Eugenics and genocide Page 1 of 23 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: Royal Holloway, University of London; date: 01 February 2017 Abstract and Keywords This article examines the historical relationship between biopolitics, eugenics, racial hygiene, and genocide globally in this period. It describes that as the historiography of eugenics has broadened out from its Anglo-American core to an international and transnational perspective, so the focus of genocide studies has shifted from the Holocaust as the paradigmatic case to other, often extra-European, genocides. Furthermore, this article examines various policy modalities developed to solve the “problem” of minority and “useless” populations. It shows that mixed-race children pose particular challenges to eugenicists in thrall to ideals of cultural homogeneity, in which case eliminationist policies of assimilation, absorption, or sterilization might be pursued. It suggests that these policies could escalate in a genocidal direction. Keywords: biopolitics, eugenics, genocide, mixed-race, policy THE relationship between eugenics and genocide is widely presumed to be intimate and logical because of the well-known involvement of German biomedical sciences and practitioners in the crimes of the Nazi regime. German scientists and physicians participated in the sterilization and euthanasia programs, carried out human experiments in concentration camps, and assessed the “racial value” of central and eastern European populations under German occupation. Notoriously, German doctors were the largest professional group in the Nazi party—45 percent of doctors joined up—while they comprised 7 percent of SS members, outnumbering lawyers. Adding to the shock of their crimes is the fact that the vast majority of guilty doctors continued to practice after the war, even publishing findings based on their former human experimentation. It was no coincidence that the first three leaders of the West German Federal Physicians' Chamber (Bundesärztekammer) had been active Nazis, or that 20 of the 23 defendants indicted by War Crimes Tribunal No. 1 were doctors. Eugenics and genocide A. Dirk Moses and Dan Stone The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics Edited by Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine Print Publication Date: Sep 2010 Subject: History, Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing Online Publication Date: Sep 2012 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195373141.013.0011 1 2 3 Oxford Handbooks Online