The
Racial Hygiene Movement
advocated
the removal of those who would not improve the German population
and who had no use in society, those who Hitler called the "useless
eaters." This meant killing the mentally ill, those terminally
ill, and the physically and mentally handicapped. They euphemistically
called this "euthanasia."
It
also meant eugenics - the science of improving the race through
selective breeding. The Nazis required the sterilization of those
who carried hereditary defects, such as types of blindness and deafness
and certain diseases which were thought to have a genetic basis,
such as Huntington's Chorea and epilepsy.
To
further purify the race, those women of mixed blood were to be sterilized,
and those with ideal Aryan characteristics were bred like livestock.
But
how to determine whether an individual had the ideal Aryan characteristics?
The Nazi Bureau for Enlightenment on Population Policy and Racial
Welfare recommended the classification of Aryans and non-Aryans
on the basis of measurements of the skull and other physical features.
They measured the parts of the head and face as well as comparing
eye and skin color to color charts.
Many
of these ideas were not unique to the Nazis. For example in the
early 1900s many states in The United States passed compulsory sterilization
laws and prohibited intermarriage between whites and African Americans,
Native Americans, and Asians. However, the Nazis were more ruthless
and more thorough in their efforts to improve the gene pool. |
