Welcome to A-Z History!

Adolf Hitler: A Doctrinaire Darwinist

A primary goal of Hitler and his government was the development and implementation of eugenics to cultivate a "superior race," often referred to as Aryan, Teutonic, or Nordic. This minimum requirement involved preventing the mixing of "inferior races" with those deemed superior, thereby reducing perceived gene pool contamination. Hitler believed the human gene pool could be improved through selective breeding, mirroring methods used by farmers to breed superior livestock.

In forming his racial theories, Hitler relied heavily on Darwinism, particularly the interpretations of German disciples such as Professors Fritz Lenz and Ernst Haeckel. His "superior race" belief was rooted in the theory of inherent racial inequality within species—a fundamental assumption and necessity of Darwin's original "survival of the fittest" concept.

Darwinism, Nazi Race Policies, and the Holocaust

Among the numerous factors contributing to the catastrophic confluence of events resulting in the Nazi Holocaust and World War II, Darwin's notion of evolutionary progress achieved primarily through the elimination of the weak in the struggle for survival stands out as particularly important. While comprehensively assessing the multifaceted and sometimes conflicting motivations of Hitler and his followers presents a significant challenge, Darwinian-inspired eugenics clearly played a critical role.

Darwinism both justified and encouraged Nazi racial and wartime views. Had the Nazi party fully embraced and consistently acted upon the belief in the common descent of all humans from Adam and Eve, and their equality before God, as taught in both Old and New Testaments, it is highly probable that the Holocaust and World War II would never have occurred.

The removal of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim doctrine of human divine origins from mainstream German theology and its educational institutions, and its replacement with Darwinism, significantly contributed to the acceptance of Social Darwinism that culminated in the Holocaust. Darwin's theory, as modified by Ernst Haeckel, combined with the racist theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and others, directly contributed to the deaths of over nine million people in concentration camps, and to the approximately 55 million deaths in the war, incurring an estimated $18.75 trillion USD in global economic losses. A major reason for Nazism's extreme brutality, reaching the scale of the Holocaust, was the widespread acceptance of Social Darwinism within the scientific and academic communities.

00:00 A doctrinaire Darwinist
25:14 Darwinism, Nazi race policies and the Holocaust

#history #azhistory #explorehistory #historicalevents #documentary

свернуть