Industrialization of Racial Hygiene
Hybrid – Thursday 3:10 pm – 4:50 pm
March 14, 21, 28, April 4, 11, 18, 25, May 2
A look into assembly line genocide. Perfected by the Hitlerites to purge the Thousand-Year Reich of those afflicted with “inferior genes,” while on their way to creating that New Society of the Master Race. This was Industrial-Finance Capitalism at its starkest, as Man had finally reached that stage—the epitome of collusion between government-finance-industry-party and the medical community—to attain a level of mass murder never before seen in human history.
The industrialization of mass murder parallels Levee en Masse, the conscription of entire populations and economies for war. Indeed, ardent nationalism, racism and supremacy conspire to justify that quest for a society of racial perfection, which requires the purging of undesired elements and lesser breeds. We trace that progression towards Auschwitz. By 1919, royalty and landed gentries no longer dominated governments, economies and societies. The resulting void was filled by such authoritarian substitutes as European Fascism, Asian Fascism (Japan), Nazism, militarism . . .
The “Human Family” has grown by leaps and bounds, and so has man’s capacity to kill. It seems that human life is no different than any other commodity—the greater the quantity, the lesser the value. This disregard for the sanctity of life bodes ill for generations to come.
Each week handouts will be provided, some of which will be relevant documents from the period.
- Week 1: Ideology of Racial Hygiene: Social Darwinism, Eugenics, Unbridled Nationalism, Racism, . . . all will be explored to 1933
- Week 2: Kristallnacht: The rise of the anti-Jewish program of the National Socialists to Kristallnacht, November 1938
- Week 3: Killers in the White Coats: T4, the Nazi program to eliminate mental incompetents, incurably physically handicapped and other such “useless eaters”
- Week 4: Heydrich: Reinhard Heydrich was a leader in that sordid effort to produce a Jew-free Third Reich
- Week 5: Einsatzgruppen: The advent, organization, and employment of these SS Action Groups, first in Poland then the Soviet Union, 1941-1942
- Week 6: General Government and the Death Camps: The center of the industrialization of death
- Week 7: Assembly-Line of Death: Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Week 8: Trial of the Century: Nuremberg
Mark Albertson is the historical research editor at Army Aviation magazine and the historian for the Army Aviation Association of America. He has authored several books, published in magazines and newspapers, and is a busy public speaker.