The Role Of Eugenics In Nazi Germany

While the American eugenics movement spread, Germany was eager to embrace the new pseudo-science, as well. In 1923, Dr. Fritz Lenz, a German physician-geneticist and an advocate of forced sterilization, would “berate his countrymen for their backwardness in the domain of sterilization as compared with the United States.”4 Furthermore, American eugenics supporters became active participants in the global expansion of eugenics. For example, the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the largest supporters of the American eugenics movement, helped fund various eugenics programs in Germany, including the one that was established at Auschwitz concentration camp. Additionally, eugenics researcher Harry H. Laughlin, who helped write the U.S. model eugenic sterilization laws, provided an inspiration and basis
Thus, it was the U.S. that was the most critical influence in the creation of eugenics policies in Nazi Germany. Equally contextually important as the global history of the eugenics movement, was the unstable political environment of Germany at the time. With the end of World War I in 1918, Germany was left in relative disarray. Under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to accept the blame for the war, pay reparations to the Allied Nations, reduce its army, destroy its air force, and give up its colonies.6 The terms of the treaty not only left the previously proud German people humiliated and angry, but it also created a very unstable economic environment which incited civil unrest. The “economy in Germany steadily grew worse, eventually devaluing [its currency] to an exchange rate of 4.2 trillion marks to one U.S. dollar…[leading] to the German policy of passive resistance.”7 The ruling