Fritz Gottlieb Karl Lenz (9 March 1887 in
Pflugrade,
Pomerania
Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
– 6 July 1976 in
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
,
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processe ...
, member of the Nazi Party,
["Human biodiversity: genes, race, and history"]
Jonathan M. Marks. Transaction Publishers, 1995. p. 88. , . and influential specialist in
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.
Biography
The pupil of
Alfred Ploetz
Alfred Ploetz (22 August 1860 – 20 March 1940) was a German physician, biologist, Social Darwinist, and eugenicist known for coining the term racial hygiene (''Rassenhygiene''), a form of eugenics, and for promoting the concept in Germany.
Ea ...
, Lenz took over the publication of the magazine "Archives for Racial and Social Biology" from 1913 to 1933 and received in 1923 the first chair in eugenics in Munich. In 1933 he came to Berlin where he established the first specific department devoted to eugenics, at the
.
Lenz specialised in the field of the transmission of
hereditary
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...
human diseases
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...
and "racial health". The results of his research were published in 1921 and 1932 in collaboration with
Erwin Baur Erwin Baur (16 April 1875, in Neuried, Ichenheim, Grand Duchy of Baden – 2 December 1933) was a German geneticist and botanist. Baur worked primarily on plant genetics. He was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Breeding Research (since 1 ...
and
Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, ...
in two volumes that were later combined under the title ''Human Heredity Theory and Racial Hygiene'' (1936).
![EuthanasiePropaganda](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/EuthanasiePropaganda.jpg)
This work and his theory of "race as a value principle" placed Lenz and his two colleagues in the position of Germany's leading
racial theorists. Their ideas provided scientific justification for
Nazi ideology
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, in particular its emphasis on the superiority of the "
Nordic race
The Nordic race was a racial concept which originated in 19th century anthropology. It was considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming th ...
" and the desirability of eliminating allegedly inferior strains of humanity – or "life unworthy of life" (''
Lebensunwertes Leben''). Lenz was a member of the "Committee of Experts for Population and Racial Policy". He joined the Nazi party in 1937 while serving as the head of the
.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Lenz continued to work as a Professor of genetics at the
University of Goettingen
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
. When questioned, Lenz said that the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
would undermine the study of human genetics and racial theory. He continued to believe that eugenic theories of racial differences had been scientifically proven.
Two of his sons are
Hanfried Lenz
Hanfried Lenz (22 April 1916 in Munich1 June 2013 in Berlin) was a German mathematician, who is mainly known for his work in geometry and combinatorics.
Hanfried Lenz was the eldest son of Fritz Lenz an influential German geneticist, who is ass ...
and
Widukind Lenz Widukind Lenz (4 February 1919, Eichenau – 25 February 1995) was a distinguished German pediatrician, medical geneticist and dysmorphologist who was among the first to recognize the thalidomide syndrome in 1961 and alert the world to the da ...
.
Theories
For Lenz, human genetics established that the connection between racial identity and human nature was actually physical in character. This extended to political affiliations. Lenz even claimed that the revolutionary agitation in Germany after 1918 was caused by inferior racial elements, warning that the nation's racial superiority was threatened. He stated that "The German nation is the last refuge of the Nordic race … before us lies the greatest task of world history". For Lenz, this validated the
racialised politics of the Nazis.
He justified the
Nuremberg laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
of 1935 in this way:
:As important as the external features for their evaluation is the lineage of individuals, a blond Jew is also a Jew. Yes, there are Jews who have most of the external features of the Nordic race, but who nevertheless display Jewish mental tendencies. The legislation of the National Socialist state therefore properly defines a Jew not by external race characteristics, but by descent.
[Fritz Lenz, ''Über Wege und Irrwege rassenkundlicher Untersuchungen'', in: ''Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie'' Bd. 39, 3/1941, S. 397]
Likewise, Lenz took the view that
Slav
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
s were inferior to Nordic peoples, and that they threatened to "overrun the superior ''
Volk
The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to people,
both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of '' a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the English term ''folk'') ...
'' (people)." In 1940, Lenz advised the
SS that "The resettlement of the Eastern zone is … the most consequential task of racial policy. It will determine the racial character of the population living there for centuries to come."
References
See also
*
Aktion T4
(German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of ...
*
Racial policy of Nazi Germany
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
*
Eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
*
Alfred Ploetz
Alfred Ploetz (22 August 1860 – 20 March 1940) was a German physician, biologist, Social Darwinist, and eugenicist known for coining the term racial hygiene (''Rassenhygiene''), a form of eugenics, and for promoting the concept in Germany.
Ea ...
*
Ernst Rudin
Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst"
* Anton Ernst (1975- ...
*
Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, ...
*
racial hygiene
The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lenz, Fritz
1887 births
1976 deaths
People from Goleniów County
People from the Province of Pomerania
Nazi Party members
German geneticists
German eugenicists
Physicians in the Nazi Party
People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics
Max Planck Institute directors