Eugenics before 1945

458

Jakob Tann er

Eugenics before 1945

In Germany, a majorturn was brought about in the field of eti.genics by the uncon­ditional surrender of the Wehrmacht, the final collapse of the terrorist NS-dictator­ship and the liberation of Nazi-Europe by the Allied Forces. As the Holocaust, the whole project for «conquering ofLebensraum in the east» and the eugenic and eu­thanasia programs of the NS-State were stopped, the significance of eugenics as both a broad social movement and a scientific concept in Germany and the occupied territories was effectively reversed. Indeed, a few years later, in 1949, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) stipulated that <<the dignity of men is unimpeachable». As Nancy L. Stepan has put it «After World War II Nazi eugenics was rightly condernned as a gross perversion of science and morality; the word itself was purged from the vocabulary of science and public debate.»1 This semantic wa­tershed was not lirnited though to the sphere of influence of the extinct «Third Reich». It had a strong irnpact in most European and many other countries.

1. Eugenics = Nazism?

It was in the 196os that historical research began to question the assumption of a decisive <<Zero houD> in German and also European history. 2 Particularly a:fter the Franlcfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963/65) the recognition of the manifold continuities before and a:fter 1945 seeped into the public consciousness. Paradoxically, the per­ception that eugenics was something intrinsically tied to the NS regirne was rein­forced by this change. Especially in the 197os, the identification of eugenics with Nazism became stronger than ever_3 This created a situation in which any allusion

1 N. Lays Stepan, <<The Hour ofEugenics>>. Race, Gen­der, and Nation in Latin America, Ithaca-London 1991,4-

2 C. Klessmann, 1945 - welthistorische Zäsur und «Stunde Null>>, 2oro, Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, http:lldocupedia.delzgl1945·

3 G. Broberg I N. Roll-Hansen (ed.), Bugenies and the Welfare State. Sterilization Policy in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, East Lansing 1996 (Preface of the 2005-edition), X.

Eugenics before 1945 459

to «eugenics» ahnost automatically evoked associations with the «Nazi>> atrocities and violations ofhuman rights.

When Scandinavian historians- working on Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland- came up with accounts in the 1990s on the continuation of eugenic pro­grammes and sterilization practices in their countries up, until the early 1970s,4

these historical findings were immediately tied to the NS-regime. The alarm that was sounded by the mass media raised the following question: Who would have ever thought that some of the worst crimes of the Third Reich could have survived in democratic countries (besides the Scandinavian countriesalso the United States)s and Switzerland6?

In this situation, historians start emphasizing <<the multifarious dimensions and extraordinary appeal of eugenics to individuals of very different social background, political convictions, and national affiliations», as Franl< Dikötter notes in a Review Essay in 1998_? Not only did the continuity a:fter 1945 come under scrutiny, but also the crucial question of how <<the ordinary eugenics of the 1920s and ear:ly 1930s became the extraordinary eugenics of Nazi Germany?» could be raised in a new way.8 In their German Anthropology in the Age of Empire Matti Bunzl and Glenn Penny stated: «As the essays in this volume illustrate, however, no clear trajectory can be drawn froin the complex and multiple constellations that characterized impe­rial anthropology to the race science embraced by the Nazis. [ ... ] Instead of a nine­teenth-century explanation for the crimes of the twentieth, this volume ultimately illuminates German ethnology and anthropology as local phenomena, best ap­proached on the terms of their own worldly provincialism.»9 This thesis is much in

4 Broberg I Roll-Hansen, Bugenies and the Welfare State; N. Roll-Hansen, «Eugenics before World War I!: The Case ofNorway>>, in: History ofPhilo­sophy of the Lift Seiences 2 (1981), 269-298; M. Rundis, Steriliseringar i folkhemmet, Stockholm 1998 (with English surnmary); L. Koch, «The Me­aning of Eugenics. Reflections on the Govern­ment of Genetic Knowledge in the Past and the Present>>, in: Science in Context 17 (2004) 3, 1-17.

5 I. R. Dowbiggin, Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Bugenies in the United States and Canada, 1880-1940, Ithaca et aL 1997; L. Briggs, Reprodu­cing Empire. Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperia­lism in Puerto Rico, Berkeley 2002; A. Kerr I T. Shakespeare, Genetic Politics. From Bugenies to Genome, Cheltenham 2002; A. M. Stern, Bugenie Nation. Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America, Berkeley 2005.

6 R. Wecker, <<Frauenkörper, Volkskörper, Staats­körper: Zu Eugenik und Politik in der Schweiz>>, in: Itinera 20 (1998), 209-226; M. Meier et aL, Zwang zur Ordnung: Psychiatrie im Kanton Zürich

1870-19J0, Zürich 2007; H. J. Ritter, Psychiatrie und Eugenik: zur Ausprägung eugenischer Denk­und Handlungsmuster in der schweizerischen Psychi­atrie, 1850-1950, Zürich 2009; T. Huonker, Diag­nose: moralisch difokt, Kastration, Sterilisation und Rassenhygiene im Dienst der Schweizer Sozialpolitik und Psychiatrie, 1890-1970, Zürich 2003.

7 F. Dikötter, <<Race Culture: Recent Perspectives on the History of Eugenics», in: The American Histo­rical Review 103 (1998), 467_:478.

8 Ibid., 6. 9 M. Bunzll H. G. Penny, «<ntroduction: Rethin­

king German Anthropology, Colonialism and Race», in: H. G. Penny I M. Bunzl (eds.), Worldl} Provincialism. German Anthropology in the Age OJ Empire, Ann Arbor 2003, 2, 30. This view con­trasts with <<From-to»-accounts such as: R. Wei­kart, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, New York 2004; A. Pichot, La socitti pure: de Darwin a Hitler, Paris 2000.

460 Jakob Tanner

line with Paul Weindling's understanding that «the synthesis between Nazism and eugenics was a process of adaption and appropriation on both sides.»10

The study «What is National Sodalist about Eugenics» summarizes the current state of research.11 The new explanatory framework does not deny that, after 1933, the eugenic issue was indeed closely linked to racial concepts, aggressive racist ide­ologies and radicalized anti-Seinitism, which constituted the bedrock of the Nazi state.12 It also states that eugenics was neither confined to the NS regime or fascist countries nor liinited to the period before 1945. It was, on the contrary, embedded in the democratic principles of societies with a full-blown legal system and a highly developed sense of social justice and responsibility. As a «biologically based move­ment for social reform»13, eugenics was a pervasive trend and ingrained in popula­tion politics, fainily planning, disease prevention, public cost control and other fields of activity of the modern social state.14 In re-evaluating eugenics in twentieth-cen­tury France, William H. Schneider shows how it «provided a broad cover for a variety of movements that aimed at the biological regeneration, such as natalism, neo-Mal­thusianism, social hygiene and racist immigration restrictions».15 More generally, eugellic efforts were expected to contribute to the solution of some of the most ur­gent problems of industrialization and urbanization. Apparently, democratic societ­ies were not bound to a strict compliance with the civic and civil rights which form

10 P. Weindling, Health, Race and Gennan Po!itics, between National Unification and Nazism 1870-1945, Cambridge 1989, 7- See also: A S. Rick­mann, Rassenpflege im völlcischen Staat: vom Ver­hältnis der Rassenhygiene zur nationalsozialistischen Politik, Bonn 2002; E. Klautke, <<<The Germans Are Beating Us in Our Own Game>: American Eu­genies and the German Sterilization Law of 1933», typoscript 20rr (forthcoming in: Journal of Con­temporary History).

11 R. Wedcer et al. (eds.), What is National Sodalist about Eugenics? International Debates on the His­tory ofEugenics in the zoth Century (=Wie national­sozialistisch ist die Eugenik? Internationale Debatten zur Geschichte der Eugenik im 20. Jahrhundert), Wien et al. 2009.

12 For an overview over eugenic, euthanasia and sterilisation-programmes in NS-Germany, see Weindling, Health, Race and Gennan Politics; P. Weingart 1 J. Kroll 1 K. Bayertz, Rasse, Blut und Gene. Geschichte der Eugenik und Rassenhygiene in Deutschland, Frankfurt am Main 1988; A. Ley, Zwangssterilisation und Arzteschaft. Hintergründe und Ziele ärztlichen Handelns 1934-1945, Frank­furt am Main-New York 2004; G. Bock, Zwangs­sterilisation im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik, Opladen 1986; H. Friedlander, Der Weg zum NS-Genozid: von der

Euthanasie zur Endlösung, Berlin 1997; H.-W. Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, Nationalsozialismus, Eu­thanasie: von der Verhütung zur Vernichtung «lebensunwerten . Lebens>> 1890-1945, Göttingen 1992; M. Burleigh, Ethics and Extermination: Re­flections on Nazi Genocide, Cambridge et al. 1997; J.-C. Kaiser 1 K. Nowalc 1M. Schwartz, Eugenik, Sterilisation, Euthanasie: politische Biologie in Deutschland 1895-1945. Eine Dokumentation, Ber­lin 1992-

13 W. H. Schneider, Quality and Quantity: the Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France, Cambridge et al. 1990, 4·

14 P.-A Rosental, L'intelligence dtrnographique: scien­ces et politiques des populations en .France (1930-1960 ), Paris 2003; P. Krassnit2er 1 P. Overath (eds.), Bevölkerungifragen. Prozesse des Wissen­stransfers in Deutschland und Frankreich (1870-1939), Köln et al. 2007; G. Della Zuanna, Numeri e potere. Statistica e demografia nella cultura italiana fra le dueguerre, Napoli 2004; J. Ehmer 1 U. Ferdi­nand I J. Reulecke ( eds.), Herausforderung Bevölke­rung. Zu Entwicklungen des modernen Denkens über die Bevölkerung vor, im und nach dem Dritten Reich, Wiesbaden 2007.

15 Schneider, Qua!ity and Quantity, 4-

Eugenics before 1945 461

the basis of their constitutions. With the rise of nationalism and the accelerated formation of nation states in the nineteenth century, the very concept of rights was permeated by an ideology of community which generated strong emotions of soli­darity and which could also be used to expel groups, «foreign bodies», «inferior races», «vagrant individuals», etc. from the body of the colle<;tive. These «moral Sen­timents» were not universalistic but confined to national boundaries, ethnic identi­fication or racial affiliation and organized in terms of criteria like public health, ho­mogeneity and purity.

Stating these priorities does not confound the totalitarian NS state with the po­litical modus operandi of democracies nor does it distort the «global history of eugen­ics» in a way proposed by Edwin Black in his book War against the weak. Black sug­gests that the phantasmagorical imagination of a «pure and supreme master Aryan . race» was concocted in the United States of America before 1933 and then exported to Germanyto form the ideological nucleus ofNazi racial hygiene policy.16 Certainly, the NS regime did not rely on American racism and expertise in order to implement eugenic legislation founded on a racist and anti-Seinitic worldview. While they were on an equal footing in terms of science and eugenic legislation and this was passed and applied in both countries, the social and political context was significantly differ­ent, as were the levels of public resonance and scientific support for eugenic rac­ism.17 The strong argument, driven home by Horkheimer and Adorno in their Dia­

lectics of Enlightenment in 1944 and reintroduced by Zygmunt Bauman in his Modernity and the Holocaust18 in 1989 is Inisunderstood when it results in the thesis that there is no significant difference between democratic systems and dictatorship. Quite the reverse, in stating that, in its intrinsic ambivalence, modernity is not auto­matically related to political and social progress ( of any kind), it fosters an awareness of the importance of institutional mechanisms that are capable of maintaining a decisive difference, not between the modern and the barbaric, but between modern democracy and modem dictatorship.

2. Multiple Genealogies ofEugenics

Propositions about how to guarantee the health and robustness of the population through political supervision of human reproduction can be traced to antiquity. Since the eighteenth century, Plato's Republic became a topic in debates conceming selective breeding in both the animal world and among humans. This appropriation of old ideas in a new context changed their meaning. During the last third of the nineteenth century, a Darwinian approach was mingled with degeneration fears,

16 E. Black, War Against the Weak. Bugenies and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York 2004; for this tendency see W. Schivelbusch, Entfernte Verwandtschaft: Faschismus, Nationalis­mus, New Deal1933-1939, München 2005.

17 Klautke, «The Germansare Beating Us». 18 Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, Cam­

bridge 2005 [first published in 1989].

462 Jakob Tann er

mostly of Catholic origin.19 The result was a Contradietory eugenic thinking that was shaped by the imagined threats and advanced by the shared aspirations of social groups which were eager to fashion society «in accord with their purposes by taldng some of these beliefs, transforming some of them, and adding new elements». 20

The threshold for the advent of eugenics as a legal-medical concept and a broad palliative for all sorts of social evils was crossed only after 1900. In the previous de­cades, a multitude of theoretical trajeetories, political visions and social capacities had developed in a way that might be described as «simultaneity of the non-simulta­

neous». One important impetus came from Francis~ Galton's Hereditary Genius, pub­

lished in r86 9. Galton aimed at coping with the pro blem of physical, intelleemal and moral degeneration which was placed on the agenda by different authors, especially the French psychiatrist and devout Catholic Beneillet Augustin Morel, who released his seminal Traite des degenerescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espece hu­maine et des causes qui produisent ces varitetes maladives in Paris in r857. Infl.uenced by the so-called «Morel's law»- which had found resonance beyond its initial religious connotation in liberal strands of thinking, accelerating the dissemination ofbiologi­cal values since the r86os- Galton advanced the hypothesis that intellectual abilities were transmitted over time from generation to generation. The British scientist was among the first to assert that <<intelligence>> was a scientifically meaningful concept, that it was subjeet to laws ofheredity and, as a consequence, accessible to human engineering. He dosely coordinated the practice «to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running» and the project «to produce a highly gifted race of men by judicious marriages during sev­eral consecutive generations>>.21 In order to prove his assumptions were correet, Gal­

ton gathered and produced statistical evidence. Although Galton never produced a satisfaetory measurement of intelligence, his

daim had a strong impaet ori discussions of social problems. The apparent lade of scientific concepts was overcompensated for by the proliferation of a colourfullan­guage that permitted cultural and social phenomena to be translated into biological facts and hereditary circumstances. The appropriate solution to such problems had to coincide rhetorically with the paradigms ofbiological evolution and heredity. The Galton proposals for human intervention into the problern of differential birth rates in the late r86os and r87os were subsequently labelled «positive>> because theywere addressed to the upper dasses. They should - this was the chief message - recog­nize their responsibility and spread their «genius>> by means of an intensified pro-

19 J.-C. Coffin, La transmission de la folie, 1850-1914· Paris 2003.

20 D. MacKenzie, <<Eugenics in BritaiiD>, in: Social Studies ofScience 6 (1976), 499-532, 502.

21 F. Galten, Hereditary Genius. An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences, London 1978 [reprint of the r869-edition, introduced by H. J. Eysenck], I.

Eugenics before 1945 463

creation within large families. Avant la lettre, eugenics was about the promotion of higher reproduction among those social dasses with superior hereditary traits.

In the following decades, however, the problern of degeneration became part of the debate on the socially negative effeets of the industrialization process. Around the same time, a fundamental crisis of «old liberalisiiD> occurred. As a consequence, the perception of the issue of degeneration changed dramatically. Moreover, from the r87os onward the British upper and middle dasses, unlike the lower social dasses, limited family size in order to stabilize or raise their financialliving Stan­dard. Consequently, the elites became uneasy about the prospeet that they could be overwhelmed by so-called «inferior stocks>> or «trash people>>- that is, by an acceler­ated demographic growth triggered by fertile strata of the population which were considered tobe either problematic or potentially revolutionary. Under the new re­gime of perception, the so-called positive approach was substituted by the negative one: motivation (to produce more of the «desired>>) was replaced by repression (of the «undesired>>).

In this context, the debate on «eugenics>> and- with a certain time lag- on ster­ilization programmes emerged. The decisive semantic innovation was again made by Galton. In r883, he coined the term «eugenics».22 As a fervent advocate of quan­titative analysis, Galton pursued an empirical approach, based on statistical meth­ods, in order to end up in «racial improvement>> through selective human breeding.

Galton's emphasis was on dass. He uses the term «race>> rather to describe a «stock», an aggregate of individuals which can be described by statistical measures like average and variation.2

3 Galton's primary assumption is that biological value and hereditary fitness are expressed in social standing and that the dass position of each individual is therefore a social marker ofhis genetic worthiness. He mapped out British society along the lines of dass hierarchy, which made his suggestion ap­pealing to the elites and the better-off. Thus even before the eugenic movement started to fl.ourish around r 9 o o, it was a go-od example of the «relationship between scientific ideas and the interests and purposes of social groups>>.2 4 Galton attraeted attention not only by advancing new theses about the problems of British society, but also in using innovative visual representations of his statistical findings which were displayed in many of Galton's artides from that period and which also started to circulate in popular media. He uses scientific knowledge to embark on a new understanding of social morality. In his «Essays in Eugenics>>, published in 1909, he stated that «Eugenics strengthens the sense of social duty>> and «Eugenic belief[ ... ] sternly forbids all forms of sentimental charity that are harmful to the race, while it

22 F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its De- Scandinavian Journal ofHistory 24 (1999), !45-velopment, London r883. r62.

23 D. Porter, <<Eugenics and the Sterilization Debate 24 MacKenzie, <<Eugenics in Britain>>, 499· in Sweden and Britain before World War II>>, in:

eagerly seeks opportunities for acts of personal kindness, as some equivalent to the loss of what it forbids.» Accordingly, «eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature.»2s In this way, Galton established a perfidious feedback loop between the support of eugenics and a noble character. Those groups that were attracted to eugenics, and approved and sup­ported the concept, in effect demonstrated their intellectual, moral and biological superiority. Critiques from other groups, conversely, gave unequivocal proof of their inferiority.

3- lamarck, Darwin, Mende!

Even if Galton thought of eugenics as being more than «a mere vision in Utopia>>,

underlining that «the practice ofEugenics has already obtained a considerable hold on popular estimation, and is steadily acquiring the status of a practical question», 26

there was a utopian drive in the eugenic rnission of rniddle-class «Darwinian demagogues»2

7 who propagated «radal-hygiene» and «public health». They tried to strengthen their position by crusading for eugenic ideas in the name of averarehing sodal norms and moral values or by dairning that the survival of the race underpin­ning the state could only be guaranteed by a consequent eugenic reconfiguration of races or national populations. This moral enterprise was intimately bound to a ca­reerist mentality, for it implied the opportunity for sodal advancement as weil as for greater earning potential.28

It took two decades, however, before eugenics had both gained sdentific respect­ability and become a sodal movement and project for biological solutions for sodal problems. The rediscovery of the Mendelian laws in 1900 unleashed new im­

pulses for eugenic thinking. In Britain, it was Karl Pearson, professor of applied mathematics and mechanics at University College, London, and a beacon for statis­tical analysis, who explored what he considered to be relevant phenotypical differ­ences (stature, cephalic index, eye colour, fertility, and longevity).29 This obsession

with difference among humans and nations produced a strong hierarchical bias, whereby differences were mainly perceived in terms of superior versus inferior and of intelligent versus feebleminded. Whenever sdentists start to judge populations through the lenses of <<radal improvement», their prejudices are inevitably corrobo­rated. In the end, eugenic assumptions worked as kinds of propagandistic self-ful­filling prophedes. In general, eugenic concepts like that of an inherited constitution were accepted in medidne, espedally in psychiatry, biology, sodology and sodal work.30

F. Galton, <<Eugenics as a Factor in Religion>>, in: idem, Essays in Eugenics, London 1909, 68-70. Galton, Essays in Eugenics, preface. Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 36. Ibid., 33·

29 A. McLaren, Our Own Master Race. Bugenies in Ca­nada, 1885-1945, Toronto r990, r6.

30 Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 9·

Neither Mendelianism nor Darwinism was a theoretical prerequisite for develop­ing eugenic approaches. In France, neo-Lamarckianism, based on the assumption that acquired characteristics could be inherited, flourished and was combined with pro-natalist measures and positive eugenics. The sdentific framewerk was in gen­eral so blurred and heterogeneaus that no uniform sdentific discourse could be es­tablishedY

The driving forces for a law enforcement of eugenic measures were public health reformers and sodal-Darwinist ideologists who aimed at implementing effective eures against what they judged to be a degenerative threat to the sodety.32 They made their first appearance in the United States in the last years of the nineteenth

century. In 1896, Connecticut introduced marriage restrictions and many US states irnitated this type oflaw. In 1907, Indiana became a pioneer in the compulsory ster­ilization of individuals. The Indiana Supreme Court repealed the respective law, but the US Supreme Court verified its constitutionality in 1927. Since 1894, an Immi­gration Restrietion League fought for eugenic goals, whereas at the beginning of the twentieth century laboratory researchwas intensified in the Station for Experimen­tal Evolution, headed by Charles B. Davenport In r9ro, the Eugenics Record Office started to document eugenic measures in the United States.33 Another early fore­runner was Switzerland. Auguste Forel, a renowned psychiatrist (and, at the same time, a sodal reformer, sexologist, researcher on ants, sodalist and a padfist) be­came an early advocate for sterilization practices. In 1907, the Swiss parliament ad­opted anational Civil Code that went into effect in 1912 and included a eugenically motivated marriage restriction article.34 This law would later become a model for many other countries.35

4· Internationaland Nationalinstitutionsand Organizations

The organizational achievements of the eugenic movement in <<the West» in the decade before the First World War were impressive. National eugenics sodeties

mushroomed: in Germany (1905), in England (1907), in the United States (19ro) and in France (1912). In 1912, on the initiative of the British Eugenics Education Sodety, the First International Bugenies Congress met in London. It was dedicated to Frauds Galton, who had died in 19rr, and presided over by Leonard Darwin, a son of Charles Darwin, and listed among its vice-presidents Winston Churchill.36 An

31 P. A. Rosental, Les sentiers invisibles: espace, familles et migrations dans la France du 19e siecle, Paris 1999·

32 Schneider, Quality and Quantity, 283. 33 D. J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics. Genetics and

the Uses of Human Heredity, Harmondsworth 1986.

34 R. Dubach, Verhütungspolitik. Sterilisationen im

Spannungsfeld von Psychiatrie, Gesellschaft und in­dividuellen Interessen in Zürich (Ende 19. ]h. bis 1970 ), Zürich zoro (typoscript PHd-Thesis, forth­coming); seealso the contribution ofR. Wecker in this volume.

35 Schneider, Quality and Quantity, 256 fE 36 Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 23.

466 Jakob Tann er

important outcome of this congress was the creation of a whole series of national eugenic associations and the establishment of the Permanent International Bugenies Committee, which was designed to foster transnational cooperation in the rapidly

ex:panding fieldY The First World War had complex effects on the rising international eugenic

movement. On an organizationallevel, the effort to strengthen transnational coop­eration was interrupted. But a new common denominator took shape. There was a wide consensus that, in terms of collective genetic fitness, the war resulted in a contra-selective effect. The «best stoclo> of every nation, the young soldiers, had died in a <<technical-industrial» war. To steer in the opposite direction, the daim for eu­genic pacifism achieved support and was combined with the demand to radicalize eugenic practices in order to re-establish pre-war levels of hereditary health. This project brought eugenicists and geneticists into dose interaction. In the first years after the war, it seemed tobe evident that US science-based and professional eugen­ics had taken the lead of the international movement. 38

This could be observed at the Second International Bugenies Conference in 1921, whose mottowas «Eugenics is the self.direction ofhuman evolution>>.39 The conference papers were published in 1923 under the title Eugenics, Genetics and the Family.4° In order to foster the idea of eugenic engineering around the world, the International Federation ofEugenic Societies (IFES) was founded to coordinate the activities of the numerous national organizations and the various legal initiatives developed since 1912. A third international conference was held, again in NewYork, in 1932. The fact that the Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist Ernst Rüdin4\ who emi­grated in 1928 to Germany, was unanimously elected as president of the IFES is a dear hint that the relative coherence of the US approach had been undercut and that the eugenic movement was already past its apogee in terms ofbeing a self.confident, future-oriented project for the biological social engineering of national communi­

ties and - in the long run - mankind. The internationalization of eugenics evolved, even before the First World War,

but especially in the interwar period, because several countries outside of Europe and the United States in Asia (especially Japan),42 Australia,43 Latin America44 and

37 S. Kühl, Die Intm~ationale der Rassisten. Aufstieg und Niedergang der intm~ationalen Bewegung für Eugenik und Rassenhygiene im 20. Jahrhundert, New York I997• 32 ff.

38 Kühl, Die Intm~ationale der Rassisten, 48-63. 39 H. Laughlin, The Second Intm~ational Exhibition

ofEugenics Held September 22 to October 22, 1921, in Connection with the Second Intmlational Congress ofEugenics in the American Museum ofNatural His­tory, New York-Baltimore r923.

40 Second Intm~ational Bugenies Congress: Eugenics,

genetics and the family (= Scienti.fic Papers of the 2.

Intmlat. Congress ofEugenics), Baltimore r923. 41 M. M. Weber, Ernst Rüdin. Eine kritische Biogra­

phie, Berlin et al. I993· 42 J. Y. Chung, <<Bugenies and the Coinage ofScien­

tific Terrninology in Meiji Japan and China>>, in: J. A. Fogel I J. Y. Chung (eds.), Late Qing China andMeiji]apan: Politicaland CulturalAspects, Nor­walkiConn. 2004- r65-207; z. Suzuki, <<Genetics and the Bugenies Movement in Japan>>, in: Japa­nese Studies in the History of Science I4 (r975),

Eugenics before 1945 467

Africa45 adopted eugenic concepts: They applied them to traditional marriage con­straints and birth control practices, which themselves acquired new significance and potency.46

Had they been asked whether they would be able to present a dear-cut analysis of the dynarnics ofheredity, most of the members of the scientific community of the 192os and 1930s would have admitted that there was not sufficient knowledge avail­able in order to prove any significant interconnection between public health, hered­ity and eugenic measures. As a matter of fact, the international rise of eugenics in the public sphere was paralleled by a wealcening of the scientific basis of the eugenic movement (in terms ofits contemporary self.evaluation).

Bugenies was never the outcome of experimentally tested biological models, but it was on the other hand propelled by scientific discoveries and assumptions ofhow heredity works among populations. Thus the connection between eugenics and ge­netics was emphasised already at the time when William Bateson coined the term «genetics>>. What was changing was the assessment of the «eugenics as science» argument by advanced scientists themselves. In this regard, disillusionment about the possibility of a scientifically accurate and dispositive eugenics runs rampant. The more the NS regime linked eugenics with the «Aryan myth>> and a megaloma­niac racist and anti-Semitic project of rebuilding a «racially pure>> society, the more doubts were also exacerbated in scientific and epistemic communities.

The process of internationalization was therefore not paralleled by converging scientific concepts but rather by an intensified popularization of behavioural norms and mental attitudes. Bugeniearguments merged in a new way with everyday preoccupations with family, marriage, childrearing, sexual behaviour and many other aspects of popular beliefs and demographic developments. Eugenic pop sci­ence intermingled with the rise of mass culture in the interwar period. With the as­cent of new media - induding newspapers, novels, comic strips, posters, cinema and museum exhibits - public opinion and eritertainment united to create a «cul­tural industry>>.47

r57-r64; S. Otsubo, <<Between Two Worlds. Yarna· nouchi Shigeo and Bugenies in Barly Twentieth­Century Japan>>, in: Annals of Science 62 (2005), 205-23r; J. Y. Chung, Struggle for National Survi­val: Eugenics in Sino-Japanese Contexts, 1896-1945, New York et al. 2002.

43 D. Kirk I K. Twigg, <<Regulating Australian Bo· dies: Eugenics, Anthropometrics and School Me· dical Inspection in Victoria, I900-I940», in: His­tory of Education Review 23 (r994) r, r9-37; G. Rodwell, <<Domestic Sdence, Race.Motherhood and Bugenies in Australian State Schools, I900-I960», in: History of Education Review 29 (2000) 2, 67-83.

44 Stepan, <<The Hour of Bugenies»; M. B. A~ ( ed.), The Weilborn Science. Bugenies in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia, New Yorlc et al. r990.

45 C. Campbell, Race and Empire: Eugenics in Colo­nial Kenya, Manchester et al. 2007.

46 Chung, Struggle for National Survival; F. Dilcötter, Imp~ct Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Difects and Eugenics in China, London r998;

. Adams, The Wellborn Science. 47 See T. Nagl, Die unheimliche Maschine. Rasse

und Repräsentation im Weimarer Kino, München 2009.

468 Jakob Tann er

Eugenic ideas literally had sex appeal: popular advisors were «Explaining Sexual Life to Your Daughter» and horror films brought the «Eugenics of Dracula and Frankenstein» to the screen. A wave of popular writing was accompanied by new methods of «Drilling Eugenics into People's Minds». The visual aesthetics of US popular culture and mass entertainment during the 1930s provided a new touch­stone for the eugenics of identity formation, linking concepts of econornic e:ffi­dency and success in the marketplace with biological fitness and outstanding health.48 Alternative avenues for popularization were also developed in Nazi Ger­many and other European countries. One striking example was the eugenics exhibit prepared bythe Deutsches Hygiene Museum ofDresden and funded bythe Amer­ican Public Health Assodation in 1933, shortly after the Nazi party had gained power.49 In other countries- and espedally in France- <<negative eugenics» stand in the shadow of a widely discussed problern of declining birth rates and a pervasive fear of depopulation. Marriage counselling and premarital physical examination were propagated through popular media and eventually, under the Vichy regime,

became law. 50

5· Racial Hygiene and Aryan Myth in Germany

One feature of interwar-eugenics was the move towards more authoritarian and state-enforced concepts, espedally in those countriesthat abolished the liberal-dem­ocratic trajectory and became dictatorships or «authoritarian democrades». In the process of the politidsation of eugenics, the fear of degeneration as weil as heredity produced phantasmagorical hopes, were linked with a mythical narrative of consan­guinity and pedigreed descent In many countries, a shift towards deddedly right­wing eugenics was under way. As Peter Weingartet al. have pointed out, the more aggressive, anti-Sernitic and xenophobic the milieus were that propagated the purity of race, the more hostile or indifferent they were towards sdentific knowledge. 51

Nonetheless, eugenic and radal hygienepropagandawas based on the permanent popularization and vulgarization of sdentific knowledge. It intervened with discrim­inatory campaigns against handicapped persons and «inferior races». The symbolic capital of sdence was used to promote «national biology>>, «radal politicS>>, and the persecution ofthe «Jews» (defined in terms of race).

48 SeeS. Currelll C. Cogdell (eds.), Popular Eugenics. National Efficiency an<L American Mass Cu!ture in the 193os, AthensiOhio 2006. All the expressions between quotation marks come from titles in this reader.

49 R. Rydelll C. Cogdelll M. Largent, <<The Nazi Eu· genics Exhibit in the United States, 1934/43>>, in: Currelll Cogdell, Popular Eugenics, 359-384.

50 Schneider, Quality and Quantity; A. Carol, Histoire de l'eugenisme en France. Les midecins et la procrea· tion XIXe-XXe siede, Paris 1995; R. A. Soloway, Demography and Degeneration. Bugenies and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth-Century Britain, Chapel Hili et aL 1995.

51 Weingart I Kroll I Bayertz, Rasse, Blut und Gene.

Eugenics before 1945 469

In Germany, the idea of eugenic engineering became closely bound with the no­tion «radal hygiene», introduced by Alfred Ploetz in r895Y In that year, Ploetz pub­lished Part I ofhis «Baselines of a radal hygiene». In the book entitled The efficiency of our race and the protection of the weak he postulated that a policy of radal hygiene aims at enhandng happiness and health.53 Ploetz coupled.this secular doctrine of redemption with the aspirations of the nation-state, thereby instilling universal aims with particular national interests and a sodal-Darwinian meaning. Since the early r89os, he had denigrated both the ideas ofthe Enlightenment and the chance-equal­ity postulates of the German Sodal Democrats. He denounced public assistance and state benefits for the «wealo> members of sodety as ominous «sentimentalism» and proposed a «smooth death» for deformed or feeble newboms by the application of a «small dose of morphine». In 1904, he founded the joumal Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie with Fritz Lenz as chief editor, and a year later the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene. 54 Looking for politicalleverage for the promotion of his ideas of a radally healthy sodety, he became a supporter ofthe NSDAP and even­tually a party member in 1937. Already in 1933 he expressed his hope that Adolf Hitler would give radal hygiene a new and dedsive momentum. He became a mem­ber of the «expert advisory comrnittee for population and radal policy>> which was charged with proposing and implementing Nazi legislation in the field of radal pol­itics and eugenic issues. In this function and also as a professor, he propagated the idea of the supremacy of the Aryan race.

Radal hygiene is often used as a synonym for eugenics, and it was in fact in­spired by the concept of eugenics. Nonetheless «hygiene» had a different semantic connotation than «eugenics». Since the «hygienic revolution>> in the 185os and the «bacteriologicab> paradigm-shift in aetiology in the 188os, hygiene became synony­maus with a purity-based power of resistance . .It was related to the lethal threat for­eign bodies posed to organic systems. There was a wide variety of propaganda terms attached to the concept ofhygiene which coUld be used to defend the «völkisch» com­munity against both national enernies and hereditary burdens.

Politically, the notion «hygiene» retained two conflicting meanings, one relating to sodal hygiene, the other to hereditary fitness. Whereas the latter notion under­stood the improvement of «phenotypes» to be a falladous concept that made no sense in the long run and even ( concealed) an indifferent view on the state of the «German race», the formerwas tied toreform movements which tried to amelierate the living conditions of broader strata of the population. To a certain degree, the «sodab> concept was related to sodal-democratic programmes aimed at improving

52 Ibid., 91. 53 A. Ploetz, Die Tüchtigkeit unserer Rasse und der

Schutz der Schwachen. Ein Versuch über Rassenhygi· ene und ihr Verhältniss zu <Len humanen Idealen, besonders zum Socialismus, Berlin r895, 3·

54 Weingart I Kroll I Bayertz, Rasse, Blut und Gene, l46:ff.

470 Jakob Tanner

the living conditions of the broad <<Working>> population at the bottom of the indus­trial society. Al:fred Grotjahn, who acquired the first chair for «Social Hygiene>> at Berlin University in 1920 and was a member of the SPD and a Reichstag deputy from 1921 to 1924, was a decided proponent of such a prograrnme. The new «genotype»-based strategies were a response to the relative success of this social­hygiene approach.

Opponents contended that the «Social>> approach worked against the mechanism of natural selection by preserving rather than eliminating the weak. They insisted that such a policy wou1d in fact end up ruining the race in terms of its genetic value. In this regard, the propaganda in favour of racial hygiene was against the politics of social hygiene. Whereas the concept of «racial hygiene>> corresponded to the so­cial-Darwinist anxieties of nationalist, xenopho bic and racist right-wing movements, «social hygiene>> was supported by left-wing parties and also transformed ideologi­cally into a welfare-state concept It was also integrated into the rnissions of organi­zations, often lead by women, advocating birth control and sexual reform.55 Apart from_ their dear-cut differences, social and racial hygiene were interwoven, and many social hygienists turned out to be strong supporters of racial-hygiene mea­sures, as was the case wfth Grotjahn, whose call for the forced sterilization of «im­beciles, cripples and alcoholics>> and permanent asylum for ab out one per cent of the populationfit weil with the objectives of «racial hygiene».56 The scientific ideology of progress in the labour movement was based on a strong belief in the interrelation­ship between- as Reinhart Mocek puts it- «biology and social emancipation>>_s7 Thus there was a broad tradition ofleft-wing, socialist eugenics.S8

After 1933, the Nazi state forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people (approximately one per cent of Germany's population).s9 The dedaration of «racial purity>> as the superiornational value already led in 1933 to the persecution ofJews, gypsies (Roma and Sinti) and homosexuals. In order to protect the German body politic, the regirne relied more and more upon medical killing and the «euthanasia>> programmes may be seen as the first deliberate step towards the exterrnination camps and the Holocaust

55 A. Grossmann, Rqorming Sex. The German Move­ment for Birth Control and Abortion Riform, 1920-1950, New York et al. I995·

56 G. A. Ritter, Der Sozialstaat: Entstehung und Ent­wicklung im internationalen Vergleich, München

I99I, 134-57 R. Mocek, Biologie und soziale Bifreiung. Zur Ge­

schichte des Biologismus und der «Rassenhygiene» in

der Arbeiterbewegung, Frankfurt am Main et aL 2002-

ss M. Schwartz, Sozialistische Eugenik: eugenische So­zialtechnologien in Debatten und Politik der deut­schen Sozialdemokratie 1890-193], Bonn I995·

59 Stepan, <<The Hour ofEugenics>>, 4·

Eugenics before 1945 471

6. Eugenics in Democratic Countries

From the 1920s to the 1940s, this positive association between emancipation and eugenics, which was quite strong before the First World War, either faded away or was replaced by a coilectivist and authoritarian understanding of «socialliberation». The democratic states were themselves not free of such infj.uences, as there, too, increasingly coercive elements were now being introduced. Sterilization, which was formally «voluntary» but in fact compulsory in many cases, became a forceful instrument used to reach eugenic and public health goals. The United States and Switzerland were among the first countries to test this surgical procedure. Al­though no exact number can be established for Switzerland, it can be said none­theless that several thousand women were sterilized in the interwar period. Unlike the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland did not introduce any nationallegislation beyond the discriminatory artides in the Civil Code of 1912. To be sure, the canton ofVaud introduced a law in 1928 that allowed the sterilization of the «mentally ill» - the first of its kind in Europe. This legalization, however, had a dampening effect on these surgical interventions, as it was feared that treated individuals rnight decide to take legal action. Thus operations were carried out in a legal grey zone -especially in Zurich, where most of the sterilization cases were recorded. The doc­tors and psychiatrists preferred to act without a legal foundation. When the new Swiss penal code came into force in 1942, only sterilizations for medical indica­tions were allowed. This made those social and medical indications that would al­ways allow for eugenic motives all the more important Generally speaking, the ex­ample of Switzerland shows particularly weil that in most cases medical, social, political and eugenic reasons were interchanged and combined and that the psy­chiatrists were able to draw from a. range of conceptual <<registers>> in maldng their assessments.60

In the US, more than 64-ooo sterilizations took place between the turn of the century and the 196os.61 In the case ofSweden, it can be shown that the proponents of eugenics already had an effective lobby in the 1920s, using the members of parlia­ment as multipliers to «Seil eugenics>>.62 Under the social-democratic government since 1934, there was a strong welfare-state motivation behind the sterilizatioupro­grarnmes. Between 1935 and 1975, 63.000 Swedes were sterilized, in accordance with a law passed by the parliament in 1934 and modified in 1941.63 Analogaus fig­ures may be discovered for other countries.

After I 94 5, racial hygiene was finally discredited by its association with the racist and anti-Sernitic ideology of Nazi Germany. As already mentioned, however, in

6o For references to the Swiss case see the contribu­tion ofR. Wecker in this volume.

61 Dowbiggin, Keeping America Sane. 62 M. Björkman 1 S. Widmalm, <<Selling Eugenics:

the Case ofSweden>>, in: Notes 11[ Records ofthe Ro­yal Society 64 (zoro) 4, 379-400.

63 Broberg I Roll-Hausen, Eugenics and the Welfare State; Rundis, Steriliseringar i folkhemmet.

472 Jakob Tanner

countries like the United States, Switzerland and Sweden, there was- judged against the backdrop ofNazi-related eugenics- an astanishing continuity in eugenic think­ing and related practices. It was only in the r96os and 1970s when the new tenden­cies in eugenics came to the fore. In many countries, the impact of the movements of 19 6 8 disrupted this continuity with the interwar period, causing political conflicts and a strong anti-psychiatric movement. Although there was a fundamental change in these years, it is nonetheless important to recognise that the «old eugenics» did not simply disappear. In Canada, for example, it was not until 1972 that sterilization legislation was nullified in Alberta and British Columbia. Just the same, it was dis­covered in 1978 that in the absence of any legislation hundreds of such operations were still being carried out each year in Ontario. 64

7· Religious Contexts, Gender Relations, Nationalldentities

There are two critical objections to the traditional mainstream of comparative work: the first questions the <<nation» as the given «unit» for making comparisons; the second looks at the presence of cultural exchange and the ongoing transmission of knowledge and concepts between different regions of the globe, undermining the idea that relatively independent nations might be evaluated with a view to their clif­ferences and similarities. Concepts like «histoire croisee>> or «entangled history>> sup­port the assumption that the «units» of any comparison are shaped by constant and intensive knowledge transfers in trans-national networks. Eugenics is a transna­tional phenomenon and eugenicists always aimed to express their concerns at an internationalleveL As shown equally in the cases of the US, Sweden and Switzer­land, these countries maintained close scientific relationships with Germany. Propo­nents of eugenics like the Swede Herman Lundborg (professor and head of the newly established National Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala in 1921) and the Swiss Ernst Rüclin (who played a leading role in the drafting of the «Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring» in 1933 and was appointed judge a year later on the «Hereditary Health Court>>) are examples of this close-knit collabo­ration. The German historian Stefan Kühl states in his book The Nazi Connection

that even if nationalist tendencies may be observed in the eugenic movement, the leading scientific exponents had an international vision that primarily concerned the improvement of the white, «europoid» race and aimed at the construction of an in­ternational network. Although the title of the study is somewhat misleacling, Kühl's approach opened a new way to analyze whole variety of transnational factors - reli­gion, gender, political orientations, etc.

One focus of recent research was the role of religion and confessional divisions in regard to eugenic and racial hygiene. A new study by Monika Lötscher centres on

64 McLaren, Our Own Master Race, 169.

Eugenics before 1945 473

this issue, examining the Catholic eugenics in Austria before 1938.65 The author shows that the Catholic Church made an offi.cial statement regarding eugenics in 1930 in the papal encyclical «Casti connubii». While eugenic efforts were accepted in principle, sterilization, abortion and euthanasia were nevertheless rejected as meth­ods for achieving eugenic goals. The Church was primarily interested in preserving large families. In the language of the experts, this refl.ected a «positive eugenics». It was moreover aimed at strengthening Catholic marriage counselling positions, which were generally understood as a means of promoting Catholic religiosity. In such a historical analysis, confession serves as an explanatory variable. In Protestant Prussia andin northern Germany in general, before 1933, there was a high accep­tance of eugenic measures and the Nazi state could rely on cooperative medical and social policy experts. In southern Germany and Austria, this kind of supportwas far less in evidence.

Another interesting and revealing aspect is the gender ratio in sterilization prac­tices. From a strict eugenic standpoint, the distinction between men and women makes no sense. Any individual who did not meet the normative expectation of the racial collective was targeted by public health agencies, charged with the task of ex­ecuting the measures of racial hygiene. It is therefore no surprise that the steriliza­tion and castration programmes of the National Socialists were to a high degree gender blind, hitting men and women in ab out the same proportion. 66 From a comparative perspective, it is striking to see that in Sweden 90 per cent of the 63.000 sterilizations concerned women. 67 The same is the case for other democratic countries, in particular Switzerland where the high ratio of women was curbed after the new federal penal code was introduced in 1942 from 90 to 75 per cent. 68 This gender bias can be explained by looking at the indications and also the sterilization­abortion plan, which was often proposed by medical doctors inclined towards a «social indication» and worried about the financial and moral capacity of the exam­ined pregnant women. Although there is a strong interrelationship between social concerns and eugenic commitrnents from the side of the medical authorities, they were open to additional rationalisations. As a result, women who already had a nuro­ber of children were sterilized without any eugenic justification, whereas woman without offspring but diagnosedas hereditarily problematic were not. The results of many studies can be summarized by the conclusion that where racial hygiene in Nazi Germany constituted a violent approach aimed at strengthening the Aryan race along strict «biological» criteria, sterilization practices in democratic countries

65 M. Löscher, « ... der gesunden Vernunft nicht zu­wider ... »? Katholische Eugenik in Österreich vor 1938, Innsbruck 2009; see also: C. A. Spring, Zwi­schen Krieg und Euthanasie. Zwangssterilisationen in Wien, 1940-1945, Wien 2009; I. Richter, Katho­lizismus und Eugenik in der Weimarer Republik und

im Dritten Reich: zwischen Sittlichkeitsriform und Rassenhygiene, Paderbom 2oor.

66 Bock, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus. 67 Broberg f Roll-Hansen, Bugenies and the Welfare

State, XI; Rundis, Steriliseringar i folkhemmet. 68 Dubach, Verhütungspolitik.

474 Jakob Tanner

were situated at the crossroads of medical, social, psychic and also eugenic con­~ems.69

The gender perspective is also conceptually linked with that of race and nation. Nancy Stepan has analyzed the analogous concems that arise in both the concepts of «race» and «gender». The idea of a biologically determined social entity that has inherited and unchangeable traits is thus equally present in both. The cultural e:ffect depends nonetheless largely on speci:fic social situations, which means that a broad spectrum of variations may be observed in regard to the same basic assumption.7° In a similar vein, Christian Geulen has identified an «elective affinity» between race and nation. They constitute congenial imaginative communities and defend their «harmony», «purity>> and «homogeneity>> by denigrating <<the other» or <<the for­eign». The power to include and exclude discriminatory violence are therefore man­ifested in about the same way.71 Apart from this similarity between concepts that organize political spaces, eugenics should also be analyzed in terms of a left-rightj democracy-dictatorship matrix. Stepan demonstrates that the eugenicists of Latin America diverged considerably from their counterparts in Britain and the United States in their ideological approaches and their interpretation ofkey texts concem­ing heredity.

Examining how eugenics was understood and implemented by scientists and (mainly leftist) social reformers in Latin America, the author analyses the eugenic movements in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina and shows that scientific circles and others were influenced by neo-Lamarckian theories of heredity. It was the Latin Americans' long-standing reliance on French scientific definitions that provided one basis for their emphasis on what since the end of the nineteenth century had come to be recognised as an unscientific theory of inheritance.72 The appeal at that time of the hypothesis about the inheritance of acquired features and traits is also shown in Mark B. Adams' study The wellborn science, which looks at France, Brazil and Russia from a comparative and, at the same time, relational perspective. Another study, published by Richard Cleminson, examines the reception and the controver­sial science of eugenics in Catalan and Valencian anarchist reviews in the early twentieth century. The result- not surprisingly- isthat «anarchist eugenics [ ... ] was not stable and shifted focus and scientific rationale over time as new ideas came to fore». By the late r920s and early r930s, the intersection between progressive science, eugenics and revolutionary change came under increasing criticism. The negative and impractical aspects of eugenics were highlighted and there was a grow-

69 An interesting case is Japan. See M. Kato, Women's Rights? Social Movements, Abortion and Eugenics in Modern Japan, Leiden 2005 (PhD-typoscript).

70 N. L. Stepan, <<Raee and Gender. The Role of Ana· logy in Sdence>>, in: Isis 77 (r986), 261-277·

71 C. Geulen, Wahlvenvandte. Rassendiskurs und Na· tionalismus im späten 19. Jahrhundm, Harnburg 2004.

72 Stepan, <<The Hour of Eugenies»; Adams, The Wellborn Science.

Eugenics before 1945 475

ing awareness of the authoritarian and abusive uses to which eugenics was being put, especially in the eyes of the anarchistsJ3 To sum up this point, Stepan correctly emphasises that «eugenics was embedded in local value systems of communication and value>> and tnat <<the meanings and social uses of eugenics cannot be under­stood without reference to these various contextS>>.74

8. Eugenics as a Multifarious Project of Modernity

The preceding historical overview has shown that the notion «eugenics>> had differ­ent meanings for a great variety of supporters and opponents from the start It was associated with compulsory and coercive policies, especially against women, as well as programmes of social promotion appealing to voluntary participation. It also comprised «private>> and «utilitarian>> motives for eugenic «improvements>>. As a politically ambivalent and ideologically adaptable project eugenics was entangled with the history of public and reproductive health, social reform and population control. It was propagated by defenders of a superior race, reactionary critics ofhu­man rights, socially engaged scientists, progressive anarchists, revolutionary Bol­sheviks and reform-oriented Social Democrats.

After the Naziregime collapsed in r945, «social welfare>> became a political key­word in Western European societies, combining the ideals of inclusive consumer­ism and democratic participation. Bugenie aspirations therefore gained new mo­mentum after r945 within the framework of a «Keynesian State>>.75 A wide array of measures was introduced to improve both the general state ofhealth and the overall degree of genetic fitness of the (mainly national) population. The case of France is of special interest, because, as William H. Schneider elucidates, the conti­nuity of eugenics there was much stronger than in Germany or the United States: «The survival of eugenics in the post-war periodwas more than sirnply the carry­over of old ideas [ ... ] It also depended on the introduction of new ideas and the at­traction of new followers.>> It was the «persistent desire by govemments to use that scientific knowledge to correct the biological problems>> which made it possible for «eugenic thought in France (to survive) even so traumatic an episode as the Second World War>>.76

The new context of the after-war periodwas also rooted in century-old traditions. Not only the political project of Social democracy, but the welfare state in general has also stood for «more insurance for more people» since its origins in the nineteenth

R. Cleminson, Anarchism, Science and Sex. Euge­nics in Hastern Spain, 190D-1937· Oxford et al. 2000, 259· Stepan, «The Hour ofEugenies», I97· John Maynard Keynes was a fervent advocate of engenies and as such from 1937-1944 the Diree· tor of the British Bugenies Sodety. 1946, a few months before his death, he eonsidered engenies

to be «t:he most irnportant, signifieant and, I would add, genuine branch of sodology which exists», thereby stressing the eontinuity of enge· nies after I945· J. M. Keynes, <<Üpening Remarks: The Galten Lecture>>, in: Eugenics Review 38 (r946) I, 39-40.

76 Schneider, Quality and Quantity, 287-292.

476 Jakob Tann er

century_77 Controlling the primary causes of expanding costs became a major goal of all political forces involved in the development of social security and modern medi­cine. Especially in small European countries, a healthy state budget, a sound cur­rency, improved public health and social solidarity were often mentioned in the same breath.78 All these developments fit into a broader picture of the rationaliza­tion of social relations.

In the after-war period, applied science permeated nearly all areas of modern society with an unprecedented intensity. The acceleration of social processes, the cost degression for consumer goods through standardized mass production and the normalization ofhuman involvement in medicine and social policy converged in a widely accepted and deliberately supported effort to improve living conditions, most notably expressed in a sustained increase in life expectancy and the Grass National Product (GNP) per capita. Undersuch circumstances, the idea to reduce medical costs and social problems by infiuencing mate selection, marital attitudes and repro­ductive behaviour through education, counselling and even coercive programmes for «problematio> minorities found public resonance and political support Whereas any-semantic reference to the new genetic research and counselling with eugenics was suppressed in Germany and also in the United States, European countries that did not undergo a period of dictatorship continued their eugenic prograrnmes. They were integrated into the fabric of everyday life and corresponded with widely shared opinions about the foundations ofheredity with regard to private and public health.

In the 196os, however, criticism agairrst those approaches also intensified in these societies. The more «individual fulfilment» and «self-determination» became catch phrases of a movement, which was later labelled «68», and the more moral changes gave rise to a permissive society, the more difficult it became to continue a prograrnme of <<top down» eugenics, enforced by law (as in the case ofthe Scandina­vian countries) or executed in a legal grey-zone by medical or psychiatric experts (as in the case ofSwitzerland).

For some decades now, the constellation has changed again and some salient new features have come to the foreground. On the one hand, the traditional model of the welfare state is challenged by political parties and social forces looking to fos­ter the value of individual self-responsibility as a panacea against hypertrophic social insurance costs. The idea that social groups considered to be problematic have to be controlled and disciplined has returned. On the other hand, genetics, reproductive medicine, in-vitro fertilization and preimplantation genetic diagnosis open a new space for family-planning aspirations. These can easily be identified as «eugenio>, as they track down genetic defects, phenotypical anomalies or severe diseases of

77 T. Baker I J. Simon (eds.), Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility, Chicago 2002.

78 For Switzerland see Meier et al., Zwang zur Ord­nung; Ritter, Psychiatrie und Eugenik.

Eugenics before 1945 477

human beings to a phase of the growth of an embryo, which can then be eliminated. Butthis «liberal eugenics»79 or «eugenics from beloW>> 80 is based on a new political­judicial paradigm.81 Explicitly criticising any form of coercion in the name of col­lectivist rights, it operates by the free choice of individuals or farnilies. This indi­vidualisation of eugenics, which is tantamount with the atomization of decisive power, produces nonetheless important and formative consequences on a social level. By establishing new Standards for health, perfection and happiness, these aggregated effects can be analyzed in their impact on further individual decisions. The «freedom of choice» is subverted by a stigmatization of deviant social behaviour or human beings. Social constraints strilce back in the utilitarian practices deliber­ately designed to overcome them. 82 Simultaneously, the choice of individuals is not politically circumventable in a way that can prevent or prohibit the use of reproduc­tive medicine.

The notion of «biopower», as proposed by Michel Foucault, may help in under­standing the long-term problern associated with eugenics. Foucault introduced the concept in 1979 in his lectures at the College de France in order to denote a third «dispositive» besides the disciplinary techniques and judicial power. Biopower is a technology of power that allows for the control of entire populations by goveming individual bodies. In The Will to Knowledge, Foucault observes that since the enlight­enment of the eighteenth century there has been «an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations ofbodies and the control of popu­lations».83 From this perspective, eugenics is not just an aberration of public health in the three-decades-long «age of catastrophe» before 1945. On the contrary, it is, even in its recent transformation into a «bottom up» concern of individuals and parents, an expression of a «liberal governmentality» which aims not at exhausting or «consurning», but at producing and multiplying life.84 It is deeply rooted in the normality of a modern society, with its ongoing inequalities and hierarchies, gov­erned by scientific lmowledge, democratic procedures and expanding dispositives of prevention in order to malce people happy, sound and safe:

79 J. Habermas, Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur: auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?, Frankfurt am Main 2oor.

8o. B. Irrgang, Humangenetik auf dem Weg in eine neue Eugenik von unten?, Neuenahr-Ahrweiler 2002.

81 Kerr 1 Shakespeare, Genetic Politics; Kevles, In the Name ofEugenics.

82 Kühl, Die Internationale der Rassisten, 238. 83 M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, voL r: The

Will to Kn.owledge, London r998, J:40. 84 R. Wecker, «Eugenics - a Concept of Modernity»,

in: Wecker et al., What is National Sodalist about Eugenics, 23-38.

478

ABSTRACTS

Jakob Tanner

Eugenics before 1945 An appropriate understanding of eugenics before 1945 implies that this break is

questioned and put into perspective. The artide conceives eugenics as a multifari­

ous project of modernity that derived from the biopolitical aspiration to improve

public health and enhance human capabilities. Consequently, it was supported

across the political spectrum. ln the course of the Twentieth Century, an interna­

tional eugenics movement took shape and found widespread and transnational resonance in the public opinion. However, the conflation of the Aryan myth, racial

purity and medical coercive measures in Nazi-Germany discredited the concept

of eugenics after 1945. Nonetheless, such measures, often combined with ele­

ments of soft coercion, were applied in many countries, particularly in the U.S.,

the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland up to the 1970s. Meanwhile, the

feasibility of Reproductive Medicine gave rise to a <<liberal eugenics>> which is

entrenched in the promises of health and happiness descending from the Nine­

teenth Century.

Eugenik vor 1945 Ein angemessenes Verständnis der Eugenik vor 1945 setzt voraus, dass genau

infrage gestellt und relativiert wird, dass es 1945 einen Brucli gegeben habe. Viel­

mehr wird die Eugenik als facettenreiches Modernitätsprojekt begriffen, das biopo­

litischen Bestrebungen entstammt, mithilfe derer die <<Volksgesundheit» verbes­

sert und menschliche Fähigkeiten gefördert werden sollten. Demzufolge erhielt es

die Unterstützung des gesamten politischen Spektrums. Im Laufe des 20. Jahrhun­

derts bildete sich eine internationale Eugenik-Bewegung, die in dertransnationalen

Öffentlichkeit großen Anklang fand. Nach der Vermischung von Eugenik mit dem

Ariermythos, der Rassenreinheit und medizinischen Zwangsmaßnahmen im Natio­

nalsozialismus waren Eugenik-Konzepte nach 1945 diskreditiert. Gleichwohl wur­den eugenis.che Maßnahmen bis in die 197oer Jahre in zahlreichen Ländern prakti­

ziert und oft mit subtilen Zwangsmaßnahmen kombiniert: insbesondere in den USA,

den skandinavischen Ländern und der Schweiz. Unterdessen ebneten die Möglich­

keiten der Reproduktionsmedizin den Weg für eine <<liberale Eugenik», die untrenn-

' bar mit den aus dem 19. Jahrhundert stammenden Gesundheits- und Glücksverhei­

ßungen verbunden sind.

Eugenisme avant 1945 Une banne comprehension de l'eugenisme avant 1945 exige une interrogation et

une mise en perspective de cette rupture. L'artide con~oit l'eugenisme comme un

projet de modernite multiforme provenant d'aspirations biopolitiques visant a ameliorer la sante publique et a renforcer les capacites humaines. Par consequent, il re~ut le soutien de l'ensemble de la dasse politique. Au cours du xxeme siede

apparut un mouvement eugenique international qui fut fort bien accueilli par

l'opinion publique transnationale. La confusion entre eugenisme, mythe aryen, purete raciale et mesures medicales coercitives qu'eut lieu dans l'Allemagne natio­

nal-socialiste conduisit neanmoins au discredit du concept de l'eugenisme apres

1945. Toutefois, de telles mesures furent appliquees dans de nombreux pays

Abstracts

jusqu'aux annees 1970 et furent souvent combinees a des dispositifs de coercition

subtile: en particulier aux Etats-Unis, dans les pays scandinaves et en Suisse. En

attendant, les possibilites de la medecine de la reproduction dHricherent le terrain

pour un «eugenisme liberal>> s'inscrivant dans le sillage des promesses de sante et de bonheur heritees du XIXeme siede.

Jakob Tann er Forschungsstelle für Sozial- und

Wirtschaftsgeschichte Universität Zürich

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e-mail: [email protected]

479

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Editors I Herausgeber

Jörg Baberowski · Humboldt-Universität zuBerlin Eugenio Biagini · University of Cambridge Gustavo Corni · Universita di Trento Andreas Eckert · Humboldt-Universität zuBerlin

Ulrich Herbert · Universität Freiburg i.Br. Manfred Hilderme:ier · Universität Göttingen ] öm Leonhard · Universität Freiburg i. Br. Norman M. Naimark · Stanford University Lutz Raphael · Universität Trier Lucy Rial! · European University Institute, Firenze Paul-Andre Rosental · Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sdences Sodales, Paris Timothy D. Snyder · Yale University Andreas Wirsching · Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, München

Editorship I Schriftleitung

]öm Leonhard (responsible in accordance with the Bavarian Press law, v. i. S.d.P. I verantwortlich im Sinne des Bayerischen Presserechts) e-mail:[email protected]:freiburg.de

Jörg Später FRIAS-School of History Stadtstraße 5 79ro4 Freiburg e-mail: [email protected]:freiburg.de

Manuscripts and alt editorial correspondance should be addressed to the editorial staff.

Manuskripte und sonstige Korrespondenz sollten bitte an die Schriftleitung gerichtet werden.

Journal of Modern European History Vol.1o 12012/4

Eugenics after 1945

Edited by Regula Argast and

Paul-Andre Rosental