Nazi Medicine: The Nazi Party

Nazi Medicine is, or at least thought to be, the mass practice of racial hygiene coupled with the phenomenon in which the Nazi Party performed thousands of medical experiments on non-consenting individuals during the Holocaust. Though some of these practices and experiments had legitimate purposes, most were fueled by prejudiced values. These practices were indeed some of the greatest disgraces in human history, but the widely-held belief that they were unprecedented or completely unique is misguided and idealistic. On the contrary, the infamous ideas that were responsible for one of the greatest genocides in history were not unique to the Nazi party, the time period, or even Germany for that matter. Moreover, medicine was not merely a segregated …show more content…
Contrary to popular belief, the Nazi party didn’t invent this idea. In fact, the movement didn’t event begin in Germany. Moreover, the Nazi party didn’t form until 1920 and didn’t rise to power until 1933. Meanwhile, these ideologies began circulating in the English-speaking world during the mid-nineteenth century.
In actuality, eugenics was a derivative of social Darwinism, which, in turn, was based on the teachings of ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859) by Charles Darwin, an English naturalist. This piece of scientific literature contained principles that people interpreted to mean that criminal nature could be inherited, and furthermore, that people should actively strive to weed out these undesirable traits of society. Though his argument was based on research performed on plant and animal species, Darwin accurately predicted that his findings would evoke implications about the human race. “In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches,” he wrote, “Psychology will be based on a new foundation… light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” A few short years later, papers that shed light on the evolution of the human race were already being published. ‘Hereditary talent and character’ (1865) argued that intelligence, industriousness, and moral personality traits were passed down genetically, insinuating that …show more content…
Positive eugenics focused on the aspect that advocated for high rates of reproduction among people with ‘desirable’ traits. Conversely, negative eugenics involved for lower rates of production and/or sterilization for those with traits that were less than desirable. Because of this, medicine was not an insulated sphere, but an element largely penetrated by political and social values. The efforts to promote social hygiene were, after all, motivated by fears of the degeneration of