Germany Quotes

This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}

The Eugenics Record Office was an activist organization advocating the forced sterilization of those people who they deemed to be inferior from a hereditary point of view. Most Americans are today shocked to find that this organization and its ideas were so influential that more than 30 states had passed similar laws. Only California and Virginia however were zealous in carrying them out . By 1935, 20,000 forced sterilizations had been carried out in the United States. The Supreme Court at the time even found such laws Constitutional. See {603680}.

At the time there were some Americans who supported Hitler and Fascism. Even senior military men like Osborne.

The Association commissioned a study to develop:

Writing a majority opinion allowing forced sterilization of the mentally retarded: In the ultimate tragic irony, the legal opinion in the case never questioned the assumptions of the case—that Carrie Buck, her mother, and daughter were all mentally retarded. Later scientists established that two of the three were normal and there was no real evidence about Buck’s mother. It seems that sexual promiscuity of unmarried women was the evidence upon which mental retardation was reached.

Many Leading American supported forced sterilization of mentally handicapped people. Indiana passed the first forced sterilization laws and other states followed. The Supreme Court upheld the practice. See {603680}.

Hitler’s Germany promptly passed the law which was the beginning of their program of human extermination and the Holocaust.

There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.

This was one of the most hateful of his public speeches. He was one of the American “heroes” in Nazi Germany, receiving assistance from the Nazi government. Between his anti-Semitism and support for Hitler, Fascism and radical socialism, the Vatican ordered him off the air and shut down his political demagoguery.

It is ironic that Hitler obtained part of his sick philosophy from an American writer. Grant was advocating forced sterilization of mental defectives. However, in the context of Germany’s history of racism and anti-Semitism, Hitler carried the notion to its ultimate extreme. See {602054}

The correspondence involved the establishment of a new organization to promote legislative directed sterilization of those people who were not worthy of “pioneer” stock.

There had been vicious assaults on most of the Black workers, when a few Negro welders were hired. The “compromise” was that the Negro workers would be protected from harm but there would be no Blacks in skilled positions. This was despite a huge labor shortage and a critical national need for the ships in the midst of war. Patriotism and the national crisis could not overcome the racism and hatred that existed in America. Northern newspapers pointed out the irony that America was practicing and upholding the racial theories of Hitler and the Nazis.

In one of the disgraces of American history, there was then an active Eugenics movement that advocated forced sterilization of people who were “unfit” to bear children. Over 20 states sterilized tens of thousands of American citizens who did not meet the “standards” of the state authorities who set the criteria of fitness. Sanger was one of those who called the implementation of Eugenics into question. However, note that even she accepted the notion of forced sterilization of mentally retarded people. Ironically, while some types of mental defects are heredity determined, others are not. The issue is a slippery slope under any conditions.

The Germans had just passed a law making it illegal for a Jew to work as a teacher, professor, government official, scientist, or researcher. Szilard, a Jewish Hungarian politically astute physicist who was working in Germany was trying to organize a plan for the rescue of the Jewish German scientists—to place them in scientific or teaching positions in other countries. Kuhnwald, himself a Jew, was not only a very experienced politician, but one who had been following the Nazi Germany political scene “next door” to predict the future effect on Austria.

Buckley’s mother, the entertainer Lena Horn, refused to entertain at an American base where white GIs sat in the front, the German prisoners of war in the middle and the black GIs in the back. This was typical of prisoner of war facilities throughout the South.

This classic quote illustrates how rapidly things can change. A decade later most German Jews either emigrated or were murdered.

The phrase “submerged tenth” was ironically used earlier {595222} by a great humanitarian, William Booth, 1829-1912, British Cleric & Founder of The Salvation Army to refer to the poor and the underclass of England. The Salvation Army focused on helping the submerged tenth; the Eugenics Record Office, sterilizing them. The Eugenics Record Office was an activist organization advocating the forced sterilization of those people who they deemed to be inferior from a hereditary point of view. Most Americans are today shocked to find that this organization and its ideas were so influential that more than 30 states had passed similar laws. Only California and Virginia were very zealous in carrying them out however. By 1935, 20,000 forced sterilizations had been carried out in the United States. The Supreme Court at the time even found such laws Constitutional. See {603680}.

The historical record that is available shows that while the Pope did not, actively or aggressively oppose Hitler, and he did not discipline Catholic prelates who were Nazi supporters, there is no specific evidence that shows the Pope conspired with Hitler, about the extermination of Jews or anything else. However, most of the relevant documents of the era are in the Vatican and the records have been sealed and have not been visible to historians. Apologists for the Pope’s passivity point out that a large percentage of Germans were Catholic and he had a duty to not antagonize Hitler who would retaliate against German Catholics and the German Catholic clergy and church property. Further, Fascist Italy was under Hitler’s control, and the Vatican itself could have closed and its property seized. The historical record is still very vague.