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Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2007 21(1):55-72; doi:10.1093/hgs/dcm003
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© Oxford University Press 2007; all rights reserved

Otmar von Verschuer and the "Scientific" Legitimization of Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy

Eric Ehrenreich

Washington, DC

Correspondence:


  Abstract

In the early twentieth century, German natural scientists carried out sophisticated studies based on empirical research methods. The Nazis sought to situate their racism in this tradition. They were supported by many scientists, who thereby conferred legitimacy on Nazi racism. Even today some historical works imply that Nazi racist ideas were in line with scientific understandings of the time. However, the following examination of the work of Otmar von Verschuer, a leading Germany hereditary pathologist of the 1930s through the 1950s, and a key proponent of Nazi racial policies, shows this view to be ill-grounded: Nazi racist ideology was not "scientifically valid" even as the term was then understood.


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