The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism [Paperback]

Stefan Kuhl (Author)

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Product Details

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; New edition edition (Aug 15 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195149785
ISBN-13: 978-0195149784
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.9 x 1.5 cm
Shipping Weight: 272 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #498,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

From Kirkus Reviews

Narrowly focused yet chillingly effective indictment of the American scientists and social theorists who inspired and applauded Nazi racist ideology. Eugenics--part science, part twisted Social Darwinism, according to German sociologist Khl--was first defined in 1883 by Francis Galton as the ``science of improving the stock''--a science that went on to give academic respectability to the earliest expressions of Nazi racism. Insisting that many of the assumptions underlying Nazi thought were ``by no means limited to German scientists,'' the author skillfully dismantles postwar attempts to marginalize the activities of the worldwide eugenics establishment, particularly in the US. With European ties frayed post-WW I, America became the main scientific reference point for German theorists seeking international legitimacy: it unfortunately proved an influential model, not only intellectually but politically. A 1907 Indiana law permitting the sterilization of the mentally handicapped long predated Germany's 1933 Law on Preventing Hereditarily Ill Progeny, and the 1924 American Immigration Restriction Act was later praised by the future Fhrer in Mein Kampf. Meanwhile, US sponsors--including the Rockefeller Foundation and Jewish philanthropist James Loeb--helped fund major eugenics institutes in Germany. In turn, many of these sought greater recognition by offering honorary degrees to leading US eugenicists- -two of whom, Leon Whitney and Madison Grant, are glimpsed here proudly comparing appreciative letters from Hitler. A brief reference to a resurgence of scientific racism in today's academia adds an especially pertinent cautionary note. More a monograph than a fully realized history but, still, a well-documented revisionist rebuke to those who would isolate Nazism as a unique phenomenon. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Despite several excellent recent books on the history of eugenics, Kuhl's little book has moved the history of eugenics to a new level: the international connections that nationally researched studies have heretofore failed to make. The role of American intellectual and scientific encouragement for first German and then Nazi ideas on eugenics--and beyond--is simply dynamite information. Kuhl's close dissection of the persistence of eugenical ideas despite shifts in definition over time is a powerfully documented and necessary contribution."--Carl N. Degler, author of Out of Our Past and Affluence and Anxiety

"Narrowly focused yet chillingly effective indictment of the American scientists and social theorists who inspired and applauded Nazi racist ideology....A well-documented revisionist rebuke to those would isolate Nazism as a unique phenomenon."--Kirkus Reviews

"A thorough-going expose of the multiple and nefarious connections between Nazi racial hygiene and American eugenics."--Robert N. Proctor, author of Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis

"An important book that should not be ignored."--San Francisco Bay Guardian

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
The late 1980s witnessed a revival of public interest in scientific racism on North American campuses. Read the first page

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Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

16 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Book, Feb 27 2005

By Kyle Purdy - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism (Paperback)

This is a valuable book that explores the role of American intellectual and psuedo-scientific policies and how the played an important role in the maturation of Nazi Germany. A must read.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Problem Focus, April 9 2011

By Zita Mueller - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism (Paperback)

I find the focus of this book and other recent books that are primarily focused on the eugenics movement in the U.S. as being the cause of World War Two Germany's extermination policy, problematic. The author stated that Germany dominated the eugenics movement early on and was the first to hold an international conference on it before World War One. He also stated that he worked in a German facility for the handicapped that claimed to have not harmed the handicapped during World War Two, something that later research of his led him to doubt. Although the U.S, as did other countries have laws regarding sterilization of the handicapped, that could be applied, in fact they rarely were. The laws and attitudes in the U.S. that led to this are problematic, however they have been covered before and were fully public then and since. HOwever, what was missing in the author's book that was deeply disturbing, was any mention of what the German government was engaged in during World War Two. During World War Two, the German government exterminated approximately 800,000 handicapped Europeans. This is something that has received so little attention that it is disturbing that this was another book that portrayed the US as the "cause of all of Germany's actions" rather than Germany itself and a book and author who might have shed some light on why Germany and German institutions secretly exterminated hundreds of thousands of people because they were handicapped. As well it could have been a book, given the author's background, that explored why both the German government and institutions that might have been culpable, have been so unwilling to be open and honest about their actons in World War Two. Instead it's just another book that serves not to explain how and why the German government in World War Two turned to exterminating human beings for no reason at all.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews 3.5 out of 5 stars