Pre-World War II German Eugenics

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 3). 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 4). Hitler’s belief in Aryan superiority fundamentally asserted the Aryans to be the cornerstones 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. Pringle 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 4). Non-German authorities thought these ideas lacked any substantive evidence. This form of thought was 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 4). Without historical backing, Hitler’s ideals were open to much scrutiny from these non-German authorities.

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 5). 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
  • 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

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.jpg