Die Internationale der Rassisten: Aufsteig und Niedergang der internationalen Bewegung für Eugenik und Rassenhygiene im 20. Jahrhundert (review)

The idea of Germany’s historical uniqueness, its so-called Sonderweg, has been used in history and in literature to account for both that country’s successes and its failures, particularly the horrific events of the Nazi period. As W. H. Auden wrote in 1939, “Accurate scholarship can / Unearth the whole offence / From Luther until now / That has driven a culture mad.” ¹ Stefan Kühl’s book takes the opposite viewpoint: racism and eugenics in Germany were tightly linked to the same movements in other countries, especially in the United States, France, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries.

Several historians have now compared the national eugenics movements as they developed globally in various cultures, showing them to be more or less concerned with Weismannism or neo-Lamarckism, with social hygiene, race, color, or puériculture, as the case might be. Kühl, however, investigates the linking institutions of international eugenics, beginning with the First International Eugenics Congress held in London in 1912, and the Permanent International Eugenics Committee, which he sees as instruments of the Nordic or white race’s supranational organization. The Permanent Committee, led by eugenicists from England, the United States, and Germany, coordinated the efforts of workers on an international stage. Leonard Darwin and Sybil Gotto, from the Eugenics Education Society of London, became president and general secretary, respectively. Interrupted by the First World War, the grouping was soon reconstituted as the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations, with a view to the scientization of racial politics. The offshoots of the movement included the International Union for the Investigation of Population Problems, with national committees in various countries, made up mainly of members of the local eugenics societies; the German group included such well-known eugenicists as Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz, and Ernst Rüdin.

It is Kühl’s thesis that these international structures provided the scientific legitimation for Nazi racial politics. It could be claimed that Nazism simply applied the biological principles that were discussed and promoted in many other countries, notably America. Indeed, Kühl has found out that Rüdin’s lawyer, in the course of his postwar de-Nazification hearing, was able to point to this international recognition by scientists as proof that Rüdin’s science was no more than the normal science of its time. Furthermore, scientific racism did not end with the collapse of Nazism: erstwhile Nazis, and other promoters of the biological view of life, continued active well into the eighties.

The originality of this book lies in its investigation of the international institutions, their membership, their congresses, and their resolutions, to show that the principles of Nazism were not unique. They were widely shared elsewhere, though largely blocked in practice. This is an important addition to the literature on eugenics. It should be translated.