Alfred Ploetz

Alfred Ploetz (August 22, 1860 – March 20, 1940) was a German physician, biologist, eugenicist known for introducing together with Wilhelm Schallmayer the concept of racial hygiene (Rassenhygiene) in Germany. "Rassenhygiene" is another name for eugenics.

Life

Alfred Ploetz was born in Swinemünde, Germany (now Świnoujście, Poland) grew up and attended school in Breslau (now Wrocław). At this time he began his friendship with Carl Hauptmann, brother of the famous author Gerhart Hauptmann. In 1879 he founded a secret schoolboy society for the improvement of the race. In Gerhart Hauptmann's Drama "Vor Sonnenaufgang" (Before Sunrise) which was first performed on October 20, 1889 in Berlin, the key figure of the journalist Loth is based on Ploetz.

After school Ploetz at first studied political economy in Breslau. There he joined the "Freie wissenschaftliche Vereinigung" (free scientific union). Among his friends were - besides his brother - his former school friend Ferdinand Simon (later son-in-law of August Bebel), the brothers Carl and Gerhart Hauptmann, Heinrich Laux, and Charles Proteus Steinmetz.

This circle enthusastically read the works of Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin. Carl Hauptmann was a student of Ernst Haeckel, and Gerhart Hauptmann and Ploetz attended some of his lectures. The group expanded and developed a plan of founding a colony in one of the pacific states and established itself as the "Pacific association". They planned a "community on friendly, socialist and maybe also pan-Germanic basis". In consequence of the prosecution of socialistic minded persons in application of Otto von Bismarck's anti-socialist laws (1878-1890), in 1883 Ploetz flew to Zurich, where he continued to study political economy with Julius Platter (1844-1923). In his memoirs Ploetz states as an important reason for his choice of Zurich that in his studies in Breslau socialist theories were only incidentally mentioned. In Zurich he could occupy himself more intensively with them and make acquaintance with some socialists and social democrats. In the 1880s Switzerland, with its liberal asylum laws, was the destination of various persons who suffered political persecution.

After half a year in the USA Ploetz returned to Zurich and began to study medicine. In 1890 he became medical doctor and married Ernst Rüdin's sister Pauline. The next four years both lived in the USA. The marriage remained childless. In 1898 they were divorced. Later Ploetz married Anita Nordenholz. This marriage led to three children Ulrich (called Uli), Cordelia (called Deda) and Wilfrid (called Fridl, born 1912, in 2007 still alive).

Ploetz first proposed the theory of racial hygiene (eugenics) in his "Racial Hygiene Basics" (Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895. In 1904 Ploetz founded the periodical "Archiv für Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie" with Fritz Lenz as chief editor, and in 1905 the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene" (German association of eugenics). In 1930 he became honorary doctor of the university of Munich.

Ploetz welcomed the Nazi seizure of power and wrote in April 1933 that Hitler would bring racial hygiene from its previous marginality into the mainstream.

In 1933 by Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick used an "expert advisory committee for population and racial policy" comprising Ploetz, Fritz Lenz, Ernst Rüdin and Hans F.K. Günther. This expert advisory committee had the task of all advising on Nazi legislation on racial and eugenic issues, and on the enforcement of policy.

In 1936 Hitler appointed his to a professorship.

For his warning against the biological effects of war on human reproduction, in 1936 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1937 he joined the Nazi party.

He died at the age of 79 and is buried at his home in Herrsching on the Ammersee in Bavaria. After his death Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer praised his "inner sympathy and enthusiasm [with] the National Socialist Movement". His brother Ernst Rüdin, also a committed National Socialist, praised him two years before as a man "by his meritorious services has helped to set up our Nazi ideology."

Theories

In his book The efficiency of our race and the protection of the weak (1895) he described a society in which eugenic ideas were applied. Society would examine the moral and intellectual capacity of citizens to decide on marriage and the permitted number of children. It may also include a prohibition on reproduction. Disabled children are aborted, the sick and weak, twins and children whose parents Ploetz considers too old or young, are "eliminated".

Along with other German eugenicists Ploetz believed in the superiority of the Nordic race. His writings were a major influence on Nazi ideology, however he rejected attempts to use racial theory to support antisemitism,

The high aptitude of the Jews and their outstanding role in the progress of mankind considering men like Jesus, Spinoza, Marx has to be kindly acknowledged without hesitation... All this Antisemitism is a flop which will vanish slowly in the light of scientific knowledge and a humane democracy"

In his early writings Ploetz credited Jews as the second highest cultural race after Europeans. but identified no substantial difference in "racial character" between Aryans and Jews, arguing that the mental abilities of Jews and their role in the development of human culture made them indispensable to the "process of racial mix" which would enhance humanity.

Later he revised this view. Ploetz dissociated himself from the idea of positive racial mix and calls for racial purity. He stressed that the distinctiveness of Jews indicated that their mental characteristics would adversely affect Aryans by introducing individualism and lack of love for the military and the nation. He favored the global dominance of the Aryan race.