Eugenics preceded the Nazis by many years. The U.S. was a leader in the field and sponsored much of the research later undertaken in Germany. I mention this in order to ask a question: If eugenics predated the Nazis, why are they so associated with it?
Or, as Marc S. Micozzi M.D. writes [1]: “No profession in Germany became so numerically attached to National Socialism in both its leadership and membership as was the medical profession.”
Why would this be? The answer lies partly in economics and it draws worrying parallels with today.
“With the world economic crisis of 1929, welfare state expenditures had to be reduced for housing, nutrition, support payments, recreation and rehabilitation, and maternal and child health. What remained of the humanistic goals of reform were state mechanisms for inspection and regulation of public health and medical practice," Micozzi writes.
“Economic efficiency became the major concern, and health care became primarily a question of cost-benefit analysis. Under the socialist policies of the period, this analysis was necessarily applied to the selection of strong persons, deemed worthy of support, and the elimination of weak and “unproductive” people. The scientific underpinning of cost-benefit analyses to political medical care was provided by the new fields of genetics and eugenics.”
Medicine came to be seen as an economic palliative. As way of reducing the burden of humanity on industry. Much of the research that followed was not driven by humanitarianism but by the true meaning of that buzzword, philanthropy: self interest in various degrees of enlightenment.
For example, the Luftwaffe was developing high altitude aircraft and wanted to know about the effect on the human body. Experiments included “Trials for Saving Persons at High Altitude”. These began in the air and were later continued with pressure tanks. After the war, most of this research was kept secret as it was seized by the Allies for their own use.
The German army wanted to avoid the fate of Napoleon's soldiers who had been ravaged by typhus in Russia. So the Nazis funded the work of the Polish biologist Rudolf Weigl who created an effective typhus vaccine. Again, much of this work predated the Nazis. Germany’s Friedrich Loeffler Institute is the world’s first center for the study of viruses, dating from 1910. The same year Charles Davenport founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island “to improve the natural, physical, mental, and temperamental qualities of the human family”.
This began as a scientific quest but it was never far removed from colonialism, economics and war. Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” had evolved into “Social Darwinism” and was closely allied to investigations of racial differences. Researchers were interested not just in the anthropological difference of races but in their immunity to diseases that killed Europeans. Human zoos became popular: the Paris human zoo operated well into the 1930s and Belgium's last human zoo opened as recently as 1958. It is in that context that we should see the opening in 1927 of the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics in Berlin.
Germany's rapid industrialization also produced rivals to the chemical combines of Europe. With the needs of war in mind, they produced nerve agents like Tabun and Sarin but also psychiatric medication like methadone, methamphetamine and LSD, as well as the now much cited antimalarial treatment chloroquine. [2]
What drove these advances and the horrors they sometimes entailed, was commercial interest. Colonialism and war were extremely profitable to the large industrial combines. Sick populations were a burden. A national insurance system and a network of hospitals to treat the sick, along with sanatoriums for recuperating workers, were hugely expensive. Medicines held out the hope of a cheap way to eliminate the burden of illness and keep the strong on the factory floor.
It is precisely economic efficiency that is touted by GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation [3]. These public-private global health initiatives are examples of what John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods and writer on Conscious Capitalism, describes when he says "a certain amount of corporate philanthropy" is "simply good business".[4]
This is not to associate its backers with Nazis though some clearly do show an interest in eugenics and related, rebranded organizations. It is to show that medical and even ethical decisions often derive from logical self interest on the part of corporate behemoths.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/national-health-care-medicine-in-germany-1918-1945/
[2] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190723-the-ethics-of-using-nazi-science
[3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2014.940362
[4] https://cxl.com/blog/perceived-value/
Or, as Marc S. Micozzi M.D. writes [1]: “No profession in Germany became so numerically attached to National Socialism in both its leadership and membership as was the medical profession.”
Why would this be? The answer lies partly in economics and it draws worrying parallels with today.
“With the world economic crisis of 1929, welfare state expenditures had to be reduced for housing, nutrition, support payments, recreation and rehabilitation, and maternal and child health. What remained of the humanistic goals of reform were state mechanisms for inspection and regulation of public health and medical practice," Micozzi writes.
“Economic efficiency became the major concern, and health care became primarily a question of cost-benefit analysis. Under the socialist policies of the period, this analysis was necessarily applied to the selection of strong persons, deemed worthy of support, and the elimination of weak and “unproductive” people. The scientific underpinning of cost-benefit analyses to political medical care was provided by the new fields of genetics and eugenics.”
Medicine came to be seen as an economic palliative. As way of reducing the burden of humanity on industry. Much of the research that followed was not driven by humanitarianism but by the true meaning of that buzzword, philanthropy: self interest in various degrees of enlightenment.
For example, the Luftwaffe was developing high altitude aircraft and wanted to know about the effect on the human body. Experiments included “Trials for Saving Persons at High Altitude”. These began in the air and were later continued with pressure tanks. After the war, most of this research was kept secret as it was seized by the Allies for their own use.
The German army wanted to avoid the fate of Napoleon's soldiers who had been ravaged by typhus in Russia. So the Nazis funded the work of the Polish biologist Rudolf Weigl who created an effective typhus vaccine. Again, much of this work predated the Nazis. Germany’s Friedrich Loeffler Institute is the world’s first center for the study of viruses, dating from 1910. The same year Charles Davenport founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island “to improve the natural, physical, mental, and temperamental qualities of the human family”.
This began as a scientific quest but it was never far removed from colonialism, economics and war. Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” had evolved into “Social Darwinism” and was closely allied to investigations of racial differences. Researchers were interested not just in the anthropological difference of races but in their immunity to diseases that killed Europeans. Human zoos became popular: the Paris human zoo operated well into the 1930s and Belgium's last human zoo opened as recently as 1958. It is in that context that we should see the opening in 1927 of the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics in Berlin.
Germany's rapid industrialization also produced rivals to the chemical combines of Europe. With the needs of war in mind, they produced nerve agents like Tabun and Sarin but also psychiatric medication like methadone, methamphetamine and LSD, as well as the now much cited antimalarial treatment chloroquine. [2]
What drove these advances and the horrors they sometimes entailed, was commercial interest. Colonialism and war were extremely profitable to the large industrial combines. Sick populations were a burden. A national insurance system and a network of hospitals to treat the sick, along with sanatoriums for recuperating workers, were hugely expensive. Medicines held out the hope of a cheap way to eliminate the burden of illness and keep the strong on the factory floor.
It is precisely economic efficiency that is touted by GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation [3]. These public-private global health initiatives are examples of what John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods and writer on Conscious Capitalism, describes when he says "a certain amount of corporate philanthropy" is "simply good business".[4]
This is not to associate its backers with Nazis though some clearly do show an interest in eugenics and related, rebranded organizations. It is to show that medical and even ethical decisions often derive from logical self interest on the part of corporate behemoths.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/national-health-care-medicine-in-germany-1918-1945/
[2] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190723-the-ethics-of-using-nazi-science
[3] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2014.940362
[4] https://cxl.com/blog/perceived-value/
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