From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany [Hardcover]

Richard Weikart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2004

From Darwin to Hitler elucidates the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Weikart demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary "fitness" (especially intelligence and health) as the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This thinking had its biggest impact on Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism as popularly believed.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is one of the finest examples of intellectual history I have seen in a long while. It is insightful, thoughtful, informative, and highly readable. Rather than simply connecting the dots, so to speak, the author provides a sophisticated and nuanced examination of numerous German thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were influenced to one degree or another by Darwinist naturalism and their ideas, subtly drawing both distinctions and similarities and in the process telling a rich and colorful story."-- Ian Dowbiggin, Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and author of A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America
"Richard Weikart's outstanding book shows in sober and convincing detail how Darwinist thinkers in Germany had developed an amoral attitude to human society by the time of the First World War, in which the supposed good of the race was applied as the sole criterion of public policy and 'racial hygiene'. Without over-simplifying the lines that connected this body of thought to Hitler, he demonstrates with chilling clarity how policies such as infanticide, assisted suicide, marriage prohibitions and much else were being proposed for those considered racially or eugenically inferior by a variety of Darwinist writers and scientists, providing Hitler and the Nazis with a scientific justification for the policies they pursued once they came to power."--Dr. Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, and author of The Coming of the Third Reich
"This is an impressive piece of intellectual and cultural history--a well-researched, clearly presented argument with good, balanced, fair judgements. Weikart has a thorough knowledge of the relevant historiography in both German and English."--Alfred Kelly, Edgar B. Graves Professor of History, Hamilton College
"Taking a middle ground between scholars on both sides, Richard Weikart has traveled far and wide to bring together a broad range of important programs, institutions, and thinkers who shaped the social and political ramification of Darwinian thought in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany. Many of the voices Weikart conveys appear here in English for the first time."-- Kevin Repp, Yale University

From the Inside Flap

"This is one of the finest examples of intellectual history I have seen in a long while. It is insightful, thoughtful, informative, and highly readable. Rather than simply connecting the dots, so to speak, the author provides a sophisticated and nuanced examination of numerous German thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who were influenced to one degree or another by Darwinist naturalism and their ideas, subtly drawing both distinctions and similarities and in the process telling a rich and colorful story. "
-- Ian Dowbiggin, Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island and author of A Merciful End: The Euthanasia Movement in Modern America

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 324 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (May 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403965021
• ISBN-13: 978-1403965028
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #893,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Weikart is professor of history at California State Univ., Stanislaus. He earned his Ph.D. in 1994 at the University of Iowa in modern European history with specializations in modern Germany and modern European intellectual history. His dissertation, which was subsequently published as a book, _Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein_, won the biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Science for best dissertation in that field. He subsequently published with the scholarly publisher Palgrave Macmillan two books on the history of social Darwinism and evolutionary ethics in Germany: _From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany_ and _Hitler's Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress_. He has also published a book on the theology of Bonhoeffer. In addition to his books, he has published many articles, review essays, and reviews in scholarly journals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for anyone interested in Nazi Germany, May 17, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Hardcover)

The subject of Nazi Germany still is a very popular topic for books, articles and public discussion. Having read many books and articles on this area of history, I can confidently conclude that this is one of the most important (and one of the best scholarly sources). In contrast to many authors who quote each other (and must rely on secondary sources printed in English), Weikart's work relies heavily on primary sources published in German during the time he is covering. Weikart is fluent in the language (I only studied it to pass my Ph.D. reading exams) and lived in Germany to do his research. As a result, Weikart includes much new material for scholars to mull over for the next century. He covers the basic question asked about this era, namely, why did Nazism start and grow in the most educated nation in the world and why did so many scientists (especially biologists of various types) and medical doctors firmly side with Nazism? Understanding why Nazism happened is critical to insure that it never happens again. This work focuses on the major influence of Darwinism, but also covers in a very balanced way other influences. Like a story, he develops a major point in each chapter, building onto the story and his conclusion. The 42 pages of notes fully document his conclusions. This book is a must for anyone interested in not only Nazi Germany but the whole question of the source of morality and ethics.

57 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hitler's Social Darwinism, October 2, 2005

By 

Larry Arnhart (DeKalb, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Paperback)

The review by G. Sherwood is silly.

He criticizes Weikart's book for not showing how the eugenics movement in the United States provided a model for Hitler. But that's not the concern of Weikart's book, which is to provide an intellectual history of the orgins of Nazism in German social Darwinism.

I disagree with Weikart. I think the title of his book should be "From Haeckel to Darwin," because I think Daniel Gasman has shown conclusively that Ernst Haeckel was the primary ideological influence on Nazism and Hitler. Actually, if you look at the index to Weikart's book, you will see more references to Haeckel than to any other person.

But I agree with Weikart that Hitler and his Nazis exploited an ambiguity in Darwinian biology that could be used to promote racism and eugenics. Hitler was able to use the Darwinian language of "survival of the fittest" to promote his own schemes. This is the dark side of Darwinian science.

The problem is that there is little evidence that Darwin himself promoted Nazi eugenics. In fact, the social Darwinists that influenced the Nazi movement often disagreed with Darwin's account of the natural moral sense, as Weikart indicates.

And yet Weikart does show very clearly the intellectual history of Nazi racism as the product of a distorted Darwinian legacy. For that, we should be grateful.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The tortuous, convoluted path from Darwin to Hitler., June 16, 2009

By 

Roger McEvilly (the guilty bystander) (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Paperback)

This is an excellent overview of late 19th -early 20th century German `Social Darwinism', detailing the widespread politicisation of intellectualism and `science' in Germany, well before the Nazis and Hitler ever came to power. It reveals much of where Hitler and the Nazis actually got their views from; eg ideas on extreme militarism, race superiority and race determinism, human inequality and expendability, `might is right' policies and ideas, and various other extreme forms of eugenic/Social Darwinism, which were widespread amongst German intellectuals. Numerous German intellectuals and their ideas are detailed in his book (eg Forel, Ploetz, H.Chamberlain, Hellward, Schonerer, Haeckel, Dodel, Woltmann, Lenz, Fritsch, Ribbert, Kirchhoff, Peschel, Kaup, Jaeger, Buchner, Lehmann, Schallmayer, Luschan, Tille, and others), in the decades preceeding Nazism, many advocating Nazi-type ideas supposedly based on `science', before Hitler ever came to power, who followed a long trend of data distortion probably derived from the tenuous relationship between German political culture, and German science.

It is very surprising what various, highly respected German scientists/intellectuals of the time, well before the Nazis, actually believed or debated, as being `justified' by biology. Examples include:

-infanticide,
-euthanasia,
-suicide,
-marriage control,
-state-selected abortion,
-utopian societies,
-racial extermination,
-killing the disabled,
-killing off the old or weak,
-capital punishment,
-separation of the `unfit',
-sterilisation of the `unfit',
-`false humaneness',
-equating physical health with moral superiority,
-ascribing physical abnormalities as throwbacks to `lower' animals,
-confidence in the ability of scientists to categorise and physically measure `might', and `value';
- Aryan race ideas, (Nietzsche's `Dionysian'),
-`providence' equating with the `holy law of evolution'; (used by Hitler),
-the `inferior' `parasitising' the `superior',
-parasitic races
-anti-Semitism
-`struggle for space'
-`progress' through destruction,
-`living space' and population expansion with racial struggle,
-blonde hair-blue eye superiority,
-`struggle of annihilation',
-racial purity,
-`Teuton' superiority (Hitler preferred `Aryan' to `Teuton'),
-racial hygiene,
-medical experimentation of the 'unfit',
-the glorification of war for race,

the list goes on and on. All of these ideas, before Hitler and the Nazis ever came to power. This book is an excellent, careful and detailed analysis of the development of these ideas in late 19th-early 20th century Germany.

The presence of so many widespread Nazi-type ideas, well before World War 1 and the interwar years, also helps to explain how many ordinary Germans allowed the Nazis to get into power and get away with so much; the `soil was prepared' by intellectuals in Germany for decades, and Hitler read many of the works of these intellectuals.

However, in his claim that Darwinism led to Hitler and Nazism, one major criticism is that Weikart doesn't spend much time in attempting to make a connection between the actual Darwinian `data', and Nazism/Hitler. Weikart does say that the path from Darwin to Hitler is tortuous and convoluted, but he is of the opinion, that the idea of `Darwinian natural selection' and its implications, even a perverted/distorted form of it, ultimately led, one way or another, to Hitler and Nazi ideology. To repeat, he doesn't spend much time actually investigating the data or its distortions, either psychologically or scientifically, rather, he mostly limits himself to overviews of the development and beliefs of the various eugenicists themselves.

The distortion of biological data into Social Darwinism, eugenics, and ultimately, Nazism in the 19th -early 20th century is an age-old IS/OUGHT issue. Just because something happens in nature, such as lightning, radioactivity, cancerous cells, or wasteful death by `blundering' natural selection (as Darwin himself put it), doesn't mean we humans, or nature itself for that matter, somehow `condones' these things. This issue is barely discussed, but it is the KEY issue. Just because something IS, doesn't mean it OUGHT to be, promoted by humans, or otherwise. This was the mistake of German intellectuals, Weikart barely discusses this process, only describing how intellectuals in late 19th -early 20th century routinely equated `is' with `ought' in their ideology. Perhaps the problem then, was a widespread and accepted, extreme type of socialist-determinism, within both science and culture, rather than a problem with `Darwinism' itself (?).

The German Social Eugenicists infused the scientific data with politics, occasionally overturning the data with politics (eg Haeckel's 12 races diagram p107, which `shows' that `lower' humans are closer to the apes than `higher' humans are to `lower' humans). The data doesn't give any support for many of the ideas eugenicists/social Darwinists advocated, which shows how science can become so infused with the prevailing culture and politics, that it blinds even the best and most influential scientists. Science, with its connections to high culture and politics, its human vanity, its power by default, its need for special funding, and its innate careerism, is VERY susceptible to subtle political distortion and preconceived ideas, especially in cases where it is difficult to disprove or falsify paradoxes and data ambiguities, and society at large invariably suffers from this.

What was perhaps going on in late 19th -early 20th century Europe/Germany, was the development of unrestrained bureaucratic ideologies masquerading as science-a science distorted by prevailing assumptions which supported the interests of the bureaucratic/aristocratic elite. Both Bolshevik-communism, and Intellectual-Social Darwinism/Eugenics were examples of this, and both produced expendable death, since truth, and the individual, were `expended' by intellectuals well before WW1 and 2, and well before the Bolsheviks and Nazis came to power. One could argue, from the writing of the intellectuals themselves, that Nazism (and Bolshevism-which is not discussed here) was born in 19th century bureaucratic/aristocratic `convenient', unexamined, `assumptions'.

If one reads some of the late 19th -early 20th century German views detailed in this book, one shouldn't be all that surprised at what the Nazis eventually did: many of the worst policies of the Nazis were already formulated by intellectuals in the name of `science', dripping with distortion, vanity and expediency.

Overall a very good, detailed and intriguing book, but also a tortuous read, which reflects the very difficult and tortuous subject matter- that is-the intellectual origins of Nazi ideology.