Mentalities and sterilization laws in Europe during the 1930s.
Eugenics, genetics, and politics in a historic context
by
Roelcke V.
Institut für Medizin- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte,
Universität zu Lübeck, Germany.
roelcke@imwg.mu-luebeck.de
Nervenarzt. 2002 Nov;73(11):1019-30.

ABSTRACT

The laws and related practice of sterilisation in Germany during the Nazi period (1933-1945) were not isolated phenomena. Rather, they have to be understood in the broader context of the eugenic and racial hygiene movement developing internationally during the first decades of the twentieth century. Central conditions allowing its emergence were scientific, sociopolitical, and cultural factors. Fears of biological degeneration, economic considerations, and trust in the future potential of biology and in particular genetics played a crucial role in many western societies. Eugenics and the practice of sterilisation are constitutively linked to scientific justifications, just as - complementarily - the development of genetics, in particular psychiatric genetics, is inextricably associated with eugenics and its funding by philanthropic or state institutions. Parallels and a multiplicity of mutual relations existed on various levels, in particular between Germany, the US, and Scandinavian countries.

Sterilisation
Personal genomics
Psychiatric genetics
Germline epimutation
Human self-domestication
Computational epigenetics
Selecting potential children
Brain size/human evolution
The Nazi euthanasia program
Transhumanism/Brave New World?
German geneticists in the service of war?
Sterilization: the USA versus Germany (1933-45)

Refs
and further reading

HOME
Resources
Wireheading
BLTC Research
nootropic.com
Superhappiness?
Utopian Surgery?
The Good Drug Guide
The Abolitionist Project
The Hedonistic Imperative
The Reproductive Revolution
MDMA: Utopian Pharmacology
Critique of Huxley's Brave New World