Urte Petraityte
History 20
Andrew Frantz
Section 31
3 February 2016
Delegate Paper #1
After the first world war economies started slowing down, soldiers came home and a new way of living had to be created to accommodate the post war changes in society. More people were living in the cities than ever before, the birth rate of the elite was rapidly declining while the lower class began to over populate. The government believed it was their duty to get involved which they did by creating the concept of Eugenics. Although people define eugenics in many different ways the main concepts include artificially selecting desired traits which then allows scientific improvement of the population by controlled breeding. Eugenics became a science used
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During the time Hitler was coming to power and right before, the idea of Eugenics in Germany was spreading. “Scientists dreamed of a perfect human being by changing the genetic makeup of the population.” Even before the Nazi party was formed they already had these ideas in mind and once Hitler starting supporting the idea the results were horrific. Just like in America the Germans believed that the “unfit” were reproducing while the “fit” generation was using birth control and having kids later bringing down the overall population. Similarly to the United States the government warned about mixing races and was afraid that the population was becoming worse and something had to be done. Surgical Sterilization was another parallel to prevent the spreading of bad genes although the practice didn’t gain as much support as it had in other countries around the globe. Similarly to the United States there were birth and marriage laws, for example the Marital Health law of October 1935 banned unions between the Hereditarily healthy and person deemed genetically unfit, Getting married and having kids was a duty for the racially fit.” So far German Eugenics seem very similar to those in the United Sates, the government worked on controlling every aspect of the population. They government was afraid of the spread of the bad genes that