Eugenics In Nazi Germany

During World War II in Nazi Germany, over 200 doctors conducted painful, barbaric, and typically lethal experiments on concentration camp prisoners, often against their will. The overt purpose of these experiments included increasing survival odds of military personnel, testing pharmaceuticals and treatments to cure illnesses and injuries, and researching methods to promote “German nationalism.” However, the covert purpose of many of these medical experiments was for the Nazi’s to implement the “Final Solution,” a plan which ultimately resulted in the extermination of over 6 million Jews.1 While perhaps only the highest ranking Nazi doctors were privy to the grand Nazi strategy concerning medical experimentation on prisoners, a rather wide

First, the global history of the eugenics movement is contextually relevant to this study since eugenics policies provided the backbone which legitimized the prisoner medical experimentation program in Nazi Germany. In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species, in which he elucidated his Theory of Evolution through natural selection. Darwin suggested that species arise and thrive through inherited variations that increase the species’ ability to compete, survive and reproduce in order to pass on favorable traits to offspring. Sociologist Herbert Spencer took Darwin’s Theory of Evolution one step further, by proposing that societies behave like organisms and also evolve through natural selection. Spencer believed that strong cultures containing individuals with genetically advantageous characteristics would eventually overpower weak cultures containing individuals with genetically disadvantageous characteristics. Spencer’s theory, later named Social Darwinism, expanded globally in the 1870’s providing the basis for a subsequent eugenics movement. As Richard Weikart of Johns Hopkins University, wrote “The eugenics movement emerged…forthrightly based on Darwinian presuppositions”2 [SHOULDN’T THIS FOOTNOTE ‘2’ BE AT END OF SENTENCE?]because it allowed for a scientific explanation to justify why the population should be controlled. Thus, scientists and nations sought to implement Spencer’s theory, and embraced eugenics as a means to create a better world. Eugenicists believed that in order to have a successful society with the more desired traits, individuals with “negative” characteristics should not be permitted to reproduce. One of the world’s first eugenics movements, the