Nazi racial and biological ideology
Much of Nazi Party policy, especially The Holocaust, was based on Adolf Hitler's views of eugenics. As he urged reproduction by what he considered superior people, he began efforts to suppress his idea of the subnormal, starting with involuntary sterilization, [1] In Mein Kampf, he wrote,
The völkisch state must see to it that only the healthy beget children .... Here the state must act as the guardian of a millennial future .... It must put the most modern medical means in the service of this knowledge. It must declare unfit for propagation all who are in any way visibly sick or who have inherited a disease and can therefore pass it on. [2]
Implementation
The RuSHA Case of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals dealt with accusations against five organizations concerned with developing the policies to implement the ideologies:[3]
- Main Staff Office of the Reichscommissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, Reichskommissar fuer die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums, commonly known as “ RKFDV ”, which reported directly to Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS
- Main Race and Settlement Office (Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt) commonly known as “ RuSHA ”, part of the RSHA of the SS
- Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle), commonly known as “ VOMI ”
- Well of Life Society (Lebensborn).
References
- ↑ Robert Jay Lifton (1986), The Nazi Doctors: medical killing and the psychology of genocide, Basic Books, p. 21
- ↑ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, quoted by Lifton, p. 21
- ↑ "Trial of Ulrich Greifelt and Others, United States Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 10th October 1947-10th March 1948", Law Reports of the Trials of War Criminals. United Nations War Crimes Commission. Vol. XIII., 1949, pp. 4-5