# From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, And Racism in Germany - Richard Weikart



## crhoades (Oct 2, 2006)

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140397201X/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/104-1270735-5844740?ie=UTF8]From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, And Racism in Germany [/ame]

Looks very interesting.


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## Joe Keysor (Oct 22, 2006)

*Darwin and Hitler*

I haven't read Weikart's book, but I have read a number of reviews of it, including Weikart's own responses to criticisms. He points to numerous German Darwinists who used their belief in Darwinism to justify euthanasia and argues that Darwinism contributed to a devaluation of life which contributed to the rise of Naziism. Of course he says a lot more, a search of "Richard Weikart" will bring up his home page.

A similar book is Daniel Gasman's The Scientific Origins of National Socialism. Gasman shows how the German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel used Darwinism to justify Aryan supremacy, euthanasia, and other aspects of Naziism and argues that Haeckel's thought (founded on Darwin) was foundational to Naziism.

According to Gasman, Haeckel grew up under the liberal "Protestantism" of Schleiermacher (Jesus only swooned on the cross and revived in the tomb). He later rejected Christianity completely and became Germany's most well-known advocate of Darwinism. He took Darwin's concept of survival of the fittest and elevated it to the national and racial level, seeing conflicts between nations and races in a Darwinian sense. 

Defenders of Darwin point out that Darwin himself was not an antisemite or a German militarist, they also point out that many people believe in Darwinism without becoming Nazis - hence they argue there is no connection. There was a pre-existing tradition of antisemitism, militarism, and Aryan supremacy in Germany before Darwin, which Darwinism then blended with. Hitler appeals not only to Darwinian logic but also has elements of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.


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## Joe Keysor (Oct 26, 2006)

The connection between Hitler and Darwin is often made and the connection between Hitler and Nietzsche. Not many people make the connection between Hitler and Kant.

In a book called German Idealism and the Jew, Professor Michael Mack of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem examined Immanuel Kant's antisemitism and its subsequent influence on later German philosophers. http://www.constantinbrunner.info/mack.htm  In his work _Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone_, Kant wrote, "Judaism is really not a religion at all, but merely a union of a number of people who formed themselves into a commonwealth under purely political laws, and not into a church." In the same vein, he said "since no religion can be conceived of which involves no belief in a future life, Judaism, which, when taken in its purity is seen to lack this belief, is not a religious faith at all."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FH10Aa01.html

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf ("Nation and Race," Vol. I chapt. 11): 

Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him.

Elsewhere Hitler says of the Jew that "His life is only of this world." That "the Jew" was concerned only with material things is expressed thus: " . . . this adversary of all humanity . . . then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence." 
Kant made another criticism of Judaism. This was his dismissal of the Jews as "materialistic." An internet search of "Jewish materialism Nazis" will quickly yield references to this standard Nazi attack on Judaism, an attack repeated in Mein Kampf. This seems rather puzzling at first. Of course Marxism and left-wing socialism could falsely be ascribed to Judaism, but how could Judaism itself, with its concept of a divine creative power and its vision of world peace so wonderfully expressed by Isaiah possibly be considered materialistic? The answer can be found in Kant.
Jeet Heer, another reviewer of Prof. Mack's book, puts it this way: "For Kant, motives could only be good if they were not aimed at any material benefit. He saw Judaism as an inherently materialist religion, based upon a quid pro quo between God and His chosen people." http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/Germany/kant.htm A direct quote from Prof. Mack follows, stating that Kant "posited Judaism as an abstract principle that does nothing else but, paradoxically, desire the consumption of material goods." This is seen in Jacob's bargain with God in Genesis, chapt. 28. God will bless the Jews if they obey him, so they obey for the sake of material blessing.
Another aspect to the criticism of Judaism as materialistic had to do with the supposedly static and fixed nature of Judaism. The German philosophers saw the discovery of truth as an ongoing process, with man reaching ever greater heights of spiritual freedom and consciousness as he progressed farther along the paths of philosophy. Orthodox Judaism was the very antithesis of that. Permanently fossilized in dead and lifeless rules, with a fixed rather than a developing concept of God, Judaism came to represent everything that life was not. The Jews were enslaved to dead dogmas, unlike the philosophical free spirits who were able to discover new worlds.
There was a complimentary reference to Kant in Hitler's Table Talk: 

In our part of the world, the Jews would have immediately eliminated Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Kant. If the Bolsheviks had dominion over us for two hundred years, what works of our past would be handed on to posterity? Our great men would fall into oblivion, or else they'd be presented to future generations as criminals and bandits. http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7403.html

Adolf Eichmann studied Kant. This exchange comes from his trial. http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-105-04.html

The presiding judge asks Eichmann:
Do you remember at one point in your police interrogation talking about the Kantian imperative, and saying that throughout your entire life you had tried to live according to the Kantian imperative? 
Accused: Yes. 
Q. There is no need to show this to you; do you remember it clearly? 
A. Yes, I remember it clearly. 
Q. What did you mean by the Kantian imperative when you said that? 
A. I meant by this that the principle of my volition and the principle of my life must be such that it could at any time be raised to be the principle of general legislation, as Kant more or less puts it in his categorical imperative. 
Q. I see, therefore, that when you said this you were precisely aware of Kant's categorical imperative? 
A. Yes, I was. 

Truly, the wisdom of the world is delusion and vanity.


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