Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938-1945

6. Eugenics into Science

6 Eugenics into Science The Nazi Period in Austria, 1938–1945 T H O M A S M AY E R The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938, the so-called Anschluss, brought, along with Nazi political and racial persecution, massive changes in administration, especially in science policy. Prior to 1938 eugenics, human heredity, and experimental genetics were not on the curricula of Austrianuniversitiesorresearchinstitutions ,andanthropologywastaughtonlyin Vienna. The change in science policy, which emerged as the result of the Nazi program of “hereditary and racial care,” led to the establishment of racial and eugenic science as an academic discipline under the headings of racial hygiene and racial biology. To implement its racial and genetic-health programs, the Nazi regime needed substantial expertise, which scientists were all too eager to provide for their own political, economic, and epistemic benefit. ResearchoneugenicsinAustriaintheperiodafter1938tendsto emphasize the local context, while scholarship on German eugenics as a rule dwells on Austrian developments only briefly.1 This chapter presents three case studies that exemplify the process of institutionalization of eugenics at medical facultiesinAustriaduringthisperiod .Makingextensiveuseofuniversityrecords,it addressesthefollowingfourissues:theracialandscientificconceptsthatwere Eugenics into Science 151 utilizedintheestablishmentofeugenicsatAustrianuniversitiesduringtheNazi period; the degree to which plans to incorporate the study of eugenics into Austrian universities were realized; the extent of involvement of intellectuals and scientists in this process; and what exactly the discipline of racial hygiene and racial biology comprised. The process leading to the establishment of eugenic institutions in Austria can be described as a struggle for power, resources, and scientific concepts. Ultimately,thischapterargues,itworkedinfavorofGermanscholarswhohad betteracademicnetworks,playedanactiveroleinsciencepolicymakinginBerlin, orstartedtheircareerinGermanypriorto1938.Theestablishmentofeugenics departments predicated on the concept of racial biology brought eugenics for the first and last time as a scientific discipline to Austrian universities. Due to the broad understanding of the term racial biology, the subsequent transfer of scientific knowledge from Germany brought to Vienna first and foremost modernexperimentalgenetics.ThecomparisonofthethreeAustrianuniversities demonstrates the different strategies adopted by local scientists, resulting in different outcomes. Overall, the Austrian case exemplifies the second wave of institutionalization of eugenics at German universities after 1938. After a brief overview of the eugenic education program introduced after 1938,thechapterwillexamineattemptstodevelopthedisciplineofeugenicsin pre-1938Austria.Itwillthenexplorethedevelopmentofracialhygieneandracial science in the years immediately preceding and following the Nazi annexation bymappinghoweugenicandracialstudiesadvancedatthreedifferentmedical facultiesinAustria.Itwillfocusontheprocessesinvolvedintheestablishmentof eugenicsdepartments,theresearchthatthesedepartmentsconducted,andthe participationofscientistsandacademicsinspecificeugenicandracialprograms. The Institutionalization of Eugenics at Austrian Universities: Three Case Studies Eugenics and human heredity were part of the scientific agenda of a number ofphysiciansandanthropologistsinAustriabefore1938.Yetfrom1920onward eugenics lectures remained the prerogative of just a handful of hygienists in Vienna and Graz.2 After 1938 similar lectures became obligatory at Austrian universities. It took another year, however, before eugenics became subject to formal examination in the Reich medical curriculum. This change in medical 152 T H O M A S M AY E R education in April 1939, which took effect in Austria at the beginning of 1940, was used as an argument for the establishment of new institutions. Preclinical students,forexample,hadtoattendathree-hourlectureon“hereditaryscience andracialstudies”andaone-hourlectureon“populationpolicy,”whileclinical students had to sit in on a three-hour lecture on “human heredity as the basis for racial hygiene” and a two-hour lecture on “racial hygiene.”3 As far as the eugenics lectures were concerned, the practice differed at the three medical faculties. In Graz potential instructors were drawn from among thosewhohadbeeninvolved intheeugenicsmovementbefore1938.The need for a specially appointed academic chair had been overcome in Graz thanks to lecturers who could step in and offer provisional classes within the discipline. What was meant to be provisional proved to be permanent. In Innsbruck the situation was somewhat different due to the absence of eugenics proponents in that city prior to 1938. Appointed to his position in 1939, the professor of hereditaryandracialbiologyFriedrichStumpflwaseffectivelytheonlyacademic inInnsbruckableto deliversuchlectures.In Vienna,bycontrast,thereexisted a pool of lecturers who had been active in the eugenics movement long before 1942,whenthenewlyestablishedDepartmentofRacialBiologytookover.Prior to1942mostofthelecturersatViennawereanthropologists.Theestablishment oftheInnsbruckandViennachairsfosteredthestudyofmodernexperimental genetics, with drosophila genetics introduced in Austria from Germany as a teaching subject. Eugenics and human heredity did not become institutionalized in Austria until after the 1938 takeover due to a combination of lack of political incentive tofundeugenicdepartmentsandinfrequentaswellasineffectualinitiativesby eugenicists. Whenever this issue came to the fore, human heredity was always considered to be part of the discipline. As a result of the failed attempts to establisheugenicsatAustrianuniversities ,humanhereditywasinstitutionalized as a separate discipline with its own department only in 1938. Before then, the only institution where eugenics, heredity, and biostatistics were taught was a subdivision of social hygiene in the Hygiene Department at the University of...