Eugenics in Nazi Germany

A great many children were left neglected and unloved because they were not of the Aryan race, and there were even efforts to kill or sterilize them on various pretexts.

Ian Kershaw's 1998 biography of Adolf Hitler states that Social Darwinism, eugenics and fascism were closely interconnected in 1920s Germany:

Integral nationalism, ... national socialism, social Darwinism, racism, biological anti-Semitism, eugenics, elitism intermingled in varying strengths...88

Dr. Robert Youngson, who has studied errors in the history of science, states in his analysis that the idea of eugenics underlay the Nazi slaughter, and that eugenics itself was a great scientific error:

The culmination of this darker side of eugenics was, of course, Adolf Hitler's attempt to produce a "master race" by encouraging mating between pure "Aryans" and by the murder of six million people whom he claimed to have inferior genes. It is hardly fair to Galton to blame him for the Holocaust or even for his failure to anticipate the consequences of his advocacy of the matter. But he was certainly the principal architect of eugenics, and Hitler was certainly obsessed with the idea. So, in terms of its consequences, this must qualify as one of the greatest scientific blunders of all time.89

Describing Galton's irrational, unscientific views as merely a "scientific blunder" is actually a too "optimistic" approach. Actually, the claims made by Galton and those like him formed the basis of unprecedented savagery and slaughter. When Nazi Germany adapted the Social Darwinist world view to society, the catastrophes that ensued are a historical lesson of what can happen.

The Nazis adopted as a state policy the killing of every "inferior," "deficient," "flawed" and sick" human being who "polluted" the Aryan race. Hitler set out the reason:

… peoples to decay … In the long run, nature eliminates the noxious elements. One may be repelled by this law of nature which demands that all living things should mutually devour one another. The fly is snapped up by a dragonfly, which itself is swallowed by a bird, which itself falls victim to a larger bird … to know the laws of nature … enables us to obey them.90

Hitler made the grievous error of suggesting that various phenomena that maintain the ecological balance in nature also applied to human beings. If animals regard each other as prey, that does not mean that humans should ruthlessly destroy those they regard as weaker. Animals have no conscience. Human beings, on the other hand, possess both conscience and consciousness, the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad, and the capacity for judgment. Only those, like Hitler, who seek to justify their own psychological imbalances maintain that human beings should lead an animalistic lifestyle. Indeed, Hitler expressed the extent to which he had carried this deception:

If I can accept a divine Commandment, it's this one: "Thou shalt preserve the species." The life of the individual must not be set at too high a price. If the individual were important in the eyes of nature, nature would take care to preserve him. Amongst the millions of eggs a fly lays, very few are hatched out—and yet the race of flies thrives.91

The life of every human being is valuable, no matter what his or her race, gender or language. What those of good conscience should do is to do all in their power to protect every human being, with no regard to race or physical characteristics. During World War II, the catastrophes caused by the Nazi ideologues regarding human life as of so little value, and their vengeful feelings towards other nations, became apparent to all. Furthermore, Hitler's world view represented a nightmare also for his own people, not only for other races. Eugenics, widely implemented in Germany, is one instance of this.

• The Rise of the Eugenics Movement in Germany

In 1900, the German industrialist Alfred Krupp sponsored a contest for the best essay on the subject of "What can we learn from the principles of Darwinism for application to inner political development and the laws of the state?"

Samples of eugenic studies carried out by the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

First prize went to Wilhelm Schallmeyer, who interpreted culture society, morality, and even "right" and "wrong" in terms of the struggle for survival. He wanted all laws brought into line with these concepts to prevent the white races from degenerating to the level of the Australian Aborigines—and as long as society protected the physically and mentally weak, degeneration was inevitable. Dr. Alfred Ploetz, the Social Darwinist who founded racial hygiene in Germany, announced that he fully supported Schallmeyer's barbaric ideas. He insisted, for example, that at times of war, the racially inferior should be sent to the front in order to protect the white race. Since soldiers fighting in the front lines were generally killed, this would preserve the "purer" part of the race from being weakened unnecessarily. Going even further, he suggested that a panel of doctors be present at each birth to judge whether the infant was fit enough to live, and, if not, kill it.92

These terrifying recommendations were the first moves made by the eugenics movement prior to Nazi rule. On 14 July 1933, four months after the elections that brought the Nazis to power, the eugenics and so-called "mental hygiene" movement began spreading rapidly. Before that date, sterilization for purposes of eugenics was banned, even though it was carried out in practice. But now, permission was given for the implementation of eugenic savagery under the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Disease in Posterity," better known as the Sterilization Law. The chief architect of this tyranny was Ernst Rüdin, a professor of psychiatry at Munich University and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Shortly after the Sterilization Law was passed, Rüdin—together with a number of Nazi Party lawyers and specialists—published a statement on the law's meaning and aims. Essentially, its intent was to rid the nation of "impure and undesirable" elements so that it might achieve the Aryan ideal.

To subject the helpless in need of protection to the inhuman treatment of eugenics could be acceptable only to those deceived by the falsehoods of Social Darwinism. All these people need to be helped with their sicknesses and weaknesses. The Nazis thought they could treat them as they wished, caused terrible scenes of barbarity for as long as they remained in power.

According to this terrible law put into effect in Germany, sterilization could be performed without the permission of the person concerned. A state doctor had the legal right to conduct forcible sterilization, with police assistance. In his book Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today, the pro-Nazi American Lothrop Stoddard wrote of his impressions of the eugenic courts during a visit to Germany. An official from the tuberculosis section of the public health service headquarters told Stoddard the following:

The treatment given a tuberculosis patient is partly determined by his social worth. If he is a valuable citizen and his case is curable, no expense is spared. If he is adjudged incurable ... no special effort is made to prolong slightly an existence which will benefit neither the community nor himself. Germany can nourish only a certain amount of human life at a given time. We National Socialists are in duty bound to foster individuals of social and biological value.93

In Islamic moral values, however, people possess an equal right to treatment, no matter what their material means, rank or status. To abandon people to die because they have various physical defects or are not wealthy is clearly murder; and to seek to implement this in the social sphere constitutes mass murder.

The scope of Nazi Germany's Sterilization Law was increasingly broadened. On 24 November 1933, it was decreed that "habitual offenders against public morals" were to be sterilized. The Nazis' "racial pollution" theses now included the crime of opposing public morality. The years that followed would show that the National Socialists' terrible plans were by no means limited to sterilization.