Hitler's Ivy League Connection

What were the origins of the Nazi theory of the Master Race? Yes, by the 1920s there was a growing body of "research" from German biologists that dealt with racial differences. But by far the most influential and "advanced" work was coming from the American eugenics movement. 

Richard Conniff has a fascinating article on the key role of Yale University professors and alumni in this sad chapter of American academic history: 

"Proponents of eugenics included Yale president James R. Angell, celebrated football coach Walter Camp ’80, primatologist Robert Yerkes, and Yale medical school dean Milton Winternitz. Stewart Paton, who pioneered mental health services for college students during a two-year stint at Yale in the 1920s, was a eugenicist. So was Rabbi Louis L. Mann, a lecturer at Yale, who told an audience at a 1923 birth control conference that, even in ancient times, the wise men of Israel had realized the necessity of checking the multiplication of the unfit."

The seminal work of the American eugenics movements was a 1916 book by Yale graduate Madison Grant - The Passing of a Great Race - which extolled the superiority of Nordic stock and warned against its "corruption" by Jews, Blacks, Slav and any other race that lacked blond hair and blue eyes. In 1930 Madison Grant received a letter of thanks and appreciation from a rising political star in Germany - recently released from prison - Adolf Hitler.  His book Mein Kampf displays an intimate knowledge of Grant's theories, as well as anti-immigrant and racial legislation in the United States, which Hitler believed Germany should adopt immediately. 

And, once in power, Hitler implemented eugenic principles in ways the American proponents could only dream of.  While sterilizations were common in the US, the Americans watched in wonder and admiration as the Nazis introduced systematic euthanasia - and then extermination on a mass scale.

As a Harvard PhD, I wish I could take some pleasure on this terrible blemish on the history of Yale University - a dreaded rival.  But Harvard was also a hotbed of eugenics - indeed it was the center of eugenics research.  Charles Davenport, a Harvard-trained biologist, was the leading figure in the American eugenics movement, and a key advisor to the American Eugenics Society. 

Another, unrelated,  Harvard connection was Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl, Hitler's early advisor and a Harvard man through and through (see Hitler's Piano Player) 

And Harvard's contribution to pseudo-science in Germany continues today. A profound influence on the best-selling eugenicist Thilo Sarrazin is Harvard graduate Charles Murray. 

Comments

[michijo]

I suppose you heard about George Bush senior sterilizing Native American women in the 70s right? Those idiotic Bushes, Ivy league grads, really human trash themselves, nevertheless believe in eugenics. But if you think about it, with it's anti-socialist, Might-Is-Right, survival-of-the-fittest-capitalist leanings, Eugenics is perfect for the USA. After all, it's the poor's fault for being poor. They must be inferior. Rich people are the arbiters of morality, not thieves. If you go to the right school, you can rise out of the ghetto and become the head of Goldman Sachs. If you then engage in predatory mortgage sharking, well that is your just reward for having risen to the top in the capitalist system.

[michijo]

The thing that always gets me about blond haired blue eyed superiority theories, is that I see blond haired blue eyed people everyday in the USA, and often they are the poorest of the poor, eating in soup kitchens, having teen pregnancies, living in trailer parks. There is nothing specifically superior about them.

[koogleschreiber]

In 'Mein Kampf' Hitler deeply admired the anglo-american propaganda during the first world war: The German soldiers were defamed as huns lacking any human standard and feeling, while on the other side the German press was much too tame, too chivalrous in regard of the enemy. No question, superiority theories and the idea of minor races perfectly blend in his concepts to prepare millions for a total war. Considering Hitler's gigantomania and his dreams of superiority every German at the very latest should have been woken up when he presented the adequate car for the masterrace: The first VW Beetle or KdF-Wagen, that apparently gave enough space for five of them.

[michijo]

I dont know why they hate Jews either. If I made a list of every right-wing, war-mongering Jew in American Politics, it would present a picture of a people any American downhome right-wing blondy should admire: Madelein Albright, Wayne Root, Emanuel Rahm, Henry Kissinger, Joe Lieberman, the list of them is endless.

[michijo]

Oh, another of my favorites is Barry Bausano of Deutsche Bank.

[michijo]

Let's not forget Malcolm Glazer. He didn't really do anything very bad, but he bought up all the shares of Manchester United football team in England and subsequently sold them out to the extent that in many cases the fans actually wanted to kill him and he was afraid for his life. He was referred to as a "Yankee" by the British, but the Jewish encyclopedia of cool Jews lists him differently.

[michijo]

Can you write a blog post about the Jewish involvement in the African slave trade in the Americas, both in Latin America and the confederate states?

[David]

No. Why don't you start your own blog if you want to spread anti-Semitic bullshit.

[Zyme]

Hi David,

what do you make of this prominent news:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/israelische-atomwaffen-auf-u-booten-aus-deutschland-a-836645.html

It is also Spiegel's cover story in the current piece :-)

https://magazin.spiegel.de/epaper/start/index.html

I bet this won't add to Israel's "popularity" in the German public.

[michijo]

I am not an anti-semite. After all, I am an Esperantist, and Zamenhof was an Esperantist. But I get sick of Israelis and Jews getting away with murder, while I stand by like a chump, just because I am an American. If people like Emanuel Rahm want us all to serve mandatory military service like Israelis, expect a harsh view toward that type of Jew.

[michijo]

You Democrats are just the same as Republicans, it's always the "Military-State". Obama wanted to draft everyone as well as Rahm.

[michijo]

Hey, I wish you would start up the draft. It is never more easy to immigrate to Canada than when you are drafted. That would be my free ticket to Canadian residence. Good luck.

[Marvin]

Actually, there is a growing body of scientific reseacrh that shows that the mean IQ of east asians is higher than whites. After East asians, whites are generally next, then its blacks all the way at the bottom.

So you are denying science and making a religion out of egalitarianism. Nothing has changed since Darwin I see.+

[David]

Yes, there was also "growing body of scientific research" in the Third Reich concerning the genetic deficiency of Jews.

Your racialist theories were debunked back in the 1980s by Harvard scientist Stephen Jay Gould in "The Mismeasure of Man".