title: Sexological deliberation and social engineering: Albert Moll and the sterilisation debate in late imperial and Weimar Germany.
abstract: The physician and sexologist Albert Moll, from Berlin, was one of the main protagonists within the German discourse on the opportunities and dangers of social engineering, by eugenic interventions into human life in general, as well as into reproductive hygiene and healthcare policy in particular. One of the main sexological topics that were discussed intensively during the late-Wilhelminian German Reich and the Weimar Republic was the question of the legalisation of voluntary and compulsory sterilisations on the basis of medical, social, eugenic, economic or criminological indications. As is clear from Moll's conservative principles of medical ethics, and his conviction that the genetic knowledge required for eugenically indicated sterilisations was not yet sufficiently elaborated, he had doubts and worries about colleagues who were exceedingly zealous about these surgical sterilisations--especially Gustav Boeters from Saxony.
authors.affiliation: Ramlerstrasse 32, D-13355 Berlin, Germany. post@thomas-bryant.de
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bryant
mesh_terms: D034462:Dissent and Disputes / Q000266:history*; D004992:Ethics, Medical / Q000266:history*; D005053:Eugenics / Q000266:history*; D030342:Genetic Diseases, Inborn / Q000266:history / Q000517:prevention & control; D005858:Germany; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D013245:Sterilization, Reproductive / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence