Article ID: CBB001320043

Ernst Rüdin: Hitler's Racial Hygiene Mastermind (2013)

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Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) was the founder of psychiatric genetics and was also a founder of the German racial hygiene movement. Throughout his long career he played a major role in promoting eugenic ideas and policies in Germany, including helping formulate the 1933 Nazi eugenic sterilization law and other governmental policies directed against the alleged carriers of genetic defects. In the 1940s Rüdin supported the killing of children and mental patients under a Nazi program euphemistically called "Euthanasia." The authors document these crimes and discuss their implications, and also present translations of two publications Rüdin co-authored in 1938 showing his strong support for Hitler and his policies. The authors also document what they see as revisionist historical accounts by leading psychiatric genetic authors. They outline three categories of contemporary psychiatric genetic accounts of Rüdin and his work: (A) those who write about German psychiatric genetics in the Nazi period, but either fail to mention Rüdin at all, or cast him in a favorable light; (B) those who acknowledge that Rüdin helped promote eugenic sterilization and/or may have worked with the Nazis, but generally paint a positive picture of Rüdin's research and fail to mention his participation in the "euthanasia" killing program; and (C) those who have written that Rüdin committed and supported unspeakable atrocities. The authors conclude by calling on the leaders of psychiatric genetics to produce a detailed and complete account of their field's history, including all of the documented crimes committed by Rüdin and his associates.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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Description Chronicles Rüdin's role in psychiatric genetics and his involvment in Nazi eugenics. Also looks at the ways in which Rüdin's controvesial beliefs has impacted histories of the field.


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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320043/

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Authors & Contributors
Weindling, Paul J.
Fangerau, Heiner
Cottebrune, Anne
Wheatley, Thelma
Westermann, Stefanie
Sutton, Douglas G.
Concepts
Eugenics
National Socialism
Psychiatry
Birth control; contraception; sterilization
Science and race
Mental disorders and diseases
Time Periods
20th century, early
20th century
19th century
Places
Germany
United States
Netherlands
North America
Ontario (Canada)
Great Britain
Institutions
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft
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