NFC zu D-S-04
This cabinet contains relevant books that reflect the thinking between 1902 and 1942. There is a quote from each book that conveys the core idea. As the books contain derogatory texts and images, they are kept under lock and key.

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau: Experiment on the inequality of human races (1902).

Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, 1876.
Copy ArEGL.
»This is what history teaches us. It shows us that every civilisation stems from the white race, that none can exist without the aid of this race, […]« (p. 285)

Fritz Lenz: Human Selection and Racial Hygiene (1932).

Fritz Lenz, after 1945.
Archive of the Max Planck Society, Berlin Dahlem.
»We value the progress of culture, the progress of knowledge, technology and the economy. The pioneering leaders of this progress are praised as great spirits. But all this becomes meaningless if culture collapses as a result of the degeneration of the race […]« (p. 554)

Ernst Wegner: Racial Hygiene for everyone (1934).

Ernst Wegner, 1933, in: Deutscher Reichstag, Reichstags-Handbuch, 8th electoral period, Berlin 1933, p. 367 [excerpt].
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. BA/Germ.g 390c-1933.
»[…] and it is the taxpayer who is healthy and capable of inheritance who has to bear the burden of welfare. While public funds are only rarely available for the children of healthy people, imbeciles and criminals have to be supported from public funds.« (p. 157.)

Ernst Rüdin: Heredity and Racial Hygiene in the National State (1934).

Ernst Rüdin, um 1935.
Copy ArEGL.
»Our aim is to breed a sufficient number of carriers of mental health […], but without accepting the curse of mental illness. The people want […] the proper multiplication of the healthy gifted […] but not to breed the mentally ill.« (p. 163)

Günther Just: Inheritance (1936).

Günther Just, um 1948.
UAG, Porträtsammlung, Just, Günther.
»The […] legislation will be of ever greater blessing to our people; after all, it is a matter of liberating future generations from a large number of vile, anti-community and anti-social individuals […]« (p. 182)

Ludwig Ferdinand Clauß: Breed and character (1936).

Ludwig FerLudwig Ferdinand Clauß, 1934.
From: Clauß, Ludwig Ferdinand: As a Bedouin among Bedouins, Freiburg i. Br. 1934.
»Racial affiliation is […] all too easily misused as a badge of honour and for the arrogation of special rights. Although ‘racial purity’ is to be regarded as a gift from God, it does not in itself guarantee moral ‘high value’, but imposes duties and creates responsibility.« (p. 108)

Ernst Rittershaus: Constitution or race? (1936).
»The sole aim of the so-called ‘Nordic Movement’ is to save the last remnants of Nordic blood in our racial mix from complete annihilation and to strengthen the numerical proportion of this blood in our people, if it is still possible at all.« (p.191)

Erwin Baur/Eugen Fischer/Fritz Lenz:
Human heredity (1936).

Erwin Baur, before 1933.
Michal Šimůnek/Peter Ruckenbauer/Uwe Hoßfeld (2015):
A half forgotten album, p. 14.

Eugen Fischer, undated.
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe | Digitales Nationalarchiv Polen.
»For the introduction and implementation of racial-hygienic selection, however, a renewal of the world view is necessary. […] This education towards an organic worldview has been tackled by National Socialism […]« (p. 773)

Paul Danzer: Birth war (1937).
»A nation can become richer in terms of talent and hereditary values if the gifted and high-quality ones leave an above-average number of children to the next generation and the poorly gifted, […] a below-average number.« (p. 13)

Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer: Guide to racial hygiene (1941).

Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, around 1940.
Archive of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, VI. Abt., Rep. 1, Verschuer I/5.
»Hereditary biology is the most important basis of racial hygiene; all differences between people and all selection processes would be meaningless with regard to the future of humanity if the differences between individual people, social groups, peoples and races were not hereditary.« (p. 10)

Friedrich Keiter: Short textbook of Racial Biology and Racial Hygiene (1941).
»The core of National Socialism is recovery after a hostile, intellectualist, over-artificial age.« (p. 1)

Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer (Hg.): Der Erbarzt Bd. 9 (1941/1942).
»But how often is a single trait of such immense importance that all other hereditary traits are practically insignificant. Think, for example, of a hereditary disposition for feeblemindedness. It destroys almost the entire value of a person.« (p. 6)