1. Hermann Siemens, Die biologischen Grundlagen , 10-11.

2. Max von Gruber, "Wilhelm Schallmayer," ARGB 14 (1922): 52.

3. Fritz Lenz, "Wilhelm Schallmayer," Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift 66 (1919): 1294-1296.

4. This point is discussed in two letters from Wilhelm Schallmayer to the Swiss eugenicist August Forel. The first dates from April 24, 1906. See Hans Walser, ed., August Forel. Briefe—Correspondenz 1864-1927 (Bern: Hans Huber, 1968), 383. The second was found in the August Forel Archive of the University of Zürich and was kindly brought to my attention by Dr. Peter Zörner. Its date is illegible.

5. See for example Fritz Lenz's justification of the term Rassenhygiene in Lenz, "Zum Begriff der Rassenhygiene und seine Benennung," ARGB 11 (1914-15): 445-448.

6. Ploetz, "Unser Weg" (pamphlet found in the Ploetz family archive), 2.

7. Widar-Blätter , no. 1 (August 1919): 1-10.

8. Alfred Ploetz, "Ziele und Aufgabe der Rassenhygiene," Vierteljahrsschrift für öffentliche Gesundheitspflege 43 (1911): 190; Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer, and Fritz Lenz, Grundri b der menschlichen Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1923), 2:206.

9. The name "German Society for Race Hygiene" dates only as far back as 1910. Between 1905 and 1907 the society appears to have simply been called Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene. From 1907 to 1910 the society was known as the Internationale Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene—reflecting Ploetz's hope that the Society would attract a large number of foreign members. When it became clear that non-German eugenicists were more inclined to join eugenics organizations in their own countries, Ploetz and other German eugenicists officially changed the name continue

of the society. The criteria for membership discussed in the text refer to those of the 1905-1907 society. Alfred Ploetz, "2. Bericht der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene" (report found in the Ploetz family archive), 3.

10. Gruber, "Wilhelm Schallmayer," 55.

11. Georg Lilienthal has suggested that the society actually split. Lilienthal, "Rassenhygiene im Dritten Reich," 117; Paul Weindling rightly points out the serious tensions between the Berlin and Munich chapters of the society, but does not suggest that there were two movements. Weindling, "Weimar Eugenics," 315. For a discussion of these tensions between nonracist and racist eugenicists during the Weimar period see my forthcoming article, "The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany," in Osiris 3 (1987).

12. Emphasis in the original. Form letter by E. Baur et al., for the Berliner Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene, 18 Dec. 1917, Bundesarchiv, R86, 2371, fol. 90.

13. "Geleitwort," Eugenik 1 (1930): n.p.

14. Eugenik was the successor journal to the Berlin Volksaufartung, Erblehre, Eheberatung (1928-1930), which in turn succeeded the Zeitschrift für Volksaufartung und Erbkunde (1926-1927). Unlike its predecessors, however, Eugenik was not officially tied to the Deutscher Bund für Volksaufartung (German Alliance for National Regeneration), a nonracist Berlin-based organization comprised primarily of eugenically-minded Prussian civil servants. It had a more left-wing and populist orientation than the society and eventually merged with the latter in 1931.

15. Hermann Muckermann, "Illustrationen zu der Frage: Wohlfahrtspflege und Eugenik," Eugenik 2 (1931): 42.

16. "Eugenische Tagung des Preussischen Landesgesundheitsrates," Eugenik 2 (1931-1932): 187-189; Lilienthal, "Rassenhygiene im Dritten Reich," 119-120; Joachim Müller, "Sterilisation und Gestzgebung bis 1933" (paper delivered at the Institute for the History of Medicine in Mainz, 7 Nov. 1978), 13-18. Although under the 1932 proposal sterilization would have remained legally voluntary—and this is an important difference between it and the Nazi Law—it was hardly "voluntary" in the sense that those who were to undergo the operation could make a free choice. Termination of welfare support was just one of the many indirect coercive methods used to ensure the prospective candidates' compliance. It goes without saying that none of the German eugenicists viewed sterilization as a "right" that individuals could exercise to satisfy their own personal needs; it was a technology to be employed in the service of the "health of the nation." Bock, Gisela, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 49-52. break

17. Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 80. For a discussion of the requests for sterilization see 80-83.

18. Lilienthal, "Rassenhygiene im Dritten Reich," 120.

19. Lenz, "Die Stellung des Nationalsozialismus zur Rassenhygiene," ARGB 25 (1931): 300.

20. Lenz found Hitler's rabid anti-Semitism too extreme. Ibid., 302.

21. Ibid., 301.

20. Lenz found Hitler's rabid anti-Semitism too extreme. Ibid., 302.

21. Ibid., 301.

22. On May 26, 1933, several months prior to the sterilization law of July, 1933, eugenic sterilizations were effectively legalized by changing the wording of an already existing law dealing with "bodily injury." Although it did not mention the word "eugenic," the new addition to §226 (§226a) was designed to enable physicians to sterilize "defective" individuals without fear of prosecution. Under §226a patients (or their legal guardians) were still required to give their consent to the operation. However, the voluntary nature of this "consent" must be called into question when one considers that it was often presented to patients as a condition for their release from an asylum. Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 83.

23. "Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses," ARGB 27 (1933): 420-423; Robert N. Proctor, "Pawns or Pioneers? The Role of Doctors in the Origins of Nazi Racial Science" (Ms, Harvard University, 1982), 44.

24. Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 84. The proposal was probably drafted by the Director of the Commission of National Health Service, Dr. Arthur Gütt. Proctor, "Pawns or Pioneers," 45.

25. Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 85.

26. Baader and Schultz, Medizin und Nationalsozialismus , 145-146. The estimated cost for sterilizing the "defective" and the estimated financial savings was reported in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association 102 (1934): 630-631. See William E. Seidelmann, "From Hippocrates to the Holocaust," unpub. paper delivered at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, February 14, 1985, 7.

27. Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 237-238; Gisela Bock, "Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State," in When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany , ed. Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), 279-280. According to Bock, approximately 53% were sterilized for "feeblemindedness" and about 20 0.000000or "schizophrenia." Between 1934 and 1937, approximately 80 men and 400 women died as a result of the operation.

28. Bock, "Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany," 280-282.

29. Proctor, "Pawns or Pioneers," 78.

30. Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus , 94-95. The 1935 continue

revision of the sterilization law allowed for the castration of homosexuals with their "consent."

31. For a brief discussion of these pronatal strategies see Bock, "Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany," 276-277; a far more exhaustive treatment can be found in Bock's book. One of Bock's most valuable contributions is her demonstration that, contrary to popular belief, antinatalism rather than pronatalism was the more significant feature of Nazi racial and population policy. The two, however, went hand in hand. It should, of course, be noted that there were also explicitly racist pronatal policies. The best example of this was Himmler's Lebensborn program. For a full account of its history see Lilienthal, Der "Lebensborn e.V."

32. Bock, "Racism and Sexism," 277.

33. At this time the society came under the "Führer principle," which meant loss of any independence and democratic control.

34. Richard Goldschmidt held a post in the prestigious Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Biologie in Berlin until he, like most Jewish civil servants, was dismissed from his post with the passage of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on April 7, 1933. Goldschmidt was a strong advocate of sterilization legislation during the late Weimar years. Weindling, "Weimar Eugenics," 309, 315.

35. Lilienthal, "Rassenhygiene im Dritten Reich," 123.

36. See, for example, Otto Helmut, Volk in Gefahr: Der Geburtenrückgang und seine Folgen für Deutschlands Zukunft (Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1934) and Friedrich Burgdörfer, Völker am Abgrund (Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1936).

37. The terms Erbpflege and Rassenpflege are discussed in Otto Freiherr von Verschuer, Leitfaden der Rassenhygiene (Leipzig: Georg Thieme, 1941), 125; and in an article by Arthur Gütt, "Auslese und Lebensauslese in ihre Bedeutung für Erbgesundheit und Rassenpflege," in Erblehre und Rassenhygiene im völkischen Staat , ed. Ernst Rüdin (Munich: J. F. Lehmann, 1934), 118.

38. It should be noted that with possible exception of Lenz, who served on a committee designed to formulate a law permitting euthanasia—a law that never saw the light of day because the action always remained officially secret—the professional eugenicists were not involved in this incident directly, and did not view it as a part of race hygiene. Indeed, according to Weindling, Rüdin apparently suffered a loss of funds owing to his refusal to go along with euthanasia. Weindling, "Race, Blood, and Politics," 13. This does not mean, of course, that the action was not known and at least half-heartedly supported by continue

many active race hygienists. There is an extensive literature on this tragic episode. The most exhaustive account is Ernst Klee, "Euthanasie" im NS-Staat. Die "Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens" (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1983). Other accounts include Benno Müller-Hill, Tödliche Wissenschaft ; Kurt Nowak, "Euthanasie" und Sterilisierung im Dritten Reich. Die Konfrontation der evangelischen und katholischen Kirche mit dem "Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses" und der "Euthanasie"-Aktion , 3d ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1984); Baader and Schultz, Medizin und Nationalsozialismus , 95-101; Proctor, "Pawns or Pioneers," 93-102; Frederic Wertham, A Sign for Cain (New York: Werner Paperback Library, 1973), chapter 9; Alice Platen-Hallermond, Die Tötung Geisteskranken in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Hefte, 1948); Alexander Mitschelich and Fred Mielke, eds., Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit: Dokumente des Nürnberger Ärzteprozesses (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1978); Klaus Dörner, "Nationalsozialismus und Lebensvernichtung," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 15 (1967): 121-152; Karl Heinz Hafner and Rolf Winau, "'Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens': Eine Untersuchung zu der Schrift von Karl Binding und Alfred Hoche," Medizinhistorisches Journal 9 (1974): 227-254.

39. Most provocative in the elaboration of this view is Richard L. Rubenstein's The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 33. Rubenstein argues that Germany's Jews became "surplus people" through a bureaucratic sleight-of-hand: the removal of their citizenship in 1935. Once most of Europe's Jews became stateless and rightless, argues Rubenstein, the Nazis violated no law by exterminating them since these people were no longer covered by any law.

40. Müller-Hill, Tödliche Wissenschaft , 73-74. The connection of "eugenic racism" and "bureaucratic, scientific and faultlessly efficient genocide of the scale of the Holocaust" is also advanced by Gisela Bock in "Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany," 283, although my own views were arrived at without prior knowledge of her outstanding work. break