What Is The Role Of Eugenics In Nazi Germany?

Eugenics is the pseudoscience of obtaining desired traits in a population through controlled repopulation, specifically by preventing those deemed “unfit” by “Nordic stereotypes” from breeding. Most modern day Americans do not realize the origins of eugenics, which was planted by Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton and bloomed in America, and what effect it had on the attempt to create a master race in Nazi Germany. America played a very influential role in German eugenics by collaboration between scientists and funding from American corporations. The negative connotation associated with this science is usually directed towards the scientists of the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler, and not towards American scientists who also partook in horrific experiments and performed inhumane acts as well. This is absurd when you consider that the United States was the backbone of the eugenics movement internationally and only developed a negative perspective of the research when it became affiliated with the holocaust and the troubling actions of Nazi Germany.

The Oxford University Press defines eugenics as “the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics” with a further—and rather illuminating—explanation which states, “Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis”.

Eugenics is a taboo science, but back in 1883 it was a modern advancement, discovered by Francis Galton (Carlson). Galton’s original mission was to improve humanity by encouraging the best and healthiest couples to simply have more children; Galton created positive eugenics (Carlson). However, with the positive comes the inevitable negative. Negative Eugenics was more set on preventing the least able from reproducing, in order to preserve the fitness of the

Starting in the late 19th century, American philosophers, theorists, and scientists began experimenting and theorizing the idea of eugenics. Derived from Darwinian theories and the extensive works of Gregor Mendel, eugenics is known as a set of practices aimed at enhancing the human genome into sameness. Edwin Black’s “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race” looks at the horrific background of eugenics, the ones who supported it, and the twisted ends it came to. This source, along with the two others, brings light to the awful means pursued to obtain a brilliant, but illogical and immoral goal of sameness. Overall, a negative vibe is shown through these sources.

Eugenics profoundly impacted the culture of the twentieth century. Coined in 1893 by Sir Francis Galton, it studied the heredity and selection of favorable traits. Born out of the social tumults of the late nineteenth century, it represented the Western elite’s attempt to protect itself from so called “inferior” cultures of the colonies and “new wave” immigration.

Eugenics is a complex term that has been studied and discussed internationally and throughout the eras. A basic definition of eugenics is the scientific study of race improvement. The definition is then broken up into two different aspects, positive eugenics and negative eugenics. Positive eugenics is defined as improving a race by focusing on ways to increasing the better population. Incentives are given to those superior races or populations to have children and get married. On the other hand negative eugenics is decreasing the chances of the inferior race or population from having children. This type of negatives eugenics is trying to stop those who are determined on having inferior genes from passing on their inferior traits that would corrupt the population as a whole. The whole study of eugenics is based on the theory that the gene a person is born with determines their outcome in life. Using this theory some scientists are given a way to justify categorizing groups of people into superior or inferior classes based on race. The study of eugenics was discussed around the world having the main powers being in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.

Eugenics, derived from the Greek word eugenes meaning well born, is defined as the study or belief that by encouraging people with good genetic traits to reproduce and discourage those people with less desirable traits the human race can benefit. There were certain groups of people who were affected by these sterilization laws, including people that were mentally disabled or ill and those from socially unacceptable areas of life, that were adopted in 32 states starting in the 1930’s. These sterilizations were done on over 350,000 people in the span eleven years between 1934 and 1945 (Kaelber), leading the United States into one of the darkest parts of our history.

Eugenics has been an exceptionally questionable science that has existed on the planet for a considerable length of time. Eugenics, also knows as selective breeding is characterized as the investigation of or confidence in the likelihood of enhancing the characteristics of the human species or a human populace by such means as disheartening reproduction by people having hereditary deformities or attempted to have inheritable undesirable attributes or empowering proliferation by people dared to have inheritable attractive qualities

In final analysis, the employment of eugenics in both Germany and the United States depicts the sciences variation in regards to the context of the nation in which it is being implemented in. Germany was enthralled with eugenic science because, after such an enormous military loss and the economic turmoil that came soon thereafter, they were in a state of weakness and said weakness could seemingly be solved by creating a superior fighting force. The appeal of preventing a future political, social, and economic slump like the one that they faced after World War One was substantial in the employment and enforcement of eugenics within the area, as preparedness for future conflict could reprise their lost power on an international scale. The United

Just think about a human race free of genetic disease where everyone is intelligent and where society and technology advance at staggering rates. This is the future that is envisioned by those who advocate eugenics. Eugenics is the study of methods to improve the human race by selection of parents based on their inherited characteristics (Hartl). The idea was first discussed by Sir Francis Galton in the 1880’s, but was widely unaccepted by people at first due to fear that it would take away their basic human rights and be misused (Hartl). In the early 20th century, eugenics was a very popular and widespread idea in the United States and there were laws created to encourage certain people to have children, while discouraging others from procreating (Morris 66). The main reason eugenics has fell into such disfavor is because the Nazis cited it as the reason for the Holocaust (Morris 66). The use of eugenics by the Nazis can be compared to the use Islam by ISIS, or the use of Christianity by the Westboro Baptist Church. It is a concept that can be misused based on interpretation and extremism. Eugenics itself is just an idea to improve the human race by selective breeding, not by killing millions. Forms of eugenics should be implemented in society because they eliminate genetic diseases and problems, spread favorable traits and attributes, create a more intelligent and less flawed society, and help advance the human race as a whole.

From evaluating the history that eugenics has imposed, its negative practice has been marked in ways of unrighteous holocaust and genocides worldwide. The word “eugenics” has been worldly defined and seen as the destruction of undesirable traits, in all reality people. However, the practice of altering or ridding of specific genes or minority group has changed through the evolution of time. Subcategorizing, eugenics has modernized and has advanced to the use of prenatal screenings, intentional selective breeding within agriculture, gene therapy, and possible human genetic engineering. Both articles that will be discussed, centralizes around the idea of genome sequencing. Specifically by focusing on the discovery of specific variant traits

There is much bias and confusion surrounding the topic of eugenics. Many times the reason for this is the lack of understanding of what the term means, where it states “In 1883, Sir Francis Galton, a respected British scholar, and cousin of Charles Darwin, first used the term eugenics, meaning ‘well-born.’ (Genetics Generation, 2015).” This term has evolved to encompass more than just “well-born” as can be seen in the encyclopedia. “The eleventh edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica defines eugenics as ‘the organic betterment of the race through wise application of the laws of heredity.’ (Court, 2004).” The meaning of the word eugenics, due to the way it has been used, confuses many people.

Guided by poverty, the German people turn to science as a savior, and consequently guided themselves towards eugenics and pseudoscience. Need in Germany reached a high point during the years of the depression; in which the German people, “...cast into poverty...”, “...began looking for a solution...” from anywhere, or any source.(N.D. 1996) “Science [appeared]...” to Germany “...as a potential savior”, so the German people began to idolize science in a nearly religious manner.(Schaefer, 2004) As such, Germans adopted the ideology that “If something seems scientifically based it must be true”, and placed their faith in science.(Bloomfield, 2004) Concurrently, eugenics started to gain popularity among the scientific community. As a consequence

Hitler and I share a commonplace in our beliefs regarding eugenics. Eugenics is "a social philosophy for the improvement of human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of certain people and traits, and the reduction of reproduction of other people and traits." (Osborn 389-97) Although not scientifically perfect, the basic idea behind this philosophy is clearly attributed to natural selection. In my opinion, while our world experiences technological advances, law and morality prevent this natural process from taking place. I believe that this process is imperative to the continuance and improvement of a species. In the animal kingdom, the weak are food for the strong.

The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880’s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for “well-born”. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, today’s study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, “Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings – by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes.” (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of