World War II Eugenics

Introduction

Leading up to the start of World War II there were Eugenic practices being enacted throughout the world. None were quite as severe or as widespread as the Eugenic practices in Germany. The Germans used policies of both positive and negative eugenics. They are remembered more for the negative Eugenic practices inflicted upon the Jewish people. They also used postive Eugenic policies on their own citizens who were not Jewish. The people effected by the positive Eugenics were typically of a mental handicapped nature.

Hitler's Eugenic Ideas

Nazi Eugenic Practices

Reichfürher-SS Heinrich Himmler

German Eugenic Laws

• July 14th, 1933- The Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring
  • This law was to be directed towards any man or woman who suffered from the nine conditions assumed to be hereditary.
    • Feeblemindedness
    • Schizophrenia
    • Manic-depressive disorder
    • Genetic epilepsy
    • Huntington's Chorea(a fatal form of dementia)
    • Genetic blindness
    • Genetic deafness
    • Severe physical deformity
    • Chronic alcoholism

Anyone who was thought to have any of these conditions was sterilized. Over an estimated 400,000 people were sterilized because of this law. The men were subject to vasectomy and the women were required to have a tubal ligation (which resulted in the death of hundreds of women).

The next two laws were part of the Nuremburg Laws and were enacted on September 15th, 1935

• - Blood Protection Law(for the protection of German blood and German honour)
  • This law criminalized marriage or sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans
  • Banned unions between the "hereditary healthy" and persons who were declared genetically unfit

• - The Reich Law of Citizenship
  • The Reich Law divided the nation into two different classes of citizens.
    • The two groups varied by those who were merely subjects of the state and those who posessed full citizenship including political rights.
    • This new law essentially made all of the Jews second class German citizens.

Bibliography

The Biological State: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 1933-1939. (2008). Retrieved November 23, 2008, from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007057

Eugenics- A planned Evolution for Life. Retrieved November 23, 2008, from http://www.onelife.com/ethics/eugenics.html

Men behind Hilter. Retrieved November 23, 2008, from http://www.toolan.com/hitler/seizep.html

Saetz, S. B. (1985). Eugenics and the Third Reich. Retrieved November 19, 2008, from http://www.eugenics.net/papers/3rdreich.html

World War II and the Nazi Holocaust. Retrieved November 19,2008, 2008, from http://www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap09.html