ABSTRACT
‘Eugenics has become fashionable. Public opinion has now become so familiar with a set of minimum eugenic demands, politicians in parliaments and governments have been convinced of the necessity of bio-political measures by such important rational considerations and such effective pressure from public opinion that the first legislative steps cannot be long delayed.’ Eugenics had originated in Britain with the work of Sir Francis Galton, a nephew of Charles Darwin and a Victorian Privatgelehrte of some distinction. Like many of his contemporaries, Galton had been deeply influenced by the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. The emergence of eugenics must be seen against the background of a change in the orientation of certain professions and the emergence of new professions and academic disciplines in response to needs created by the social changes introduced by industrialization and urbanization. The key proposal was a draft Reich Sterilization Law for the voluntary sterilization of Prussian State Council with hereditary defects.
