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The Nazi Connection To
Eugenics
By: Alison Kozol, Josh Czik, Ben
Solomon, Hannah Zhu, and Daisy
Joo
Reasons for Eugenics
• To make everybody racially pure
• To reduce violence
• To create a utopian society
Galton
Davenport
Spencer
Eugenics: From America to
Germany
• Eugenics held validity in the eyes of Americans
because it was supported by people from
Harvard and Yale, and much of its studies is
funded by prestigious organizations such as
the Carnegie Institute, the Rockefeller Center,
and the Harriman railroad fortune.
• Rockefeller funded many of the eugenics
studies and institutions, such as Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute for Eugenics, Anthropology,
and Human Heredity.
Eugenics: From America
to Germany
• Hitler was greatly impressed by the
ideas of Eugenics, such as sterilization,
from Laughlin and Davenport. He
thought Germany should model its
society on that of the eugenics policies
in the U.S.
• At the same time, certain conditions in
Germany made American eugenics
especially appealing.
Influences on the
Germans to Use Eugenics
• World War I was a massive
defeat for the Germans
• Because of the
armistice, they seemed to
be the public hatred of the world
• Germany had also suffered
widespread hunger during the
war and many casualties
Influences on the
Germans to Use Eugenics
Cont’d
• Germans needed to find a scapegoat to
blame their troubles upon
• Eugenics was seen as the solution to
the German’s problems. In early 1900’s,
Alfred Ploetz, founder of the German
eugenics movement, thought that it
was unfair that the “less fit” should live
at the expense of people who are more
fit.
Influences on the Germans to Use
Eugenics, Cont.
• They could advance in science and
make a new name for themselves.
• 1920: Alfred Hoche, a physician, and
Rudolf Binding, a lawyer, published
Sanction for Destroying Lives Not Worth
Living.
• Argued that it was not worth helping
disabled people survive when so many
German youth have died in war. Only
certain people have the right to live.
Hitler became greatly attracted to these
ideas.
Implementing Eugenics
• 1923: Gustav Boeters, a district
health officer in Germany, wanted
Germany to sterilize all who were
“unfit.” He claimed that since the
U.S. had such sterilization laws,
Germany should do so too.
German government didn’t act on
Boeters’ request.
Implementing Eugenics
• Hitler put in practice laws that ordered
for many people to be sterilized.
• In 1933, Germany’s minister of justice
proposed a euthanasia law. Many
religious leaders objected to this law,
and it was not legally implemented into
a law.However, Hitler continued to
attempt to popularize it by describing
disabled people as “marginal human
beings.”
Hitler’s Use of Eugenics
• Hitler began taking serious action against
Jews in 1935
• Hitler targeted minority groups, mostly
groups that were discriminated against
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Jews
Romas
Communists
Disabled People
Poles
Homosexuals
Hitler’s Use of Eugenics
Against Jews
• September 15, 1935: Hitler
implemented laws that defined who was
Jewish and who was part of the Reich.
People who were part of the Reich were
Germans “who, through his conduct,
shows that he is both desirous and fit to
serve the German people and Reich
faithfully.
• A Jew was a person with two Jewish parents or
had three Jewish grandparents. A person was
still a Jew if he practiced Jewish customs or
married a Jew.
Hitler’s Use of Eugenics
• 1938: Nazi film popularizing eugenics
against Jews. Film called “Erbkrank” in
German and “Genetically Diseased” in
the U.S.
• Depicted Jews as people with inferior
genes
• 1939: Hitler put into action the euthanasia of
disabled children. Physicians were asked to fill
out questionnaires for each child. The
questionnaires were used to decide whether
the child should be killed or not.
Hitler’s Use of Eugenics
• When child taken away from parents,
parents only told that their children
were being placed in programs to
“improve treatment.”
• This later included teenagers and
adults. Eventually there were also
questionnaires for the elderly.
• Program was supposed to be secret, but many Germans
knew of these murders by the odor of dead human
bodies
• Mobile gas vans and showers used for killings. This
technology would later be used against Jews in
concentration camps
Germans Implementing
Ideas
• Established Eugenics Centers
– Advocated sterilization for
disabled people
• Celebrated Aryan Children
– Awards
– Illegitimate children
• Law of the Protection of
German Blood and Honor
– Made interbreeding illegal,
specifically between Jews and
Germans
• Law for the Prevention of
Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
• Lawfully sterilized mentally
The Laws Get More
Oppressive
• At first, the laws were seen as
“medical advancement” through
Eugenics
• It soon progressed to complete
discrimination against minorities
Opposition to Eugenics
•Franz Boas made a case against Eugenics by
stating that with a different American diet and
culture, the children of immigrants began to look
and act more “American.”
•Myerson criticized the entire process by which
Eugenicists came to their conclusions about whether
a person was “feebleminded” or not.
•Many German scientist, doctors, and clergymen
spoke against Eugenics, but they were quickly
silenced when Hitler came to power
•Henry Wallace: spoke against eugenics of Germany
and America and urged that only democracy can
allow for scientific advancements to aid society.
Choices
•Every time a new policy was implemented by
the Nazi regime the German people had a
choice.
•They could choose to stand up and not obey
the Nazi polices. However, they did not because
they knew that it would get them killed.
•It was much easier to go with the flow and
accept the Nazi propaganda. This is how the T4
plan became a reality in Germany, no-one was
opposing it.
In the U.S.
• People were enraged by the killings
done in Germany, including those of
Jews.
• No effort to help
• National Origins Act of 1924 placed
restriction on population of immigrants
admitted to U.S.
• Eugenicists like Laughlin discouraged
help for the Jews, reminding the
Americans that allowing them among
the midst of Americans would pollute
the Caucasian race
Repercussions for Today
• Because of eugenics, many people were sterilized
• Hitler’s eugenics program and the Holocaust were
largely fueled by the eugenics policies of the U.S.
• If eugenics hadn’t been born, many people killed would
have still been living.
• If the U.S. accepted Jews into its society, then many
Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust.
• Although what’s done in the past cannot be reversed, at
least we learn a valuable lesson in the harms that
prejudice against others can do.