Abstract
THE publication in the Times of July 24, 25, 27, and 28, of extracts from Herr Hitler's book on the eve of its publication in an abbreviated translation, and the simultaneous account by the Times correspondent on July 27 of a Bill approved by the German Government for the compulsory sterilisation of those “considered in the light of medical science as it is understood to-day to be by heredity unfit” give a more illuminating view of the real significance of the Nazi movement than has yet appeared. That the Nazi leader stands self-revealed as ill-balanced, fanatical and otherwise abnormal is immaterial. What is supremely significant is that he has come into power on a wave of popular discontent with present-day social, political and economic conditions which is sufficiently intense to submit to previously unheard of restrictions for which a ‘scientific’ backing is advanced. Unfortunately, not all the Nazi measures can be supported by argument as sound scientifically as that upon which the sterilisation of the unfit is advocated. Herr Hitler's views of ‘Aryans’ and Jews and their qualities and character, to accord with which the German race of the future is to be moulded, belong to a ‘science’ which would be out of date even if it had not failed to justify itself when submitted to the test of scientific analysis. The German people, however, are not alone as victims of the world crisis, and if, as events seem to portend, the world is moving towards a solution of its difficulties through the application of scientific method to its problems by means of a more highly organised form of government than is possible in a pure democracy, it cannot be too widely appreciated outside scientific circles that the science which will provide the solution of our difficulties is not reactionary and does not exclude eminence in any field, whatever its racial origin in short, it is not the ‘science’ of Herr Hitler.
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Science and the State in Germany. Nature 132, 198 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132198a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132198a0