Nazism

"Some of the similarities and parallels include: Frequent recognition by Hitler and various Nazi leaders (and also Mussolini) that their only revolutionary and ideological counterparts were to be found in the Soviet Union . . . [and the] espousal of the have-not, proletarian-nation theory, which Lenin adopted only after it had been introduce in Italy . . . Hitlerian National Socialism more nearly paralleled than has any other non-Communist system."

"At the Twelfth Party Congress in Moscow in 1923, Nikolai Bukharin stressed that the Nazi Party had ‘inherited Bolshevik political culture exactly as Italian Fascism had done.’ On June 20, 1923, Karl Radek gave a speech before the Comintern Executive Committee proposing a common front with the Nazis in Germany."

"If demands coming under the first of these principles were interpreted objectively, something very much resembling Marxian communism would result. Here are some of them: abolition of all income not earned by work; workers to share the profits of the large industries; abolition of land rent, and enactment of a law under which land might be confiscated without compensation for purposes of common interests; socialization of all incorporated business organizations."

"Biology and genetics are the roots form which the National Socialist world-view has grown."

"Goebbels saw the ultimate enemy as international capitalism, and those who held power in Germany as its lackey, betraying their nation for personal gain. These were the traditional targets of the Communists, of course, so the Nazis and the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany, were in direct competition for the same constituency, two rabid dogs fighting for one bone… And Goebbels, who has so recently been happy to describe himself as a ‘German Communist’ led the fight with all the intensity of a religious convert."

"Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Republicanism, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing."

"The basis of National Socialism’s mass psychology differs from that of Wilhelmian imperialism in that the former had a pauperized middle class, whereas the German empire had a prosperous middle class as its mass basis. Thus, the Christianity of Wilhelmian imperialism had to be different from the Christianity of National Socialism. For all that, the ideological modifications did not undermine the fundamentals of the mystical world view in the least; rather they intensified its function. To begin with, National Socialism rejected the Old Testament as being ‘Jewish’ - that, at least, was the position of its well-known exponent, Rosenberg, who belonged to the right wing. In the same way the internationalism of the Roman Catholic Church was regarded as ‘Jewish’. The international church was to be replaced by the ‘German’."

"We have already seen how the ideology of national honour derives from authoritarian ideology and the latter from the sex-negation regulation of sexuality. Neither Christianity nor National Socialism attacks the institution of compulsive marriage: for the former, apart from its function of procreation, marriage is a ‘complete, life-long union’; for the National Socialists it is a biologically rooted institution for the preservation of racial purity. Outside of compulsive marriage, there is no sexuality for either of them."

"Italian and German National Socialism became international fascism. In the strict sense of the word it attracted masses on an international scale in the form of a perverse ‘nationalistic internationalism’. In this form it crushed genuine democratic revolts in Spain and in Austria."

"Profits are so completely subordinated in [Nazi] Germany and [Fascist] Italy to requirements of a militarily conceived national interest and of full employment that the maintenance of the profit principle is purely theoretical."

"Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or in minor European boundaries. They openly seek the destruction of all elective systems of government on every continent-including our own; they seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers who have seized power by force. These men and their hypnotized followers call this a new order. It is not new. It is not order."

"A totalitarian government with a scientific bent might do things that to us would seem horrifying. The Nazis were more scientific than the present rulers of Russia, and were more inclined towards the sort of atrocities that I have in mind."

"I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it. Really, nothing more."

"I have a message to the neo-Nazis, to the white nationalists, and to the neo-Confederates: Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. And believe me, I knew the original Nazis, because you see, I was born in Austria in 1947, shortly after the Second World War. And growing up, I was surrounded by broken men, men who came home from a war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you: that these ghosts you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame and right now, they’re resting in hell."

"Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare? Chicago? Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes, Indiana? Syracuse, New York? Any place, every place, where there's hate, where there's prejudice, where there's bigotry — he's alive. He's alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He's alive, because through these things, we keep him alive."

"He continued with a leer: “If some of you girls lack sufficient charm to find a mate, I will be glad to assign you one of my adjutants for whose ancestry I can vouch I can promise you a thoroughly enjoyable experience” (quoted in Richard Hanser, “A Noble Treason, 220). Giesler’s performance inspired foot-shuffling, murmurs, heckling, whistles, women and men walking out, and, finally, a full-fledged protest. SS men at the doors could not control the demonstration, which spilled out into Ludwigstrasse. Arm in arm, the students sang and chanted slogans in the only open display of political defiance that ever occurred in Nazi Germany. A month later, three uncowed student distributors of the pamphlets, the leaders of the White Rose Resistance group, were beheaded by guillotine on Himmler’s explicit orders."

"When the Nazis invaded and occupied other countries in Europe, particularly those considered Aryan, they began to claim for the Third Reich children fathered by German troops. A few Lebensborn homes were established outside Germany. In some cases, mothers were kidnapped with their children. As time went on, a vast operation of baby snatching to supply the foreseeable need for manpower was carried out under Himmler’s direction. The children were selected according to strict physiognomic rules and measurements based on race. The undesirables were sent to labor camps or simply eliminated-by allowing them to freeze to death, for example. Severe discipline, brandings, and injections to hasten maturity were common. The preferred children were separated from their mothers indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda, adopted by German families, and repossessed at puberty by the state. By this large-scale breeding and resettlement project in positive eugenics, Himmler and his associates exploited scientific research for social purposes-to augment the German birthrate and to monitor the racial purity of the population. According to Hillel and Henry, these goals were never achieved, despite Himmler’s personal interest. Little wonder. Not only did this mad Faustian raid on scientific knowledge violate the sanctity of human life, it relied on erroneous science."

"Buried under mountains of red tape, directed by the State as to what they could produce, how much and at what price, burdened by increasing taxation and milked by steep and never ending 'special contributions' to the party, the businessmen, who had to welcome Hitler's regime so enthusiastically because they expected it to destroy organized labor and allow an entrepreneur to practice untrammeled free enterprise, became greatly disillusioned... Fritz Thyssen, one of the earliest and biggest contributors to the party,... recognized that the 'Nazi regime has ruined German industry.'"

"Today people commonly use the word "fascism" instead of "national socialism." Presumably this is what you are asking. No. Hitlerism had racism as its essential dogmatic foundation. But in a multiethnic country, such an ideology has no chance of success. And Russia has never had such a movement. But if we speak about the rampage of militant chauvinism, then it exists--and in bloody form--in several republics of the former U.S.S.R., but certainly not in Russia. And if one were to count all the instances of violence perpetrated on nationalist grounds and in local wars, all of them took place outside of Russia and were not perpetrated by Russians."

"In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official , is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community."

"Is it really true that German fascist troops are invincible, as is ceaselessly trumpeted by the boastful fascist propagandists? Of course not! History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been. Napoleon's army was considered invincible but it was beaten successively by Russian, English and German armies. Kaiser Wilhelm's German Army in the period of the first imperialist war was also considered invincible, but it was beaten several times by the Russian and Anglo-French forces and was finally smashed by the Anglo-French forces. The same must be said of Hitler's German fascist army today. This army had not yet met with serious resistance on the continent of Europe. Only on our territory has it met serious resistance. And if, as a result of this resistance, the finest divisions of Hitler's German fascist army have been defeated by our Red Army, it means that this army too can be smashed and will be smashed as were the armies of Napoleon and Wilhelm."

"The enemy is cruel and implacable. He is out to seize our lands, watered with our sweat, to seize our grain and oil secured by our labor. He is out to restore the rule of landlords, to restore Tsarism, to destroy national culture and the national state existence of the Russians, Ukrainians, Byelo-Russians, Lithuanians, Letts, Esthonians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Moldavians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanians and the other free people of the Soviet Union, to Germanize them, to convert them into the slaves of German princes and barons. Thus the issue is one of life or death for the Soviet State, for the peoples of the USSR; the issue is whether the peoples of the Soviet Union shall remain free or fall into slavery."

"Conscious of the hazards inherent in the use of s, Dr Grafenberg took up the search for the serviceable IUD in the early 1920s. Whether he knew about Dr Richter's pessary remains an open question. Initially, he used star-shaped devices and coils of silkworm gut (1924). Because they were expelled too readily, he conceived the Ring IUD, made of helicoidal1y wound silver filaments, which still bears his name. He did not hesitate to publish clinical results (1928-30), thus making his invention known beyond the boundaries of his native Germany. Shortly thereafter, other European physicians added statistics, issuing an increasing number of damaging reports of pelvic inflammatory disease associated with IUD use. Gräfenberg's last presentation on the subject was in 1931 at the German Congress of Gynecology in Frankfurt. His report was denounced by virtually all leaders of German gynecology attending the congress, who branded intrauterine contraception as a medically unacceptable method of birth control. Shortly thereafter, the streamroller of the Nazi regime started poisoning the air of Germany. Jewish physicians were removed from the hospital posts and contraception was proclaimed to be a threat to the physical and mental health of Aryan women. Ultimately, the advertising of contraceptives and/or contraceptive advice became illegal in Germany and the other Axis States."

"In no way was Hitler the tool of big business. He was its lenient master. So was Mussolini except that he was weaker."

"[B]oth the communists and fascists revolutions definitely abolished laissez-faire capitalism in favor of one or another kind and degree of state capitalism."

"And now the beginning of the expropriation of church lands in Austria, have all revealed the true face of National Socialism, which more and more among pious Germans is called, under their breaths, ‘the brown Bolshevism.’"

"Having first robbed the Jews, the Nazis are beginning to rob the Church, and later will almost certainly expropriate what is left of the bourgeoisie property."

"Soon [Nazi] Germany will not be any different from Bolshevik Russia; the heads of enterprises who do not fulfill the conditions which the ‘Plan’ prescribes will be accused of treason against the German people, and shot."

"Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed Nation Socialism as a means of saving Germany's bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food-stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism."

"Marxism would be a phenomenon of little more than historical interest, seeing that it has failed even in its principal stronghold, were it not so closely akin to National Socialism. National Socialism would have been inconceivable without Marxism."

"Marxism has led to Fascism and National-Socialism, because, in all essentials, it is Fascism and National Socialism."

"Nazism, for all its revolutionary jargon, represented in its essence a reaction against the nineteenth-century faith in human progress. It was an attempt to seize history by the collar and frog-march it in a direction determined primary by the selfish interests and obsessive beliefs of those in power. From the outset it wan an movement, offering its adherents the spurious solidarity of the street gang and the prospective enjoyment of stolen booty."

"As soon as he became Chancellor... Hitler prevailed upon President Hindenburg to call new elections. ...[H]e hoped to gain enough strength in the Reichstag to pass an Enabling Act, which would allow him to . ...During the campaign, the NSDAP ...exploited the fact that they now had some control... Prussian Minister of the Interior Goering established a 50,000-strong auxiliary police force, including 25,000 SA members and 15,000 SS men. This both legitimised National Socialist terror against their political opponents—especially the Social Democrats and the Communists—and shifted the burden for funding... the NSDAP’s machine... to the state.. claiming it was needed to forestall an imminent revolt from the left. ...[T]his ...heightened the ...hysteria among the electorate, which ...boosted support for the NSDAP."

"All this would change when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 because his deductions from the war differed in important respects from those of others. War had been an intended and even a preferred part of National Socialist policy from the beginning, not so much out of a preference for fighting for its own sake, but from the entirely accurate conviction that the aim of German expansion could be secured only by war. Germany was to seize the agricultural land needed to feed its population, a population that would grow further as it obtained such land, and which would accordingly expand its needs and its lands into the indefinite future. This crude Social Darwinism, in which racial groups fought for land which could provide the means of subsistence, expelling or exterminating but never assimilating other groups, was derived from a view of history as deterministic as that of Marx, but substituting race for class as the key to understanding.’ Its application had internal as well as external implications."

"For the Nazis, race conflict was the driving motor of history. Hard, vigorous, masculine struggle against degenerate races, and against the degenerate members of their own group, marked the synthesis of race-based history and anthropology, a particularly radical, Nazi version of Social Darwinism. Each group, in this view, had an inherent drive to flourish, which necessitated expanded living space and continual conflict with other races. Out of the harshness of struggle, a still more vital and creative race would emerge. Since nature is “aristocratic” in essence, it favors the victory of the strong while it demands the “annihilation or unconditional surrender of the weaker.” Indeed, Judaism is nature-destroying, because its ideology, Marxism, “rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight. Thus it denies the value of personality in man, contests the significance of nationality and race, and thereby withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence and its culture.” History was fast approaching that cataclysmic moment of decision, a fateful clash worthy of Revelations."

"The total state led by the Fuhrer was, however, never simply a dictatorship of one man. The new politics advocated by the Nazis, the vast project of social and biological engineering that they instigated, required popular participation. Goebbels, as minister for popular enlightenment and propaganda, made clear that the regime, the express “will” of the nation, also had to win to its side those elements of the national community that still resisted the siren song of National Socialism. They could not just be “terrorized” but had to be won over through hard work, including propaganda. But dissent could not be tolerated. The claims of the Nazi movement and state upon the individual were total. The National Socialist Revolution, asserted Goebbels, “does not stop for [the realm] of private life.” These totalizing ambitions required not just obedience but also participation. The state had to “set the masses in motion,” as Goebbels put it. If Hitler did not deign to intervene directly in every policy matter, Hitler’s followers believed that “working toward the Fuhrer,” pursuing his goals without his express orders, placed them in accord with the movement of history. Nazi views on the total state and popular mobilization concurred with strategic doctrine, Hitler’s as well as the Wehrmacht’s. In Nazi doctrine, war would allow the race to flourish; to pursue the war successfully, the race had to be purified. Since the coming conflict was never simply a campaign of territorial conquest but always a racial, ideological war, the links between domestic and foreign policy were particularly tight in Nazi Germany."

"The gentlemen of the National Socialist party call the movement they have unleashed a national revolution, not a National Socialist one. So far, the relationship of their revolution to socialism has been limited to the attempt to destroy the social democratic movement, which for more than two generations has been the bearer of socialist ideas and will remain so. If the gentlemen of the National Socialist Party wanted to perform socialist acts, they would not need an Enabling Law. They would be assured of an overwhelming majority in this house. Every motion submitted by them in the interest of workers, farmers, white-collar employees, civil servants, or the middle class could expect to be approved, if not unanimously, then certainly with an enormous majority."

"It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist Philosophy, for if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. In actuality, however, we face a totally different situation. At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one's fellow man; even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies."

"Though we know that National Socialist power must be broken by military means, we are trying to achieve a renewal from within of the severely wounded German spirit. This rebirth must be preceded, however, by the clear recognition of all the guilt with which the German people have burdened themselves, and by an uncompromising battle against Hitler and his all too many minions…"

"For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German."

"The tragedy is not that nonviolence did not work against the Nazis, but that it was so seldom utilized ...The churches as a whole were too docile or anti-semitic, and too ignorant of the nonviolent message of the Gospel, to act effectively to resist the Nazis or act in solidarity with the Jews."

"Strictly speaking, the message of National Socialism was not radically different from that of other forms of egalitarianism and socialism: strong antibourgeois sentiments expressed through a radical empowerment of a selected group of people at the expense of other groups… What made National Socialism novel and different from earlier forms of socialism was an attempt to blend the ideas of social justice and revolutionary nationalism."

"From its inception, the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP Nazi Party) had no place for women in its ranks. At its first general meeting in early 1921 a unanimous resolution passed that stated that women could never be accepted either into the leadership of the party or into any governing committee. National Socialism viewed German women as wives and mothers who did not wish to work in factories or offices or even represent themselves in the government. A cozy home, a beloved husband, and a multitude of happy children were their only aspirations. Hitler believed in suppressing the drive for women’s emancipation by emphasizing the differences between men and women and the woman’s role as the preserver of the biological inheritance, domestic virtue, and even eternal morality."

"The Nazi definition of the role of women actually expanded and contracted with party needs. Prior to Hitler’s ascension to power, men and women worked together. Following 1933, Hitler made employed women give up jobs to return to the home and raise families. After 1936, however, when he needed them to work, he put them in factories. Because of Hitler’s war preparation, the Nazis moved to improve the employment of women in the workplace. Despite all of these changing roles, however, at no time did women have any demonstrable influence over policies that affected themselves, their families, or the Nazi Party. They were not placed in positions where they wielded political power or party and state responsibility."

"The Nazis were strongly opposed to feminism and held that feminists were unduly influenced by both Jews and Marxists, had an unhealthy preoccupation with their sexuality, and were determined to destroy Christian-German life. The Nazis discouraged dieting, cosmetics, smoking, and foreign dress. German couples needed medical examinations to marry, and the fear of “hereditary defects” led to a black market in documents proving Aryan ancestry. Wives of SS men were forced to attend special bride schools. Almost 28,000 so-called undesirable women underwent forced sterilization by 1934. Aryan men were encouraged to divorce Jewish wives, and their children were taken from the mother. In 1939, it was announced that Jewish women could seek abortions, but non-Jewish women could not. Non-Jewish women who did not marry or have children were harassed."

"The response of the Christian faithful to racism was not uniform. A population as enormous as that of Christian women could not be socially, politically, or temperamentally monolithic. Michael Phayer states that Protestants were more tolerant toward Nazi racism than Catholics. Protestant women were more nationalistic than Catholics, which made them more receptive to National Socialism. Some Protestant women, however, also fought National Socialist ideology and the paganism it espoused. Scholt-Klink promoted her own women’s organization by playing Catholic an Protestant’s women’s organizations against each other. The experiences of German women living under Nazi rule varied. As pointed out in “When Biology Became Destiny”, Nazism did not begin with overt attacks against the emancipation of women. It was cloaked in extreme nationalism calling for love of the country, reduction of the unemployment by keeping women out of the workforce, and reversion of women back to the role of motherhood. What can be said of the attitude of German women toward the racism of Hitler? A great deal of information has been derived from studying the most prominent organizations of women. Many Protestant and Catholic leaders were aware that if Germany were victorious, there would be a showdown between Christianity and the neopaganism of National Socialism. Some courageous women dared to challenge the establishment. For example, Agnes von Grone and Helene Weber both spoke out against anti-Christian elements in Nazism. Ultimately, faith, not feminism, made Nazi women reject Nazi neopaganism. Institutional and religious elements overwhelmed social factors."

"The Nazi regime issued numerous laws and regulations during the 1930s to implement its eugenic and racial program, and, as we shall see, the practitioners of race hygiene-anthropologists, geneticists, psychiatrists, and physicians-were involved in drafting and applying them. Of course, their role had changed. They profited from being governed by a regime that favored race hygiene, but they also had to accommodate themselves to the regime’s political needs. They continued to consider the Nazis “vulgar and ordinary” and Nazi anti-Semitism somewhat extreme, but they accepted, even applauded, Nazi policies because they reflected an ideology they as individuals and as scientists had long supported. But even though they may have tried to maintain a certain scientific detachment, their assistants and students enthusiastically embraced all aspects of Nazi ideology. At times, however, Nazi ideology made life inconvenient for the race scientists. Fritz Lenz discovered the futility of objecting to one of Heinrich Himmler’s pet projects. At a committee meeting attended by Himmler, Lenz opposed equality for illegitimate children because he believed it would have a negative impact on the quality of the transmitted germ plasm. Himmler disagreed. The powerful Reich leader SS argued that illegitimacy was not a disgrace in the “real world” and that equality was needed to assure a high birthrate and to prevent the spread of homosexuality and abortion. German science was rapidly synchronized (“gleichgeschaltet”) with Nazi ideology after 1933, especially after scientists opposed to the new regime, as well as those with the wrong ethnic background, were fired. There was no effective resistance. Still, not all science was dominated by Nazi ideology in disregard of the German scientific tradition. For example, the attempt to establish an Aryan physics failed as older traditions reasserted themselves. Such restraints did not apply in the biological sciences concerned with the questions of race and heredity. There Nazi ideology and German scientific tradition complemented each other. Without hesitation, the race scientists fired their Jewish colleagues."

"As the Nazi regime moved toward war, Hitler authorized state and party planners to proceed form the exclusionary policies of emigration, incarceration, and sterilization to the most radical exclusionary solution of killings. The first group targeted were the handicapped. They were excluded by being institutionalized, but this was not enough. Hostile to their existence, institutions reduced services and sought to cut the costs of caring for mental and disabled patients. Excluded, incarcerated, sterilized, and neglected, the handicapped were viewed as expendable, and thus a logical progression led to the killing of the handicapped in the so-called euthanasia program. The other group of undesirables-the “Asozialen” were treated similarly: those committed to institutions by the courts were among the first killed; others were later selected for killing when euthanasia was applied within the concentration camps."

"Against the handicapped, the regime enacted into law the program long advocated by race scientists to control a population considered degenerate and inferior. The so-called sterilization law, promulgated in July 1933, served throughout the Nazi period as the model for all eugenic legalisation. It introduced compulsory sterilization for persons suffering from a variety of mental and physical disorders and in the process defined the groups to be excluded from the national community. This legislation was followed in October 1935 by the Marriage Health Law, which mandated screening the entire population to prevent marriages of persons considered carriers of hereditary degeneracy, particularly those covered by the sterilization law. Numerous ordinances defining and enlarging these two laws followed. As race hygiene had always linked the handicapped to criminal and antisocial behavior, the bureaucrats drafting this legislation believed that their eugenic laws should also cover “inherited criminal traits.” To accomplish this, the regime enacted in November 1933 the Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals and the Law on Measures of Security and Reform. The new provisions- articles 220a and 42a-m of the penal code-gave the courts substantial new powers to confine and punish persons considered habitual criminals. In addition to the penalties already provisioned by the penal code, the court were authorized to commit the ”Asozaielen” to state hospitals, to impose protective custody or longer prison terms on habitual criminals, to mandate castration for sexual offenders, and to prohibit defendants from practicing their professions or occupations."

"The Nazi medical experiments and even the program for the destruction of “lives not worth living” represent only the tip of a much larger iceberg. In fact, the ideological structure we associate with National Socialism was deeply embedded in the philosophy and institutional structure of German biomedical science long before the beginning of the euthanasia program in 1939-and to a certain extent, even before 1933. The published record of the German medical profession makes it clear that many intellectuals cooperated fully in Nazi racial programs, and that many of the social and intellectual foundations for these programs were laid long before the rise of Hitler to power. What I want to argue in addition to this, however (and here I shall be drawing upon a growing body of recent German scholarship on this question) is that biomedical scientists played an active, even leading role in the initiation, administration, and execution of Nazi racial programs. In this sense the case can be made that science (especially biomedical science) under the Nazis cannot simply be seen in terms of a fundamentally “passive” or “apolitical” scientific community responding to purely external political forces; on the contrary, there is strong evidence that scientists actively designed and administered central aspects of National Socialist racial policy."