Nazi Movement and Eugenics

Paul Weindling, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

Published online: September 2006

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0005604

Pre-war Nazi ideas about the need to keep the population free from the burden of ‘unfit’ persons led first to eugenic measures and then to a widespread sterilization program. This paved the way for coercive euthanasia and finally the Holocaust, both of which were (to the shame of the science) exploited as research material by the German geneticists of the day.

Keywords: genocide; euthanasia; positive eugenics; negative eugenics; sterilization

 References
    Benzenhöfer U (1998) Der Fall ‘Kind Knauer’. Deutsches Ärzteblatt 95: B954–B955.
    book Weindling PJ (1989) Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Related Sub-Topics:

Bioethics | History
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Article Title: Nazi Movement and Eugenics
 
How to Cite close
Weindling, Paul(Sep 2006) Nazi Movement and Eugenics. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0005604]