Pre-World War II German Eugenics

German eugenics poster, "The German Face"

Page by Julianne L. Greco

Introduction

The creation and rise of the German eugenic movement is a multi-faceted topic. This build up consists of a framework of social and national-specific contexts that contributed to the propulsion of the movement. Both the evolution of eugenic thought from less invasive to the extreme and the individuals who played key roles in this evolution are worth examining for a more comprehensive understanding of the social and scientific climate leading up to the Holocaust.

Hitler's Fundamental Ideals

Hitler was a proponent of a fabricated race, known as the Aryan race. He believed the Aryan race to be the sole superior race of mankind. Aryans were theoretically “tall, willowy, flaxen-haired men and women from northern Europe” (Pringle). In addition to these physical characteristics, Hitler believed the members of the Aryan race were the intellectually talented and dominant individuals of the human race: “According to Hitler, only the Aryans had possessed the spark of genius needed to create civilization” (Pringle). Hitler’s belief in Aryan superiority fundamentally asserted the Aryans to be the cornerstone of mankind and the very source of complex civilization.

While Hitler gravitated towards the superiority of the Aryan race, he also emphasized the inferiority of other races. Most frequently and most infamously, Hitler drew on the inferiority of the Jewish race. Hitler attributed the major problems of humankind to the most racially impure, as he perceived them—the Jewish. Heather Pringle, author of The Master Plan, comments on Hitler’s tendency to refer to the Jewish as parasitic: “He was especially fond of likening “the Jew” to a type of germ—“a noxious bacillus [that] keeps spreading as soon as a favorable medium invites him” (Pringle). Non-German authorities thought these ideas lacked any substantive evidence. This form of thought was primarily Germany specific. Scientists and intellectuals asked, “How could they persuasively portray ancient Germans and their modern descendants as a master race if indeed they had played little, if any, part in the great early advances of human civilization?” (Pringle). Hitler's answer in "Mein Kampf" was that high cultures like Hindus, Persians, Greek or Romans, were of the same Aryan origin than Germans, only that they had the chance to accede to more life-encouraging environments, that the Germans were only able to mimic with the advent of technology advancements.

Heinrich Himmler saw problems with the lack of scholarship and scientific foundation behind Hitler’s ideas and sought out to address this very question. To remedy this, Himmler with the help of a few other elites birthed the Ahnenerbe in 1935 (Pringle). The Ahnenerbe was a research organization with characteristically young and esteemed individuals.The mission of the Ahnenerbe was to solidify the history of the Aryan race. Pringle epitomizes the stigma of the Ahnenerbe: “With much fanfare, they would publicly unveil a new portrait of the ancient world, one in which a tall, blond race of ur-Germans would be seen coining civilization and brining light to inferior races, just as Hitler claimed” (Pringle). The Ahnenerbe was Himmler’s vehicle to popularize and provide support for Hitler’s notions of Aryan racial dominance.

Birth of German Eugenics

Catalysts of German eugenics

Social issues as a result of Germany’s switch from an agricultural to an industrial society

• Authoritarian political structure
• Radical labor shift
• More crime
• More prostitution, suicide, alcohol use, alcohol addiction
• Realization of presence of large population of mentally insane ("feebleminded," "mental defectives," etc.)
  • "Grave social and financial liability for the new Reich" (Weiss 12)

Background of medical community

• Eugenicists were authorities in biological and medical fields
• Held belief of heritable traits
  • Attributed "feeblemindedness" to heritability
• Felt physicians' jobs to keep country healthy

“Selectionist” brand of “social Darwinism”

• Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel, "selectionist"

• • Darwinism = selection
• Affirmed by August Weismann, Freiburg embryologist
  • "the continuity of the germ-plasm," 1883
• Limitations on improving descendants traits by "physical and mental training" (Weiss 14)
• Possibility of unfit domination

Eugenicist Solution

"Hereditary traits passed down from two mates," a Eugenics chart

Sozialpolitik: race hygeine (Weiss)

Eugenicists with expertise in medicine proposed a national comprehensive Eugenics program to improve national health. This was a practical solution to a monumental problem. The "selectionist" brand of social Darwinism allowed Eugenicists to convert a social problem to a scientific crisis (Weiss 14). They asserted that only elimination of the unfit, or "rational selection" could remedy this growing crisis. Two individuals in German society were particularly distinguishable in their perspective of these catalysts for the German eugenics movement: Alfred Ploetz and Wilhelm Schallmayer. Although Ploetz and Schallmayer were not known to collaborate, significant unifying trends are observable in their work.

Alfred Ploetz

Alfred Ploetz, German eugenicist

• Germanic glory enthusiast
• Vowed to advance the Germanic race to its previous glory, to the best of his ability (This was a pledge made with his friends under an oak tree). (Weiss)
• Interned at a Swiss mental hospital--this certainly influenced his views on the necessity of racial cleansing
• Published Rassenhygiene in 1895. This focused on proving the inherent fitness of the human race. The term Rassenhygiene equates eugenics. Ploetz perceived rasse as "any interbreeding human population that, over the course of generations, continues to demonstrate similar physical and mental traits" (Weiss). Ploetz defined his race hygiene as the course necessary to execute "the optimal preservation and development of a race. Thus, Ploetz wanted what he perceived as what was best for the evolutionary fitness of mankind, without really pinpointing a method. Moreover, Ploetz asserted that his term Rassenhygiene encompasses a broader scope than the English term, Eugenics. (Weiss)
• Proponent of interracial marriage, more specifically Jews marrying Aryans. He advocated intermarriage on the premise that it would increase the fitness of the overall population. Ploetz noted this on both a social and biological level.
• Ploetz was not vehemently anti-Semitic. Ploetz was actually frustrated and impatient with anti-Semitics. Furthermore, Ploetz thought the anit-Semitic trend pre-World War II would eventually die out due to an increase in scientific knowledge, as well as greater comprehension of that knowledge. Ironically, Ploetz's efforts were dramatically misrepresented and helped perpetuate the build up to the Holocaust. (Cornwell)

Ploetz's thoughts on racial cleansing:

"I came to the conclusion that the plans we wished to execute would be destroyed as a result of the low quality of human beings. . . For this reason I must direct my efforts not merely toward preserving the race but also toward improving it." (qtd. in Weiss)

Here, Ploetz exemplifies the eugenicist's fundamental view of inferiority of certain races of human beings and the essential point of mending the human race's condition.

"The hygiene of the entire human race converges with that of the Aryan race, which apart from a few small races, like the Jewish race--itself quite probably overwhelmingly Aryan in composition--is the cultural race par excellence. To advance it is tantamount to the advancement of all humanity." (qtd. in Weiss)

Ploetz connects the purest essence of the human race with the Aryan race, relating that the Aryan race is the highest quality race. Ploetz affirms that in order to optimize the quality of mankind, the human race needs to reach the equivalent of the Aryan race in all of its glory.

Wilhelm Schallmayer

• Appreciated socialist theory like Ploetz
• Schallmayer's eugenic ideas were theoretical. Schallmayer did not foresee a Germanic, purified racial society. He wanted to apply his eugenic thinking to his society but not to the degree that Ploetz visualized.
• Surprisingly did not advocate Aryan race superiority.
• Like Ploetz, Schallmayer interned at psychiatric clinic. This internship probably affected his perception on racial impurities and eugenic ideas. His time in the clinic led him to hypothesize that medicine had great limitations: it was beneficial to the individual but not so much to the race as a whole. (Weiss)
• Published Heredity and selection in the life-process of nations. In this work, he emphasized the importance of the selection principle. Schallmayer signified that a nation's longevity and health is attributed to the biological fitness of the nation. Schallmayer warned that if a nation did not pay attention to its biological fitness, that nation would ultimately die.
• Schallmayer was a proponent of government involvement in racial purification. He wanted legislative policy that would allow for optimization of a nation's hereditary health.
• His term at the time for eugenics was Vererbungshygiene, hereditary hygiene
• Approved of marriage restrictions for the insane, feebleminded, the chronic alcoholic, and the remaining "defectives" (Weiss)
• Chose positive eugenics over negative eugenics
• Wondered how to measure the more "fit" in society--Schallmayer favored having a known biological basis for his theories before wanting to take political action
• Held a class bias for his own social group, a trend among eugenicists (vanity of the philosopher principle). (Weiss)

The Wilhelmine Race Hygiene Movement

• Until the creation of Verebung and Auslese (1903), Ploetz and Schallmayer were the only real authorities in the Germanic eugenics field. The publication served to translate the eugenic ideas into action.
• The Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellchafts-Biologie (1904)was the premiere journal focused primarily on eugenics. Ploetz was the founder.
• The Archiv accepted articles relating to the "optimal preservation and development of the race," (Weiss), a very general concept.
• The majority of the articles present in the Archive fell into one of the following categories:
  • "technical articles" by elite biologists
  • articles on "degenerative phenomena" (insanity, alcoholism, homosexuality, etc.)
  • articles on "dysgenic effects of certain social institutions (such as medicine and welfare) and the social and economic costs of 'protecting the weak'" (Weiss)
  • studies on importance of population increase and the risks of neo-Malthusianisum
  • various articles on anthropological contributions of Franz Boas, a well-known anthropologist (Friedlander)
• Creation of the Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene (Society for Race Hygiene)
  • was the world's premiere eugenics organization
  • established in 1905
  • founders: Ploetz, Nordenhlolz, Rüden, and richard Thurnwald
  • goal: "the study of the relationship of selection and elimination among individuals as well as the inheritance and variability of their physical and mental traits" (Weiss)
  • additional goal: function as model for the possibilities of rational selection
  • member eligibility: "material success" and "social usefulness"
  • no policies or proposals generated
  • Established certain aims:
    • Advocated "fit" families to have more offspring, against luxury, were for the "motherhood ideal", emphasis on family
    • Marriage restrictions, other designs to cease the reproduction of the "unfit," backing of reproduction of the "fit"
    • Against all "germ-plasm poisons" (i.e. syphilis, tuberculosis, alcohol)
    • Caution against non-fit immigrants. Transfer of "fit" into areas of residence of "unfit"
    • "Preservation and increase of the peasant class"
    • Clean environments for industrial and urban population
    • "Preservation of the military capabilities of the civilized nations"
    • Ideal of modern chivalry (Massin)

The Weimar Years

1918-1933

Over the span of the Weimar Years, there was an increased focus on diminishing the social cost of the unproductive, unfit. One of the biggest concerns was slowing down and stopping the deterioration of the German Volk and state. Eugenicists perceived Germany as in an ultimate political and economic battle with western European and Russian adversaries. As a result of the affect on Germany's pride that the Versailles treaty and the mass inflation, the German people felt they were being ordered around by races that were "culturally beneath them." (Weiss)

• Fritz Lenz became the new leading eugenicist during the Weimar Years
• Protege of Ploetz
• Germanic race enthusiast
• Believed in physical and mental racial traits
• Not an extreme anti-Semitic
• Approved of some Jewish traits
• Liked Hitler because he was the sole political figure with an agenda in eugenics but found Hitler's Antisemitism too extreme.
• Own motive of preserving his own social class
• Found German revolution distasteful
• Thought increased social equality of revolution was a threat to the nation on a biological and social level

Conclusion

The early German eugenic thinkers, Ploetz and Schallmayer were ironically not zealous "Jew-haters." Their desire to see the Aryan race prosper and dominate, set the foundation for the resulting German eugenics movement and ultimately, the set-up for the Holocaust. The national efficiency and cultural productivity of Germany were the main elements highlighted during the Weimar Years. Racial purification was approved by the movement towards eugenics. Racial purification really was way of remedying a social problem with a biological cure. Eugenics was more than just the German attempt on attempting to increase the health of the national population. For the Germans, eugenics was a stepping stone to the greatest amount of power possible. The German eugenic movement was propelled by the nationalistic nature of the Germanic people and their quest for biological answers to social problems. The context of Germany's position compared to the rest of the world is extremely important to note. As a nation, the general feeling was one of contempt and embarrassment after the Treaty of Versailles and the increased inflation. The eugenic movement was an empowering direction for the German nation.

References

1. Sheila Faith Weiss, "The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany, 1904-1945," in The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia, ed. Mark B. Adams (Oxford: Oxford U P, 1990), 8-68.

2. Heather Pringle, The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust (New York: Hyperion, 2006), 3-13.

3. John Cornwell, Hilter's Scientists: Science, War and the Devil's Pact (New York: Viking, 2003),

4. Benoit Massin, "The 'Science of Race'" in Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, ed. Dieter Kuntz (Washington D.C.: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004), 89-126.

5. Henry Friedlander, "From 'Euthanasia' to the 'Final Solution'" in Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, ed. Dieter Kuntz (Washington D.C.: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004), 155-183.