Nazi Eugenics E-Book

Melvyn Conroy

• Herausgeber: ibidem
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1229

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Conceived as the answer to all of mankind’s seemingly insoluble health and social problems, and promoted as a substitute for orthodox religious beliefs, the pseudo-science of eugenics recruited disciples in many countries during the latter years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. Nowhere was this doctrine more enthusiastically endorsed than in Germany, where the application of eugenic theory received its most fervent support. A programme born of what were often contradictory opinions began, under Nazi rule, with the compulsory sterilization of thousands of Germany’s citizens before morphing into the mass murder of the most vulnerable of the state’s own population under the guise of so-called “euthanasia”, before ultimately escalating into a continent-wide policy of extermination of those who did not fit the Nazi eugenic template. The progress of this inexorable descent into barbarity was marked by successive stages of development. From the practical application of “euthanasia” through the organisation dedicated to it—later on called Aktion T4—and the killing centres that this institution spawned, to the centrality of Aktion T4 to Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust, important elements of the historical record can be seen to emerge. How did it happen? What impact has it had on contemporary society? And what of the character and fate of the individuals involved in the gestation and implementation of this murderously inhumane quasi-religion? Deceptively simple questions that require complex and often disturbing answers.

Leseprobe

ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Towards Utopia

Chapter 2: Racial Hygiene

Chapter 3: "Euthanasia"

Chapter 4: A Marching Column

Chapter 5: T4

Chapter 6: The Killing Centres

Brandenburg

Bernburg

Grafeneck

Hadamar

Hartheim

Sonnenstein

Other Killing Centres

Meseritz-Obrawalde

Eichberg

Eglfing-Haar

Kaufbeuren-Irsee

Wiesloch

Chapter 7: Reorganization

Chapter 8: 14f13

Chapter 9: Aktion Reinhard

Chapter 10: Himmler and Eugenics

Chapter 11: Retribution

Chapter 12: Conclusion

Chapter 12: Conclusion

Appendix— Perpetrators and Accomplices

Theorists

Technocrats

Physicians, Nurses, and Scientists

Operatives

Sources and Bibliography

Glossary

Known T4 Personnel who served in Aktion Reinhard Camps

To Bernice—In Memoriam

To Doreen

We are ordinarily unaware of the degree to which our being treated as civilized, decent, autonomous, moral agents depends on our ability to look and act like such agents. To the degree that we make it impossible for other people to look and act that way, we make it easy to treat them as less than human. – John Sabini1

Only one judgement is passed on the executioner—he ceases to be a human being. Though looking on his victim as less than human, he becomes his own executioner; he executes the human being inside himself. But the victim—no matter what the executioner does to kill him—remains a human being forever. – Vasily Grossman2

1 James Waller, Becoming Evil. How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 248.

2Vasily Grossman, Everything Flows, (London: Harvill Secker, 2010), p. 128.

© Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München-Berlin/Kartographie Peckmann, Ramsau/Ursula Wilms

Acknowledgements

More than anything else, creating this book became a much needed diversion at what was a very stressful time in my life. Reading, researching, and writing about the subject matter under consideration may not immediately strike most people as being the usual response to a traumatic event. But it worked for me, providing the stimulus needed during many difficult days.

I realise now that writing it was in effect a kind of therapy, furnishing the impetus required to concentrate my mind on something other than my immediate concerns. When I began it I certainly never anticipated the result being published. That it has is due to the advice, influence, and support of many people, not least the numerous authors whose works I have extensively drawn upon. If space prohibits my thanking each one individually, I take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation to all of them for their scholarship and expertise. Whilst acknowledging the inspiration they have provided, unless otherwise attributed all opinions expressed in this book are my own.

Although thanks are due to many, there are some special colleagues without whose contribution publication of this book would not have been possible.

Valerie Lange and Florian Bölter at ibidem were helpful and considerate editors. They have guided me through the intricacies of developing my manuscript into the finished article, and did so with great courtesy and thoughtfulness, showing apparently limitless reserves of patience in dealing with a lengthy and complex text.

Joyce Field and Lance Ackerfeld at Jewish Gen are long-established friends whose support and advice has been invaluable over many years, but never more so than in connection with this book. It was Dr Robin O'Neil who introduced me to Jewish Gen, and it was Robin's tireless and invaluable investigation into the gestation of Aktion Reinhard and the tragic fate of Galician Jewry that encouraged me to explore more fully the historical background to a subject that has been of abiding interest to me for most of my life.

Dr Dick de Mildt, whose published works are an indispensable source to any student of this subject, was unfailingly courteous and helpful, particularly in guiding me through the intricacies of the German and Austrian legal systems, whilst Dr Tudor Georgescu was kind enough to read the draft manuscript and provide vital guidance. I am fortunate that so distinguished a scholar agreed to assume responsibility for such an important contribution. Natasha Neary took on the task of compiling the index, the preparation of which was a terrifying prospect for me.

Professor Matthew Feldman is a prized friend of many years standing, a truly talented academic with whom I have worked on numerous occasions. His faith in this book has often exceeded my own, and it is due to his determination and steadfast belief that it has finally seen publication. I hope this acknowledgement of the immense contribution he has made goes some way towards expressing the depth of my appreciation.

Finally, today and every day, my thoughts are of Bernice and Doreen, without whose love and devotion nothing was, or is, possible.

Melvyn Conroy

March 2017

 

INTRODUCTION

Eugenics is the religionof the future and it awaits its prophets.– Nikolay Konstantinovich Koltsov1

The subject of intense global debate in the 100 years between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries in both Europe and the United States, it is doubtful if any discipline first acquired and then lost adherents with greater rapidity than the newly named pseudo-science of 'eugenics'. The concept proved neither easy to define with any degree of unanimity nor to implement, that is until the empowerment of Adolf Hitler, a political eugenicist more radical and extreme than even the most enthusiastic pioneer of social engineering could have imagined.

Throughout the ages disabled individuals had been universally viewed as flawed beings. Rather than being treated with the charity and compassion we today regard as their entitlement, they were regarded as second-class citizens. In the United States, for example, until the middle years of the twentieth century the disabled were interned against their will, sterilised involuntarily, and denied education, transportation, employment—even the right to vote.2 Anti-Semitism based upon religious doctrine had an even longer and considerably more violent history. But as appalling as this tapestry of indifference and cruelty undoubtedly had been, it paled into insignificance when compared to the Nazi's attitude towards and treatment of those deemed by that regime to be "worthless" or "racially inferior".

The kind of supposedly scientific racism that in time produced a more-or-less comprehensible eugenic theory had a long history. If the Age of Enlightenment suggested a new dawning of reason, with freedom and equality for all, there were many who, whilst proclaiming the fundamental rights of man, were eager to qualify those very same rights. They believed that if all human beings were equal, some were certainly more equal than others. A number of the early proponents of what became known as social Darwinism and its offspring, eugenics, defended slavery; others believed that women were intellectually inferior to men and thus did not merit the same privileges; still others held what today would be seen as straightforwardly racist views, in one case going so far as to suggest that the intelligence of the Negro was on a par with that of a parrot.3 These kinds of opinions do not by any means appear outrageous when compared to a variety of the pronouncements made by certain of the "scientists" of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as we shall see.

It would thus be wrong to think that there was any degree of homogeneity among the acolytes of this secular religion. As with its traditional counterpart, orthodox religion, there were many schisms—Lamarckism (an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring), Darwinism (all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce), Weismannism (all heritable characteristics are transmitted by the reproductive cells and acquired characteristics that cannot be inherited), Mendelism (a set of primary tenets relating to the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent organisms to their offspring), among others. But all did at least share a common premise—the inviolability of heredity. This perspective might or might not be influenced by the component of environment, depending on the convictions of the believer, but of the fundamental tenet there could be no doubt.4

Eugenics was seen as a "scientific" debating chamber, a new kind of creed where any theory could be proposed, opposed, argued, or endorsed. Believers could find whatever they sought, for there were few absolutes in this new faith. And like any religion, its advocates could never be disproved, for just as to empirically demonstrate the existence of hell, or the paradise that awaited a steadfast believer, it was first necessary for he or she to die, at which point a lifetime's sacrifice and devotion might prove either hugely beneficial or completely pointless, so eugenicists could only offer a vision of the future in which poverty, disease, and ignorance had been banished. Eugenics did not, because it could not, offer a solution to the perceived problems of today, only to those of tomorrow. The benefits of its application would only be appreciated by future generations. But what a world those generations would inherit from their prescient forefathers, for in effect eugenics would become a secular religion, promising to deliver the utopian chimera of a "scientifically" created perfect society, in which sickness, crime, and antisocial behaviour would be eradicated forever. It was a tantalizing, if entirely unfeasible prospect.

Few of the proponents of the new social hygiene were great humanitarians, especially where they perceived a conflict with the immutable bedrock of the faith, natural selection. The Hungarian physician, József Madzsar, wrote in 1910: "The present form of social charity is even more dangerous because in most cases it obstructs the perishing of elements which are most burdensome and dangerous for society and it encourages their proliferation."5 In words echoing those of Adolf Jost fifteen years earlier, he wrote: "If the state has the right to deprive citizens of their freedom, of their life even, it undoubtedly has the right to sterilise as well, especially when this can be executed without any other unpleasant consequences for the individual."6 Like many others, Madzar went further. The aim should be not only to restrict the number of those deemed imperfect, but simultaneously to stimulate the growth of those considered the best. Quantity was to go hand in hand with quality. He concluded that eugenics was therefore not simply a matter of social hygiene and heredity, but more importantly of political will. "A eugenic religion will take shape in the realm of ideologies," he stated. "This religion will forbid all forms of sentimental charity which are damaging to the species; it will enhance kinship and increase love for the family and for the race. In brief: eugenics is a manly, promising religion which calls upon the noblest feelings of our nature."7

This modern religion acquired disciples from every scholarly field—physicians, biologists, geneticists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, economists—the list was both impressive and comprehensive. Nor was it limited to the scientific and academic community. Journalists and politicians also added to the mix. Together, they subscribed to the view that, like Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide, all would be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Such an idyllic prognosis was irresistible to these individuals. However, the passing of what the eugenicists considered the most valuable genes from one life cycle to the next in a never ending process of racial betterment, could not, on its own, provide the complete answer. As Madzar had recognized, attaining a eugenic nirvana also required prevention of the transmission of defective genetic material by those deemed socially and racially inferior. The application of the means and ends of these beliefs to Nazi Germany, the positive and the negative, are the subject of this study.

For Alfred Ploetz , physician, biologist, eugenicist, founder of the German Society for Race Hygiene in 1905 (the first eugenics organization in the world),8 and a pivotal influence on Nazi racial doctrine, there was no doubting that the future of the race was more important than the health of the individual.9 This concept was at the core of National Socialism. As Telford Taylor commented in his opening remarks at the Nuremberg Medical Trial, it represented "that sinister undercurrent of German philosophy that preaches the supreme importance of the state and the complete subordination of the individual."10 Without necessarily endorsing Nazism, some zealous enthusiasts still find that kind of eugenic theory attractive today. But for most rational beings, those fundamentalist principles were dead in the water after National Socialism. They had been directed by the Nazis along the road of discriminatory and racist bio-politics that had been their destiny even before the term "eugenics" was first coined by Sir Francis Galton.11 In his Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development of 1883, Galton wrote that he had been searching for

a brief word to express the science of improving the stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all the influences that tend in however remote a degree to give the most suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had.12

Despite these cautionary introductory words, this is not a polemic against eugenics, social hygiene, bioethics, or any other manifestation of biomedicine as envisioned in a post-Nazi world, certain aspects of which are now part of everyday life. Putting theological debate to one side, many would accept that some modern applications of eugenics, of which the Human Genome Project is perhaps the best example, represent a valuable scientific resource. Stem-cell research into the causes of and potential cure for certain genetic diseases and the contribution this would make towards the alleviation of human suffering, has the potential to be hugely beneficial. Particular contemporary applications of eugenics, for example oral contraception, have revolutionized latter-day lifestyles. Others may feel less easy about specific examples of genetic engineering, such as cloning. The difference, of course, is that these exemplars, unlike eugenics as originally conceived, represent the fruit of practical scientific studies, as opposed to abstract and often pernicious theories. But as Michael Burleigh has eloquently argued: "It is virtually impossible to discuss abortion, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilisation, negative or positive eugenics, euthanasia, organ transplants, psychiatry, sterilisation of the mentally incompetent or treatment of antisocial or violent individuals, without someone invoking the history of Nazi Germany to break, rather than make, a contemporary case."13The same concerns have been expressed by other commentators:

The development of new genetic technologies has resulted in comparisons being drawn between the many horrendous atrocities once perpetrated in the name of eugenics and what might happen in the future. In the minds of most people, eugenics is usually associated with enforced sterilisation, racism, restrictive immigration policies and Nazi concentration camps. There is a danger that the public… will look at the new genetics and simply claim that it is unacceptable to them because of the past. The history of eugenics in the twentieth century suggests that this is a legitimate fear that needs to be addressed.14

Yet who can deny the mother of three children suffering from sickle-cell anaemia, when at a 1983 conference on gene therapy, she protested: "I am angry that anyone presumes to deny my children the essential genetic treatment of a genetic disease. I see such persons as simplistic moralists."15 The past cannot always be a template for the future.

The fundamental problem accompanying these scientific advances may be expressed in another way. The history of the eugenic movement suggests that it cannot be taken for granted that these potential improvements in healthcare and living standards will be to the benefit of all. The Elysian ideals of a disease free, poverty free, crime free society remain the same eugenic objectives they have always been. But by its very nature, eugenics is elitist, aiming to produce a genetically flawless population. Not all can, nor in the eugenicists frequently expressed view, should, be the beneficiaries of these advances. What of those who slip through the net, those inevitable and unavoidable genetic accidents? If perfection is the ideal, what is to be done with those who, through no fault of their own, are somehow less than perfect? The true strength of any society is evidenced by the extent to which it protects its weakest members. Historically, what has eugenics offered them? And what will it offer them in the future? It is the answers to these questions that give rise to disquiet.

Much of this work is devoted to what "euthanasia" came to mean under National Socialism as the natural culmination of a near century of thinking that indissolubly linked racism and eugenics. The concern here is not with the ongoing debate about euthanasia as such, a subject concerning which individuals will doubtless have opinions of their own, but rather with what "euthanasia" meant in practice during the lifetime of the Third Reich. The quotation marks are important, for they are intended to indicate that what is being dealt with here is not the "mercy death" offered to the suffering out of compassion and empathy which was, and is, the meaning normally ascribed to the expression, but rather the killing of the helpless and vulnerable as part of a racially driven ideology coupled with a callously pragmatic economic imperative, which is how the Nazis chose to interpret the term. Indeed, it would be perfectly accurate to substitute the word "murder" for "euthanasia" throughout this text.

Nor is this a dissertation on the history of eugenics. It is an attempt to present the background to and application of Nazi ideology to the subject of eugenics as well as social and racial hygiene, where that was to lead, and the mind-set and subsequent fate of some of its advocates and exponents. This subject has been exhaustively, one might even say microscopically examined by German scholars over the last thirty years, but relatively little of this immense body of work has found its way into the English language, and it is towards the English speaking reader that this work is primarily directed. Some distinguished authors have provided a growing and important corpus of written material on the subject in English, and frequent reference is made to their efforts herein. But no two individuals will approach any issue in exactly the same way, and it is hoped that the reader will gain a somewhat different perspective on the topic from the manner in which this text is constructed. It begins with a brief history of the gestation of that Nazi eugenic ideology in order to better understand its application and consequences. Thus the first three chapters attempt to broadly illustrate the nature of thinking on matters of eugenics and social hygiene during the last years of the nineteenth and the first forty years of the twentieth centuries, particularly so far as Germany was concerned, for the National Socialists practised, albeit in extremis, what many others had long preached.

The fourth chapter examines the application of that ideology to Germany during the years from 1933 (the Machtergreifung, the Nazi seizure of power) to 1939 (the commencement of the "euthanasia" programme and the outbreak of the Second World War), and in particular focuses on the issue of sterilisation. Fifthly, the practical application of "euthanasia" through the organisation dedicated to it—T4—is described. In the sixth chapter, some of the killing centres in which "euthanasia" was carried out are considered. The seventh chapter is concerned with activities following the official cessation of the killing programme, the time of so-called "wild euthanasia," also known more accurately as "decentralised euthanasia". Eighthly, the application of "euthanasia" to concentration camp inmates, known by the coded term "14f13", is reviewed, while in the ninth chapter the importance of the "euthanasia" experience to the planned extermination of Jews in Aktion Reinhard is examined. Heinrich Himmler's many involvements in eugenic affairs make up the tenth chapter, with post-war trials and perceptions appraised in chapter eleven and some conclusions proposed in chapter twelve.

Finally, a lengthy appendix contains brief biographical details of some of the individuals involved in the theory and practice of the eugenic programme. Since a precise chronological delineation of the events described is neither possible nor indeed desirable, there is some inevitable overlapping of subject matter. As will hopefully be demonstrated, although given the then prevailing Zeitgeist, the Shoah was ultimately a logical consequence of Nazi eugenic thinking and practice (although by no means the sole cause of that catastrophe), this manuscript is not primarily Holocaust-centric. Nonetheless, the importance of the contribution eugenics made towards that tragedy will be a recurring theme, even if a comprehensive examination of the plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe and beyond represented by the policy named in memory of the newly deceased chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), Aktion Reinhard, is beyond the scope of this work.16

For many years there has been a lively debate among historians concerning the virtues, on the one hand, and pitfalls, on the other, of making moral judgements with regard to historical events. In 1895, Lord Acton instructed his listeners that they should "suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong."17 Others are of the opinion that it is simply the historian's duty to epistemologically present the unvarnished facts and allow the reader to decide on the moral issues involved. As Richard Evans expressed the point; "The element of moral judgement, insofar as it is exercised at all, is in the end extraneous to the research rather than being embedded in the theory or methodology of it."18Whilst it is hoped that the error of presenting matters in simplistic absolutist terms of good and evil has been avoided, there is no doubt that so far as the subject of this text is concerned, moral judgements are not only unavoidable, but essential. Above all else, the practical application of Nazi eugenics represented the abandonment of a universally accepted set of moral principles that simply cannot be ignored. It is therefore the dictum of Lord Acton that rules here.

A few cautionary words. As Henry Friedlander pointed out, the terms "handicapped" or "disabled" were unknown both before and during the Nazi period. Instead, distasteful and inaccurate terms such as "idiots", "crazies", "cripples", and "feeble-minded" were in common use.19 In the same manner, Sinti and Roma were described as "Gypsies", a wholly erroneous word which has acquired derogatory overtones. In order to maintain some kind of consistency the original terminology has been quoted where appropriate throughout this work. No offense is intended thereby.

Experience teaches that dates and numbers are frequently problematical in a work of this nature. Sources do vary, often widely. Wherever precise evidence on such matters is not available, or in cases where the exact evidence cannot be subjected to corroboration from a second source (and sometimes even when it can), the reader will find use of words such as "about", "approximately", "early", or "late". Personal names too can present difficulties—Arthur/Artur, Walter/Walther, and so on. In such cases, the most commonly accepted spelling has been used. As for place names, anglicized versions (where they exist) are employed—so Nuremberg rather than Nürnberg, Munich rather than München, Warsaw rather than Warszawa. Where place names have changed, on their first appearance both are shown—Kovno/Kaunus, Posen/Poznan, etc. Thereafter, the contemporaneous name is utilised.

Diacritics in general present particular difficulties in a work of this nature. The English language contains few words with diacritic markings; Polish, by contrast, often seems to consist of little else. Such diacritics have normally been used when quoting the names of people and places, as well as where otherwise appropriate (except as already noted), in German, French and Hungarian, but not in Polish. Apologies are offered for the inconsistency, but it is hoped that the reader will have no difficulty, for example, in recognizing Belzec as being an anglicized version of Bełżec, or Lodz for Łódź.

Advantage has been taken of the extraordinary resource now provided by the internet to any student or researcher, whereby an overwhelming amount of detailed information on almost any given subject is accessible at the click of a mouse. The World Wide Web had exponentially expanded the availability of knowledge; the more cynical might suggest that it is has also performed the same service for ignorance, for there is much that is contentious, misleading, or simply wrong and/or ill-intentioned in cyberspace. Thus the same criteria need to be applied when utilising the internet as would be employed when consulting any other source. But it is self-evident that it is impossible for each and every individual to consult all of the primary documentation on the issues of interest. To that extent, the internet is no different than every other written authority. In researching any subject, most of us are dependant, to a greater or lesser degree, upon the translation and interpretation, literal and metaphorical, of talented individuals whose scholarship we trust. No apologies are therefore offered for the use of material from the internet, which in many cases would otherwise only be accessible with great difficulty, if available at all. The same care has been taken in evaluating and including such data as has been applied in utilising more traditional sources.

Finally, it is only proper to mention that in a number of instances there has been some minor editing of direct quotations in the interest of improving either punctuation or grammar, but hopefully in no case has the intended sense of any quotation been lost. If it has, of course the blame for that or any other errors in the text lies exclusively at the author's door.

1 Michael Burleigh, Eugenic Utopias and the Genetic Present (Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions: Vol. 1, No. 1, 2000), p. 62. Koltsov was a Russian biologist and geneticist. Following denunciation of his theories as "fascistic nonsense" by disciples of Stalin's favourite, the agronomist, supporter of the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters, and charlatan, Trofim Lysenko, Koltsov was allegedly poisoned by the NKVD in 1940. Under Stalin a complete ban on the practice and teaching of genetics, condemned as a "bourgeois perversion", was imposed,.

2 Hugh Gallagher, What the Nazi "Euthanasia Program" Can Tell Us About Disability Oppression (Journal of Disability Policy Studies, Vol.12, No.2, 2001) 96–99, p. 96.

3Robert N Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 10–13.

4Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler. Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), pp. 36–37.

5Marius Turda, 'A New Religion'? Eugenics and Racial Scientism in Pre-First World War Hungary (Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions: Vol.7, No. 3, September 2006), p. 308.

6 Ibid., p. 308.

7 Ibid., p. 309.

8 Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler, p. 15.

9 Turda, 'A New Religion'?, p. 324, note 46.

10Ulf Schmidt, Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor—Medicine and Power in the Third Reich (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007), p. 362.

11 Most sources attribute first use of the word to Galton in his 1883 work "Human Faculty", although the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary dates its first appearance to 1833.

12Rachel Iredale, Eugenics and its Relevance to Contemporary Health Care, (Nursing Ethics, 7 (3), 2000), p. 206.

13 Michael Burleigh, Ethics and extermination: Reflections on Nazi genocide, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 144.

14 Iredale, Eugenics and its Relevance to Contemporary Health Care, p. 206.

15Daniel J Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 291.

16 Reinhard Heydrich, who died on 4 June 1942 following an assassination attempt by Czechoslovakian patriots nine days earlier, held this position.

17 Philip Boobbyer, Moral Judgements and Moral Realism in History (Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2002), p. 85.

18 Ibid.,p. 86.

19Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From 'Euthanasia' to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,1995), p. xxii

CHAPTER 1: TOWARDS UTOPIA

If a twentieth part of the cost and pains were spent in measures for the improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not create! We might introduce prophets and high priests of civilization into the world, as surely as we can propagate idiots by mating crétins. – Francis Galton (1865)1

In today's society applied eugenics is not a utopia anymore, and it will be even less so in the society of the future. – Jenő Vámos (1911)2

Charles Darwin published his On the Origins of Speciesby Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859, creating a controversy from which Judeo-Christian theology in particular has since never recovered.3 For all of its unintended subsequently malign influence, the book contained no racial theories. The suggestion that he would have endorsed such ideas would have horrified Darwin, who was a notably tolerant person. In fact, except by implication, the work contained little reference to Homo sapiens, essentially being concerned with the evolution of other animal life and that of plants.4

Long before Darwin shook the foundations of religious belief, there had been much supposedly scientific debate concerning the development of human characteristics. In the 1820's what became known as recapitulationist theory emerged. This posited that childhood in the white race was the equivalent of savagery or primitivism in evolutionary terms. Thus adults of "inferior" groups were deemed to be at the mental and emotional level of white male children or adolescents. Nor was this pseudo-science to be applied solely to non-white races. The "inferior" groups could (and did) consist of the anti-social, criminals, women, and any other disliked nationality the defining group chose to include. Although overtaken by Darwinism, the influence of such thinking on later eugenic theorists will become apparent.5

Two years before Darwin's Origins of Species appeared, in 1857 the French psychiatrist, Benedict Augustin Morel, had published his hugely influential work Traite des degenerescence physique, et intellectuelles et morales de l'espece humaine (Treatise on the Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Degeneracy of Mankind), in which he proposed a theory of "degeneration." Morel suggested that many illnesses, whether physical, intellectual, or moral, were all caused by a single process: degeneration. He concluded that most illnesses are the result of an incurable hereditary disorder. Allowing those suffering from such disabilities to reproduce presented a genetic risk to the nation. The causes of such a condition were, in Morel's view, the over-consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and opium. Morel believed that those damaged by overindulgence in these and other appetites developed illnesses which weakened their heredity value. This weakened state was passed on to future stock, for the effects were cumulative, so that after approximately four generations the degenerate line would end because the children of the ultimate generation would be born sterile imbeciles.

Degeneracy was a 'one size fits all' theory that neatly explained a wide variety of diseases. If the symptoms of those diseases were ostensibly different, to Morel they were simply alternative expressions of a single underlying disorder: degenerate heredity. The importance of Morel's theory on the development of eugenic thinking cannot be over emphasized, for as Morel wrote: "We are not dealing with the individual, the single human being, but with society as a whole and the means to such important an end have to be measured accordingly".6In this sentence can be seen the rationale for all that was to follow.

The war of words Darwin's thesis prompted only increased in intensity when in 1871 he published The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, applying his evolutionary paradigm to human physical, intellectual, and moral development.7 Deriving its impetus from Darwin's theory, the hypothesis that came to be known as social Darwinism proposed that competition in society, whether individual, national, or international, is the fundamental component of biological and social evolution.8 Superior individuals or groups survived and flourished even as the weaker disappeared. This became a justification for imperialism and racism while discouraging liberalism and reform. Although bearing his name, social Darwinism was not limited to a specific interpretation of Darwin's writings, drawing as it did on the works of many others, including the philosopher and political and sociological theorist, Herbert Spencer, the demographer and political economist, Thomas Malthus, and perhaps most significantly, polymath Francis Galton.

Spencer postulated that species evolved via a process of natural selection, and that it was only by eradicating the weakest elements and promoting the strongest that survival of an organism was assured. In Spencer's view, what the eugenicists later defined as the "inferior" specimens were to be excluded from society in order to enable the "valuable" components to fulfil that society's ultimate potential for growth and happiness. Moreover, it was perfectly acceptable to utilise the "inferior" as a kind of slave labour in order to promote the well-being of the "valuable." From there, it was but a small step to suggesting that the destruction of the weakest in society was not only natural, but eminently desirable. Only the fittest would, and should, survive.9 Or as Spencer brutally put it: "If they are sufficiently complete they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die."10

Social Darwinism, with its application of Darwin's "struggle for survival" to human affairs, in turn gave birth to the "science" of eugenics. To all intents and purposes the two were to become virtually synonymous in the public's mind, although while there was much that they shared in common, the two concepts were not interchangeable.11 The term "eugenics", a thesis which has no scientific basis, was coined by Galton, a cousin of Darwin, and was derived from the Greek "eugenes", meaning well-born or of good stock. Galton described it as "the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding."12 More precisely, this was to be "a science which deals with all influences that improve and develop the inborn qualities of a race."13

This took Spencer's concept of "survival of the fittest", a belief that was to become a basic element of Nazi ideology, to its logical conclusion.14 Its antonym was dysgenics, defined as the progressive evolutionary weakening or genetic deterioration of a population of organisms relative to their environment, often due to the relaxation of natural selection or the occurrence of negative selection. The Hungarian zoologist, István Apáthy, believed that:

The goal of eugenics is to call attention upon the fact that each social order, each habit, fashion or morality which acts against the selection of the best individuals in fact undermines the future of the entire society and it trades evolution, the salvation of future generations for the pleasures of the moment, for the individual comfort of the present generation.15

Or as the American sociologist and social Darwinist, William Graham Sumner, commented at around the turn of the twentieth century:

The sentimentalists are always greatly outraged by the notion of the survival of the fittest which is produced by liberty. If we do not like the survival of the fittest, we have only one alternative and that is the survival of the unfittest. If A, the unfittest to survive, is about to perish and somebody interferes to make B, the fittest, carry and preserve A, it is plain that the unfittest is made to survive and that he is maintained at the expense of B, who is curtailed and restrained by just so much. This process, therefore, is a lowering of social development and is working backwards, not forwards.16

Thus the fundamental tenet of the eugenics movement was that restricting the ability of "inferior" people to procreate (so-called "negative eugenics") whilst maximizing that of "superior" individuals (so-called "positive eugenics"), would benefit society. To Galton, the creation of better citizens through better breeding was an obvious and inevitable outcome if the principle of positive eugenics he espoused was followed:

We can clearly observe the extreme diversity of character in children. Some are naturally generous and open, others mean and tricky; some are warm and loving, others cold and heartless; some are meek and patient, others obstinate and self-asserting; some few have the tempers of angels, and at least as many have the tempers of devils. In the same way… [that] by selecting men and women of rare and similar talent, and mating them together, generation after generation, an extraordinarily gifted race might be developed, so a yet more rigid selection, having regard to their moral nature, would, I believe, result in a no less marked improvement of their natural disposition.17

As for negative eugenics, Galton skirted around the issue. The inferior, "refuse" as he termed them, were to be discouraged and "retarded" from marriage and reproduction. Given time, in this way the superior would multiply and flourish while the "refuse" would wither and eventually be eliminated. Galton suggested a programme of financial incentives intended to encourage the desirable to propagate,18 but the question of just how the undesirable were to be motivated to volunteer for the obverse remained unanswered. It may be supposed that, so far as both positive and negative eugenics were concerned, the notion of compulsion was never a consideration for Galton. Society, he felt, would resolve these issues as a more refined and vigorous praxis was established following recognition of the validity of his theories.

The obvious and immediate problem was clearly one of definition. What did "superior" and "inferior" signify? And who was to do the defining? These were, of course, questions which were (and are) incapable of satisfactory answers, but to the committed eugenicists the reasoning was obvious. "Valuable" life was represented by the racial or social class to which the eugenicist belonged, or with which he felt an affinity; "worthless" life was everybody else. In 1880, Robby Kossman, a German zoologist who later became a medical professor, succinctly expressed the eugenicist viewpoint:

We see that the Darwinian world view must look upon the present sentimental conception of the value of life of the human individual as an overestimate completely hindering the progress of humanity. The human state also, like every animal community of individuals, must reach an even higher state of perfection, if the possibility exists in it, through the destruction of the less well-endowed individual, for the more excellently endowed to win space for the expansion of its progeny…The state only has an interest in preserving the more excellent life at the expense of the less excellent.19

This passage combines several elements of what was to become recognizably Nazi ideology; the individual is nothing, the nation (Volk)is everything; a person's worth can only measured by his or her contribution to the community; the Judeo-Christian ethic of the sanctity of life was moribund; the Malthusian concept of limiting population growth was paramount.20 There was, however, a vital difference between Malthus' theory and the eugenicists' interpretation of it. Malthus advocated unrestricted birth control in order to manage the planet's resources. To the racial hygienists this was a dangerous over-simplification; a high birth rate among the genetically "valuable" with a matching lowered birth-rate among the genetically "worthless" was what was really important. Thus the Nazis proposed and practiced selective breeding as part of a policy of geopolitical aggrandisement and expansion, rather than from any altruistic or humanitarian motive. It would not be the meek who would inherit the earth, but the hereditarily valuable. It was for this reason that Nazi medical theorists disowned Malthus' ideas, often forcibly.21 In National Socialist Germany the "valuable" were to be encouraged to reproduce; the "worthless" were to be forcibly prevented from doing so. Nowhere was this dichotomy better illustrated than in the Honour Cross of the German Mother (Ehrenkreuz der deutschen Mutter), an award instituted in 1938 to acknowledge the fecundity of 'Aryan' mothers possessing appropriate hereditary credentials. Whilst recognizing the fertility of women considered genetically valuable, the regime was simultaneously sterilising tens of thousands of others deemed biologically valueless. It would be unfair to lay the blame for this exclusively at Galton's door, but in essence it was a logical, if unforeseeable, consequence of his proposals.

The true lethality of this kind of reasoning only began to emerge with the practical linking of the theories of eugenics with the Völkisch movements plaguing the United States and many countries in Europe during the latter part of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. Basing his conclusions on the questionable results of intelligence tests given to United States military recruits, in 1923 the psychologist Carl Brigham wrote in his book, A Study of American Intelligence, that the decline in the level of intelligence in American males was largely due to the immigration of "inferior" racial groups.22 Eugenics and the purported issues of race became inseparable. The naturalist Zsigmond Fülöp, editor of Darwin's works in Hungary, expressed contemporary reasoning well: "Eugenics represents the application of Darwinism to society with the scope of improving the qualities of the race, especially social qualities".23

It was easy to bandy such expressions about, but what exactly did the eugenicists mean by terms such as "race" or "social qualities"? Having first acknowledged the inherent difficulties in arriving at any wholly acceptable conclusions, in 2002 the American Psychological Association attempted to arrive at a definition not just of race, but also of ethnicity and culture. They determined that "the definition of race is considered to be socially constructed, rather than biologically determined. Race, then, is the category to which others assign individuals on the basis of physical characteristics, such as skin colour or hair type, and the generalizations and stereotypes made as a result."Ethnicity, it was suggested, was "the acceptance of the group mores and practices of one's culture of origin and the concomitant sense of belonging."And culture was "the embodiment of a worldview through learned and transmitted beliefs, values, and practices, including religious and spiritual traditions. It also encompasses a way of living informed by the historical, economic, ecological, and political forces on a group."24If anything these attempted definitions confirm the difficulties inherent in endeavouring to establish parameters for these essentially indefinable terms. Be that as it may, it is doubtful if many eugenic theorists were anything like as specific in their interpretation of these matters. "Race" in particular could have whatever meaning the speaker or author sought to ascribe to it, so that in 1956, Winston Churchill, as a younger man an enthusiastic eugenicist, could produce a book about the British entitled The Island Race, as if that nation possessed some kind of specific racial characteristics. Nearly thirty years later, Margaret Thatcher felt able to repeat the words of her hero when suggesting that the inhabitants of the Falklands were, like the British, "an island race", thus misusing a word that by then had been recognized as being not only worthless but, in the wake of the Nazi experience, had sinister connotations.25

This is not simply a matter of semantics. As the eminent geneticist, Richard Lewontin has observed:

We should stop talking about major races because to talk about major races gave the impression that there were big differences between these groups in things that mattered—I mean, skin colour, after all, doesn't matter except in some vague aesthetic sense—rather than the things that really mattered: people's characters, their intelligence, their behaviour, whether they're going to compete with other people or not and so on. The evidence then became that there weren't any interesting differences in such things, and so we should stop talking about race.26

But of course we have not. If we are still reluctant to abandon the concept of 'race' or any of its linguistic variations, often using it as a kind of shorthand in place of more accurate terminology, for the eugenicists this wholly fallacious notion represented the very cornerstone of their beliefs.

If, as has been suggested, "every German had his own idea of race", it is certainly true that racial identity was an issue that the Nazis were never able to resolve to their satisfaction. For some supposed "experts" it was a matter of physical characteristics, whilst others dismissed this notion as "unscientific", since there were few individuals who could claim to be free of at least a degree of racial mixing. The regime tied itself into knots in trying to find an answer to this self imposed problem, consistent only in its inconsistency for, with the exception of the Jews, for whom a strictly applied legal definition was in place, the determination of questions of national and racial identity varied greatly within the various regions under Nazi hegemony, being extremely selective in some places yet quite the opposite in others. As with so many other eugenic matters, much of course depended upon who was doing the defining, for such guidelines as existed were quite imprecise, and few of these racial "experts" were in agreement on the criteria to be applied.27 In short, Nazi racial policy remains the best example we have yet had of the absurdity of attempting to identify either nations or individuals by such means, and of promoting the values purportedly inherent in one race over those of another.

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The perception of eugenics as a new religion was recognized by Galton in a1904 address, in the course of which he stated: "It [eugenics] has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religious tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operates with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races. What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly and kindly."28 Galton believed, as Lincoln Steffens was to say in a quite different context, "I have seen the future and it works." However, Galton continued, society was not yet ready to accept eugenics. It would only be so "when a sufficiency of evidence shall have been collected to make the truths on which it rests plain to all. That moment has not yet arrived"29 In other words, it was first necessary to educate the public concerning the immense benefits this modern faith would bring before its precepts could be implemented. Moreover, Galton's new theology would turn traditional religious ethics, together with the concepts of Liberté, égalité, fraternité and The Declaration of the Rights of Man, on their collective heads. For Galton was neither a convinced Christian, nor a democrat, writing as he did:

It is the obvious course of intelligent men—and I venture to say it should be their religious duty—to advance in the direction whither Nature is determined they shall go, that is towards the improvement of the race….But it [Democracy] goes farther than this, for it asserts than men are of equal value as social units, equally capable of voting, and the rest. This feeling is undeniably wrong and cannot last.30

Problems associated with the so–called "feebleminded" (a wholly inaccurate term utilised to include everything from mental disability to alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, and other deemed anti-social behaviour) became the bedrock of eugenic theorizing.31 Labelled as idiots, imbeciles, morons, or degenerates, the existence of such individuals was used to promote the concept that there existed an explicit relationship between low intelligence and both immorality and crime. The cause of the social problems of the time was deemed to be inherited feeblemindedness, and the concomitant poverty a product of hereditary degeneracy. It was concluded "Not all criminals are feebleminded, but all feeble-minded persons are at least potential criminals. That every feeble-minded woman is a potential prostitute would hardly be disputed by anyone."32

These were global perceptions. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was simply reflecting a majority of contemporary opinion when he commented: "Someday we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty, of the good citizen of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type"33 A few years later Calvin Coolidge, at that time vice-President of the United States, declared: "America must be kept American. Biological laws show…that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races."34 The American psychologist, Henry Goddard,believed it was obvious that no mentally impairedperson should be allowed to marry or become a parent. Moreover, it was the duty of the "intelligent" section of society to enforce this rule. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Goddard's eminent fellow American jurist concluded:

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.35

Darwin had written in The Descent of Man: "Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind…Everyone does a good service who aids towards this end.36In Victorian Britain the implication of marriage was, of course, procreation. If not proposing voluntary sterilisation, Darwin was suggesting at least voluntary abstinence. Others, equally eminent, were prepared to go further. As Home Secretary, Winston Churchill called for a "simple surgical operation (sterilisation) so the inferior could be permitted freely in the world without causing much inconvenience to others," and wrote to Herbert Asquith, then Prime Minister, "I am convinced that the multiplication of the Feeble-Minded, which is proceeding now at an artificial rate, unchecked by any of the old restraints of nature, and actually fostered by civilised conditions, is a terrible danger to the race."37In 1903, H. G. Wells wrote:

The conclusion that if we could prevent or discourage the inferior sorts of people from having children, and if we could stimulate and encourage the superior sorts to increase and multiply, we should raise the general standard of the race is so simple, so obvious, that in every age I suppose there have been voices asking in amazement why the thing is not done.38

One year earlier, Wells had been even more outspoken in his promotion of eugenics:

The men of the New Republic ... will rout out and illuminate urban rookeries and all places where the base can drift to multiply; they will contrive a land legislation that will keep the black, or yellow, or mean-white squatter on the move; ... so that childbearing shall cease to be a hopeful speculation for the unemployed poor; ... This thing, this euthanasia of the weak and sensual, is possible. On the principles that will probably animate the predominant classes of the new time, it will be permissible, and I have little or no doubt that in the future it will be planned and achieved.39

Wells and Churchill were not alone in their concern for the future of Anglo-Saxons, nor was Wells a voice crying out in the wilderness with his dire prophecies. In a lecture to the Eugenics Education Society40 in 1910, George Bernard Shaw commented:

We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living, and to leave living a great many people whom we at present kill. We should have to get rid of all ideas about capital punishment … A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them.41

Shaw's defenders suggest that his remarks were tongue-in-cheek, a satirical reference to the policies of the more extreme eugenicists, but by 1934 Shaw was surely no longer joking when he wrote:

The moment we face it frankly we are driven to the conclusion that the community has a right to put a price on the right to live in it … If people are fit to live, let them live under decent human conditions. If they are not fit to live, kill them in a decent human way. Is it any wonder that some of us are driven to prescribe the lethal chamber as the solution for the hard cases which are at present made the excuse for dragging all the other cases down to their level, and the only solution that will create a sense of full social responsibility in modern populations?42

The "lethal chamber", a phrase in common usage around the turn of the century, and whose meaning was clear to all, was just five years away at the time of these reflections.

The nature of the rabid bigotry that often drove this kind of thinking is well illustrated by the comments of the Briton, Robert Reid Rentoul, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, the General Medical Council of Education, the Medico-Legal Society and the Society for the Study of Inebriety—a man clearly considered a physician of distinction. In his 1906 book Race Culture; or Race Suicide? (A Plea for the Unborn),Rentoul wrote: "The intermarriage of British with foreigners should not be encouraged. A few of us know the terrible monstrosities produced by the intermarriage of the white man and the black . . . From the standpoint of race culture it is difficult to understand the action of those who advocate the naturalization of foreigners".43

In a book entitled Heredity and Eugenics in Relation to Insanity published by the British Eugenics Society in 1912, Frederick Walker Mott, the chief pathologist of the London County Council made clear the racism inherent in contemporary eugenic reasoning: "The alien Jew and Irish Roman Catholic have large families, as their religion prohibits restrictions…25% of our population, made up mainly of the above mankind poor types, is producing 50% of our children and if this goes on it must lead to degeneracy."44 In his fellow-countryman Charles Wicksteed Armstrong's The Survival of the Unfittest, published in 1927, there was more than a whiff of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. After claiming that "England, possessing the finest human stock in the world, is at the present time doing all in her power to destroy it", Armstrong managed to contrive an alleged confluence of Bolshevism and anti-Semitism worthy of Hitler himself: "The deliberately devilish policy of these Russian Jews is to use eventually the whole of Asia's immense resources in population and wealth for the furtherance of their aim — world revolution, or the suppression of civilization".45 When the long-forgotten British eugenicist Anthony Mario Ludovici felt able, in several books published between the two world wars, to promote not only compulsory sterilisation, but also infanticide, incest, and what amounted to "euthanasia"—"The time has come to recognize the inevitability of violence and sacrifice, and consciously to select the section or elements in the world or the nation that should be sacrificed"—it becomes evident that racial hygiene was very far from being a solely German preoccupation.46

It is evident that all of these notions—sterilisation of the "inferior" and, by either implication or direct proposal, their removal from society, the prohibition of marriage between those considered unsuitable or unworthy, a direct association between mental deficiency and crime, racism as a guiding political principle—were symptomatic of much contemporary eugenic ratiocination, and all found their way into Nazi ideology. Zsigmond Fülöp had asked rhetorically, "whether we need to initiate a eugenic social policy, or in other words: is there a need for the creation of a human stock bodily and mentally stronger and more valuable than the present one? The answer to this question is nothing but yes."47 By 1935, the French Nobel Prize winner, Alexis Carrel, felt able to write that the criminal and the insane should be "humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasia institutions supplied with proper gases."48This was the "lethal chamber" writ large. The 1936 German introduction to Carrel's book Man, The Unknown included an enthusiastic endorsement of Nazi policies: "The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous."49It was hardly surprising that Carrel became the favoured eugenicist of Vichy France, and in recent years has been quoted with approval by Jean-Marie le Pen, former leader of the French far-right 'Front National' party.

It has been suggested that the worldwide popularity of eugenics in the first half of the twentieth century can be explained by the combination of a number of factors; science and scientists were held in high esteem, established class and racial inequalities and prejudices were vindicated by the new discipline, and perceived failings in social welfare policies addressed. Moreover, refuge could be found from the Victorian concept of environment and conditioning as the determining factor in human behaviour. If every society was plagued with poverty, crime, prostitution, alcoholism and disease, all believed to be genetic in nature, the chimera of eugenics appeared to provide an answer to these otherwise unfathomable problems.50 Even so, the illogicality inherent in Galton's comparison of the breeding of animals or plants with that of human beings was self evident. Capable of an immensely greater variety of intellectual achievements than any other of earth's life forms, mankind was more than just another type of mammal. And as should have been painfully obvious to Galton when he looked around him, the mating of attractive, healthy or academically distinguished parents did not guarantee genetically improved or even equally high standards in their progeny. It did not in itself necessarily increase the probability of such a result. Healthy parents had sick children too. As for maintaining the supposed purity of a racial bloodline, this fallacy had everything to do with prejudice and nothing at all to do with science. The only certainty was that any society implementing the theories of Galton and his disciples would eventually result in that community giving its blessing to the perpetration of criminal acts against those deemed "unfit" to breed—or indeed to live.

1 Michael W Perry, (ed), G K Chesterton—Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organised State (Seattle: Inkling Books, 2001), p. 124. A convert to Catholicism, Chesterton managed to be simultaneously both anti-eugenic and anti-Semitic, thus proving that one is not necessarily the prerequisite of the other. [Richard S Levy (ed), Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Ltd, 2005), pp. 115–116].

2Marius Turda and Paul J Weindling (eds.), "Blood and Homeland". Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900–1940, (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2007), p. 196.

3 There has been an enormous volume of literature published on this subject during the last 150 years posing arguments, some vehemently for, others equally vehemently against, Darwin's evolutionary principle, as well as the innumerable variations on specific issues raised by that topic. The concern of this text is primarily the impact and consequences of this debate on the development and implementation of specific Nazi policies derived from and subsequently endorsed by the then prevalent general eugenic theory.

4Michael Burleigh, and Wolfgang Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 28.

5John W Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), pp. 153–154.

6 http://www.irren-offensive.de/speech_engl_treusch_dieter.htm (Accessed 21 August 2008).

7 Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler. Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), p. 1.

8 The term first appeared in an 1879 article by Oscar Schmidt.

9Sylvia Anne Hoskins, Nurses and National Socialism—a Moral Dilemma: One Historical Example of a Route to Euthanasia (Nursing Ethics, 12 (1), 2005), p. 80.

10 Dennis Sewell, The Political Gene—How Darwin's Ideas Changed Politics (London: Picador, 2009), p. 35.

11Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought 1860–1945: Nature as model and nature as threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 7.

12Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From 'Euthanasia' to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 4.

13Rachel Iredale, Eugenics and its Relevance to Contemporary Health Care, (Nursing Ethics, 7 (3), 2000), p. 206.

14 "Survival of the fittest", perhaps the term most associated with social Darwinism, is often incorrectly attributed to Darwin himself. In fact, Darwin wrote that