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Was Nazi Germany's Pseudoscientific Ideas Of Race?

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Scientific racism is the pseudoscientific (false claims based on a scientific method) belief that humans can be subdivided into different biological groups called races and can be used as evidence to support racial discrimination. Scientific racism was based on eugenics, which is a set of beliefs aimed at improving genetic quality. The idea of eugenics was invented by Sir Francis Galton. Eugenics were set to improve race to form the perfect racial group, which for Hitler was the Aryan race. Racial purity was an approach at eugenics and implemented into Nazi Germany which aimed at the existence of one racial background and not being racially mixed. Nazi Germany's pseudoscientific idea on race was that the Aryan race was superior to any other …show more content…

During the period of 1933 and 1946 the Jewish people suffered immensely with about 6 million of them being killed. Pseudoscientific ideas of race had a devastating impact on the Jewish nation by Nazi Germany in the early 20th century. Following the Nuremberg Law which stripped Jewish people of their citizenship denying them of civil rights in Germany and prevented relationships between Jews and non-Jews, Jewish people were made to seem inferior to the Aryan race and were eventually sent to concentration camps or death camps. Nazi Germanys pseudoscientific ideas of race were influenced by Hitler’s belief in racial purity and the prejudice that Jews were lesser beings. There had always been anti-Semitic feelings and throughout history the persecution of Jews had been happening, but these feelings had reappeared in Germany in 1933 under Hitler’s control. The Nazi government encouraged people to not support any Jewish owned businesses and were warned about which shops belonged to Jewish people. In 1938, things took a turn for the worse. Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, was a coordinated riot that was a result of anti-Semitic violence. Nazi leaders ordered the SS, SA and the …show more content…

Inmates in concentration camps were kept under harsh conditions and exploited for their labour. The prisoners in these concentration camps were criminals, asocials (Roma, homosexuals and more), Jews and Foreign nationals during the Second World War. Concentration and death camps were used to isolate Jewish people and either kill them immediately or use them as free labour in poor working conditions until they died. In these concentration camps, cruel medical experiments were conducted on Jewish prisoners, which were justified by the Nazis pseudoscientific ideas of

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When the Nazi Party won the election, this is when the number of SS had increased to 52,000 and their task from the start had always been to remove and eliminate racial enemies by any means, especially brute force to unify Germany under one empire, one people and one leader. As seen in source A, an image of a Nazi is depicted as destroying the home of a Jewish person on the night of broken glass, or Kristallnacht, an anti-semitic act which was the beginning of the end for all the Jewish community. On the 15th of September 1935 cruel, inhuman acts were allowed to make the elimination process for the Nazis easier due to the Nuremberg Laws which were laws in place used to ostracize and completely segregate Jews from the rest of Europe. Kristallnacht had acted as a catalyst where those who wanted to become perpetrators could do as they pleased without any legal consequences. Source B highlights the propaganda poster where it is justifying the Nuremberg laws and prohibiting interracial relationships between a Jewish person and a Non-Jewish person as it is made illegal due to

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LIFE AN DEATH DURING THE HOLOCAUST 1) How do these sources explain the Nazi’s attitude towards Jews? The Nazi’s attitude was quite callous. A series of anti-sematic laws put in place in Germany by the Nazi’s suggests that Jews should not exercise the right to vote, marriages between Jews and nationals of Germans or kindred blood were forbidden. Jews were also forbidden to display the Reich and national flag or the national colours. The Nazi’s also forced Jews to wear armbands and attach stars to their ragged clothing, therefore labelling them.

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Nazi Human Experiments In the 1930’s, in Nazi Germany, thousands of people were forcefully imprisoned inside concentration camps. This mass imprisonment began with political rivals of Adolph Hitler, and anyone who tried to resist the growing authority of the Nazi Party. Throughout the 1930’s Criteria for imprisonment slowly expanded to include all types of population subgroups including gypsies, homosexuals, catholic clergy, anyone who is viewed as being asocial, and most notably Jewish people. These groups of people were considered to be subhuman or inferior beings, by the Nazi party.

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Racism is the belief or idea of superiority of one race over another, often resulting in discrimination and/or prejudice towards people of the race. The ideology underlying racist practices often includes the idea that humans can be divided into distinct groups that are different due to their social behavior and their innate capacities as well as the idea that they can be ranked as inferior or superior. Since the late 20th century the notion of biological race has been recognized as a cultural invention, entirely without scientific basis. Structural Racism in the U.S. is the normalization of an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal – that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color. It is a system of hierarchy and inequity, primarily characterized by white supremacy – the preferential treatment, privilege and power for white people at the expense of Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Arab and other racially oppressed people.

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The use of these ideas to justify discriminatory policies and violence highlights the importance of scientific rigour and critical thinking in intellectual discourse and policymaking. The use of pseudoscientific ideas about race during the period from 1935 to 1946 was met with a mixed response from the scientific community. Some scientists actively promoted these ideas, while others opposed them and worked to expose their flaws and limitations. In Nazi Germany, many scientists were complicit in the regime's policies of persecution and genocide. They participated in the development of eugenics programs and the use of phrenology to justify discriminatory policies.

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This attack resulted in the widespread destruction of Jewish stores, buildings and synagogues and also led to the arrest of thousands of Jewish men. This marked a significant escalation in Nazi policies, from discrimination to active persecution, paving the way for the Holocaust- the systematic genocide whose aim was to eradicate Jewish people and establish an ‘Aryan’ society. This was only accomplished by the introduction of the Nuremberg laws, pervasive anti-Semitic propaganda, enforcing ghettoisation and the Aryanization process, all of these were instrumental in the severe political, social, and economic marginalization of Jewish people. The Holocaust was escalated by the Nazi Party introducing anti-Semitic laws in 1935, which systematically marginalized Jewish people and stripped them of their rights. These laws were The Nuremberg race laws, these were a set of laws that restricted the lives of the Jewish people living in any Nazi-occupied country.

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According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, eugenics is: “a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed”. ("Definition of Eugenics by Merriam-Webster") The most common example of this concept would be the Holocaust, which was the extermination of Jewish people and others deemed “unfit” for society in World War Ⅱ. But little do many know, the Nazi’s were not the only people practicing eugenics in the early 1900’s, eugenics was being practiced in the United States long before the Holocaust. The American Eugenics Society aimed to educate American people on the science of Eugenics.

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First, in Nov. 1938, Kristallnacht created a landmark in Jewish torture. Then again, when Hitler came to Germany, he didn’t start the Anti-semitic. Furthermore, when the Nazis got their hands on Propaganda, information and the press, the anti-Jewish campaign began to grow. As a result, these are facts that caused this problems. First, in Nov. 1938, Kristallnacht created a landmark in Jewish torture.

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Eugenics is the improvement of the human population by controlled breeding. With that definition many things can be put under the category of Eugenics. Social Darwinism though, is the opposite of Eugenics. It is a theory that human population is based off of survival of the fittest and natural selection. Nazism is something that can be categorized under Eugenics because the beliefs of Germany during that time period was that the Aryan race was the best and therefore he selected those he believed to be of pure German descent and allowed them to breed and either killed those that he did not want to have children or placed them into concentration camps.

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Jews were carted away into prison or segregated areas by the cartful each day on the streets. Furthermore, Jews were not allowed to do simple actions, such as take pictures or play sports. They were regarded by the government as “subhuman”. The hate grew even stronger on November 19, 1938 when the Nazis destroyed every synagogue or Jewish owned store in Germany. Hitler’s book Mein Kampf became propaganda which allowed him and his National Socialist Party to rise to power.

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In 1930 the Nazis mistreated the Nazis and the Jews were scared of them. The Nazis hit them punched them burned them or shot them. I was hard to imagine how terrible their life was, hundreds or thousands of people died because of the holocaust. The Jews who lived in Germany in 1940 was like hell to them, they were punched, kicked, or burned too. They had terrible lives and some of them killed them self from the lives they had and all thanks to the Nazis.

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Kubo and the Two Strings is an another awe inspiring film brought by Laika, the same production company that produced well known features such as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and various other phenomenal dark fantasy based movies. Kubo and the Two Strings is a thrilling stop-motion adventure featuring Kubo, a gifted young boy, armed with a magical instrument, who sets upon a mystical journey after a terrible loss along with his companions Monkey and Beetle. The film was accompanied by an amazing soundtrack, including a beautiful remake of The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," sang by Regina Spektor, and a inspiring track list created by Dario Marianelli. The film features Japanese influences; the animation and

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The Holocaust is a shining example of Anti-Semitism at its best and it was no secret that the Nazis tried to wipe out the Jews from Europe but the question is why did the Nazis persecute the Jews and how did they try to do it. This essay will show how the momentum, from a negative idea about a group of people to a genocide resulting in the murder of 6 million Jews, is carried from the beginning of the 19th Century, with pseudo-scientific racial theories, throught the 20th century in the forms of applied social darwinism and eugenics(the display of the T4 programme), Nazi ideas regarding the Jews and how discrimination increased in the form of the Nuremberg Laws , Kristallnacht, and last but not least, The Final Solution. Spanning throughout the 19th century, racial theories were seen. Pseudo-Scientific theories such as Craniometry,where the size of one’s skull determines one’s characteristics or could justifies one’s race( this theory was used first by Peter Camper and then Samuel Morton), Karl Vogt’s theory of the Negro race being related to apes and of how Caucasian race is a separate species to the Negro race, Arthur de Gobineau’s theory of how miscegenation(mixing or interbreeding of different races) would lead to the fall of civilisation.

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As the laws against Jews in Germany got progressively worse, some Jewish people thought to stick up for their rights, but it was futile. Jewish people began fleeing the country, but few countries would take them due to the fear of a newly empowered German state. On the evening of November 9, 1938, the Holocaust began with carefully coordinated attacks on Jewish businesses. Unfortunately, this was just a sample of the horrors that would be shown in the next twelve years. Hindsight is already 20/20 and from the events leading up to the Holocaust most historians concur that the Holocaust should have been predicted and stopped.

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Eugenics is the science of using artificial selection to improve genetic features of the population. It is thought that improvement of the human race can be seen through sterilization of people who exhibit undesirable traits and selective breeding. Often called Social Darwinism, the concept was widely accepted during the time of World War I. It quickly became a taboo after World War II when Nazi Germany used it as an excuse for genocide. The thought of improving the human race by manipulating who is allowed to breed can either be appalling or compelling.

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