Eugen Fischer

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Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer in 1934
Born(1874-07-05)5 July 1874
Died9 July 1967(1967-07-09) (aged 93)
NationalityGerman
EducationUniversity of Freiburg
OccupationProfessor
Known forNazi eugenics
Political partyNazi Party

Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and

Frederick William University of Berlin
.

Fischer's ideas informed the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which served to justify the Nazi Party's belief in German racial superiority to other "races", and especially the Jews.[1] Adolf Hitler read Fischer's work while he was imprisoned in 1923 and he used Fischer's eugenic notions in support of a pure Aryan society in his manifesto Mein Kampf (My Struggle).[1]

After the war, he completed his memoirs, it is believed that in them he lessened his role in the genocidal programme of Nazi Germany. He died in 1967.

Life

Fischer was born in

folkloristics, history, anatomy, and anthropology in Berlin, Freiburg and Munich.[2] In 1918, he joined the Anatomical Institute in Freiburg,[3] part of the University of Freiburg.[4]

Early work

A black and white photo depicting the severed head of a Shark Island prisoner, which was used for medical experimentation.
Head of Herero prisoner at Shark Island used for medical experimentation.

In 1906, Fischer conducted field research in

Herero and Namaqua Genocide. Fischer also sterilized Herero women.[8][9]

His ideas which were related to the maintenance of the apparent purity of races, influenced future German Nazi legislation on race, including the

In 1927, Fischer was a speaker at the

KWI-A), a role for which he'd been recommended the prior year by Erwin Baur.[11]

Nazi Germany

Young Rhinelander who was classified as a Rhineland bastard and hereditarily unfit under the Nazi regime as a result of his mixed race heritage

In the years from 1937–1938 Fischer and his colleagues analysed 600 children in

Rhineland Bastards; the children were subsequently subjected to sterilization.[12]

Photograph from Josef Mengele's Argentine identification document (1956)

Fischer did not officially join the

Nuremberg laws.[15]

Under the Nazi regime, Fischer developed the physiological specifications such as skull dimensions which were used to determine racial origins, and he developed the Fischer–Saller scale for hair colour. He and the members of his team experimented on Gypsies and African-Germans, drawing their blood and measuring their skulls. After directing the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, he was succeeded by Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, who tutored Josef Mengele when he was active at Auschwitz.

In 1933 Fischer signed the

Frederick William University of Berlin, now Humboldt University.[16]
Fischer retired from the university in 1942. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer was a student of Fischer.[17][18]

Efforts to return the Namibian skulls which were taken by Fischer were started with an investigation which was conducted by the University of Freiburg in 2011 and they were completed with the return of the skulls in March 2014.[19][20][21]

In 1944, Fischer intervened in an attempt to get his friend Martin Heidegger, the Nazi philosopher, released from service in the Volkssturm militia. However, Heidegger had been released from service when Fischer's letter arrived.[22]: 332–3 

Works

Eugen Fischer during a ceremony at the University of Berlin 1934

1909 to 1949

  • Fischer, Eugen. 1899. "Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Nasenhöhle und des Thränennasenganges der Amphisbaeniden", Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie. 55:1, pp. 441–478.
  • Fischer, Eugen. 1901. "Zur Kenntniss der Fontanella metopica und ihrer Bildungen". Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie.4:1. pp. 17–30.
  • Fischer, Eugen, Professor an der Universität Freiburg i. Br. 1906. "Die Variationen an Radius und Ulna des Menschen". Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie. Vol. 9. No. 2.
  • Fischer, Eugen. 1908. Der Patriziat Heinrichs III und Heinrichs IV. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Fischer's PhD thesis.
  • Maass, Alfred. Durch Zentral-Sumatra. Berlin: Behr. 1910. Additional contributing authors: J.P. Kleiweg de Zwaan and E. Fischer.
  • Fischer, Eugen. 1913.Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen: anthropologische und ethnographiesche Studien am Rehobother Bastardvolk in Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika, ausgeführt mit Unterstützung der Kgl. preuss, Akademie der Wissenschaften. Jena: G. Fischer.
  • Gaupp, Ernst Wilhelm Theodor. Eugen Fischer (ed.) 1917. August Weismann: sein Leben und sein Werk. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer.
  • Schwalbe, G. and Eugen Fischer (eds.). Anthropologie. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1923.
  • Fischer, E. and H.F.K. Günther. Deutsche Köpfe nordischer Rasse: 50 Abbildungen mit Geleitwarten. Munich: J.F. Lehmann. 1927.
  • Fischer, Eugen and Gerhard Kittel. Das antike Weltjudentum : Tatsachen, Texte, Bilder. Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1943.[23]

1950 to 1959

  • Sarkar, Sasanka Sekher; Eugen Fischer and Keith Arthur, The Aboriginal Races of India, Calcutta: Bookland. 1954.
  • Fischer, Eugen. Begegnungen mit Toten: aus den Erinnerungen eines Anatomen. Freiburg: H.F. Schulz. 1959.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ Max-Planck-Gesellschaft - Archive. "Fischer, Eugen". Archived from the original on 2014-08-19.
  3. ^ "Eugen Fischer".
  4. ^ Eugen Fischer (1921). "Bitte des anatomischen Instituts Freiburg i.B."
  5. ^ "Herero and Namaqua Genocide - Herero Genocide Nama Genocide". Archived from the original on 2011-12-09. Retrieved 2014-01-19.
  6. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia, p. 420
  7. ^ a b Friedlander 1997, p. 11
  8. ^ http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20Herero%20and%20Namaqua%20Genocide.htmMedical[permanent dead link] experimentation in Africa
  9. . sterilization of herero women.
  10. ^ Ross, Edward Alsworth (October 1927). "Birth Control Review" (PDF). World Population Conference. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-05-14. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  11. ^ Schmul 2003, p. 25.
  12. ^ Bioethics: an anthology Helga Kuhse, Peter Singer page 232 Wiley-Blackwell 2006
  13. , 9780202020334.
  14. .
  15. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia p. 420.
  16. ^ Lasalle, Ferdinand. "Rektoratsreden im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert – Online-Bibliographie - Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin". www.historische-kommission-muenchen-editionen.de. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  17. S2CID 72443192
    .
  18. .
  19. ^ "Repatriation of Skulls from Namibia University of Freiburg hands over human remains in ceremony". 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-04-03.
  20. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Namibia Press Agency (7 March 2014). "NAMPA: WHK skulls repatriated to Namibia 07 March 2014". Retrieved 19 April 2018 – via YouTube.
  21. ^ "Germany to send back 35 skulls". newera.com.na. 28 February 2014. Archived from the original on 9 April 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  22. ^ Safranski, Rüdiger (1999). Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil. Cambridge (MAss): Harvard University Press.
  23. ^ Das Antike Weltjudentum - Forschungen zur Judenfrage. 1944.

References

External links