Applied Darwinism in NAZI Germany
April 28, 2008 – 12:04 pm by William Wallace |
| Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels |
Bourgeois social theory is primarily concerned with the individual. It is thus essentially determined by pity, or compassion, or the Christian love of one’s neighbor or similar conviction. Our Socialist ideas and actions have nothing whatsoever to do with such notions. Our starting-point is not the individual, and we do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked — those are not our objectives. Our objectives are entirely different. They can be put most crisply in the sentence: we must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.—Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels(Burleigh 1991 p. 69, see also USHMM 2008)
It appears that those who claim Darwinism had nothing to do with the holocaust will have to battle the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The Science Museum of Minnesota has the traveling version of their exhibit describing the NAZI eugenics movement.
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to “cleanse” German society of individuals viewed as biological threats to the nation’s “health.” Driven by a racist ideology legitimized by German scientists, the Nazis attempted to eliminate all of Europe’s Jews, ultimately killing six million in the Holocaust. Developed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race is a thought-provoking exhibition of objects, photographs, documents, and historic film footage from European and American collections. Deadly Medicine contains historical photographs, artifacts and survivor testimony from the Holocaust, including explicit images of medical experimentation on children.(SMM 2008)(USHMM 2008)[emphasis added]
Internet Evolanders practice a form of holocaust denial when they assert that the NAZI death machine had nothing to do with Darwinism.
Applied Darwinism is indeed an apt term.
Sources
- Burleigh, Michael (1991) The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 Cambridge University Press
- SMM(April 2008) Deadly Medicine Science Museum of Minnesota
- USHMM (2008)Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
26 Responses to “Applied Darwinism in NAZI Germany”
Interesting Goebbels quote. So much for the theory that NAZIsm was a consequence of Christianity.
By Robert S. on Apr 28, 2008
The man look evil.
By Khalid Muhammad Akbar Abdul on Apr 28, 2008
LOL, but Goebbels is smarter than you because he has Ph.D.
By William Wallace on Apr 28, 2008
An insulting and misleading statement. Accusing evolutionists of denying the holocaust for pointing out that the claim made by ID creationists that Darwinism was ‘necessary’ for the Holocaust to happen, is a vacuous argument.
Quote mining Nazis to support vacuous claims and then accuse evolutionists of being holocaust deniers is just poor logic.
Remember that anti-semitism and Christianity in Germany have since long gone hand in hand, remember Luther? Somehow I find it fascinating how that part of history is so easily denied and forgotten while the far more specious claim of calling Darwinism a necessary part for the Holocaust to have happened is emphasized. Oh the foolishness.
[To learn about PvM's attacks on Martin Luther using an unreliable source, Google "Martin Luther" and select Wikipedia's article].
By PvM on Apr 29, 2008
The Goebbels quote both preemptively addressed your anti-Christian attacks as well as demonstrated that he was advocating applied Darwinism. You need more than bald assertions of quotemining around here. The source is provided, which is a book *and* the national holocaust museum.
Also, why don’t you head on over to the Minister of NC”S”E propaganda’s blog, TfK, where he recently portrayed Expelled as anti-Semitic. There is a much better case (as I have made) that internet Evolanders practice a form of holocaust denial when they assert that the NAZI death machine had nothing to do with Darwinism, than your assertion that Christianity had anything to do with the holocaust.
Indeed, to the extent that people who called themselves Christians participated in the holocaust, I would think they were go along to get along “Christians” like you.
P.S. as for Christians in Germany during the holocaust, why don’t you use your wikipedia to find an article on Martin Niemöller.
By William Wallace on Apr 29, 2008
While William disappoints me with his response in which he challenges both my Christian faith as well as accuess me of feeling more comfortable with Christians who participated in the holocaust. Both assertions are foolish, insulting and from a fellow Christian, quite sad.
As to the Holocaust, let’s see what the Anti Defamation league has to see here
There you have it.
By PvM on Apr 29, 2008
As to Niemoeller, I am quite familiar with the small though intense opposition by some Christians to Nazism, and yet most of the Christians did not seem to follow in his footsteps. Was Neimoeller somehow more Christian than the mainstream German Christians?
And can you guess who stated
or
Funny how these quote mines can paint a very different picture and yet, they are all relevant to understanding the complex roots of the many causes that lead to the Holocaust. And yet, Stein et al want to trivialize this by claiming that Darwinism was a necessary component.
And as to the arguments that Expelled is somehow denying the holocaust, I never have made such claims. Is your argument that if people who support evolution make ill founded claims that you are justified in doing the same. Sort of like an ‘eye for an eye’ rather than ‘turn the other cheek’?
By PvM on Apr 29, 2008
Oh an finally you stated “[To learn about PvM’s attacks on Martin Luther using an unreliable source, Google “Martin Luther” and select Wikipedia’s article].”
Unreliable source? I guess Luther’s own words are now unreliable…
How ironic.
By PvM on Apr 29, 2008
Whether or not you’re a Christian is between you and God.
But I certainly have my opinion.
Also, a smart person like you certainly knows better than to confuse what I wrote with your characterization.
So one can only conclude that you are being intentionally deceitful.
Please back up your characterization of the Goebbels quote as a “quote mine”.
Methinks you fell back to PT-mafia flow chart too quickly. (For new readers, the PT-mafia flow chart is a flow chart that instructs evolanders what to say when they are stumped).
By William Wallace on Apr 30, 2008
Your argument was that Darwinism is necessary component for the Holocaust. For that you quoted Goebbels talking about Christianity and a concept you confuse with Darwinian theory “we must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.”
The latter was already practiced by the Spartans hundreds of years before Darwin.
Is it so hard to make a real argument why Darwinism is a required component for the Holocaust to have happened?
I understand that this me a bit hard given the facts and I understand that you prefer secondary or tertiary sources for your blog but perhaps its time to go to primary sources again and find out how Goebbels made much clearer claims about Christ and the Bible than he did about Darwinism.
What do you think that means, using your ‘logic’?
By PvM on Apr 30, 2008
Now that is has been established that it was not Darwinism as much as ‘Social Darwinism’ and Malthusianism which were used by Nazis to further their cause of anti-semitism. And now that Luther has been identified as a major source fueling anti-semitism in Germany, the real question becomes one which Expelled and ID proponents seem to want to ignore. What causes underlie the holocaust?
The anti-defamation league surely seems to understand
By PvM on Apr 30, 2008
PS, William quotes
However on p 69 the quote is much shorter
Goebbels may very well have said the full quote but William should make an effort to accurately quote his sources…
By PvM on Apr 30, 2008
Please stop with your deceit. It only makes the PT-mafia look foolish. You’re shiftiness is also noted; you’ve gone from cheap allegations of quote mining to allegations of too complete a quote. Ludicrous.
I previously mentioned in another post a point made in Expelled is that Darwinian ideology was a necessary component for the Holocaust.
If you disagree with this, you should, rather than providing us with your original research, or that of fringe internet evolanders, cite mainstream historians who explicitly decouple Darwinian ideology and the NAZI ideology, or claim that it would have occurred even if Darwin’s books had been published in the 1950s instead of the 1850s. Comment at the correct post, though.
But to get back on point, this post was addressing the Evolander stance that Darwinism and the holocaust are unreleated. This stance is of course untenable in light of primary and respected secondary sources.
By William Wallace on Apr 30, 2008
[...]
What do Jewish biologists have to say?
By Robert S. on Apr 30, 2008
Great quote back at you, Robert S.
By William Wallace on May 1, 2008
Your buddy PZ Myers has gone of the deep end.
“I picture Ben Stein sliding a cold razor across the eyes of a screaming victim, and then urinating in their face to wash the blood away. I can’t help it. It’s a natural connection to make, obviously.“–PZ Myers
By KE on May 1, 2008
Mr. PvM, Quoting a historian would be better than the Anti Defamation league. On the other hand, it looks like you are finding your quote mines in The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945 by Richard Steigmann-Gall, who is Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Kent State University.
The good Dr. Steigmann-Gall, admittedly an historian, confuses pandering to Christians by leaders with Christianity itself. This does not make the case that Christianity was a necessary component of the Holocaust (as opposed to, for example, Islam or Darwinism). Furthermore, Goebbels explicitly distinguished NAZI population socialism from Christian/Bourgeois social theory, and described NAZI social thoery in terms that are clearly Darwinian and Malthusianism in nature.
PvM may protest creating a caricature of Islam based on crimes of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as vigorously as he protests associating the Holocaust with Darwin’s amoral ideas about life, struggle, and competition.
Yet he is promoting here the idea that the Holocaust was Christian phenonimon.
Questioning PvM’s so-called Christianity is as reasonable as questioning Saddam Hussein’s belief in and faithfulness to Islam.
By Dan on May 2, 2008
On the contrary, I am showing that using Wallace’s logic a much stronger case for Nazism and Christianity can be made than for Nazism and Darwinism.
Yes, I am basing my comments on the work of an actual historian and the feedback from the Anti Defamation League.
Perhaps you now understand that pandering to Christians and pandering to Darwinian principles are not that much different and if you insist that one is somehow indicative of a real link while the other one isn’t then perhaps you may want to take of your blinders.
And yet I do not hear you object to William’s flawed arguments.
By PvM on May 3, 2008
As to the confusion of Darwinism and Monism (Haeckel) let me quote
The Scientific Origins of National Socialism By Daniel Gasman, 1971
By PvM on May 5, 2008
Thanks PvM for brining up one of the original evolanders Ernst Haeckel, the German T.H. Huxley, a Darwinist and creator of fraudulent drawings, who also zealously asserted that “nothing spiritual exists”–an anachronistic PZ Myers, so to speak.
By William Wallace on May 5, 2008
It seems that you are not too familiar with Haeckel’s work and I am glad to set you straight here by pointing out that Germans understood Darwin, filtered through the distorted lenses of Haeckel.
Luckily Darwin did not really rely on Haeckel but rather on the work by von Baer.
As to the fraud issue, how familiar are you with the facts? Conservapedia is an infamously unreliable source. Check the primary or even secondary sources. Richardson’s work is an excellent starting point.
In the mean time, it seems that your claims about Nazism and Darwinism are somewhat suffering from a reality shock.
In Christ
By PvM on May 5, 2008
See also
Robert J. Richards, Ernst Haeckel’s Alleged Anti-Semitism and Contributions to Nazi Biology
Biological Theory. Winter 2007, Vol. 2, No. 1, Pages 97-103
and
By PvM on May 5, 2008
PvM,
Your grasp of reality is troubling, as is your smugness.
If you can identify a single error on the Conservapedia articles I linked to above, please do explain.
By William Wallace on May 6, 2008
Silence….
By William Wallace on May 7, 2008
“Applied Darwinism is indeed an apt term.”
Why? The term “Darwinism” doesn’t even appear in any of the things you quote-mined, and you inexplicably bolded “scientists.”
Were Nazi paleontologists Karl Buerlen and Othenio Abel “Darwinists,” Mr. Wallace?
By John on May 7, 2008
Here is a link to more on Darwin and the Nazis.
http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2009/07/darwins_connection_to_nazi_eug.php
“Driven by a racist ideology legitimized by German scientists….”
Those German scientists with their insistence on following “Germanic science” rejected Relativity as Jewish science, and promoted such relevant science as the theory that all the other planets were made of ice.
Anyone that ties to connect Darwin’s use of Galton’s term “survival of the fittest” is an ignoramus.
Darwin was anti slavery and against survival of the fittest as a philosophy to be used in human society.
By Terry Jones on Aug 7, 2009