifelong process of human development; rather than mere training in gaining certain external knowledge or skills, education is seen as a process wherein an individual's spiritual and cultural sensibilities as well as life, personal and social skills are in a process of continual expansion and growth.
These included an increase in various types of criminal activity; a rise in prostitution, suicides, alcohol consumption, and alcoholism; and a heightened awareness of the existence of large numbers of insane and feebleminded individuals.
This latter group, the mental defectives, was singled out by both medical and lay observers as an especially grave social and financial liability for the new Reich.
These problems were hotly debated by many of Germany's academic social scientists and reform-minded religious leaders under the rubric of the 'soziale Frage' (Social Question) - a term referring to the social and political consequences of unbridled economic liberalism and the industrialization process.
Although those discussing the 'social question' embraced different economic and political ideals, all agreed that some kind of 'Sozialpolitik' (social policy) was necessary to integrate Germany's proletariat (and asocial subproletariat) into the Reich, thereby preventing the collapse of the state.
Like most educated middle-class Germans, the early eugenicists were keenly aware of this debate and were fully cognizant of the serious social problems that plagued the Reich as a result of the industrial revolution.
The increased visibility of a number of asocial, nonproductive types - an important component of the much-debated 'social question'- was the problem they set out to tackle using a new form of Sozialpolitik: 'race hygiene'.
That these race hygienists would be inclined to offer a biomedical solution for social and political problems can be attributed to the second major influence that shaped their eugenics: the distinctive social, political, and intellectual traditions of the German medical community.
All of the movement's important leaders were physicians by training, and had studied medicine before turning their attention to eugenics.
Moreover, fully a third of those affiliated with the 'Deutsche Gesellschaft' during its early years were medically trained.
As physicians, the founders of German eugenics not only shared the prejudices and posture of the Bildungsburgertum as a whole, but were also heir to a well-defined set of assumptions about the hereditary nature of disease, and the role of medical professionals in safeguarding the health of the nation.
The medical professionals' perception of themselves as custodians of national health, and hence of national wealth and efficiency, has a long history.
In Germany it dates at least as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, when German physicians demonstrated their responsibility to the state during the so-called 'health reform movement'.
Later, during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the rise of scientific medicine and hygiene bestowed upon academic physicians, and medical professionals in general, an unprecedented level of social esteem and, indirectly, political importance.
At this time many young medical professionals, eager to make a contribution to national health, turned their attention to bacteriology; - others, like some of Germany's future eugenicists, adopted a different approach.
Their exposure to fields of medicine that emphasized the role of heredity in the etiology of disease (e.g., neurology and psychiatry) led them to question the efficacy of concentrating solely on pathogens.
Instead, they were convinced that serious disorders, such as mental illness, feeblemindedness, criminality, epilepsy, hysteria, and the tendency to tuberculosis were often inherited, and could quite frequently be traced back to a 'hereditary diseased con- stitution.'
Many medically trained race hygienists argued that the surest way to improve the general level of national health was to upgrade the bodily constitution of all individuals in society - a task to be accomplished by means of an energetic eugenics program.
In addition to the 'social question', and the German medical tradition, there was a third influence that greatly shaped the early development of the movement: the "selectionist" variety of social Darwinism, popularized by Germany's most outspoken biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), and later legitimated by the scientific writings of the Freiburg embryologist August Weismann (1834-1914).
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| Charles Darwin |
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| Ernst Haeckel |
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, stem cell, and Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany, and developed the influential recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny. The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures ('Kunstformen der Natur'). As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote 'Die Welträtsel' (1895–1899), the genesis for the term "world riddle" (Welträtsel). Haeckel's political beliefs were influenced by his affinity for the German Romantic movement, coupled with his acceptance of a form of Lamarckism. Rather than being a strict Darwinian, Haeckel believed that the characteristics of an organism were acquired through interactions with the environment and that ontogeny reflected phylogeny. He believed the social sciences to be instances of "applied biology", and that phrase was picked up and used in Volkisch philosophy. In 1905, Haeckel founded a group called the Deutscher Monistenbund to promote his religious and political beliefs. This group lasted until 1933 and included such notable members as Wilhelm Ostwald, Georg von Arco, Helene Stöcker and Walter Arthur Berendsohn. Haeckel believed that human races evolved independently, and in parallel with each other. Haeckel divided human beings into ten races, of which the Caucasian (Aryan) was the highest and the primitives were doomed to extinction.
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| August Weismann |
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (17 January 1834 – 5 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin. Weismann became the Director of the Zoological Institute and the first Professor of Zoology at Freiburg. His main contribution was the germ plasm theory, at one time also known as 'Weismannism', according to which (in a multicellular organism) inheritance only takes place by means of the germ cells - the gametes such as egg cells and sperm cells. Other cells of the body - somatic cells - do not function as agents of heredity.
Haeckel went far beyond Darwin in his attempt to flesh out the larger philosophical and social meaning of the evolutionary theory.
Although, like Darwin, he believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, Haeckel always stressed Darwin's selection principle as the most important engine of forward directed organic change; indeed, for Haeckel, Darwinism was synonymous with selection.
Weismann, who came to reject the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characteristics through his work on heredity, afforded Darwin's principle of natural selection an even greater role in organic and social evolution than did the author of the 'Origin of Species' himself.
His famous mechanism of heredity, 'the continuity of the germ plasm', first articulated in 1883, challenged the basic tenets of the more optimistic first-generation social Darwinists who assumed that new characteristics acquired by an organism as a result of environmental change would be transmitted to future generations.
As one German social Darwinist and eugenicist expressed it,
'It was Weismann's teaching regarding the separation of the germ plasm from the soma, the hereditary stuff from the body of the individual, that first allowed us to recognize the importance of Darwin's principle of selection. Only then did we comprehend that it is impossible to improve our progeny's condition by means of physical and mental training. Apart from the direct manipulation of the nucleus, only selection can preserve and improve the race.'
Indeed, for those who accepted Weismann's views with respect to both heredity and the 'all-supremacy' of selection, eugenics was the only practical strategy to ensure racial progress and avert racial decline.
If the ideas of Haeckel and Weismann encouraged many contemporaries to view natural selection as the sole agent of all organic and social progress, the writings of the two biologists also emphasized that progress was not inevitable.
Under certain conditions the 'unfit' might prosper, thereby posing a challenge to further evolutionary development.
This 'selectionist' perspective and language provided Germany's future eugenicists with novel tools of analysis that enabled them to come to grips with the 'social question' by transforming it into a scientific problem: the asocial individuals created by industrialization became for them the biologically and medically unfit.
The only way to eliminate this group from the population was through a policy of "
'rational selection,' or race hygiene.
The significance of the three contexts is nowhere more clearly visible than in the intellectual backgrounds and early writings of Alfred Ploetz and Wilhelm Schallmayer.
Working largely independently of one another during the early of the movement (1890-1903), both men laid the foundations for the future course of race hygiene in their country.
Ploetz's organizational talents and charismatic personality allowed him to create the institutional basis for the young movement almost single-handedly.
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| Alfred Ploetz |
Alfred Ploetz (August 22, 1860 – March 20, 1940) was a German physician, biologist, eugenicist known for coining the term 'Rassenhygiene' (racial hygiene), and promoting the concept in Germany. 'Rassenhygiene' is a form of eugenics. Ploetz first proposed the theory of racial hygiene (race-based eugenics) in his "Racial Hygiene Basics" (Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895. In 1904 Ploetz founded the periodical "Archiv für Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie" with Fritz Lenz as chief editor, and in 1905 the German Society for Racial Hygiene (De Berliner Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene) with 31 members. page In 1907 the society became the "International Society for Racial Hygiene". In 1930 he became an honorary doctor of the University of Munich. Ploetz was a supporter of the National Socialist Party, which took power in 1933. Ploetz wrote in April 1933 that he believed Adolf Hitler would bring racial hygiene from its previous marginality into the mainstream. In 1933 Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick established an "expert advisory committee for population and racial policy," which included Ploetz, Fritz Lenz, Ernst Rüdin and Hans F.K. Günther. This expert advisory committee had the task of advising the Reich Government on the implementation and enforcement of legislation regarding racial and eugenic issues. In 1936, Hitler appointed Ploetz to a professorship. In 1937 Ploetz joined the National Socialist Party. Along with many other eugenicists in Europe and America, Ploetz believed in the superiority of the Nordic race, and he favored the global dominance of the Aryan race. His writings were a major influence on Völkisch ideology.
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| Wilhelm Schallmayer |
Wilhelm Schallmayer (10 February 1857 in Mindelheim - 4 October 1919 in Krailling ) was a German physician. Along with Alfred Ploetz he was founder of the 'racial hygiene' movement in Germany, and one of the first champions of eugenics. Wilhelm Schallmayer studied jurisprudence and philosophy, but then turned to the study of medicine in Leipzig and Munich. In 1891 he wrote a treatise, 'Über die drohende körperliche Entartung der Kulturmenschheit', although he is best known for the award-winning magazine 'Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Völker'. published in 1903.
Schallmayer's treatises on eugenics defined the significant theoretical and practical problems that would occupy German eugenicists for decades.
Ploetz was born in 1860 into an upper-middle-class family in Swinemiinde on the Baltic Sea.
Although details of his early life remain sketchy, he had become acquainted with the works of Darwin and Haeckel while still at the Gymnasium.
Even before he began to study economics at the University of Breslau in 1884, he developed a strong interest in the 'soziale Frage'.
As he stated in his memoirs, the popular novels of Felix Dahn, professor of early German history, as well as works of other enthusiasts of Germany's Teutonic past, awakened his interest in the Germanic race.
Indeed, Ploetz became so obsessed with the glories of the old Teutonic tribes that he and several friends took an oath under an oak tree to do everything in their power to elevate the Germanic race to the level it had allegedly attained a thousand years earlier.
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| Felix Dahn |
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| Ein Kampf um Rom |
Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn (9 February 1834 – 3 January 1912) was a German nationalist, lawyer, author and historian. He was also known for writing nationalist poetry. Julius Sophus Felix Dahn was born in Hamburg. Dahn began his studies in law and philosophy in Munich and graduated as Doctor of Law in Berlin. After his habilitation treatise, Dahn became lecturer of German Law in Munich in 1857. In 1863 he became senior lecturer/associate professor in Würzburg, received a professorship in Königsberg (in 1872, and in 1888 he relocated to University of Breslau, again as a full professor, and was elected rector of the university in 1895. He belonged, as an honorary member, to the association "Germania," a nationalistic organisation, and was one of the leaders of the far right of Alldeutscher Verband. Dahn was also honorary doctor in Medicine, and in Philosophy. A month before his 78th birthday, Dahn died in Breslau. He was married to Therese von Droste-Hülshoff (1845-1929). Dahn's writings were extremely influential in forming the conception of the European history unfolding during the first millennium CE which dominated German-speaking countries during the late 19th and early 20th century. His multi-volume 'Prehistory of the Germanic and Roman Peoples', a chronology of the European Völkerwanderung (Migration Period), that first appeared in print in 1883, was so definitive that abbreviated versions were reprinted until the late 1970s. His works contributed to the foundation of National Socialism in Germany, while his book 'Ein Kampf um Rom' encouraged a "völkisch avant-garde" who opposed ethnic mixing.
Ploetz had recognized the need for a separate discipline, dedicated to the hereditary improvement of the race - a discipline more effective in eliminating disease than the thankless "Sisyphean labor" carried out by modern therapeutic medicine.
Ploetz then published 'Die Tiichtigkeit unsrer Rasse und der Schutz der Schwachen' (The fitness of our race and the protection of the weak) in 1895.
Although initially his book did not generate much public interest, it raised the broad biological, social, and ethical problems that created the need for race hygiene in the first place.
It also revealed the technocratic logic underlying eugenic thought.
The major thrust of Ploetz's argument recalls Darwin's personal dilemma in the 'Descent of Man': How can human beings reconcile the inevitable conflict between the humanitarian ideals and practices of the noblest part of our nature with the interest of the race, whose biological efficiency is allegedly impaired by those very ideals and practices?
Translated into concrete economic and political terms, Ploetz viewed the problem as follows: Should the state continue to expand the 'social net' and regulate various aspects of economic life in order to lessen the hardship of the weak and economically underprivileged, at the risk of undermining the overall biological fitness of its citizens ? Would not health, accident, and old-age insurance invariably lead to an increase in the number of unfit, perhaps at the expense of the fittest members of society ?
Ploetz was not oblivious to the serious moral and social issues raised by this alleged conflict.
As important as preventing 'Entartung' (degeneration) was for him, Ploetz did not believe in ignoring the needs of the present generation; the danger of 'Entartung' was not a signal for Germany to abandon health and welfare legislation, despite its counter selective effects.
Concern about the concept of 'Entartung', (which was accepted as a serious medical term), had been steadily growing in German speaking countries during the 19th Century. The use of the term reflected the views held by many people in Europe, and especially throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at the time, that society was degenerating. The theory of degeneration found its first detailed presentation in the writings of Bénédict Morel (1809–1873), especially in his 'Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine' (Treatise on Degeneration of the Human Species) (1857). This book was published two years before Darwin's Origin of Species. Morel was a highly regarded psychiatrist. One solution to this problem was offered in 'die Lehre von der Regenerierun', as promulgated from Bayreuth (follow the link for more information)
The solution to these pressing conflicts was the substitution of a humane and scientific policy of "rational selection" for the inhumane and inefficient process of natural selection.
Unlike the existing personal hygiene movement, with its concern for the health of the individual, the new hygiene would direct its attention to improving the hereditary fitness of the human race.
Ploetz named it 'Rassenhygiene'.
Considering Ploetz's own enthusiasm for all things Teutonic, and the heated controversy in some quarters that later ensued over the use of the word 'Rassenhygiene' as a synonym for eugenics, it is worth examining what he meant by the term.
His definition of 'Rasse' (race) is ambiguous and difficult to translate into English.
Roughly speaking, Ploetz seems to view as a 'Rasse' any interbreeding human population that, over the course of generations,continues to demonstrate similar physical and mental traits.
In addition, Ploetz described 'race hygiene' as the measures needed to ensure "the optimal preservation and development of the race".
In later publications Ploetz explained that 'Rassenhygiene' had a much larger scope than the English term 'eugenics', embracing not only those measures designed to improve the hereditary quality of a population, but also those aimed at achieving its optimal size.
As an alternative, he could later have used the Germanized form of the word eugenics, 'Eugenik'.
Although Ploetz states that Germanic stock probably represents the best portion of the "Aryan race," he is primarily concerned here with whites in general.
His views regarding the cultural superiority of Aryan race, however, (see Aryanism and Aesthetics) were not fundamentally different from those of Schallmayer, or indeed from those of most European intellectuals of his time.
Although Ploetz discussed the merits of the Aryan race at length, and defined the terms Rasse and Rassenhygiene, the major purpose of his book lay elsewhere.
Above all, Ploetz sought to reconcile the apparent conflict between the Darwinian world view and the humanitarian-socialist ideal through a conscious policy of "control over variation" by the 'utopian' vision of pushing selection back to the prefertilization stage - a form of germplasm selection.
According to this plan, the genetically best germ cells of all breeding couples would be chosen as the hereditary endowment for the next generation.
Although Ploetz's particular solution to the "degeneration problem" was unfeasible, and was never seriously entertained by any of Germany's race hygienists, it embodied the view, shared by Schallmayer and later by other eugenicists, that population was a resource amenable to "rational management."
As such, it was a biomedical solution to socio-political problems: eugenics experts, armed with their knowledge of evolutionary theory and the laws of heredity, would solve the 'social question' with the aid of science.
Although Ploetz's work was the first to employ the term 'Rassenhygiene', it was not the first treatise on 'eugenics' to be published in Germany.
The author of the earliest such tract was the Bavarian physician Wilhelm Schallmayer (see brief biography above).
Schallmayer's intellectual biography and early career closely parallel those of Ploetz.
Schallmayer was born in Mindelheim, Bavaria.
Despite the interest he shared with Ploetz in the 'soziale Frage', Schallmayer's concern was purely theoretical - at least until he realized that a faulty social and economic system could have grave eugenic consequence.
Precisely when Schallmayer became interested in eugenics is unknown.
It seems likely, however, that his work in the psychiatric clinic led him to doubt the value of medicine for improving the health of the race.
A self-proclaimed social Darwinist, and an admirer of Haeckel (see above), he could not have failed to see the connection between his clinical experience and the articulation of the counter selective effects of medicine.
Schallmayer's own experiences working with mental defectives, coupled with his "selectionist" outlook, accounted for his own indictment of therapeutic medicine in his first eugenic treatise, a short work entitled 'Uber die drohende korperliche Entartung der Kulturmenschheit' (Concerning the threatening physical degeneration of civilized humanity).
Published in 1891, and reprinted under a slightly different title in 1895, it was Germany's first eugenic tract.
Although Schallmayer's slim volume attracted even less attention than Ploetz's treatise would four years later, it touched on the social, economic, and political justifications for eugenics, and it offered such practical proposals as the creation of medical genealogies and health passports, and the introduction of marriage restrictions.
Schallmayer's book also stressed the role of physicians and the importance of education and propaganda as the most effective means of achieving eugenic goals - two hallmarks of German race hygiene policy until 1933.
Most important, however, Schallmayer's treatise emphasized the technocratic logic and the cost-benefit analysis that later so influenced the race hygiene movement.
In 1897, after he had acquired sufficient means to give up his lucrative medical practice in Dusseldorf, Schallmayer settled down as 'Privatgelehrter'.
His newly acquired freedom afforded him the time to compose a second eugenic treatise with the specific intention of submitting it to the 'Krupp Preisausschreiben' (Krupp Writing Prize).
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Friedrich Alfred Krupp
Ludwig Noster 1896 |
In 1900 Friedrich Krupp, son of Essen's munitions baron Alfred Krupp, set aside 30,000 marks to be used in a contest to answer the question: 'What can we learn from the theory of evolution about internal political development and state legislation ?'
Friedrich Alfred Krupp (17 February 1854 – 22 November 1902) was a German steel manufacturer of the company Krupp. He was the son of Alfred Krupp, and inherited the family business when his father died in 1887. Whereas his father had largely supplied iron and steel, Friedrich shifted his company's production back to arms manufacturing. Friedrich greatly expanded Krupp and acquired the 'Germaniawerf' in 1896 which gave him control of warship manufacturing in Germany. He oversaw the development of nickel steel, U-boats, the diesel engine, and much more. He died in 1902 of apparent suicide (possibly because of allegations made against him regarding his sexual liaisons with boys). His daughter Bertha inherited the company.
It seems likely that Krupp, an amateur biologist, greatly resented Social Democratic attempts to use Darwin's theory in support of socialism.
Wishing to remain anonymous, Krupp delegated most of the responsibility for the contest to politically sympathetic scholars, with Ernst Haeckel (see above) brought in as a figurehead.
On 7 March 1903 the prize committee announced that first prize in the contest was awarded to Schallmayer's 'Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Volker' (Heredity and selection in the life process of nations), a dense 381-page treatise representing, in Heinrich Ernst Ziegler's appraisal, a 'hygienic-sociological' approach to the question.
Schallmayer certainly saw the practical and political aims of his book as timely.
Whereas the nineteenth century had been concerned with Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis on a purely theoretical level, 'the twentieth century,' argued Schallmayer, 'is called upon to apply the theory of descent to everyday life.'
The book's central theme was the rational management of national efficiency.
The real political lesson to be learned from Darwin's theory was that long-term state power depended upon the biological vitality of the nation; - neglect of the hereditary fitness of its population, such as might result from unenlightened laws and customs, was 'bad politics' and would inevitably result in the downfall of the state.
Hence the wise politician 'would recognize that the future of his nation is dependent on the good management of its human resources.'
In the interest of self-preservation, he argued, it was imperative that Germany take an active part in regulating the overall biological efficiency of its citizens by embarking on a political program that would encourage the biologically best elements in society to reproduce more than those with objectionable hereditary traits.
Eugenics, or 'Vererbungshygiene' (hereditary hygiene), as he still called it, was the perfect tool to ensure a strong and healthy state.
Schallmayer also presented his readers with a series of eugenics reforms, but he was very cautious in the area of negative eugenics.
Although he clearly believed that marriage restrictions for the insane, the feebleminded, the chronic alcoholic, and other defectives were in the best interest of the state, and the race, he refrained from openly supporting state legislation as a means to this end.
Until such time as more exact information regarding the laws of heredity was known, and enough detailed genealogies could be amassed, he felt that eugenicists would have to concentrate on voluntary measures.
He emphasized positive eugenics: convincing the "fitter" groups in society to increase their fertility rate.
The question of course remained, 'which groups were, biologically speaking, the fittest ?' Schallmayer assumed that biology would one day decide the question objectively.
The Krupp competition marked a turning point both in Schallmayer's personal career and in the attention paid to eugenics in Germany.
Prior to this time Schallmayer and Ploetz were virtually lone prophets in their eugenics crusade.
Only in the years immediately following the publication of 'Vererbung und Auslese', in 1903, were the first institutional steps undertaken to transform an idea into a movement: the creation of Germany's most respected eugenics journal, and the foundation of a race hygiene society.
The 'Archiv fur Rassen und Gesellschafts-Biologie', the first journal in the world dedicated to eugenics, was founded by Ploetz in 1904.
Although there is no direct evidence linking the creation of the journal with the results of the Krupp contest, it seems likely that the scientific recognition, and public attention given eugenics in the immediate aftermath of the Preisausschreiben at least suggested to Ploetz, and his two assistant editors, the sociologist and economist Anastasius Nordenholz and the zoologist Ludwig Plate, that a more organized and 'strictly scientific' manner of discourse on the subject was possible.
Without openly admitting it, the editors of the 'Archiv' sought to establish a more clearly focused, and academically prestigious form of the 'Politisch-anthropologische Revue' - a journal that occasionally carried articles on eugenics-related issues, but was not taken seriously by some professionals because of its unmistakably völkisch tone.
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| Johann Gottlieb Fichte |
The völkisch movement had its origins in Romantic nationalism, as it was expressed by early Romantics such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte in his 'Reden an die deutsche Nation', 1808 - especially the eighth address, 'What is a Volk, in the higher sense of the term, and what is love of the fatherland ?', where he answered his question of what could warrant the noble individual's striving 'and his belief in the eternity and the immortality of his work,' by replying that it could only be that 'particular spiritual nature of the human environment out of which he himself, with all of his thought and action... has arisen, namely the people from which he is descended and among which he has been formed and grown into that which he is"'. The movement combined patriotic interest in German folklore, local history and a 'back-to-the-land' anti-urban populism. In part this ideology was a revolt against modernity. The dream was for a self-sufficient life lived with a mystical relation to the land; it was a reaction to the cultural alienation of the Industrial revolution and the 'progressive' liberalism of the later 19th century and its urbane materialist banality. The racial element in völkisch philosophy meant that is was, in its later development, strongly associated with eugenics and racial hygiene.
The 'Archiv' sought to attract a wide variety of articles bearing on the 'optimal' preservation and development of the race.
It included entries not only by Germany's prominent race hygienists, but also from individuals who in no sense considered themselves eugenicists.
Most of the articles appearing in the journal during the Wilhelmine period fall into one of five categories: technical articles dealing with genetics and evolution by such leading biologists as Weismann, Plate, Ziegler, Richard Semon, Carl Correns, Hugo de Vries, Erich von Tschermak, and Wilhelm Johannsen; entries concerned with so-called degenerative phenomena (insanity, alcoholism etc.); articles preoccupied with the dysgenic effects of certain social institutions and practices (medicine, welfare, etc.) and the social and economic costs of 'protecting the weak'; studies pertaining to the need for population increase, and the hazards of neo-Malthusianism; and a number of anthropological contributions, including high-quality entries from the eminent anthropologist Franz Boas.
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| Thomas Robert Malthus |
The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. Malthus himself used only his middle name Robert. In his book 'An Essay on the Principle of Population', Malthus observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the wellbeing of the populace, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, mankind had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the 'Malthusian trap' or the 'Malthusian spectre'. Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship and want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease, a view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible. He saw population growth as being inevitable whenever conditions improved, thereby precluding real progress towards a utopian society: 'The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man'.
Besides publishing rather specialized and lengthy articles, the 'Archiv' also tried to keep its readers abreast of developments in eugenics through its numerous book reviews and announcements.
Its volumes were substantial - the four quarterly issues together often totaled more than six hundred pages.
Its national and international reputation as a highly respected scholarly publication notwithstanding, the journal did little to spread the eugenics gospel in Germany beyond the small group of professionals already committed to the new discipline.
The second institutional development was the formation of the 'Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene' (Society for Race Hygiene) - the world's first professional eugenics organization.
Founded in Berlin on 22 June 1905 by Ploetz, Nordenholz, the psychiatrist Ernst Rudin (who was also Ploetz's former brother-in-law), and the ethnologist Richard Thurnwald, the society had as its aim 'the study of the relationship of selection and elimination among individuals as well as the inheritance and variability of their physical and mental traits'.
There is little doubt that Ploetz always intended the society, which had begun with only twenty-four members, to be international.
Since the word Rasse was frequently used by Ploetz as a synonym for 'white race', any race hygiene society worthy of the name had to transcend national boundaries and embrace individuals from all white 'civilized' nations, yet it was not until 1907 that the Gesellschaft was able to attract anyone from other countries, at which time it became the 'Internationale Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene'.
Two local groups of the Gesellschaft, in Berlin and Munich, were formed soon after.
Although the total membership remained small, it also grew steadily, and the occupational and class backgrounds of the members of the two societies continued to mirror those of its founders and leaders.
In both the international and the German society 'Bildungsbiirger' (see above) dominated the membership.
In addition, the medical professionals made up the single largest group in both organizations, accounting for approximately one third of those affiliated with the two societies.
It seems likely that the self-image of German physicians as custodians of the nation's health had much to do with the disproportionate number of prominent physicians, hygienists, and professors of medicine in the early movement.
Of the academics from other fields enrolled in the two societies, most were professors of zoology and anthropology.
In addition to Ernst Haeckel (see above) and August Weismann, who as honorary members probably did not participate much in its activities, the Deutsche Gesellschaft included such distinguished biologists as Ludwig Plate, Heinrich Ernst Ziegler, and Erwin Baur.
The writings of Wilhelmine Germany's race hygienists exhibit some common themes and concerns. The primary intellectual preoccupation of the early movement was with collecting and analyzing data on degeneration.
The psychiatrist Ernst Riidin wrote numerous studies dealing with the inheritance of insanity - emphasizing the Mendelian nature of the transmission of various kinds of mental disorders.
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| Gregor Johann Mendel |
Gregor Johann Mendel (20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austro-German scientist and Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for centuries that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century (more than three decades later) with the independent rediscovery of these laws. Erich von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and William Jasper Spillman independently verified several of Mendel's experimental findings, ushering in the modern age of genetics.
Agnes Bluhm, Germany's only prominent female eugenicist, concentrated on proving the degenerative effects of alcohol on future generations, and studying the decreased ability of German women to breastfeed their infants.
Other eugenicists reported on such topics as the increase in venereal disease in large cities, and its impact on the race, and the need to reform Germany's penal code along eugenic lines.
By and large the tone of these studies was scientific, not popular; they seem to have been written less to stir people to action than to communicate abstract information.
Like eugenicists in the United States and Britain, the Germans also analyzed the cost of maintaining the army of the unfit.
The word most often used to describe these individuals was 'Minderwertigen' - a term that literally means 'the less valuable', and was frequently employed as a synonym for non-productive people.
Certainly the 'Umschau', a popular science journal, used the word in this way when, in 1911, it sponsored a written contest entitled: 'What do the inferior elements (Minderwertigen) cost the state and society ?'
Accepting the premise that 'all efforts to improve the environment break down in the face of hereditary sickness and inferiority', the sponsors of the competition suggested to potential contestants that only a reduction in the number of 'minus variants' would allow society to continue to preserve the life of all those living.
In his commentary on the cost of the unfit, Ignaz Kaup, professor of hygiene and member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft, reported on the results of a seminar held to discuss the subject.
Since he doubted that the German people were ready to accept American-style sterilization methods as a means of alleviating the problem, some way of physically separating the 'unfit' from the rest of society was necessary.
False humanitarian considerations were not appropriate, since 'all forward-striving nations had the duty to ease the burden of the cost of the inferior as much as possible.'
Recognizing that the Minderwertigen were a financial burden to the state who "despite the expenditure paid out on their behalf are almost never in the position during their working lives to repay the money spent on them," Kaup recommended the creation of work colonies, where they could be prevented from having inferior children and could be made to earn their keep at the same time.
At this time, however, most German eugenicists would have been satisfied with some form of permanent institutionalization.
As World War I approached, a third emphasis of the Wilhelmine eugenics movement came to the fore: 'Bevolkerungspolitik' (population policy).
While Germany's eugenicists did, of course, aim at instituting a eugenically healthy qualitative population policy, there was a marked tendency throughout the last years of the Second Reich to view the prevention of a decline in population growth as an important measure in its own right.
As early as 1904 Alfred Grotjahn spoke of the 'growth of population quantity' as the 'conditio sine qua non of a rational prophylaxis against degeneration'.
Later the issue had become more pressing: as Schallmayer put it in 1915, arresting population decline was nothing short of 'a matter of survival for the German nation'.
In order to understand why German eugenicists became obsessed with the population question, it is worth briefly considering the pre-war demographic, social, and political changes in Germany that colored their intellectual perspective.
On the surface there seemed little cause for alarm.
Wilhelmine Germany was the second most populous country in Europe; it had also witnessed a very substantial population increase of twenty-four million people between 1871 and 1910.
Yet this healthy population growth owed far more to the dramatic decline in the death rate, particularly the infant mortality rate, than to a growth in fertility, indeed Germany, like all Western industrialized nations, experienced a steady birth-rate decline during the last third of the nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries.
Between 1902 and 1914, for example, the Reich suffered an 8.3 per thousand drop in the number of live births.
This, and the steady decline in the excess of births over deaths after 1902 gave statisticians and eugenicists cause to expect an eventual population standstill, or even a decline.
Many sought to account for Germany's declining birthrate; however much their explanations differed, all investigators agreed on two points: that the actual decline in population growth was less frightening than the prospect that Germany's situation might soon begin to mirror French demographic realities, and that the drop in the birthrate was deliberate, and was directly related to the practice of birth control methods advanced by supporters of neo-Malthusianism (see Malthus - above).
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
RACIAL POLICY OF THE THIRD REICH
The racial policy of the Third Reich was expressed in a set of policies and laws implemented between 1933–45 based on a specific racial doctrine asserting the superiority of the 'Aryan Race', which claimed scientific legitimacy.
ADOLF HITLER - EUGENICS and DYSGENICS
Racialism and the concept of competition were termed 'Social Darwinism', and were discussed by European scientists, and also in the Vienna press during the 1920s.
From where Hitler obtained his considerable knowledge and understanding of Eugenics is uncertain, however, the theory of evolution had been generally accepted in Germany at the time.
In Hitler's 'Zweites Buch' (Second Book), which was unpublished during the period of the Third Reich, Hitler praised Sparta, (using ideas perhaps borrowed from Ernst Haeckel), adding that he considered Sparta to be the first truly 'Völkisch State'.
He endorsed what he perceived to be an early eugenics treatment of deformed children:
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017 |
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| Adolf Hitler - Festung Landsberg - 1924 |
'Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses'
Adolf Hitler - 'Zweites Buch'
Adolf Hitler read much about racial hygiene during his imprisonment in Landsberg Prison in 1924.
Hitler believed the nation had become weak, corrupted by 'dysgenics', - the infusion of degenerate elements into its bloodstream.
Dysgenics is the study of factors producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or species.
The adjective "dysgenic" is the antonym of "eugenic".
It was first used c. 1915 by David Starr Jordan, describing the dysgenic effects of World War I.
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| David Starr Jordan |
David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was an American ichthyologist, educator, and Eugenicist. He was president of Indiana University and was the founding president of Stanford University
Jordan showed that healthy men were as likely to die in modern warfare as anyone else, and that war killed only the physically healthy men of the populace whilst preserving the disabled at home.
Dysgenic mutations have been studied in animals such as the mouse and the fruit fly.
In the context of human genetics, a 'dysgenic effect' is the observed tendency of a reduction in selection pressures and decreased infant mortality since the Industrial Revolution resulting in the increased propagation of deleterious traits and genetic disorders.
Richard Lynn in his 'Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations' (1996) identified three main concerns: deterioration in health, in intelligence and in conscientiousness.
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| Prof. Richard Lynn |
Richard Lynn (born 1930) is an English professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Ulster, and assistant editor of the journal 'Mankind Quarterly'. Professor Lynn studies intelligence, and is known for his research into the racial differences in intelligence.
Professor Lynn's major thesis in Dysgenics is that scientific evidence has proved the Eugenicists were absolutely right in their concerns about genetic deterioration, and that post war western societies have made a serious mistake by discounting such concerns.
Studies of twins, and adoption studies, have established beyond any doubt the essential role of heredity in determining IQ.
Identical twins, separated at birth, have practically identical IQ's.
When adopted children grow up, they resemble their biological parents more closely than their adoptive parents in IQ (proving the dominance of nature (inheritance) over nurture (culture).
Just as the Eugenicists assumed, social mobility over centuries has produced a social class gradient for intelligence, and social class is determined partly by innate intelligence.
One U.S. study found that in families with two or more brothers, the boys with higher IQ's tended to move up the SES ladder when they grew up, whereas those with lower IQ's tended to move down.
Also, the evidence shows that as a society we are deteriorating genetically because the most intelligent people are having the fewest children.
Throughout our evolution, the weak and diseased died young and did not pass on their genes.
Now, because of modern medicine, people with numerous genetic diseases live long enough to reproduce and transmit defective genes to their children. (Examples: cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, diabetes, pyloric stenosis, various heart defects, thalassemia, phenylketonuria, and sickle cell anemia.)
The incidence of many of these disorders is doubling, and in some areas tripling each generation.
As a result our genetic potential for robust good health is declining.
Life-long care will require ever-increasing expenditures, furthermore, while sufferers are grateful for medical advances, most would nevertheless be quick to point out that the quality of their lives would be far better if they had never inherited a disease in the first place.
Conscientiousness, traditionally known as 'good character', consists of honesty, a strong work ethic, and concern for others.
Since IQ is positively correlated to a number of desirable traits (such as altruism and middle-class values of hard work, thrift, and sacrifice), when IQ declines, so do these traits.
People with low IQ's are far more likely to become criminals, so the fact that our genetic potential for intelligence is declining means our genetic potential for crime is increasing.
In addition, some evidence suggests that, despite lengthy sojourns in jail, criminals still manage to procreate at a faster rate than the majority.
Research on London criminals found they had nearly twice as many offspring as non-criminals, and those figures are almost certainly underestimates.
In demographic studies of fertility, the entire category of underclass males is frequently omitted because reliable data on their offspring simply can't be obtained – their sexual behavior is often promiscuous, and their relationships transient.
Since studies of twins, and adoption studies have established that there is a substantial genetic component to criminality, the higher fertility of criminals significantly increases the genetic potential for criminality in the population.
Only recently have such facts been revealed by research as, for a considerable period after 1945 Eugenics was, quite wrongly, a 'no go' area, not only for politicians, but also for legitimate scientific research.
EUGENICS in the THIRD REICH
The belief in the superiority of the Aryan Race was combined with a Eugenics program that sought to produce a system of racial hygiene and Eugenics created by the control of 'Untermenschen' ("sub-humans") throughout the Reich and conquered territories.
Third Reich policies labeled residents in German territory who were not ethnic Germans, such as Jews (a Semitic people of Levantine origins), Romanis (also known as Gypsies, a people of Indian Subcontinent origins), as well as European non-Nordic peoples including Slavs (Poles, Serbs, Russians, etc.), and all other persons of color as inferior non-Aryan 'sub-humans' (i.e. non-Nordics) in a racial hierarchy that placed the 'Aryan Herrenvolk' ('master race') of the 'Volksgemeinschaft' ('people's community') at the top.
Jews were placed near the bottom of the hierarchy, (the lowest levels including Negroid races) and considered 'inhuman' - the 'creation of a lesser God', according to völkisch occult philosophy.
The 'Aryan Master Race', as conceived by völkisch Eugenics, graded humans on a scale of pure Aryan to non-Aryan (who were viewed as sub-humans).
At the top of the scale of pure Aryans were Germans and other Germanic peoples including the Dutch, Scandinavians, and the English, as well as other peoples such as some northern Italians and the French who were said to have a suitable admixture of Germanic blood.
The feeling that Germans were the 'Aryan Herrenvolk' (Aryan master race) was widely spread among the German public through propaganda during the Third Reich, and had previously been made popular by periodicals (such as Leibenfels' 'Ostara' - and the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and the teachings of Madame Blavatsky in the 19th Century).
Slavs were considered as Non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans') who were to be enslaved and prevented from breeding.
Völkisch theorists believed that Germany's Teutonic ancestors had spread out from Germany throughout Europe.
Of the German tribes that spread through Europe, the theorists identified that the Burgundians, Franks, and Western Goths joined with the Gauls to make France; the Lombards moved south and joined with the Italians; the Jutes made Denmark; the Angles and Saxons made England; the Flemings made Belgium; and other tribes made the Netherlands.
Völkisch racial beliefs of the superiority of an Aryan 'master race' arose from earlier proponents of a supremacist conception of race such as Arthur de Gobineau, who published a four-volume work titled 'An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races '(translated into German in 1897).
Gobineau proposed that the Aryan race was superior, and urged the preservation of its cultural and racial purity.
Gobineau later came to use, and reserve, the term Aryan only for the 'Germanic race', and described the Aryans as 'la race germanique'.
By doing so he presented a racial theory in which Aryans – that is Germans–were all that was positive.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain's work 'Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts' - 1899 (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century), was one of the first to combine Social Darwinism with Eugenics, and describes history as a struggle for survival between the Germanic peoples and the Jews, (and Slaves and other inferior races), whom he characterized as an inferior and dangerous group.
The two-volume book 'Foundations of Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene '(1920–21) by Eugen Fischer, Erwin Baur, and Fritz Lenz, used scientific studies to conclude that the Germans were superior to the Jews intellectually and physically, and recommended eugenics as a solution.
Madison Grant's work 'The Passing of the Great Race' (1916) advocated 'Nordicism' and proposed using a Eugenic program to preserve the Nordic race.
After reading the book, Hitler called it 'my Bible'.
Hans F. K. Günther who strongly influenced Völkisch ideology, wrote in his book 'Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes' (Race Lore of German People) about the danger of "Slavic blood of Eastern races" mixing with the German, and combined nationalism with Eugenics and antisemitism.
EUGENIC LAWS DURING the THIRD REICH
The July 1933 'Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring' – written by Ernst Rüdin and other theorists of "racial hygiene" – established 'Genetic Health Courts' which decided on compulsory sterilization of 'any person suffering from a hereditary disease.'
These included those suffering from 'Congenital Mental Deficiency', schizophrenia, 'Manic-Depressive Insanity', 'Hereditary Epilepsy', 'Hereditary Chorea' (Huntington’s), Hereditary Blindness, Hereditary Deafness, 'any severe hereditary deformity', as well as 'any person suffering from severe alcoholism'.
Further modifications of the law enforced sterilization of children of mixed German and African parentage (resulting from the occupation of the Rhineland by French negro troops at the end of the Great War).
'Rhineland bastard' was a derogatory term used in Germany to describe multiracial children with Caucasian, German mothers who had been fathered by Africans serving with French colonial troops during the Occupation of the Rhineland after World War I. The term can be traced back to 1919, just after World War I, when 'Entente' troops, most of them French, occupied the Rhineland. Some German women married soldiers from the occupying forces, while many others had children by them out of wedlock (hence the disparaging label 'bastards'). The resulting children numbered from 160,000 to 180,000. The occupation itself had been regarded as a national disgrace by Germans across the political spectrum, and there was a widespread tendency to consider all forms of collaboration and fraternization with the occupiers as moral (if not legal) treason. In 'Mein Kampf', Hitler described children resulting from any kind of relationship to African occupation soldiers as a contamination of the white race "by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe".
In addition, the government of the Third Reich wanted to increase birthrates of those who were classified as racially elite.
When the NSDAP gained power in 1933, one of their first actions was to pass the 'Law for the Encouragement of Marriage'.
This law stated that all newly married couples of the Aryan race could receive a government loan.
This loan was not simply paid back, rather a portion of it would be forgiven after the birth of each child.
The purpose of this law was very clear and simple: to encourage newly weds to have as many children as they could, so that the Aryan population would grow.
Between 1935 and 1936, eugenic measures regarding the Jews increased apace while the process of 'Gleichschaltung' ('standardisation', the process by which the NSDAP achieved a considerable measure of control over German society) was implemented.
In May 1935, Jews (not surprisingly) were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht (the armed forces).
The NÜRNBERG LAWS
The 'Nürnberger Gesetze' - (Nuremberg Laws) were passed around the time of the great Reichsparteitag at Nuremberg.
On September 15, 1935, the 'Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der Ehre' (the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor) was passed.
At first this criminalized sexual relations and marriage only between Germans and Jews, but later the law was extended to Gypsies, Negroes and their bastard offspring and it became punishable by law as 'Rassenschande' - (racial disgrace).
After this, the 'Reich Citizenship Law' was passed, and was reinforced in November by a decree; it included only people of 'German or related blood', which meant that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were stripped of their citizenship and became 'subjects of the state' rather than citizens (members of the 'volksgemeinschaft' - 'people's community'.
The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws has often been attributed to Hans Globke.
Globke had studied British attempts to 'organize' its empire by creating hierarchical social orders, for example in the organization of 'martial races' in the British Indian Empire.
In the territories forming the 'Großdeutsches Reich' (Greater German Reich), between 1943 and 1945, the Nordic science of Anthropometrics (Eugenics and Racial Hygiene) was used to "improve" the racial make-up of the 'Germanized' section of the population, by absorbing individuals (mainly children) into the German population who were deemed suitably Nordic.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017 |
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017 |
German racial ideology regarded the Germanic peoples of Europe as belonging to a racially superior 'Nordic' subset of the larger 'Aryan Race', who were regarded as the only true culture-bearers of civilized society. These peoples were viewed as either "true Germanic peoples" that had "lost their sense of racial pride", or as close racial relatives of the Germans. Hitler's concept of "Germanic" did not simply refer to an ethnic, cultural, or linguistic group, but also to a distinctly biological one, the superior "Germanic blood" that he wanted to salvage from the control of the enemies of the Aryan race. He stated that Germany possessed more of these "Germanic elements" than any other country in the world.
Much of this work was undertaken by the 'Lebensborn' - under the direction of the SS.
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| © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017 |
'Lebensborn' e.V. ("Fount of Life") was under the control of Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS (RuSHA). It was an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in the Third Reich, with the goal of raising the birth rate of "Aryan" children via persons classified as "racially pure and healthy", based on Nazi racial hygiene and health ideology. 'Lebensborn' encouraged anonymous births by unmarried women, and mediated adoption of these children by likewise "racially pure and healthy" parents, particularly SS members and their families. Initially set up in Germany in 1935, 'Lebensborn' expanded into several occupied European countries with Germanic populations German expansion. It included the selection of "racially worthy" orphans for adoption, and also care for children born from Aryan women who had been in relationships with SS members.
to be continued....
for more information about Rassenhygiene see:
