National Socialist Germany and the National Eugenics Movement

Abstract

Eugen Fischer wrote in 1936 that at the last moment, “the broad vision and the enormous energy of the Führer” have saved the German people from biological collapse. Like most German race hygienists, Fischer made no secret of his admiration for Hitler’s race policies and his inspiration by them. To his mind, for the first time, “the entire population policy of the people was being carried out with unprecedented determination” on a biological basis. The German heredity researchers would supply the scientific underpinning of the policy of the “protection of the heredity pool” and the “maintenance of pure race composition … the singular contributions of the National Socialist population policy.”¹