The German Society for Racial Hygiene (german: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene) was a German

eugenic 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 ...

organization founded on 22 June 1905 by the physician

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 ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. Its goal was "for society to return to a healthy and blooming, strong and beautiful life" as Ploetz put it. 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 tha ...

was supposed to regain its "purity" through selective reproduction and sterilization. The society became defunct after World War II. Alkoven Schloss Hartheim 2005-08-18 3589

Alkoven Schloss Hartheim 2005-08-18 3589

History

Soon after the society was founded, it received generous support by the German imperial government and it was not the only organization of its kind in the world. Many organizations existed post WW1 with similar goals. Notable members comprised Ploetz' brother-in-law

Ernst Rüdin Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1874 – 22 October 1952) was a Swiss-born German psychiatrist, geneticist, eugenicist and Nazi, rising to prominence under Emil Kraepelin and assuming the directorship at the German Institute for Psychiatric Rese ...

and his childhood friend

Gerhart Hauptmann Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He rece ...

Wilhelm Bölsche Wilhelm Bölsche (2 January 1861 – 31 August 1939) was a German author, editor and publicist. He was among the early promoters of nature conservation and committed to popularizing science. Life Bölsche was born in Cologne on 2 January 1861 ...

Max von Gruber Max von Gruber (6 July 1853, in Vienna – 16 September 1927, in Berchtesgaden) was an Austrian scientist and eugenicist. As a bacteriologist he discovered specific agglutination in 1896 with his English colleague Herbert Durham (Gruber-Widal-rea ...

Agnes Bluhm Agnes Bluhm (9 January 1862 – 12 November 1943) was a German winner of a Goethe medal. She was trained as a medical doctor and won prizes for her research. She believed that German women could improve the race using eugenics and forced sterilisat ...

Wilhelm Filchner Wilhelm Filchner (13 September 1877 – 7 May 1957) was a German army officer, scientist and explorer. He conducted several surveys and scientific investigations in China, Tibet and surrounding regions, and led the Second German Antarctic Expeditio ...

Anastasius Nordenholz Anastasius Nordenholz (1862 - 1953) is the author of '' Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens'' (''Scientology, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge'') written in 1933. His life Anast ...

, and

Ludwig Hermann Plate Ludwig Hermann Plate (16 August 1862 – 16 November 1937) was a German zoologist and student of Ernst Haeckel. He wrote a "thorough and extensive defence" of Darwinism, but before Mendel's work had been assimilated in the modern synthesis. ...

. The biologists Ernst Haeckel and

August Weismann August Friedrich Leopold Weismann FRS (For), HonFRSE, LLD (17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Cha ...

, as well as the gynecologist

Ernst Ludwig Alfred Hegar Ernst Ludwig Alfred Hegar, ''aka'' Alfred Hegar, was a German gynecologist famous for developing new medical tools and techniques. He was born on 6 January 1830 in Darmstadt, Germany and died on 5 August 1914. He was buried in Breisgau. Hegar wa ...

, became honorary members. Since Ploetz wanted to establish an international movement, the society was soon renamed International Society for Racial Hygiene with branches in

including

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 ...

, in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

with the well-known human geneticists

Fritz Lenz Fritz Gottlieb Karl Lenz (9 March 1887 in Pflugrade, Pomerania – 6 July 1976 in Göttingen, Lower Saxony) was a German geneticist, member of the Nazi Party,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, ...

and from 1910 in Stuttgart, which included the geneticist

Wilhelm Weinberg Wilhelm Weinberg ( Stuttgart, 25 December 1862 – 27 November 1937, Tübingen) was a German obstetrician-gynecologist, practicing in Stuttgart, who in a 1908 paper, published in German in ''Jahresheft des Vereins für vaterländische Naturkun ...

. The organization was affiliated with the British

Eugenics Education Society 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 ...

under Francis Galton; branches in Sweden, the United States, and the Netherlands were also established in the early 20th century. In 1924, the organization was named back to German Society for Racial Hygiene. The ideas represented by the society became increasingly popular after the International Hygiene Exhibition of 1911. The organization wanted to establish "

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 ...

" as a scientific subject and contributed substantially to their implementation in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. With both adoption of the ideas of

Nazi eugenics Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany, composed of various pseudoscientific ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of ...

and with concrete consultations on political racial measures, the society took direct influence on statutes like the " Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring", which were an integral part of the

Action 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 t ...

"euthanasia" programme of the

Nazi regime 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 ...

led by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. By 1933, the Society for Racial Hygiene had 1,300 members, many of them academics, as well as high functionaries in the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

.Burleigh, Michael; Wippermann, Wolfgang: "The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945". Cambridge University Press. 1991. Pg. 52.

References

* Wolf, Caroline
Wissenschaftler wider besseres Wissen
' in ''amatom'' Nr. 18. {{Authority control 1905 establishments in Germany Nazi eugenics Eugenics organizations Organizations established in 1905