The German race as the basis of the identity and biological purity of the Third Reich – selected aspects

Abstract

The rise of the biological sciences during the industrialisation of Germany (second half of the 19th century) led to a different view of man in the early 1920s. He became a productive being in terms of genetic values together with his identity and origin of being. Social Darwinism and eu-genics externalised the national social biopolitics; a change that took place in the democratic state and then the dictatorship of the Third Reich. Alongside the productive group, German society rec-ognised a valuable genetic element as well as this marginal degenerative one. This included the biologically healthy productive Germans (the master race) as well as the sick and dependent, who posed a threat to pure Aryan ethnicity as well as identity. In this respect, selected young Germans constituted the genetic basis of the Third Reich. But given the rich cultural space associated with imperial policy and the period of colonisation, Germany represented ethnic diversity. It was not without reason that the National Socialists sought to eliminate the heterogeneous community in order to achieve a homogeneous – ideal – model, and thus the desired outcome. At the centre of these achievements was the human being as a product to educate and even “breed” the German people with a racially pure genetic code. Thus, the cult of one’s own physiognomy and of a healthy and perfectly formed generation was the goal of National Socialist pedagogy. This had a direct impact on the hygiene and sterility of every German in terms of their racial identity.