Eugen Fischer, about 1938
Hitler read Fischer's textbook Principles of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene while in prison at Landsberg and used eugenical notions to support the ideal of a pure Aryan society in his manifesto, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). When he came to power in 1933, Hitler charged the medical profession with the task of implementing a national program of race hygiene - a key element of which was passage of an act permitting involuntary sterilization of feebleminded, mentally ill, epileptics, and alcoholics. Within a year, more than 50,000 sterilizations were ordered, and doctors competed to fill sterilization quotas. By the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, an estimated 400,000 people had been sterilized. (DNAi location: Chronicle > In the Third Reich > Taking the torch)
eugen fischer,race hygiene,involuntary sterilization,human heredity,medical profession,epileptics,dnai,third reich,second world war,alcoholics,landsberg,quotas,hitler,outbreak,manifesto,notions,torch,textbook,doctors,element
- ID: 15745
- Source: DNALC.DNAi
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