In Search of "Aryan Blood": Serology in Interwar and National Socialist Germany

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In Nazi Germany, basic civil rights—and ultimately the right to live—depended on whether one had “German blood.” Meticulous racial categorization of individuals as either “German-blooded” or “non-German-blooded” relied primarily upon documentation , such as birth and baptismal certificates. Labeling was compulsory, as everyone was required to carry identification indicating their race. However, in cases where parentage was in dispute or the necessary records were missing, the state often referred the matter to so-called “racial experts.” In one such instance in 1940, Fritz Lenz explained to a district court that he could not give an expert opinion without first testing the subject ’s blood type. The Ministry of Justice became involved and referred the matter to I History of Medicine 776500 789639 9 ISBN 978-963-9776-50-0 90000 > Rachel E. Boaz D e s i g n e d b y S e b a s t i a n S t a c h o w s k i A b o u t t h e A u t h o r Rachel E. Boaz received her PhD from Kent State University. She is adjunct professor in the Department of History at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. This detailed study of an often-ignored component of racial science in interwar Europe is an invaluable addition to the burgeoning academic literature on the subject of interwar racial science and biopolitics. Anthroposerology was one of many research avenues explored by racial scientists in anxiety-ridden post-WWI European societies. Its most enthusiastic practitioners did not resist the temptation to lean against dubious, “biased” science to prop up national selfesteem and nativist illusions, to foster ideas of racial-national superiority , and to legitimize the segregation/denigration of particular groups of racial “others.” That in this tainted pursuit they encountered logistical nightmares, perplexingly contradictory evidence, and widespread criticism even from their scientific peers is not surprising. What is, however, fascinating to discover in Boaz’s book is that even the most virulent, völkisch Nazi discourses on blood owed very little to this research and epistemological paradigm. However discursively and politically invaluable the claimed connection between blood, race and heredity may have been to the Nazi regime, anthroposerology’s dubious claim that blood types were racially significant was greeted with indifference in the 1930s—and was largely ignored in scientific terms, in spite of its continuing (and increasing) usefulness in propaganda terms. But Boaz also uses the fascinating analysis of anthroposerological research as an opportunity to question much wider assumptions about racial science in interwar Europe—about (dis)continuities between Weimar-and Nazi-era racial science; about the Nazis’ ambiguous and highly elastic use of racial research; about the reasons behind the popularity of certain, but by no means all, paradigms of racial research in Central and Eastern Europe; in the end about the validity of an entire “biopolitical” narrative that sees interwar racial science as the essential laboratory of the subsequent Nazi eliminationist projects. Aristotle Kallis, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, University of Lancaster (UK) and author of Genocide and Fascism: The Eliminationist Drive in Fascist Europe (2008) Rachel E. Boaz In Search of “Aryan Blood” Serology in Interwar and National Socialist Germany T a b l e o f C o n t e n t s List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction chapter i The Emergence of Blood Science chapter ii Seroanthropology in the Early 1920s: Blood, Race, and Eugenics chapter iii Organizing Seroanthropology: The Establishment of the German Institute for Blood Group Research chapter iv Seroanthropology at its Height: Distinguishing those with “Pure Blood” chapter v The Jew as Examiner and Examined chapter vi Blood as Metaphor and Science in the Nuremberg Race Laws chapter vii The Pedagogy and Practice of Seroanthropology during World War II Conclusions Index of Names H i s t o r y o f M e d i c i n e H i s t o r y o f M e d i c i n e C E U P r e s s S t u d i e s i n t h e C E U P r e s s S t u d i e s i n t h e Central European University Press Budapest – New York Sales and information: ceupress@ceu.hu Website: http://www.ceupress.com In Search of “Aryan Blood” med04 cover.indd 1 2012-02-17 10:29:12 ...