Why Did Adolf Hitler's Use Of Eugenics

The idea of eugenics made it possible for involuntary sterilization. In order to improve the human race, it meant regulating reproduction. 1907 Indiana passed to sterilize the mentally insane and inmates. Their plan was to eliminate “defective” genes. By 1960 63,000 people were involuntary

At first, the Nazis were only killing political opponents like Communists and/or Social Democrats, for which their harshest persecution was used. Many of the first prisoners sent to Dachau (The first official concentration camp opened near Munich in March of 1933) were communists. By July, the concentration camps run by the Germans held around 27,000 people in what they called “protective custody.” The Nazis had huge rallies and acts of symbolism such as burning of books by Jews. During the years of 1933 to 1939, the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany got out quickly, but many were left behind, and they lived their lives in a constant state of uncertainty and fear. During the fall of 1939, Hitler started the so-called Euthanasia Program. The Euthanasia Program allowed Nazi officials to select around 70,000 German citizens institutionalized for mental illnesses or disabilities. These Germans were to be gassed to death. After prominent German

When you see a Nazi flag, what do you feel? Many people usually start to feel a little anxiety because they associate very strong negative feelings with the flag. This is because Americans are widely familiar with the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. However, most Americans are quite less educated about similar atrocities committed in the United States. Case in point: did you know that the Native American population today is a mere 10 percent of what it was before the Age of Exploration (meaning that there population has been decreased 90 percent due to genocide, diseases, etc.) ? Did you know that there was a sterilization movement in the United States that found success in getting their laws passed in state legislation? These less well-known facts are quite similar to actions carried out by the Nazis, such as the holocaust and the sterilization movement that took place in Germany during the 1930’s. Nazi Eugenics and racism was not a unique instance but rather part of a larger global trend of justifying racism through Religion and Biology, as seen in the United States.

The American eugenics movement is characterized by the implementation of sterilization laws in over 30 states that led to over 60,000 sterilizations of those deemed “disabled” by the regulating entities. This movement began in the early 1900’s and many argue that this movement was the base for eugenics programs all over the world, including the infamous eugenics movement in Germany. Proponents of this program believed that the

In England, which gave birth to the eugenics movement, it is interesting to note that sterilization laws never took hold. Bertrand Russel, a British philosopher at the time published Marriage and Morals (1929) in which he wrote “I say only that our scientific knowledge at present is not adequate for this purpose, and that it is very dangerous when a community allows its moral reprobations to masquerade in the guise of science, as is undoubtedly happening

Hell is a road that was paved with good intentions; this cliché quintessentially describes the eugenics movement. Eugenics is the controlled reproduction of individuals; the main focus of eugenics is to isolate “good” genes from “bad” genes (Dolan DNA Learning Center). The main goal of Eugenics is to create a higher quality human race (Dolan DNA Learning Center). This movement became the center of which the twentieth century orbited around. The movement swayed numerous significant policies, which were implemented within the United States, ranging from immigration to sterilization (Selden). What is truly unsettling is the radical nature of the eugenics movement, which was originally founded with good intentions by Francis Galton (Carlson). The Eugenics movement made headway owing to the fact that America was frantic for a solution to social problems and believed that this scientific approach was the solution it yearned for; this is evident from the origin, purpose, supporters and policies that resulted from eugenics.

Hitler took this hatred he possessed for the Jews and his pursues of Aryan supremacy to an extensive degree. Between 1939-1945 Hitler took action, extermination, or death camps were established for the sole purpose of killing men, women, and children. Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis during World War II, The Nazis also imprisoned and killed people who opposed their regime on grounds of their ideology; Roma (Gypsies); Germans who were mentally impaired or physically disabled; homosexuals; and captured Soviet soldiers. Heinous crimes inflicted upon the prisoners within the concentration camps and during Hitler’s reign were intense beyond belief. So called camp doctors would torture and inflict incredible suffering on Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. Patients were put

This began to evolve the idea that extermination on a large-scale was the solution. Goebbels wrote to Hitler, “The Jews are the lice of civilized humanity. They must be exterminated.” (Lyons, 2016). In 1941 six death camps were established They would place the Jews in gas chambers. |These death camps could kill about 24,000 people a day. Thousands of Jewish inmates were also subjected to medical experiments against their will. These horrible experiments included placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, and amputations and other surgeries. (Harran, 2000).

Operation T-4 was the killing by the Germans of the defenseless, the handicapped and mentally disabled. The Nazis believed that these men and women were a burden to society and exhibited the classification of “Life unworthy of life”, so they therefore began exterminating them from existence. The Nazis viewed them as a waste of time and money and began what would eventually become the largest genocide in history. Operation T-4 originated and obtained its name within a hospital located on #4 Terrian Strasse street, the hospital in which all of the handicapped and disabled patients were being held. To commence the ridding of these “worthless bothers”, the killing began with medical professionals injecting serum into the patient and ultimately

A ‘Master Race’: The Twisted Justification Behind Eleven Million Murders Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “Blood mixture and the resultant drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures” (“Chapter 11: Nation and Race”). This quote describes the dissolving of the Aryan Race, the race Hitler described as the ‘Master Race.’ The backbone of the Holocaust was Hitler’s idea of a master race. The master race would be a pure blooded race that would populate the entire world.

Sterilization "on eugenic grounds" (Lombardo 1) was not legalized until 1907 in Indiana, but doctors across the nation practiced the procedure illegally before even then. Generally, the patient didn't know about the sterilization until after the act was done, at which point they were informed of their "feeblemindedness" or other social disorder. Within 17 years of the law being instated, a recorded 3000 people were sterilized, and thousands more suspected off the record. The range of reasons for being sterilized was infinite, ranging from genuine mental disorders such as schizophrenia, to things as pointless as "excessive masturbation" (Selden

After acquiring the position of Chancellor, Hitler governed Germany from 1933 to 1939 by working to prepare them for war and promised to undermine the Treaty of Versailles. Adolf Hitler prepared Germany for war by introducing conscription and began rearmament, violating the terms of the Treaty of Versailles in the process. Moreover, Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, which was a clear breach of the Treaty and gave Germany access to resources that would help Germany to prepare for the war. The invasion of Austria was another term of the Treaty that Hitler had undermined.

The theory of Eugenics can be dated back all the way to 400 B.C. but was not popularized until the mid-1800s by an English scientist, Francis Galton. He researched and published the theory that aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding (NC Office of Archives and History). As the half-cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton applied the Darwinism science (survival of the fittest) to heredity characteristics. Two types of Eugenics stemmed from the theory, positive and negative. Positive eugenics is encouraging the “best” people in the society based on financial and personal features to have more children while negative eugenics is picking people with flaws and defects from the population

Eugenics, the word that got its bad reputation years ago through an event that changed history: the Holocaust. First dubbed by Francis Galton in the 1880’s, the word Eugenics stemmed from the words “good” and “generation.” (Eugenics-Meanings) Eugenics means the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population. This improvement is done through discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics); or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics). (Contemporary)There have always been heated discussions over right or wrong, moral or immoral concerning

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