Race
Hygiene and National Efficiency: The Eugenics of Wilhelm Schallmayer
by Sheila F. Weiss
ALL the world knows of Adolf Hitler and the
atrocities committed under his leadership during the Nazi era. But were
he and his small band of accomplices alone? Psychiatrists supplied the
flawed theories and ideas of eugenics and biochemistry which provided the
justification for wholesale slaughter of the "inferior". Timely reading
because modern psychiatry is treading down the same path once again - forgetting
about healing and concentrating instead on biology, genetics, and brain
chemistry.
Synopsis
This is a study of the ideas
of one of the founders of the German eugenics movement. Bibliography. Index.
From The Publisher
Schallmayer's writing give
us the opportunity to examine German race hygiene in the context of the
social, political, and intellectual history of the German Empire, and provide
a valuable insight into the origins of race hygiene. An investigation of
the works of Schallmayer also reveal their similarity to other non-German
eugenics writings, especially to those of leading figures in Britain, and
helps to undermine the assumption that German race hygiene was unique among
eugenics movements.
Reviews
From D.R. Skopp - Choice
Expanding her doctoral dissertation,
Weiss explores the values and views of Wilhelm Schallmayer. . . In tracing
the connections between Schallmayer's comparatively benign theories and
Nazi brutalities, Weiss clarifies the history of eugenics as a social policy.
Extensive footnotes, an excellent bibliography, and an index. Recommended
for libraries that serve upper-division undergraduates, graduate students,
and faculty interested in Western social thought and policies, as well
as in the history of Germany before 1945.
From Bruce Haggard - Science
Books & Films
This is a short, well-written,
interesting, intellectually honest, and exceedingly well-documented historical
account. . . . A provocative theme of this book is that Schallmayer was
not anti-Semitic, that the problematic 'degenerates' he was concerned with
were defined on the basis of a lack of socioeconomic utility rather than
on the basis of racial qualities. In the typical value-free fashion of
a good historical study, the morality of these views is not touched on
at all. . . . Due to the book's limited scope, little light is shed on
the link of Schallmayer's beliefs to the science of that era. . . . There
is also little treatment of the culmination of the German eugenics movement
in the holocaust after Schallmayer's death. Thus, this well-researched
book will be of limited interest to any but the serious historian.
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