Der Begriff der Rasse

Madame Blavatsky
Lanz von Liebenfels
One stream, feeding the concept of 'race' was the occult teachings of individuals such as Madame Blavatsky, Lanz von Liebenfels and Dietrich Eckart (teachings  derived from the most ancient of sources), and the other stream was derived from more recent speculation, fed by advances and discoveries in the biological science, and particularly genetics.
To a certain extent the latter 'stream' (the biological and genetic stream of thought) was not crucial, however, it very thoroughly paved the way for a more willing acceptance of the basically occult teachings on race - and made it far easier for those who took a 'rationalist' stance (mainly members of the 'Bildungsbürgertum' - hangovers of the so-called 'Enlightenment') to to give credence and support to the less well known, and to them, 'doubtful' teachings, derived from ancient wisdom and occult revelation.
Dietrich Eckart
And so it was possible for most levels of German society to accept the necessity of eugenics and 'Rassenhygiene' as a means to counteract the effects of  'Rassen Entartung' (racial degeneration) and thereby create a strong and healthy Reich.
What many Germans (and others), in the early days of the Third Reich, had practically no awareness of, however, was the fact that 'Regenerierung' (regeneration), in biological terms, was only the first step to an overarching process.
This process would not only create a pure race, but also regenerate all aspects of society, culture, and eventually spirituality - for as Adolf Hitler had explained to his closest associates - the process of  'Regenerierung' would be

    'an act of creation, a divine operation, the goal of a biological mutation which would result in an unprecedented exaltation of the human race, and the appearance of a new race of heroes, demi-gods and god-men'.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
see: The Genesis of the  Übermensch

But that was a hope for the future - and here we must go back to the Second Reich, and the various individuals in the scientific community who gradually became aware of the necessity to impose some form of 'Rassenhygiene'  on the Germanic people, in order to prevent the effects of 'Rassen Entartung' (dysgenics - see below) destroying the race.

_________________________________

EUGENICS
A GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Overview

The decline in 'genotypic' intelligence coincided with the dissemination of information about contraception.
For several centuries prior to 1800, married couples had natural fertility, essentially uninfluenced by efforts to limit it.
During this period, there was a strong taboo against sex outside of marriage, and many people never had children because they were too poor to marry.
Illegitimacy was rare and infant mortality was high, especially among the lower classes. 
Harsh though it may have been, natural selection operated to maintain a healthy population, and to keep intelligence gradually increasing.
Then in the early 1800s, several books on contraception were published.
These ideas naturally affected the reading classes disproportionately.
Goodyear perfected the vulcanization of rubber, making it an ideal material for the mass production of condoms and diaphragms.
By the middle of the century, it was becoming apparent that educated people were having fewer children than the uneducated.
Charles Darwin worried about the fact that "the scum" of society were so prolific, and expressed deep concern about the future of civilization because natural selection had ceased to operate.
Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, coined the term 'Eugenics', and was its main proponent:

Eugenics

When one speaks on the subject of 'Eugenics' one must first state a few words on the subject of 'Utilitarianism'.
Within the philosophy of 'Utilitarianism' we find that those things which have utility, i.e. things of practical use, which fulfilling a survival need are given greater importance than things which are purely aesthetics, i.e. things of an emotional, artistic, or abstract nature.
Utilitarianism is most commonly understood in the maxim; 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one'.
Simply put, two people in a group of three wish to do one thing when the other wishes to do something else, by default the wishes of the two is of greater importance than the wishes of the one, unless other variables are added to the equation, such as the actions of the two having a negative impact on a group outside of the three.
Hence what must be determined is who the 'many' are and who the 'few' are.
If this phrase is applied to humankind in general then the grand scope of utilitarianism is realized, and taken to its logical conclusion the 'many' are found to not be those who currently live, but rather all future generations of humankind who may come to exist, and who may come to either benefit or suffer from the decisions or actions of their predecessors.
Hence the philosophy of 'Eugenics' is what is considered to be a 'Utilitarian' philosophy.

THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE RACE

'Eugenics' is the 'Utilitarian' philosophy and science concerned with making people better.
The word 'Eugenics' is the combination of two root Greek words 'eu' meaning 'good', and 'gen' meaning 'creation', hence 'Eugenics' means 'good creation' or 'good genetics'.
Though many believe the philosophy of 'Eugenics' to be relatively new in human history, it is actually one of the oldest philosophies known to humankind, predating even agriculture.
The ancients recognized the self evident truth that offspring are commonly born displaying the traits of their parents.
Ancient civilizations utilized this knowledge in the form of animal husbandry, and also in the circles of aristocratic breeding via arranged marriages.
Put simply the philosophy and science of Eugenics is the selective breeding of certain traits shown to be beneficial to a species, or the production a desired offspring, which displays the traits bred in them by the continual selection of specific traits over generations of controlled breeding practices.
In essence the science and philosophy of 'Eugenics' takes evolutionary selection out of the realm of nature and makes it a consciously directed act.
The theory of evolution is perfect in its simplicity, and describes how all living beings on earth are bound by the principals of mutation and natural selection, i.e. that all species (including humans) respond to environmental conditions, over lengthy periods of time, by adapting to changes in that species environment.
This adaptation occurs via 'selection', which is the process of those who are born with a genetic mutation that proves to give them a survival advantage over others of their species, being more likely to pass their mutation to future generations, due to their greater likelihood of surviving to breeding age.
In wild animals this process of natural selection is easily witnessed when the slowest gazelle is overcome by the lion allowing the faster gazelle to pass on its genes to future offspring.
Likewise the faster more cunning lion makes the kill, fending off hunger allowing it to pass on its superior hunting genes on to future generations.
This principal is best expressed in the maxim 'survival of the fittest', coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864, and later used as a metaphor for the principal of natural selection by Charles Darwin in the fifth edition of 'Origin of Species'.
All this appears to be obvious, but what becomes of a species that has reached the pinnacle of the evolutionary clime, becoming the very top of the food chain ?
What becomes of a species, with such advanced technological understanding and social structures that this species is able to keep the least fit of their species alive to breeding age, when otherwise the least fit would have perished under natural circumstances?
The theory of 'devolution' or more correctly 'degeneration' (Entartung) is equally as perfect as the theory of evolution in its simplicity, and states that a species becomes stagnant, and will actually regress and degenerate if it allows those who are the least fit to pass on their genes to future generations.
Common sense dictates that the traits which allow humankind to flourish are the traits of high intellect and physical health, high intellect being of prime importance above physical attributes such as strength and speed, though these are also of importance to an individual’s survival.
Likewise the lack of these attributes and hence the abilities that they bestow take away the survival advantage of the individual.

EUGENICS IN 20th CENTURY EUROPE

The modern philosophy of Eugenics was born out of an environment of social collapse and the decadence of the once noble societies of Europe.
It was seized upon by the movement of Völkisch Nationalism, who sought to reestablish the dominance of the noble qualities of the Aryan race.
Decades of historical, anthropological, and archaeological research led the intellectual elites of Germany to maintain that they were the descendants of a race, which had regressed or devolved from its original status as the 'Master Race' - a race which was far more intelligent, taller, and stronger than the average human. 
This desire to reclaim the mantle of 'Master Race' led to the creation of various esoteric and occult societies in Germany, culminating in the creation of the 'Thule Gesellschaft', and later the NSDAP.
In the early years of the Third Reich, Hitler instituted a policy of 'Eugenics' which encouraged those healthy of intellect, and of physique to breed en mass, while instituting programs of sterilization for those mentally or physically unfit due to genetic mutations, and euthanasia of those born so hopelessly crippled or mentally handicapped that they could not possibly live any life other than a torturous one.
In modern times, however, mercy killings are considered unethical due to a sense of compassion that would rather see a person suffer than see that suffering alleviated in death.
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A further example of the National Socialist policy of Eugenics was the creation of the Schutzstaffel, (translated to defense corps, and abbreviated SS, or  with stylized 'Armanen' Sig runes.)
The requirements of membership the SS was first that one had to prove their Aryan ancestry back to the fourth generation, and second that one must pass the mental and physical health standards of the military as well as being a minimum of 5 foot 11 inches tall.
Despite popular myth, not having blonde hair and blue eyes did not disqualify one from becoming a member of the SS, the recessive trait of blonde hair and blue eyes was simply considered a reemergence of traits which were once more common before historical 'miscegenation' occurred with inferior races.
Hitler knew that the generations of 'miscegenation', and bad breeding practices within Europe would disqualify large numbers in the population from being considered pure members of the 'Master Race', yet he considered White Nordic Europeans (Aryans) to be the closest descendants of the ancient Master Race.
It should be borne in mind, however, that the creation of the 'Herrenvolk' (master race) was not the final goal of Hitler's ambitions, and that Eugenics and Racial Hygiene were only tools in the first steps to the ultimate  creation - the Übermensch - which went beyond mere biology, and into the realms of the metaphysical and the occult.

THE ORIGINS OF GERMAN EUGENICS
    
1890-1903 

German eugenics cannot be understood without examining the conjunction of circumstances that collectively account for its origin as a movement.
Three contexts stand out as being particularly significant in shaping the early development of race hygiene: the social problems resulting from Germany's rapid and thorough going industrialization; the professional traditions of the German medical community; and the intellectual currency of the 'selectionist' variant of social Darwinism then fashionable among certain German biologists and self-styled social theorists.
These three contexts will be dealt with in turn.

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During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the newly unified German Empire was transformed from an agricultural into an industrial society.
The industrialization and urbanization process, expeditious and thorough as it was, produced profound changes in the social and economic structure of the young Reich, engendering a myriad of serious social tensions and problems.
Had Imperial Germany not possessed a rigidly authoritarian political structure shaped primarily by the self-interest of preindustrial elites and their allies in heavy industry, the social dislocations precipitated by industrialization would not have appeared so threatening to the stability of the state and the social order, but the Kaiser- reich was certainly no democracy, and, given the stranglehold that the landed aristocracy, the military, the barons of industry, and high-ranking members of the bureaucracy had on politics, these tensions and problems could not be effectively remedied.
Foremost among the problems afflicting the Reich as a result of this combination of political immobility and rapid social change was the rise of a radical labor movement.
The growing number of strikes, lockouts, and other forms of labor unrest, coupled with the growing success of the officially Marxist Social Democratic Party at the polls, provoked fear and anxiety among many middle- and upper-class Germans regarding the seemingly hostile, uncontrollable, and ever- increasing industrial proletariat.
In addition, there were other social problems that were viewed by Germany's Bildungsburgertum as posing a threat to the proper functioning of the state.

    'Bildungsbürgertum' is a social class that initially emerged in mid-18th century Germany as an educated class of the bourgeoisie with an educational ideal based on idealistic values and classical antiquity. The 'Bildungsbürgertum' could be described as the intellectual and economic upper bourgeoisie in contrast to the 'Kleinbürgertum' (Petite bourgeoisie). The term 'Bildungsbürgertum' is a concept difficult to translate into English. The notion of the word "Bildung" has broader meaning than that of "culture", or "education", and is deeply rooted in the idea of the Enlightenment. The term also corresponds to the ideal of education in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Thus, in this context, the concept of education becomes a lifelong process of human development; rather than mere training in gaining certain external knowledge or skills, education is seen as a process wherein an individual's spiritual and cultural sensibilities as well as life, personal and social skills are in a process of continual expansion and growth. 

These included an increase in various types of criminal activity; a rise in prostitution, suicides, alcohol consumption, and alcoholism; and a heightened awareness of the existence of large numbers of insane and feebleminded individuals.
This latter group, the mental defectives, was singled out by both medical and lay observers as an especially grave social and financial liability for the new Reich.
These problems were hotly debated by many of Germany's academic social scientists and reform-minded religious leaders under the rubric of the 'soziale Frage' (Social Question) - a term referring to the social and political consequences of unbridled economic liberalism and the industrialization process.
Although those discussing the 'social question' embraced different economic and political ideals, all agreed that some kind of 'Sozialpolitik' (social policy) was necessary to integrate Germany's proletariat (and asocial subproletariat) into the Reich, thereby preventing the collapse of the state. 
Like most educated middle-class Germans, the early eugenicists were keenly aware of this debate and were fully cognizant of the serious social problems that plagued the Reich as a result of the industrial revolution.
The increased visibility of a number of asocial, nonproductive types - an important component of the much-debated 'social question'- was the problem they set out to tackle using a new form of Sozialpolitik: 'race hygiene'.
That these race hygienists would be inclined to offer a biomedical solution for social and political problems can be attributed to the second major influence that shaped their eugenics: the distinctive social, political, and intellectual traditions of the German medical community.
All of the movement's important leaders were physicians by training, and had studied medicine before turning their attention to eugenics.
Moreover, fully a third of those affiliated with the 'Deutsche Gesellschaft' during its early years were medically trained.
As physicians, the founders of German eugenics not only shared the prejudices and posture of the Bildungsburgertum as a whole, but were also heir to a well-defined set of assumptions about the hereditary nature of disease, and the role of medical professionals in safeguarding the health of the nation.
The medical professionals' perception of themselves as custodians of national health, and hence of national wealth and efficiency, has a long history.
In Germany it dates at least as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, when German physicians demonstrated their responsibility to the state during the so-called 'health reform movement'.
Later, during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the rise of scientific medicine and hygiene bestowed upon academic physicians, and medical professionals in general, an unprecedented level of social esteem and, indirectly, political importance.
At this time many young medical professionals, eager to make a contribution to national health, turned their attention to bacteriology; - others, like some of Germany's future eugenicists, adopted a different approach.
Their exposure to fields of medicine that emphasized the role of heredity in the etiology of disease (e.g., neurology and psychiatry) led them to question the efficacy of concentrating solely on pathogens.
Instead, they were convinced that serious disorders, such as mental illness, feeblemindedness, criminality, epilepsy, hysteria, and the tendency to tuberculosis were often inherited, and could quite frequently be traced back to a 'hereditary diseased con- stitution.'
Many medically trained race hygienists argued that the surest way to improve the general level of national health was to upgrade the bodily constitution of all individuals in society - a task to be accomplished by means of an energetic eugenics program.
In addition to the 'social question', and the German medical tradition, there was a third influence that greatly shaped the early development of the movement: the "selectionist" variety of social Darwinism, popularized by Germany's most outspoken biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), and later legitimated by the scientific writings of the Freiburg embryologist August Weismann (1834-1914).

    Charles Darwin
    Ernst Haeckel

        Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, stem cell, and Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularised Charles Darwin's work in Germany, and developed the influential recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarises its species' evolutionary development, or phylogeny. The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures ('Kunstformen der Natur'). As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote 'Die Welträtsel' (1895–1899), the genesis for the term "world riddle" (Welträtsel). Haeckel's political beliefs were influenced by his affinity for the German Romantic movement, coupled with his acceptance of a form of Lamarckism. Rather than being a strict Darwinian, Haeckel believed that the characteristics of an organism were acquired through interactions with the environment and that ontogeny reflected phylogeny. He believed the social sciences to be instances of "applied biology", and that phrase was picked up and used in Volkisch philosophy. In 1905, Haeckel founded a group called the Deutscher Monistenbund to promote his religious and political beliefs. This group lasted until 1933 and included such notable members as Wilhelm Ostwald, Georg von Arco, Helene Stöcker and Walter Arthur Berendsohn. Haeckel believed that human races evolved independently, and in parallel with each other. Haeckel divided human beings into ten races, of which the Caucasian (Aryan) was the highest and the primitives were doomed to extinction.

        August Weismann
        August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (17 January 1834 – 5 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin. Weismann became the Director of the Zoological Institute and the first Professor of Zoology at Freiburg. His main contribution was the germ plasm theory, at one time also known as 'Weismannism', according to which (in a multicellular organism) inheritance only takes place by means of the germ cells - the gametes such as egg cells and sperm cells. Other cells of the body - somatic cells - do not function as agents of heredity.

Haeckel went far beyond Darwin in his attempt to flesh out the larger philosophical and social meaning of the evolutionary theory.
Although, like Darwin, he believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, Haeckel always stressed Darwin's selection principle as the most important engine of forward directed organic change; indeed, for Haeckel, Darwinism was synonymous with selection.
Weismann, who came to reject the possibility of the inheritance of acquired characteristics through his work on heredity, afforded Darwin's principle of natural selection an even greater role in organic and social evolution than did the author of the 'Origin of Species' himself.
His famous mechanism of heredity, 'the continuity of the germ plasm', first articulated in 1883, challenged the basic tenets of the more optimistic first-generation social Darwinists who assumed that new characteristics acquired by an organism as a result of environmental change would be transmitted to future generations.
As one German social Darwinist and eugenicist expressed it,

    'It was Weismann's teaching regarding the separation of the germ plasm from the soma, the hereditary stuff from the body of the individual, that first allowed us to recognize the importance of Darwin's principle of selection. Only then did we comprehend that it is impossible to improve our progeny's condition by means of physical and mental training. Apart from the direct manipulation of the nucleus, only selection can preserve and improve the race.'

Indeed, for those who accepted Weismann's views with respect to both heredity and the 'all-supremacy' of selection, eugenics was the only practical strategy to ensure racial progress and avert racial decline.
If the ideas of Haeckel and Weismann encouraged many contemporaries to view natural selection as the sole agent of all organic and social progress, the writings of the two biologists also emphasized that progress was not inevitable.
Under certain conditions the 'unfit' might prosper, thereby posing a challenge to further evolutionary development.
This 'selectionist' perspective and language provided Germany's future eugenicists with novel tools of analysis that enabled them to come to grips with the 'social question' by transforming it into a scientific problem: the asocial individuals created by industrialization became for them the biologically and medically unfit.
The only way to eliminate this group from the population was through a policy of "
'rational selection,' or race hygiene.
The significance of the three contexts is nowhere more clearly visible than in the intellectual backgrounds and early writings of Alfred Ploetz and Wilhelm Schallmayer.
Working largely independently of one another during the early of the movement (1890-1903), both men laid the foundations for the future course of race hygiene in their country.
Ploetz's organizational talents and charismatic personality allowed him to create the institutional basis for the young movement almost single-handedly.

    Alfred Ploetz

        Alfred Ploetz (August 22, 1860 – March 20, 1940) was a German physician, biologist, eugenicist known for coining the term 'Rassenhygiene' (racial hygiene), and promoting the concept in Germany. 'Rassenhygiene' is a form of eugenics. Ploetz first proposed the theory of racial hygiene (race-based eugenics) in his "Racial Hygiene Basics" (Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895. In 1904 Ploetz founded the periodical "Archiv für Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie" with Fritz Lenz as chief editor, and in 1905 the German Society for Racial Hygiene (De Berliner Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene) with 31 members. page In 1907 the society became the "International Society for Racial Hygiene". In 1930 he became an honorary doctor of the University of Munich. Ploetz was a supporter of the National Socialist Party, which took power in 1933. Ploetz wrote in April 1933 that he believed Adolf Hitler would bring racial hygiene from its previous marginality into the mainstream. In 1933 Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick established an "expert advisory committee for population and racial policy," which included Ploetz, Fritz Lenz, Ernst Rüdin and Hans F.K. Günther. This expert advisory committee had the task of advising the Reich Government on the implementation and enforcement of legislation regarding racial and eugenic issues. In 1936, Hitler appointed Ploetz to a professorship. In 1937 Ploetz joined the National Socialist Party. Along with many other eugenicists in Europe and America, Ploetz believed in the superiority of the Nordic race, and he favored the global dominance of the Aryan race. His writings were a major influence on Völkisch ideology.

    Wilhelm Schallmayer
    Wilhelm Schallmayer (10 February 1857 in Mindelheim - 4 October 1919 in Krailling ) was a German physician. Along with Alfred Ploetz he was founder of the 'racial hygiene' movement in Germany, and one of the first champions of eugenics. Wilhelm Schallmayer studied jurisprudence and philosophy, but then turned to the study of medicine in Leipzig and Munich. In 1891 he wrote a treatise, 'Über die drohende körperliche Entartung der Kulturmenschheit', although he is best known for the award-winning magazine 'Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Völker'. published in 1903.

Schallmayer's treatises on eugenics defined the significant theoretical and practical problems that would occupy German eugenicists for decades.
Ploetz was born in 1860 into an upper-middle-class family in Swinemiinde on the Baltic Sea.
Although details of his early life remain sketchy, he had become acquainted with the works of Darwin and Haeckel while still at the Gymnasium.
Even before he began to study economics at the University of Breslau in 1884, he developed a strong interest in the 'soziale Frage'.
As he stated in his memoirs, the popular novels of Felix Dahn, professor of early German history, as well as works of other enthusiasts of Germany's Teutonic past, awakened his interest in the Germanic race.
Indeed, Ploetz became so obsessed with the glories of the old Teutonic tribes that he and several friends took an oath under an oak tree to do everything in their power to elevate the Germanic race to the level it had allegedly attained a thousand years earlier.

    Felix Dahn
    Ein Kampf um Rom
    Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn (9 February 1834 – 3 January 1912) was a German nationalist, lawyer, author and historian. He was also known for writing nationalist poetry. Julius Sophus Felix Dahn was born in Hamburg. Dahn began his studies in law and philosophy in Munich and graduated as Doctor of Law in Berlin. After his habilitation treatise, Dahn became lecturer of German Law in Munich in 1857. In 1863 he became senior lecturer/associate professor in Würzburg, received a professorship in Königsberg (in 1872, and in 1888 he relocated to University of Breslau, again as a full professor, and was elected rector of the university in 1895. He belonged, as an honorary member, to the association "Germania," a nationalistic organisation, and was one of the leaders of the far right of Alldeutscher Verband. Dahn was also honorary doctor in Medicine, and in Philosophy. A month before his 78th birthday, Dahn died in Breslau. He was married to Therese von Droste-Hülshoff (1845-1929). Dahn's writings were extremely influential in forming the conception of the European history unfolding during the first millennium CE which dominated German-speaking countries during the late 19th and early 20th century. His multi-volume 'Prehistory of the Germanic and Roman Peoples', a chronology of the European Völkerwanderung (Migration Period), that first appeared in print in 1883, was so definitive that abbreviated versions were reprinted until the late 1970s. His works contributed to the foundation of National Socialism in Germany, while his book 'Ein Kampf um Rom' encouraged a "völkisch avant-garde" who opposed ethnic mixing.

Ploetz had recognized the need for a separate discipline, dedicated to the hereditary improvement of the race - a discipline more effective in eliminating disease than the thankless "Sisyphean labor" carried out by modern therapeutic medicine.
Ploetz then published 'Die Tiichtigkeit unsrer Rasse und der Schutz der Schwachen' (The fitness of our race and the protection of the weak) in 1895.
Although initially his book did not generate much public interest, it raised the broad biological, social, and ethical problems that created the need for race hygiene in the first place.
It also revealed the technocratic logic underlying eugenic thought.
The major thrust of Ploetz's argument recalls Darwin's personal dilemma in the 'Descent of Man': How can human beings reconcile the inevitable conflict between the humanitarian ideals and practices of the noblest part of our nature with the interest of the race, whose biological efficiency is allegedly impaired by those very ideals and practices?
Translated into concrete economic and political terms, Ploetz viewed the problem as follows: Should the state continue to expand the 'social net' and regulate various aspects of economic life in order to lessen the hardship of the weak and economically underprivileged, at the risk of undermining the overall biological fitness of its citizens ? Would not health, accident, and old-age insurance invariably lead to an increase in the number of unfit, perhaps at the expense of the fittest members of society ?
Ploetz was not oblivious to the serious moral and social issues raised by this alleged conflict.
As important as preventing 'Entartung' (degeneration) was for him, Ploetz did not believe in ignoring the needs of the present generation; the danger of 'Entartung' was not a signal for Germany to abandon health and welfare legislation, despite its counter selective effects.

    Concern about the concept of 'Entartung', (which was accepted as a serious medical term), had been steadily growing in German speaking countries during the 19th Century. The use of the term reflected the views held by many people in Europe, and especially throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, at the time, that  society was degenerating. The theory of degeneration found its first detailed presentation in the writings of Bénédict Morel (1809–1873), especially in his 'Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine' (Treatise on Degeneration of the Human Species) (1857). This book was published two years before Darwin's Origin of Species. Morel was a highly regarded psychiatrist. One solution to this problem was offered in 'die Lehre von der Regenerierun', as promulgated from Bayreuth (follow the link for more information)

The solution to these pressing conflicts was the substitution of a humane and scientific policy of "rational selection" for the inhumane and inefficient process of natural selection.
Unlike the existing personal hygiene movement, with its concern for the health of the individual, the new hygiene would direct its attention to improving the hereditary fitness of the human race.
Ploetz named it 'Rassenhygiene'.
Considering Ploetz's own enthusiasm for all things Teutonic, and the heated controversy in some quarters that later ensued over the use of the word 'Rassenhygiene' as a synonym for eugenics, it is worth examining what he meant by the term.
His definition of 'Rasse' (race) is ambiguous and difficult to translate into English.
Roughly speaking, Ploetz seems to view as a 'Rasse' any interbreeding human population that, over the course of generations,continues to demonstrate similar physical and mental traits.
In addition, Ploetz described 'race hygiene' as the measures needed to ensure "the optimal preservation and development of the race".
In later publications Ploetz explained that 'Rassenhygiene' had a much larger scope than the English term 'eugenics', embracing not only those measures designed to improve the hereditary quality of a population, but also those aimed at achieving its optimal size.
As an alternative, he could later have used the Germanized form of the word eugenics, 'Eugenik'.
Although Ploetz states that Germanic stock probably represents the best portion of the "Aryan race," he is primarily concerned here with whites in general.
His views regarding the cultural superiority of Aryan race, however, (see Aryanism and Aesthetics) were not fundamentally different from those of Schallmayer, or indeed from those of most European intellectuals of his time.
Although Ploetz discussed the merits of the Aryan race at length, and defined the terms Rasse and Rassenhygiene, the major purpose of his book lay elsewhere.
Above all, Ploetz sought to reconcile the apparent conflict between the Darwinian world view and the humanitarian-socialist ideal through a conscious policy of "control over variation" by the 'utopian' vision of pushing selection back to the prefertilization stage - a form of germplasm selection.
According to this plan, the genetically best germ cells of all breeding couples would be chosen as the hereditary endowment for the next generation.
Although Ploetz's particular solution to the "degeneration problem" was unfeasible, and was never seriously entertained by any of Germany's race hygienists, it embodied the view, shared by Schallmayer and later by other eugenicists, that population was a resource amenable to "rational management."
As such, it was a biomedical solution to socio-political problems: eugenics experts, armed with their knowledge of evolutionary theory and the laws of heredity, would solve the 'social question' with the aid of science.
Although Ploetz's work was the first to employ the term 'Rassenhygiene', it was not the first treatise on 'eugenics' to be published in Germany.
The author of the earliest such tract was the Bavarian physician Wilhelm Schallmayer (see brief biography above).
Schallmayer's intellectual biography and early career closely parallel those of Ploetz. 
Schallmayer was born in Mindelheim, Bavaria.
Despite the interest he shared with Ploetz in the 'soziale Frage', Schallmayer's concern was purely theoretical - at least until he realized that a faulty social and economic system could have grave eugenic consequence.
Precisely when Schallmayer became interested in eugenics is unknown.
It seems likely, however, that his work in the psychiatric clinic led him to doubt the value of medicine for improving the health of the race.
A self-proclaimed social Darwinist, and an admirer of Haeckel (see above), he could not have failed to see the connection between his clinical experience and the articulation of the counter selective effects of medicine.
Schallmayer's own experiences working with mental defectives, coupled with his "selectionist" outlook, accounted for his own indictment of therapeutic medicine in his first eugenic treatise, a short work entitled 'Uber die drohende korperliche Entartung der Kulturmenschheit' (Concerning the threatening physical degeneration of civilized humanity).
Published in 1891, and reprinted under a slightly different title in 1895, it was Germany's first eugenic tract.
Although Schallmayer's slim volume attracted even less attention than Ploetz's treatise would four years later, it touched on the social, economic, and political justifications for eugenics, and it offered such practical proposals as the creation of medical genealogies and health passports, and the introduction of marriage restrictions.
Schallmayer's book also stressed the role of physicians and the importance of education and propaganda as the most effective means of achieving eugenic goals - two hallmarks of German race hygiene policy until 1933.
Most important, however, Schallmayer's treatise emphasized the technocratic logic and the cost-benefit analysis that later so influenced the race hygiene movement.
In 1897, after he had acquired sufficient means to give up his lucrative medical practice in Dusseldorf, Schallmayer settled down as 'Privatgelehrter'.
His newly acquired freedom afforded him the time to compose a second eugenic treatise with the specific intention of submitting it to the 'Krupp Preisausschreiben' (Krupp Writing Prize).
Friedrich Alfred Krupp
Ludwig Noster 1896
In 1900 Friedrich Krupp, son of Essen's munitions baron Alfred Krupp, set aside 30,000 marks to be used in a contest to answer the question: 'What can we learn from the theory of evolution about internal political development and state legislation ?'

    Friedrich Alfred Krupp (17 February 1854 – 22 November 1902) was a German steel manufacturer of the company Krupp. He was the son of Alfred Krupp, and inherited the family business when his father died in 1887. Whereas his father had largely supplied iron and steel, Friedrich shifted his company's production back to arms manufacturing. Friedrich greatly expanded Krupp and acquired the 'Germaniawerf' in 1896 which gave him control of warship manufacturing in Germany. He oversaw the development of nickel steel, U-boats, the diesel engine, and much more. He died in 1902 of apparent suicide (possibly because of allegations made against him regarding his sexual liaisons with boys). His daughter Bertha inherited the company.

It seems likely that Krupp, an amateur biologist, greatly resented Social Democratic attempts to use Darwin's theory in support of socialism.
Wishing to remain anonymous, Krupp delegated most of the responsibility for the contest to politically sympathetic scholars, with Ernst Haeckel (see above) brought in as a figurehead.
On 7 March 1903 the prize committee announced that first prize in the contest was awarded to Schallmayer's 'Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Volker' (Heredity and selection in the life process of nations), a dense 381-page treatise representing, in Heinrich Ernst Ziegler's appraisal, a 'hygienic-sociological' approach to the question. 
Schallmayer certainly saw the practical and political aims of his book as timely.
Whereas the nineteenth century had been concerned with Darwin's evolutionary hypothesis on a purely theoretical level, 'the twentieth century,' argued Schallmayer, 'is called upon to apply the theory of descent to everyday life.'
The book's central theme was the rational management of national efficiency.
The real political lesson to be learned from Darwin's theory was that long-term state power depended upon the biological vitality of the nation; - neglect of the hereditary fitness of its population, such as might result from unenlightened laws and customs, was 'bad politics' and would inevitably result in the downfall of the state.
Hence the wise politician 'would recognize that the future of his nation is dependent on the good management of its human resources.'
In the interest of self-preservation, he argued, it was imperative that Germany take an active part in regulating the overall biological efficiency of its citizens by embarking on a political program that would encourage the biologically best elements in society to reproduce more than those with objectionable hereditary traits.
Eugenics, or 'Vererbungshygiene' (hereditary hygiene), as he still called it, was the perfect tool to ensure a strong and healthy state.
Schallmayer also presented his readers with a series of eugenics reforms, but he was very cautious in the area of negative eugenics.
Although he clearly believed that marriage restrictions for the insane, the feebleminded, the chronic alcoholic, and other defectives were in the best interest of the state, and the race, he refrained from openly supporting state legislation as a means to this end.
Until such time as more exact information regarding the laws of heredity was known, and enough detailed genealogies could be amassed, he felt that eugenicists would have to concentrate on voluntary measures.
He emphasized positive eugenics: convincing the "fitter" groups in society to increase their fertility rate.
The question of course remained, 'which groups were, biologically speaking, the fittest ?' Schallmayer assumed that biology would one day decide the question objectively.
The Krupp competition marked a turning point both in Schallmayer's personal career and in the attention paid to eugenics in Germany.
Prior to this time Schallmayer and Ploetz were virtually lone prophets in their eugenics crusade.
Only in the years immediately following the publication of 'Vererbung und Auslese', in 1903, were the first institutional steps undertaken to transform an idea into a movement: the creation of Germany's most respected eugenics journal, and the foundation of a race hygiene society.
The 'Archiv fur Rassen und Gesellschafts-Biologie', the first journal in the world dedicated to eugenics, was founded by Ploetz in 1904.
Although there is no direct evidence linking the creation of the journal with the results of the Krupp contest, it seems likely that the scientific recognition, and public attention given eugenics in the immediate aftermath of the Preisausschreiben at least suggested to Ploetz, and his two assistant editors, the sociologist and economist Anastasius Nordenholz and the zoologist Ludwig Plate, that a more organized and 'strictly scientific' manner of discourse on the subject was possible.
Without openly admitting it, the editors of the 'Archiv' sought to establish a more clearly focused, and academically prestigious form of the 'Politisch-anthropologische Revue' - a journal that occasionally carried articles on eugenics-related issues, but was not taken seriously by some professionals because of its unmistakably völkisch tone.

    Johann Gottlieb Fichte
    The völkisch movement had its origins in Romantic nationalism, as it was expressed by early Romantics such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte in his 'Reden an die deutsche Nation', 1808 - especially the eighth address, 'What is a Volk, in the higher sense of the term, and what is love of the fatherland ?', where he answered his question of what could warrant the noble individual's striving 'and his belief in the eternity and the immortality of his work,' by replying that it could only be that 'particular spiritual nature of the human environment out of which he himself, with all of his thought and action... has arisen, namely the people from which he is descended and among which he has been formed and grown into that which he is"'. The movement combined patriotic interest in German folklore, local history and a 'back-to-the-land' anti-urban populism. In part this ideology was a revolt against modernity. The dream was for a self-sufficient life lived with a mystical relation to the land; it was a reaction to the cultural alienation of the Industrial revolution and the 'progressive' liberalism of the later 19th century and its urbane materialist banality. The racial element in  völkisch philosophy meant that is was, in its later development, strongly associated with eugenics and racial hygiene.

The 'Archiv' sought to attract a wide variety of articles bearing on the 'optimal' preservation and development of the race.
It included entries not only by Germany's prominent race hygienists, but also from individuals who in no sense considered themselves eugenicists.
Most of the articles appearing in the journal during the Wilhelmine period fall into one of five categories: technical articles dealing with genetics and evolution by such leading biologists as Weismann, Plate, Ziegler, Richard Semon, Carl Correns, Hugo de Vries, Erich von Tschermak, and Wilhelm Johannsen; entries concerned with so-called degenerative phenomena (insanity, alcoholism etc.); articles preoccupied with the dysgenic effects of certain social institutions and practices (medicine, welfare, etc.) and the social and economic costs of 'protecting the weak'; studies pertaining to the need for population increase, and the hazards of neo-Malthusianism; and a number of anthropological contributions, including high-quality entries from the eminent anthropologist Franz Boas.

    Thomas Robert Malthus
    The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. Malthus himself used only his middle name Robert. In his book 'An Essay on the Principle of Population', Malthus observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the wellbeing of the populace, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, mankind had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the 'Malthusian trap' or the 'Malthusian spectre'. Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship and want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease, a view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible. He saw population growth as being inevitable whenever conditions improved, thereby precluding real progress towards a utopian society: 'The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man'.

Besides publishing rather specialized and lengthy articles, the 'Archiv' also tried to keep its readers abreast of developments in eugenics through its numerous book reviews and announcements.
Its volumes were substantial - the four quarterly issues together often totaled more than six hundred pages.
Its national and international reputation as a highly respected scholarly publication notwithstanding, the journal did little to spread the eugenics gospel in Germany beyond the small group of professionals already committed to the new discipline.
The second institutional development was the formation of the 'Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene' (Society for Race Hygiene) - the world's first professional eugenics organization.
Founded in Berlin on 22 June 1905 by Ploetz, Nordenholz, the psychiatrist Ernst Rudin (who was also Ploetz's former brother-in-law), and the ethnologist Richard Thurnwald, the society had as its aim 'the study of the relationship of selection and elimination among individuals as well as the inheritance and variability of their physical and mental traits'.
There is little doubt that Ploetz always intended the society, which had begun with only twenty-four members, to be international.
Since the word Rasse was frequently used by Ploetz as a synonym for 'white race', any race hygiene society worthy of the name had to transcend national boundaries and embrace individuals from all white 'civilized' nations, yet it was not until 1907 that the Gesellschaft was able to attract anyone from other countries, at which time it became the 'Internationale Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene'.
Two local groups of the Gesellschaft, in Berlin and Munich, were formed soon after.
Although the total membership remained small, it also grew steadily, and the occupational and class backgrounds of the members of the two societies continued to mirror those of its founders and leaders.
In both the international and the German society 'Bildungsbiirger' (see above) dominated the membership.
In addition, the medical professionals made up the single largest group in both organizations, accounting for approximately one third of those affiliated with the two societies.
It seems likely that the self-image of German physicians as custodians of the nation's health had much to do with the disproportionate number of prominent physicians, hygienists, and professors of medicine in the early movement.
Of the academics from other fields enrolled in the two societies, most were professors of zoology and anthropology.
In addition to Ernst Haeckel (see above) and August Weismann, who as honorary members probably did not participate much in its activities, the Deutsche Gesellschaft included such distinguished biologists as Ludwig Plate, Heinrich Ernst Ziegler, and Erwin Baur.
The writings of Wilhelmine Germany's race hygienists exhibit some common themes and concerns. The primary intellectual preoccupation of the early movement was with collecting and analyzing data on degeneration.
The psychiatrist Ernst Riidin wrote numerous studies dealing with the inheritance of insanity - emphasizing the Mendelian nature of the transmission of various kinds of mental disorders.

    Gregor Johann Mendel
    Gregor Johann Mendel (20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austro-German scientist and Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the modern science of genetics. Though farmers had known for centuries that crossbreeding of animals and plants could favor certain desirable traits, Mendel's pea plant experiments conducted between 1856 and 1863 established many of the rules of heredity, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. The profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century (more than three decades later) with the independent rediscovery of these laws. Erich von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and William Jasper Spillman independently verified several of Mendel's experimental findings, ushering in the modern age of genetics.

Agnes Bluhm, Germany's only prominent female eugenicist, concentrated on proving the degenerative effects of alcohol on future generations, and studying the decreased ability of German women to breastfeed their infants.
Other eugenicists reported on such topics as the increase in venereal disease in large cities, and its impact on the race, and the need to reform Germany's penal code along eugenic lines.
By and large the tone of these studies was scientific, not popular; they seem to have been written less to stir people to action than to communicate abstract information.
Like eugenicists in the United States and Britain, the Germans also analyzed the cost of maintaining the army of the unfit.
The word most often used to describe these individuals was 'Minderwertigen' - a term that literally means 'the less valuable', and was frequently employed as a synonym for non-productive people.
Certainly the 'Umschau', a popular science journal, used the word in this way when, in 1911, it sponsored a written contest entitled: 'What do the inferior elements (Minderwertigen) cost the state and society ?'
Accepting the premise that 'all efforts to improve the environment break down in the face of hereditary sickness and inferiority', the sponsors of the competition suggested to potential contestants that only a reduction in the number of 'minus variants' would allow society to continue to preserve the life of all those living.
In his commentary on the cost of the unfit, Ignaz Kaup, professor of hygiene and member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft, reported on the results of a seminar held to discuss the subject.
Since he doubted that the German people were ready to accept American-style sterilization methods as a means of alleviating the problem, some way of physically separating the 'unfit' from the rest of society was necessary.
False humanitarian considerations were not appropriate, since 'all forward-striving nations had the duty to ease the burden of the cost of the inferior as much as possible.'
Recognizing that the Minderwertigen were a financial burden to the state who "despite the expenditure paid out on their behalf are almost never in the position during their working lives to repay the money spent on them," Kaup recommended the creation of work colonies, where they could be prevented from having inferior children and could be made to earn their keep at the same time.
At this time, however, most German eugenicists would have been satisfied with some form of permanent institutionalization.
As World War I approached, a third emphasis of the Wilhelmine eugenics movement came to the fore: 'Bevolkerungspolitik' (population policy).
While Germany's eugenicists did, of course, aim at instituting a eugenically healthy qualitative population policy, there was a marked tendency throughout the last years of the Second Reich to view the prevention of a decline in population growth as an important measure in its own right.
As early as 1904 Alfred Grotjahn spoke of the 'growth of population quantity' as the 'conditio sine qua non of a rational prophylaxis against degeneration'.
Later the issue had become more pressing: as Schallmayer put it in 1915, arresting population decline was nothing short of 'a matter of survival for the German nation'.
In order to understand why German eugenicists became obsessed with the population question, it is worth briefly considering the pre-war demographic, social, and political changes in Germany that colored their intellectual perspective.
On the surface there seemed little cause for alarm.
Wilhelmine Germany was the second most populous country in Europe; it had also witnessed a very substantial population increase of twenty-four million people between 1871 and 1910.
Yet this healthy population growth owed far more to the dramatic decline in the death rate, particularly the infant mortality rate, than to a growth in fertility, indeed Germany, like all Western industrialized nations, experienced a steady birth-rate decline during the last third of the nineteenth and first third of the twentieth centuries.
Between 1902 and 1914, for example, the Reich suffered an 8.3 per thousand drop in the number of live births.
This, and the steady decline in the excess of births over deaths after 1902 gave statisticians and eugenicists cause to expect an eventual population standstill, or even a decline.
Many sought to account for Germany's declining birthrate; however much their explanations differed, all investigators agreed on two points: that the actual decline in population growth was less frightening than the prospect that Germany's situation might soon begin to mirror French demographic realities, and that the drop in the birthrate was deliberate, and was directly related to the practice of birth control methods advanced by supporters of neo-Malthusianism (see Malthus - above).

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017

RACIAL POLICY OF THE THIRD REICH

The racial policy of the Third Reich was expressed in a set of policies and laws implemented between 1933–45 based on a specific racial doctrine asserting the superiority of the 'Aryan Race', which claimed scientific legitimacy.

ADOLF HITLER - EUGENICS and DYSGENICS

Racialism and the concept of competition were termed 'Social Darwinism', and were discussed by European scientists, and also in the Vienna press during the 1920s.
From where Hitler obtained his considerable knowledge and understanding of Eugenics is uncertain, however, the theory of evolution had been generally accepted in Germany at the time.
In Hitler's 'Zweites Buch' (Second Book), which was unpublished during the period of the Third Reich, Hitler praised Sparta, (using ideas perhaps borrowed from Ernst Haeckel), adding that he considered Sparta to be the first truly 'Völkisch State'.
He endorsed what he perceived to be an early eugenics treatment of deformed children:

    © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
    Adolf Hitler - Festung Landsberg - 1924
    'Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses'

Adolf Hitler  - 'Zweites Buch'  

Adolf Hitler read much about racial hygiene during his imprisonment in Landsberg Prison in 1924.
Hitler believed the nation had become weak, corrupted by 'dysgenics', - the infusion of degenerate elements into its bloodstream.
Dysgenics is the study of factors producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or species.
The adjective "dysgenic" is the antonym of "eugenic".
It was first used c. 1915 by David Starr Jordan, describing the dysgenic effects of World War I.

    David Starr Jordan
    David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was an American ichthyologist, educator, and Eugenicist. He was president of Indiana University and was the founding president of Stanford University

Jordan showed that healthy men were as likely to die in modern warfare as anyone else, and that war killed only the physically healthy men of the populace whilst preserving the disabled at home.
Dysgenic mutations have been studied in animals such as the mouse and the fruit fly.
In the context of human genetics, a 'dysgenic effect' is the observed tendency of a reduction in selection pressures and decreased infant mortality since the Industrial Revolution resulting in the increased propagation of deleterious traits and genetic disorders.
Richard Lynn in his 'Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations' (1996) identified three main concerns: deterioration in health, in intelligence and in conscientiousness.

    Prof. Richard Lynn

    Richard Lynn (born 1930) is an English professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Ulster, and assistant editor of the journal 'Mankind Quarterly'. Professor Lynn studies intelligence, and is known for his research into the racial differences in intelligence.

Professor Lynn's major thesis in Dysgenics is that scientific evidence has proved the Eugenicists were absolutely right in their concerns about genetic deterioration, and that post war western societies have made a serious mistake by discounting such concerns.
Studies of twins, and adoption studies, have established beyond any doubt the essential role of heredity in determining IQ.
Identical twins, separated at birth, have practically identical IQ's.
When adopted children grow up, they resemble their biological parents more closely than their adoptive parents in IQ (proving the dominance of nature (inheritance) over nurture (culture).
Just as the Eugenicists assumed, social mobility over centuries has produced a social class gradient for intelligence, and social class is determined partly by innate intelligence.
One U.S. study found that in families with two or more brothers, the boys with higher IQ's tended to move up the SES ladder when they grew up, whereas those with lower IQ's tended to move down.
Also, the evidence shows that as a society we are deteriorating genetically because the most intelligent people are having the fewest children.
Throughout our evolution, the weak and diseased died young and did not pass on their genes.
Now, because of modern medicine, people with numerous genetic diseases live long enough to reproduce and transmit defective genes to their children. (Examples: cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, diabetes, pyloric stenosis, various heart defects, thalassemia, phenylketonuria, and sickle cell anemia.)
The incidence of many of these disorders is doubling, and in some areas tripling each generation.
As a result our genetic potential for robust good health is declining.
Life-long care will require ever-increasing expenditures, furthermore, while sufferers are grateful for medical advances, most would nevertheless be quick to point out that the quality of their lives would be far better if they had never inherited a disease in the first place.
Conscientiousness, traditionally known as 'good character', consists of honesty, a strong work ethic, and concern for others.
Since IQ is positively correlated to a number of desirable traits (such as altruism and middle-class values of hard work, thrift, and sacrifice), when IQ declines, so do these traits.
People with low IQ's are far more likely to become criminals, so the fact that our genetic potential for intelligence is declining means our genetic potential for crime is increasing.
In addition, some evidence suggests that, despite lengthy sojourns in jail, criminals still manage to procreate at a faster rate than the majority.
Research on London criminals found they had nearly twice as many offspring as non-criminals, and those figures are almost certainly underestimates.
In demographic studies of fertility, the entire category of underclass males is frequently omitted because reliable data on their offspring simply can't be obtained – their sexual behavior is often promiscuous, and their relationships transient.
Since studies of twins, and adoption studies have established that there is a substantial genetic component to criminality, the higher fertility of criminals significantly increases the genetic potential for criminality in the population.
Only recently have such facts been revealed by research as, for a considerable period after 1945 Eugenics was, quite wrongly, a 'no go' area, not only for politicians, but also for legitimate scientific research.

EUGENICS in the THIRD REICH

The belief in the superiority of the Aryan Race was combined with a Eugenics program that sought to produce a system of racial hygiene and Eugenics created by the control of 'Untermenschen' ("sub-humans") throughout the Reich and conquered territories.
Third Reich policies labeled residents in German territory who were not ethnic Germans, such as Jews (a Semitic people of Levantine origins), Romanis (also known as Gypsies, a people of Indian Subcontinent origins), as well as European non-Nordic peoples including Slavs (Poles, Serbs, Russians, etc.), and all other persons of color as inferior non-Aryan 'sub-humans' (i.e. non-Nordics) in a racial hierarchy that placed the 'Aryan Herrenvolk' ('master race') of the 'Volksgemeinschaft' ('people's community') at the top.
Jews were placed near the bottom of the hierarchy, (the lowest levels including Negroid races) and considered 'inhuman' - the 'creation of a lesser God', according to völkisch occult philosophy.
The 'Aryan Master Race', as conceived by völkisch Eugenics, graded humans on a scale of pure Aryan to non-Aryan (who were viewed as sub-humans).
At the top of the scale of pure Aryans were Germans and other Germanic peoples including the Dutch, Scandinavians, and the English, as well as other peoples such as some northern Italians and the French who were said to have a suitable admixture of Germanic blood.
The feeling that Germans were the 'Aryan Herrenvolk' (Aryan master race) was widely spread among the German public through propaganda during the Third Reich, and had previously been made popular by periodicals (such as Leibenfels' 'Ostara' - and the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and the teachings of Madame Blavatsky in the 19th Century).
Slavs were considered as Non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans') who were to be enslaved and prevented from breeding.
Völkisch theorists believed that Germany's Teutonic ancestors had spread out from Germany throughout Europe.
Of the German tribes that spread through Europe, the theorists identified that the Burgundians, Franks, and Western Goths joined with the Gauls to make France; the Lombards moved south and joined with the Italians; the Jutes made Denmark; the Angles and Saxons made England; the Flemings made Belgium; and other tribes made the Netherlands.
Völkisch racial beliefs of the superiority of an Aryan 'master race' arose from earlier proponents of a supremacist conception of race such as Arthur de Gobineau, who published a four-volume work titled 'An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races '(translated into German in 1897).
Gobineau proposed that the Aryan race was superior, and urged the preservation of its cultural and racial purity.
Gobineau later came to use, and reserve, the term Aryan only for the 'Germanic race', and described the Aryans as 'la race germanique'.
By doing so he presented a racial theory in which Aryans – that is Germans–were all that was positive.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain's work 'Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts' - 1899 (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century), was one of the first to combine Social Darwinism with Eugenics, and describes history as a struggle for survival between the Germanic peoples and the Jews, (and Slaves and other inferior races), whom he characterized as an inferior and dangerous group.
The two-volume book 'Foundations of Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene '(1920–21) by Eugen Fischer, Erwin Baur, and Fritz Lenz, used scientific studies to conclude that the Germans were superior to the Jews intellectually and physically, and recommended eugenics as a solution.
Madison Grant's work 'The Passing of the Great Race' (1916) advocated 'Nordicism' and proposed using a Eugenic program to preserve the Nordic race.
After reading the book, Hitler called it 'my Bible'.
Hans F. K. Günther who strongly influenced Völkisch ideology, wrote in his book 'Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes' (Race Lore of German People) about the danger of "Slavic blood of Eastern races" mixing with the German, and combined nationalism with Eugenics and antisemitism.

EUGENIC LAWS DURING the THIRD REICH

The July 1933 'Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring' – written by Ernst Rüdin and other theorists of "racial hygiene" – established 'Genetic Health Courts' which decided on compulsory sterilization of 'any person suffering from a hereditary disease.'
These included those suffering from 'Congenital Mental Deficiency', schizophrenia, 'Manic-Depressive Insanity', 'Hereditary Epilepsy', 'Hereditary Chorea' (Huntington’s), Hereditary Blindness, Hereditary Deafness, 'any severe hereditary deformity', as well as 'any person suffering from severe alcoholism'.
Further modifications of the law enforced sterilization of children of mixed German and African parentage (resulting from the occupation of the Rhineland by French negro troops at the end of the Great War).

    'Rhineland bastard' was a derogatory term used in Germany to describe multiracial children with Caucasian, German mothers who had been fathered by Africans serving with French colonial troops during the Occupation of the Rhineland after World War I. The term can be traced back to 1919, just after World War I, when 'Entente' troops, most of them French, occupied the Rhineland. Some German women married soldiers from the occupying forces, while many others had children by them out of wedlock (hence the disparaging label 'bastards'). The resulting children numbered from 160,000 to 180,000. The occupation itself had been regarded as a national disgrace by Germans across the political spectrum, and there was a widespread tendency to consider all forms of collaboration and fraternization with the occupiers as moral (if not legal) treason. In 'Mein Kampf', Hitler described children resulting from any kind of relationship to African occupation soldiers as a contamination of the white race "by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe".

In addition, the government of the Third Reich wanted to increase birthrates of those who were classified as racially elite.
When the NSDAP gained power in 1933, one of their first actions was to pass the 'Law for the Encouragement of Marriage'.
This law stated that all newly married couples of the Aryan race could receive a government loan.
This loan was not simply paid back, rather a portion of it would be forgiven after the birth of each child.
The purpose of this law was very clear and simple: to encourage newly weds to have as many children as they could, so that the Aryan population would grow.
Between 1935 and 1936, eugenic measures regarding the Jews increased apace while the process of 'Gleichschaltung' ('standardisation', the process by which the NSDAP achieved a considerable measure of control over German society) was implemented.
In May 1935, Jews (not surprisingly) were forbidden to join the Wehrmacht (the armed forces).

The NÜRNBERG LAWS

The 'Nürnberger Gesetze' - (Nuremberg Laws) were passed around the time of the great Reichsparteitag at Nuremberg.
On September 15, 1935, the 'Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der Ehre' (the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor) was passed.
At first this criminalized sexual relations and marriage only between Germans and Jews, but later the law was extended to Gypsies, Negroes and their bastard offspring and it became punishable by law as 'Rassenschande' - (racial disgrace).
After this, the 'Reich Citizenship Law' was passed, and was reinforced in November by a decree; it included only people of 'German or related blood', which meant that all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews, were stripped of their citizenship and became 'subjects of the state' rather than citizens (members of the 'volksgemeinschaft' - 'people's community'.
The drafting of the Nuremberg Laws has often been attributed to Hans Globke.
Globke had studied British attempts to 'organize' its empire by creating hierarchical social orders, for example in the organization of 'martial races' in the British Indian Empire.
In the territories forming the 'Großdeutsches Reich' (Greater German Reich), between 1943 and 1945, the Nordic science of Anthropometrics (Eugenics and Racial Hygiene) was used to "improve" the racial make-up of the 'Germanized' section of the population, by absorbing individuals (mainly children) into the German population who were deemed suitably Nordic. 

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
© Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
German racial ideology regarded the Germanic peoples of Europe as belonging to a racially superior 'Nordic' subset of the larger 'Aryan Race', who were regarded as the only true culture-bearers of civilized society. These peoples were viewed as either "true Germanic peoples" that had "lost their sense of racial pride", or as close racial relatives of the Germans. Hitler's concept of "Germanic" did not simply refer to an ethnic, cultural, or linguistic group, but also to a distinctly biological one, the superior "Germanic blood" that he wanted to salvage from the control of the enemies of the Aryan race. He stated that Germany possessed more of these "Germanic elements" than any other country in the world.

Much of this work was undertaken by the 'Lebensborn' - under the direction of the SS.

    © Copyright Peter Crawford 2017
    'Lebensborn' e.V. ("Fount of Life") was under the control of Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS (RuSHA). It was an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in the Third Reich, with the goal of raising the birth rate of "Aryan" children via persons classified as "racially pure and healthy", based on Nazi racial hygiene and health ideology. 'Lebensborn' encouraged anonymous births by unmarried women, and mediated adoption of these children by likewise "racially pure and healthy" parents, particularly SS members and their families. Initially set up in Germany in 1935, 'Lebensborn' expanded into several occupied European countries with Germanic populations German expansion. It included the selection of "racially worthy" orphans for adoption, and also care for children born from Aryan women who had been in relationships with SS members.

to be continued....

>>die Lehre von der Regenerierung<<

    FOREWORD

    The concept of regeneration arose, from many sources, but much of the teaching derived initially from some of Richard Wagner's writings on Art, Race, Philosophy and Religion.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2015

    After the death of the master, many of his followers, especially in Bayreuth, took up  this concept and developed it into a complex, yet coherent philosophy.  

    Foremost  among these followers of the doctrine of Regeneration was Wagner's widow, Cosima Wagner, and her daughter Eva, who was married to Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

    Cosima Wagner (von Bülow - born Francesca Gaetana Cosima Liszt; 24 December 1837 – 1 April 1930) was the daughter of the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt. She became the second wife of the German composer Richard Wagner, and with him founded the Bayreuth Festival as a showcase for his stage works; after his death she devoted the rest of her life to the promotion of his music and philosophy. Commentators have recognized Cosima as the principal inspiration for Wagner's later works, particularly 'Parsifal'.

    Houston Stewart Chamberlain (9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was an English-born German author of books on political philosophy, natural science and son-in-law of the German composer Richard Wagner. In December 1908, twenty-five years after Wagner's death, Chamberlain married Wagner's stepdaughter, Eva von Bülow. Chamberlain's two-volume book, 'Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts' (The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century), published in 1899, became one of the many references for the pan-Germanic movement of the early 20th century, and, later, of the völkisch philosophy of the Third Reich.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014

LEBENSREFORM

    Parsifal by Fidus
    The concept of Regeneration had a considerable impact on the social, cultural and political development of the German speaking world in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While the Wagnerian, Bayreuth form of Regeneration was very much for the elite, a slightly more accessible form of the basic philosophy filtered down through the various social classes. This form of Regeneration theory was generally known as Lebensreform ("life reform").

    Back-to-Nature

        It was a social (although not always an overtly political) movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century Germany and Austria that propagated a 'back-to-nature' lifestyle, emphasizing among others health food/raw food/organic food, nudism, sexual liberation.

    Siegfried Wagner
    This included an acceptance of homosexuality - (Siegfried Wagner, Wagner's only son was homosexual) - and lesbianism, alternative medicine, and religious reform, and at the same time often included abstention from drugs, and vaccines. Important Lebensreform proponents were Sebastian Kneipp, Louis Kuhne, Karl Wilhelm 
    Diefenbach, Fidus (Hugo Höppener), Gusto Graeser, and Adolf Just. The Lebensreform movement in Germany originally was a diverse movement.

    There were hundreds of groups across Germany dedicated to some or all of the concepts associated with Lebensreform: ecology and organic farming, vegetarianism, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco - (all three important parts of the Wagnerian form of Regeneration theory), and naturalism (Nacktkultur). Dozens of magazines, books, and pamphlets were published on these topics. 
    Other Lebensreform groups involved in völkisch Romanticism gradually became part of the ideology of the 1930s, known as 'blut und boden' - (blood and soil). As early as 1907, Richard Ungewitter published a pamphlet called 'Nacktkeit und Kultur' (Nudity and Culture) (which sold 100,000 copies), arguing that the practices he recommended would be "the means by which the German race would regenerate itself and ultimately prevail over its neighbors and the diabolical Jews, who were intent on injecting putrefying agents into the nation's blood and soil".

    Artamanen-Gesellschaft
    Heinrich Himmler
    Those promoting völkisch Lebensreform ideology eventually became popular among Third Reich officials and their supporters, including Heinrich Himmler and Rudolph Höss, who belonged to the farming organization known as the 'Artaman League'.
    The Artamanen-Gesellschaft - Artaman League - was a German agrarian and völkisch movement dedicated to a 'Blood and Soil' inspired ruralism. Active during the inter-war period, the League became closely linked to, and eventually absorbed by, the NSDAP (see below). The Artaman League had its roots in the overall Lebensreform movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century Germany and Austria.

    Adolf Hitler

    Adolf Hitler's admiration of Richard Wagner is well known, and although he is not recorded as making any direct references to Wagner's Regeneration writings it is difficult to imagine that he was not aware of them.
    Hitler, of course, always saw himself primarily as an 'artist' (like many of the senior members of the NSDAP), and considered art and classical culture to be essential elements for the creation of an ideal, regenerated state.

Wandervogel Jungen

    Equally his abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, and his vegetarianism are indicative of Wagnarian Regeneration theory, as well as the ideals of the Lebensreform movement.

    © Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
    Hitler, of course, like all those who were influential in the völkisch movement, and the NSDAP, was a 'child of his time', and therefore it would have been surprising if he had escaped the all pervasive influence of Lebensreform, which affected so much of German and Austrian society in his youth.It is undoubtedly this pervasive influence, both of Lebensreform, and also Regeneration Theory proclaimed from the 'grüner Hügel', that now enables us to refer to the 'dritte Reich' as the 'grüne Reich'. These völkisch Lebensreform groups were espoused by German youth, and associated with such groups was the 'Wandervogel' movement, which was a precursor to the Hitlerjugend.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2014
REGENERIERUNG und RASSENHYGIENE

One of the main aspects that concerned and troubled the supporters of the philosophy Regeneration was the question of race - (Rassenfrage).
It was held that degeneration had occurred as a result of miscegenation.

    Miscegenation - (from the Latin 'miscere' 'to mix' and 'genus' "kind") is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or procreation. The term miscegenation has been used since the 19th century to refer to interracial marriage and interracial sexual relations, and more generally to the process of genetic admixture. The concept of miscegenation is tied to concepts of racial difference.

Many völkisch occultists maintained that the Aryan race was the creation of the Æons, having descended directly from the heavens.
Other humanoid forms (chimpanzees and other great apes - the creations of a lesser 'god' - the Demiurge), it was held, had crossbred with Aryans in the distant past, giving rise to the various Untermenschen still in existence - or not, as in the case of the Neanderthals - (with the Jews as the most developed, and the Polynesians and Negroes at the lower end of the scale - see Lanz von Liebenfells).

    Aryans have one pair fewer chromosomes than other apes, with ape chromosomes 2 and 4 fusing into a large chromosome (which contains remnants of the centromere and telomeres of the ancestral 2 and 4). Having different numbers of chromosomes is not an barrier to hybridization; similar mismatches are relatively common in existing species, a phenomenon known as 'chromosomal polymorphism'. Current research into human evolution tends to confirm that in some cases, interspecies sexual activity may have been a key part of human evolution.

There had, throughout recorded history been a continuation of  miscegenation occurring between the Aryans and the Untermenschen, resulting in the gradual dilution of the purity of the Aryan racial stock.

'Parsifal'
As a result there were, in the 19th and 20th centuries, practically no pure Aryans.
(This theory is symbolised Wagner's Bühnenweihfestspiel 'Parsifal').
The evidence, for völkisch occultists, was clearly evident in the decline of Western (and particularly German speaking) societies, as reflected in politics, the fine art, music, architecture, public morality and all aspects of 'modern' life.
Hence the need for Regeneration.

    The German eugenicist Alfred Ploetz introduced the term Rassenhygiene in his 'Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene', in 1895. Initially Rassenhygiene was concerned more with the declining birthrate in Germany, and the increasing number of mentally ill and disabled people than with the "Jewish question" and "de-Nordification" (Entnordung), which would come to dominate Rassenhygiene in Germany from the 1920s through to the second World War. The blueprint for the attitude of the Third Reich toward other races was written by Erwin Baur, Fritz Lenz and Eugen Fischer and published under the title' Menschliche Erblehre Theorie und Rassenhygiene' (1936). Also, acting on eugenic concerns about the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and syphilis, the Third Reich sponsored research, undertook public education campaigns, and enacted laws that together aimed at eliminating “genetic poisons” linked to birth defects and genetic damage to later generations.

Aristocracy of the Blood
Aristocracy of the Blood
At its core the Regeneration was conceived as the regeneration of the Aryan race, which would be mainly achieved by the strict implementation of Rassenhygiene (Eugenics).
The goal of Rassenhygiene was for society to return to a healthy, strong and beautiful life, and the Nordic Aryan race would regain its "purity" through selective reproduction in conformity to Darwinian theory.

    Rassenhygiene was a theory that certain individuals shoul be allowed to procreate and others not, with the expressed purpose of promoting certain characteristics deemed to be particularly desirable. It was stated that race created culture, and that "impure" miscegenation led to chaos. Racial hygiene was historically tied to traditional notions of public health, but usually with an enhanced emphasis on heredity. Francis Galton began working in 1869 in order to find a statistical science of heredity which he believed could encourage voluntary care in selecting partners, and in 1883 he introduced the term "eugenics" for this subject, but in the early 20th century a eugenics movement adopted ideas of Mendelian genetics, and promoted Rassenhygiene to prevent those who were unsuitable from having offspring.

© Copyright Peter Crawford 2015
'DIE LEHRE VON DER REGENERIERUNG'

INTRODUCTION

The current form of human society (the modern State and its religious organisations) is recognized as fruits of the decline.
And yet the knowledge obtained of the causes of this decadence lead to the notion of a possible regeneration.
It is important to note the following: it is that this denial and negation is not metaphysical but empirical, and this affirmation is not primarily mystical, but positive and refers to a possible becoming.
Our decadence is due to material influences, and what is lacking for them are material remedies, or as well the prompt suppression of these harmful influences will be enough to open for us the paradise now lost and then rediscovered in a conscious way.
In this practical doctrine of regeneration, philosophy and religion are so important that not to take them into consideration would risk a misrepresentation of the doctrine.
If, alongside the practical doctrine of regeneration, we bring other elements into our line of conduct, then we are in the presence of three doctrines, one practical, another philosophical, the third religious.
And each of these doctrines is dependent on the other two, and sometimes in contradiction with them, even it seems in their fundamental premises.
Take for example the philosophical doctrine of regeneration.

Schopenhauer
Alongside the simple practical doctrine of a regeneration of mankind, we must consider the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who, in a sense, should serve as the foundation.
We know in this philosophy the metaphysical 'new birth' is presented as the 'complete knowledge', the penetration, we might say, of individuality, and as the reversion of the will which is the consequence.
Must we devote ourselves to the fulfillment of a regeneration that nowhere, at no time, will ever be known to reach any valid result ?
Can we hope to establish the hope of a history, yet to come on an equally historic past, if any real appearance of the world is just illusion and lies ?
Such indecisions would only have value from the standpoint of a contradiction of pure logic. They have no value for knowledge that nature teaches us.
We have already found this same phenomenon expressly stated concerning politics: the coexistence of apparently contradictory terms that actually complement one another. 
These are necessary constituent elements of an intelligence sincere even against itself, an intelligence formed organically and in which systematic lies would have no place.
Then comes a third element: religion.
If practical regeneration is represented as possible, then it succeeds only if we are 'brave and believing'."
Only on the firm foundation of 'true religion' can the necessary strength develop to reach the aspiration for regeneration.
It is precisely in their relationship that we reconcile these contradictions of the joy of life and relentless painful knowledge, of optimism and pessimism.
But a new difficulty arises; that our religion, as it is now, has also not escaped the universal decadence, so we can not admit its immediate application to regeneration.
At the end of this work we return to this point, intending to clarify the meaning of this apparent contradiction.
The exposition of the doctrine of regeneration falls into two parts: negation or denial and affirmation.
The element of negation is the awareness of decline and this consciousness, once acquired, serves as a basis for faith in a possible regeneration.
Art is, alongside religion, a most potent factor of regeneration, Art cannot reach full bloom in our society, but only in a regenerated society.
On the other hand, what is absolutely essential for this regeneration is the cooperation of the arts.
Those who are nourished by the belief that humanity is on the path of indefinite progress, of which we can discern no end, and it is in this that most do place their faith, will not know how to nor be able to admit the need nor the possibility of a regeneration.
Indeed, this notion of regeneration carries with it the admission of two postulates: the 'original goodness', at least relative, of man in so far as his life and development are in harmony with the laws of both surrounding nature and his own nature, and also the conviction that humanity has historically been wrong and departed ever more from the ways of sound development in accordance with nature.
That which is for some 'progress' is for others nothing more than 'decadence'.
One could represent decadence as the work of a fatal power, against which all resistance would be futile, as an inevitable decline, similar to the effects of age on individuals.
But it can also be seen as the result of a true deviation, and then one must take a first step, and not the least important one, to regeneration.
Undoubtedly if we scrutinize and uncover its causes, then regeneration will not only appear desirable to us, but possible as well.
The admission of a deviation of mankind, as opposed as it appears to the idea of progress, could well be the only basis on which to secure and found our hope.
For if we can verify this affirmation is due to too powerful external influences, against which prehistoric man, devoid of experience, could not defend himself, then the history of humankind, within the limits accessible to us, appears as the sorrowful period of elaborating his full awareness which will show him the way by which he will be able to use the knowledge thus acquired to protect himself from those evil influences.
Wherever we look in the civilized world we always find a deviation in men and the astonishing moral deformation of our actual social condition.
We shall not recapture faith and courage until we listen to murmurings of history, this eternal source of life, hidden in the rubble of historical civilization, that continues flowing in its original freshness.
It is, however, essential to deeply despise this world, where hypocrisy simulates concern for art and culture, while in its veins not a single drop of artistic blood will be found, and it knows not how to produce a single atom of quality, or of truly human beauty.
As it is now, our civilization is wicked and heartless, and not led by anything more than the enhancement of the correct value of calculations of its egotism.
It is a society that is profoundly immoral, a world of organized crime and looting certified by falsehood, lies and hypocrisy, that "transforms men into monsters.
And the modern State lives only on the vices of society.
In addition, ecclesiastical religion has become impotent and is devoid of the true God.
We must, however, look well ahead into the question of knowing where is the true cause of all the misery of our current social condition, and one of the main causes is money.
Money – gold, - the pallid metal to which we are enslaved by a shameful servitude, but behind this product the most rigid and least able to have life in all of nature, there is the very beginning of property.
Property, which has become hereditary, is the principle cause of the decadence of humanity.
In the historical organization of the feudal system, in so far as it remained in its primitive purity, we find this principle, at once human and heroic, expressed: the concession of an enjoyment was only given to those who, for some service, could personally claim it.
From the moment the fief became hereditary, the man, his individual activity, his personal merits, lost their value, which were converted into a possession, and had become hereditary.
It was that, and not personal virtue, that created the social importance of inheritance, and thus the gradual and growing depreciation of men, as the value of possessions climbed steadily, and came to incorporate themselves into the most inhuman institutions. 
This made property legitimize the man rather than, as before then, the man being he who legitimized property.
In addition, it has become the primordial concern of the modern State to forever fix property, which thereby stops the vivifying fertility of the future.
From possession converted into property, on which alone one wants to make all order rest, have come all the crimes of myth and history, and it seems certain that from this notion of ownership, that seemed so simple in itself, and with its political sanction, there has entered into the body of mankind such a cruel spear that it makes mankind suffer a painful agony forever.
However, institutions such as money and the hereditary inheritance of property should, at most, be considered as causes of a secondary order, perhaps as symptoms more than as effective factors of decadence.

RACE

For the primary cause we should consider a physical cause for this decadence and decline, and found it in the corruption of the blood.
He was possible that the peoples of Europe were not only victims of a growing deviation, but that they seemed to move farther and farther from their own image, to the point that the various branches of the Aryan and Germanic races became increasingly foreign with respect to one another.
And the explanation is to be found in the moral influence of Judaism.
Therefore the main causes for our decadence were a corruption of blood, and the demoralizing influence of Judaism.
The influence of Judaism accelerates and favors the progress of degeneration, pushing modern man into a wild storm that does not leave him time to recognize or raise awareness of this unfortunate decline, nor of the loss of his own identity.
The corruption of blood comes above all from abnormal nutrition, but also from the mixture of more noble races (Aryan) with those that are less so.
The issues of nutrition is significant, for on one side there is lack of nutrition, and on the other excess of sensual enjoyments above any limit, and a way of life absolutely contrary to nature.
It is here we have what has led us to a state of degeneration that can be stopped only by a complete renewal of our deformed organism.
Superfluity and deprivation, here are the two mortal enemies of our present humanity. In truth, all our politics, our diplomacy, our thirst for the future, our science and, unfortunately, all our modern art - indeed, all this parasitic vegetation of our present life is undoubtedly greatly influenced by poor nutrition.
The inequality of human races is a second cause of decadence.
If the noble race can quite dominate the inferior race, it can not, by means of mixture, elevate the latter, since all it will achieve is the lowering of its own blood to the level of the inferior.
It is more than obvious we would not have human history without the movements, successes and creations of the white race, and we can find, without a doubt, that universal history is the history of the mixing of this race with the yellow and black, in the sense that these last, less noble, enter into history only to the extent that by mixing they are more or less assimilated to the white race.
The deterioration of these, moreover comes, obviously, from their being infinitely less numerous than the representatives of the inferior races, and seeing themselves obligated to mix with them, by which the white race loses much more in purity than the others could have gained by ennobling their blood to some extent.
Despite its vital importance, however, it has only a secondary importance in the doctrine of regeneration, since it does not clarify the future, but rather the past, and can only be projected into the future in the form of a powerful cataclysm.
With regard to the racial question, however, ther is also the demoralizing influence of one of those white races over the others, - of the Jewish element over the non-Jewish Aryan peoples.

Here one must consider the irremediable disadvantage in which one finds the German race when faced with the Jew, for the principle of the Jewish religion is egotism.
The Jew is indifferent to everything that does not bring him a personal benefit.
Hebraic egotism is a deep and unfathomable violence. One thing was clear, Jewish influence over European intellectual life has made itself felt strongly in the sense it distorts and alters our most sublime art and culture that is proper to us.
In this it is obvious that the Jews live off the exploitation of the universal decay. 
However, knowledge of the true cause of our decline leads, with equal force, to believe in the possibility of a radical regeneration.
For example, if meat-eating if the major cause of human decay, the remedy will be, evidently, a strictly vegetarian diet; if miscegenation tends to corrupt the blood, take steps to prevent it at all costs immediately.
Vegetarianism is important, but we must also maintain a strict solidarity that exists between man and nature and, therefore, recognize the all-powerful force of natural necessity.
But also the emotional life, the best of the soul, should be directed to that Art, which is conceived as absolutely one with true religion, for material or metaphysical remedies were not enough to reach, by themselves, regeneration, which will never arise other than from the deep core of a true religion.
It seems there are therefore three juxtaposed worlds: one material and empirical, another transcendental and metaphysical, and a third mystical and religious; Art is the element that collects and unites them, since its form is material, its content transcendental and its meaning mystical.
From the material, empirical point of view the main consideration is food. We must abstain from eating meat and drinking alcohol.
An exclusively vegetarian diet is the central point of the question of regeneration. In the philosophical field nature, and nature alone, can unravel the tangled skein of human destiny, as the civilization based on Christian faith and on the condemnation of human nature, thus denying mankind, has gained an enemy who must soon destroy it, in the sense that man does not find his place, so that this enemy is precisely eternal living nature.
What is "purely human," what surges from "eternal nature," are not perhaps pure abstractions, but it at least corresponds that these notions are not taken from observation.
Nature, and in particular "the true nature of man" is good, and our world is "the desert of a degenerate paradise."
Equally, there is the importance of "the fatal necessity" - which reminds us of the "Will" as found in the works of Schopenhauer.
Nature engenders and forms by necessity, and in man as well it is the unique pressure of necessity that determines us to create some acts and gestures worthy of being created.
And the logical consequence is clear: life is what is immediate, what determines itself. Regeneration does not find its place in a fatalist conception of nature, however.
This has formed all that it is by necessity, and wisdom consists in wanting the necessary. In Schopenhauer there is no regeneration, since the word "decadence" has no meaning in his system, and he has never pronounced it.
To try to prove progress is, doubtless according to him, to entrust oneself to "an artificial and imaginary construction," but he does not admit the idea of decadence; for him the final residue of history is in the presence of a "being always the same, always equal to itself, immutable, that today does what was done yesterday and forever."
Schopenhauer, indeed, affirms the doctrine of the fall, but specifically by way of myth, as existence is sinful in itself.

Wotan
Richard Wagner
According to his philosophy the sage, like the Wotan of Wagner, can not "want more than one thing".
It is, however, not Schopenhauer's fault if the quite exact representation of the world he found before him occupied him so much that he was forced to leave to us the charge of exploring those roads .
The philosophy of Schopenhauer, though, must be seen as the only that can be recommended to take us to the paths of true hope.
And so the certainty of the victory of the will results from the awareness of decadence.

RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY

The recognition of the moral significance of the world is the coronation of all knowledge. 
This knowledge is also the basis of hope and, thereby, the origin of faith in regeneration. 
The only aspiration and strength that enables the fulfillment of the great regeneration must have its origin in the deep core and basis of a religion, for without religion we can not acquire the force necessary for regeneration, nor even feel ourselves transported to her.
Religion is then, as we see, the condition sine qua non on which rests the entire doctrine of regeneration.
There is a destiny for mankind set beyond space and time in a moral significance of the world – and the whole doctrine of regeneration is rooted in this faith.
It gains nothing from material progress.
To the idea of progress this doctrine opposes harmony with nature.
Neither the development of machines nor the infinite accumulation of scientific knowledge reduce in any way the ocean of human misery.
Also the meaning of these things is only fleeting and relative, not eternal or absolute.
The thought of regeneration has nothing more in mind than man as a moral being.
At bottom it cares little about reaching a temporal goal.
The doctrine of regeneration, starting from three different points of view, one empiric and historic, another abstract and philosophical, and the third religious, is shown to us under three corresponding forms.
It now remains to consider the element in which the three worlds become conscious of their unity and which plays such a preponderant role in this general vision of things: Art. 

REGENERATION and ART

The action of Art in each of these three domains is decisive. It is, to a great extent, by the action of art that we shall develop human society in a beautiful and noble human sense.

The God Apollo
A Temple to the God of Art
The future must raise a temple to Apollo, the God of Art. Art, in the regeneration of human society, will play an indispensable role.
It must reveal to men the significance of this pressing unconscious need, and the right way to those who have gone astray.
Art does not exercise an immediate action, but has the magic power to make man known to himself, and to chart the path that will lead to regeneration.
The relationship between art and metaphysics is clearly defined.
Art can never claim to express a metaphysical abstraction, but there is a superior art that distinguishes itself from ordinary artistic production in that the development of its activity is intrinsic, involuntary, and what it comes to represent are the manifestations of this primary transcendental essence of the world: necessity, will or whatever other names we wish to give it.
Art frees the intangible thought of sensation, and that is why Schopenhauer held it in such high esteem and saw, from his exclusively philosophical point of view, "the true goal of Art which opens a path to cosmic ideas."
Here again, Art plays, a key role as intermediary; it is an intermediary in a way that leads to deeper insight into the essence of the world, the way it is, in itself, an indispensable element of the thought of regeneration.
The work of art is the religion that has come to be sensible in a living form.
So, here again, art is the intermediary, the exponent, we could say, in religious matters.
The main purpose of Art, therefore, is to highlight the most sublime meaning, and show the true direction to follow.
Art will then introduce us to the true ideal and the symbol of everything that endures, while the pseudo-reality of history sleeps, buried beneath the yellowing papers of a corrupt civilization.
It is also the relationship of Art with religion that is by far the most important, because if Art can raise itself from its lesser role of recreation, of innocent distraction, to the height of a sanctifying and purifying deed, then one understands the significance that Art could have, purifying from the immoral demands that today denature her, in the terrain of a new moral order of things.
One could say that where religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for Art to save the substantial nucleus, penetrating the mythic symbols, that religion claims are believed as true in the literal sense of the term, according to their symbolic values, in which are recognized, through their ideal representation, the ideal truth that is hidden therein. 
Thus, one role of Art is to save the substance of religion, as expressing what is inexpressible to religious philosophy, as in the decay of dogma, true idealistic art intervenes as liberator, as she conserves religious thought in her transformative regenerative purity.
The religion which is referred to here is dreamed rather than revealed writings. It can, however, be revealed in artworks.
If the co-operation of Art is indispensable for the restoration of a true religion, then true Art, for her part, must be defined as the emancipation of this religion.
A true art can only grow and prosper on the basis of a true morality.
The highest Art could not find the energy necessary for similar revelations if it lacked the foundation of religious symbols and perfect morality, for only thus can such Art be truly understood.
We see, therefore, in what sense, all truly high Art, can rightly be considered religious. 
The relationship between Art and religion is a relation of reciprocity, which conditions both.
True art can not be born without religion, as this latter can not be revealed without the help of Art.
In this sense Art and religion are not more than a single organism, and it is only in this live form that a profoundly religious Art, revelation of a true religion, can draw out the necessary virtue and force for the fulfillment of regeneration.