Don't Use The Term 'RACE' German Scientists Urge, Anniv. Of 'German Darwin'
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- "Don't use the term 'race,' German scientists urge."- Following the 100th anniversary of the death of the "German Darwin," researchers have distanced themselves from the classification of humans into races. Scientific decency should preclude using the term "race," they say. DW/Deutsche Welle, 9/11/19. ~ Scientists at the University of Jena in eastern Germany have called for the term "race" to no longer be used, saying there is no biological basis for the classification of humanity into races.
"The primarily biological justification for defining groups of humans as races — for example based on the color of their skin or eyes, or the shape of their skulls — has led to the persecution, enslavement and slaughter of millions of people," the scientists wrote in the Jena Declaration. "However, there is no biological basis for races, and there has never been one. The concept of race is the result of racism, not its prerequisite," they continued.
The hierarchical categorization of groups of people based on their biological traits — for example, eye color, skin color, or skull shape — infers evolutionary relationships between species, which scientists in Jena now call a form of racism.
The Jena Declaration, composed by Martin S. Fischer, Uwe Hossfeld and Johannes Krause of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and Stefan Richter from the University of Rostock, was presented at the 112th annual meeting of the German Zoological Society in Jena at an event titled "Jena, Haeckel, and the question of human races, or how racism creates races."
- Ernst Haeckel, German Scientist (1834-1919) 'German Darwin' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
This year marked 100th anniversary of the death of Ernst Haeckel, who was seen by many as Germany's answer to Darwin. He was a well-known German zoologist and evolutionary biologist who some say contributed to Nazi biology. Through Haeckel's allegedly scientific classification of human "races" into a "family tree," he "made a fateful contribution to a form of racism that was seemingly based on science," the scientists wrote.
- Scientific research on genetic variations of human beings shows that "instead of definable boundaries, genetic gradients run between human groups,” say the scientists. "To be explicit, not only is there no single gene that underpins ‘racial' differences, but there is not even a single base pair." This research carries added weight in Germany where during the Nazi era, eugenics, a set of beliefs and practices aimed at ostensibly improving the genetic quality of a human population, and racial hygiene, were used extensively in order to further the National Socialist ideological tenet of maintaining a pure master race that was biologically superior to other races... "More, https://www.dw.com/en/dont-use-the-term-race-german-scientists-urge/a-50390582
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- Also: - "Remembering The Victims Of Nazi Eugenics,"- DW, 7/14/13. On July 14, 1933, the National Socialists introduced the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly sterilized. Others were murdered. Excerpts:
By the summer of 1933, the Nazis had Germany firmly in their grip. With this newfound power, the far-right party decided to mold German society in the image of its own making. A decisive step towards achieving that aim was the introduction of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, or Sterilization Law, that passed in the Reichstag on July 14, 1933. The law stated that people suffering from particular illnesses could be forcibly sterilized in order to prevent the spread of hereditary diseases. Followers of the eugenics movement believed that the German population could be genetically "improved" and welcomed the law..The National Socialists hoped to realize the dream of "master race" in which "diseased" and "weak" people had no place.
- A copy of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring dated July 25, 1933. The Sterilization Law went into effect in January 1934.
The triumph of eugenics: The new law listed the types of "illness" that warranted the sterilization of carriers. This list included congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia, epilepsy, hereditary deafness and blindness, as well as people with "any severe hereditary deformity" and alcoholics. "One can't say that it was the 'evil' Nazis alone," said Christiane Rothmaler, a doctor and historian..She knows that the issue of eugenics was already being discussed in 19th century. "Back then, eugenics was a very serious field of biology, it wasn't deranged Nazis. It was, above all, doctors who welcomed the law through which they wanted to realize this old genetic dream," the dream of a society cleansed of "inferior elements."
Social and biological experiment: Following the introduction of the law, doctors sterilized thousands of supposedly ill people. The most common justification for the procedure was known as "congenital mental illness," which was interpreted in a social sense to include people who were considered "outsiders."..People seen as antisocial, criminals, prostitutes or even simply people who didn't conform to social norms and were therefore considered "problematic" were sterilized. "They were often reliant on social welfare. Because of that, the authorities knew a lot about these people from their files," said Rothmaler.
The scientists of the period did not possess an in-depth knowledge of the hereditary transmission of diseases. "A theoretical construct was developed as to how certain traits, for example hair color, were inherited. Later, people believed that certain dispositions could also be identified," said Rothmaler.
- A Nazi poster from 1938 showing the ideal man and woman with traits of fair hair and blue eyes.
- The brutality of bureaucracy: Local authorities established Hereditary Health Courts across Germany to make decisions regarding forced sterilizations. The head of jury was a lawyer, flanked by two doctors. Medical reports were used to support the verdict that it was necessary to sterilize any given individual. "There was a flood of lawsuits, so much so that the courts could barely process them all. In the beginning people still made a lot of effort, but the longer and longer it began to take - especially after everything was focused on the war - the more the legal process became a complete farce," said Rothmaler.
When forced sterilization was proposed, the victim had only three options: The first was to simply allow the procedure to go ahead. The second was to launch a legal challenge through the courts. The third was to disappear off the map. Legal challenges were rarely ever successful and people on the run were hunted down by the police. For the majority there was simply no escape. Forced sterilization was carried out in hospitals throughout Germany, and minors were not exempt... -'Mercy death': "Patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted mercy death [Gnadentod] after a discerning diagnosis," wrote Hitler in a letter dated September 1, 1939 - the first day of World War II. With that, the National Socialist regime also began to murder those they deemed to be "inferior" beings. Euthanasia now meant the killing of disabled and psychologically ill people...
Until August 1941, around 70,000 people were murdered in gas chambers or by lethal injection during "Campaign T4," the program named after the Central Euthanasia Organization located at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin. Protests by the Catholic Church eventually brought an end to the program but children and adults continued to be victims of euthanasia in procedures that weren't so openly publicized and carried out in secret. - Forced sterilization and euthanasia:..
More, https://www.dw.com/en/remembering-the-victims-of-nazi-eugenics/a-16945569
- Victims of euthanasia were transported to their deaths in gray buses like the one pictured here.
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