The Rise of Materialistic Scientism in Germany
©1995 T.D. Hall, Ph.D.

 

"Racial Science" of Ernst Haeckel

Racial Science: (1880’s-1945) “Racial science” in later 19th century Germany was based on the declaration of Ernst Haeckel that the races are “separate species.” Once the concept of races as “separate species” was defined, the next step was to distinguish between “progressive races” and “regressive races” (species), and then making “scientific” recommendations regarding “eugenic improvement.” One highly influential race scientist was Alfred Jost, author of The Right to Death (1865). The main thesis of the Jost book was that the “final solution” to the “population problem” is state control over human reproduction. The book is couched in the rhetoric of (Darwinian) “natural rights.” The state, according to Jost, has a “natural right” and “sacred responsibility” to kill undesirable individuals in order to “keep the nation, the social organism, alive and healthy.” This so-called “right” was the basis for the “race purification” programs of the Third Reich. Another key individual was Alfred Ploetz, Social Darwinist and founder (1904) of the German Society for Racial Hygiene. Ploetz looked to Galton as his scientific mentor.

Bismarkian Militarism

“Blood and Iron” Militarism: Not until 1860’s were the German states unified into Germany, by Karl Otto Eduard Leopold Bismark-Schonhausen, usually referred to simply as “Bismark,” (1815-1898). Bismark set the tone of the new German empire in 1862, when he said, “Not by speeches and resolutions of majorities are the mighty problems of the age to be solved, but by blood and iron.” The “Iron Chancellor” originated these measures for the working classes; it was the foundation for state socialism. His methodology is sometimes referred to as “paternalism.” The Germany military at the turn of the century, educated in the “school of Blood and Iron,” took to Social Darwinism like tanks to battle (an appropriate parallel to “ducks to water.”) One key military opinion leader in early 20th century Germany was retired General Bernhardi, who is quoted in chapter three: “If it were not for war, we should probably find that inferior and degenerate races would overcome healthy and youthful ones of their wealth and their numbers.” The generative importance of war lies in this, that it causes selection, and thus war becomes a biological necessity. Combine race science with Bismarkian militaristic paternalism, and we have the formula for the Third Reich, personified in Adolph Hitler.

German-American Eugenics Liaison

German-American Eugenics Liaison (1919-1939): Under the highly punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty, Germany was physically contracted and stripped of her colonies. In Social Darwinistic terms, this contraction was not simply a punishment, it was a death sentence. Any country [that subscribed to Malthusian beliefs] that did not “have room to dump its surplus population,” would perish. Blocked in terms of discharging its “surplus population” into colonies, Germany was compelled to find an internal solution to the “population problem.” It was no alleviation that vast numbers had perished in the First World War. The blood of the noblest had been shed, it was believed, and “the blood of the degenerates” now threatened to inundate Germany. Race scientists found in America the model they were looking for--the precedent of sterilization and other means of control of “undesirable population” on a significant scale.

Fritz Lenz

In 1923, Fritz Lenz, a German physician-geneticist who became a leading ideologue in the Nazi race purification programs, complained bitterly that Germany, under the Weimar Constitution (which prohibited the infliction of bodily alterations on humans), prevented widespread use of vasectomy techniques, and that Germany had nothing to match the eugenics research institutions in England and the United States. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, there was a significant flow of eugenics information from the United States to Germany, which was later used by Hitler to provide his genocidal programs with the appearance of scientific legitimacy. Eugenics was not simply a German interest, so the propaganda machine declared, it is a “science” practiced throughout the world. Best references are the oft-cited Lifton book, The Nazi Doctors, and Stefen Kuhl’s The Nazi Connection--Eugenics, American Racism and German National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

The Third Reich

The Third Reich (1933-1945): As early as the publication of Mein Kampf (1924), Hitler declared that the sacred survival mission of the German people was the “assembling and preserving of the most valuable stocks of basic racial elements [and]...slowly and severely raising them to a dominant position.” The Third Reich was a powerful machine designed to do just that, to assure the worldwide dominance of the Germanic genes, the “basic racial elements.” Hitler was no madman--he was the ultimate Social Darwinist demagog.

The Kaiser Wilhelm Society

During the period of Hitler, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG), Germany’s most prestigious scientific institution, focused a great deal of its attention on eugenics. The KWG operated between 1911 and 1945. If Hitler had won, it would now be the “Vatican” of Scientism. See Science, Technology and National Socialism, by Monika Renneburg and Mark Walker (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Note especially an essay by Herbert Mehrten (“Irresponsible Purity,” etc.), which makes the very important point that “pure science” is no valid justification for participation in scientific work involved in destructive or questionable political programs. “Pure science” is then defined as irresponsible.

The Nuremburg Trials

The Nuremburg Trials: As showcase for the display of righteous indignation, the Nuremburg trials were very effective. As a means for determining the causes behind the horror perpetrated by the Third Reich, the trials were an abject failure. A few notorius leaders of the Third Reich were condemned and disposed of. Most of the scientists associated with the Reich were quickly assimilated into the scientific and intelligence establishments of the Allies. The scientific vision underlying the Third Reich--Social Darwinism--was of course never brought to trial. A few fanatical puppets of the paradigm were slain. The paradigm itself remained, and remains to this day.