To what extent were ideas and beliefs about eugenics held in Nazi Germany shared in Britain and the United States prior to the second world war?
The term eugenics was first coined by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1883. The eugenic movement gained public popularity across Europe and North America at the end of the Victorian era, fuelled by the concept of 'social Darwinism' and public fear of a decline in the number of ideal citizens. The origins of eugenic legislation can be found in the USA's immigration acts of the early 1880's. Indiana was the first state to pass sterilisation laws, in 1907. The laws that followed were used as templates by the Nazis, thirty years later. In Britain the Wood Committee (1924) and the Brock Committee (1931) both put pressure on parliament to introduce eugenic laws but were defeated. The anti-eugenics movement was stronger than in other protestant European countries and eugenics fell out of favour as the 1930's progressed. In the USA however, support remained strong, leading one activist to comment in 1934, 'The Germans are beating us at our own game'. There appears to have been little emphasis on eugenics in the Weimar Parliament, but the Nazi's legislation, on coming to power in 1933, surpassed anything conceived on either side of the Atlantic at the outbreak of war in 1939.
Wittmann
Emily
E
D005053:Eugenics / Q000266:history*; D005858:Germany; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D028683:National Socialism / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States