History grade 11 Nazi Germany topic

1. NAZIRACIAL
IDEALOGY
––––––
NAZIGERMANY
THE RACIAL STATE
GRADE11
N Makamba

2. EUGENICS

3. WhatisEUGENICS?
● From Scientific Racism and Social Darwinism, a far more
sinister ‘science’ developed. This was eugenics. The word
‘eugenics’ comes from the Greek for ‘good genes’.
● It was first developed by the British writer Francis Galton,
who argued that it was wrong to protect the underprivileged
and weak in society, since this went against the principles of
evolution and the survival of the fittest. Only those with
‘good genes’ should be supported.

4. 01
02
03
THREE What were the Nazi ideas
about race and eugenics?
QUESTIONS
How did the Nazis apply their
ideas in Germany?
ESSENTIAL
How did the Nazi ideas affect
the German society?

5. NAZIRACIALIDEAS
01
What were the Nazi ideas about race and
eugenics?

6. DefiningtheGermannation
•Many of the Nazi ideas about race were based on the theories of Social
Darwinism and eugenics, especially the writings of Ernst Haeckel.
•Nazis adopted Haeckel’s belief that tall, blonde and blue-eyed
Europeans were superior to all other people, and that the extermination
of other ‘inferior’ people would mean progress for the human race.
•They were also influenced by the work of the anthropologist Eugen
Fisher in Namibia about his ideas about eugenics and racial purity, and
by the work of eugenicists who supported sterilisation programmes in
the United States.

7. NAZIIDEAS
•The Nazis believed that society was divided into a hierarchy of races.
•In their view, blonde haired, blue-eyed Germans (whom they called the ‘Aryan
race’) were superior to all the rest. They called them the ‘Master Race’.
•They used these theories to discriminate against those they thought were inferior,
which meant all other people who were not ‘Aryan’.
•This led to persecution and death for millions of people. Nazi beliefs became
official state policy. For example, their theories about race were presented as
scientific fact in textbooks.
•To preserve the ‘purity’ of the German nation, marriages or sexual relations
between Germans and other ‘inferior’ races were outlawed. These false ideas were
even taught at school.

8. HOWTHENAZIS
APPLIED
02
How did the Nazis apply their ideas in
Germany?

9. HOWTHENAZISAPPLIEDNEGATIVEEUGENICS:SEPARATION,STERILISATION,
EXTERMINATION
● Thousands of people who were seen by the Nazis to be genetically inferior were forcibly
sterilised so that they could not have children.
● The Nazis also thought that people with mental disabilities or illness should be
removed from society.
● Disabled and handicapped people were excluded from society, for example by being
locked up in institutions, and many were used in cruel scientific experiments.
● The theories of eugenics were also used to justify mass murder. Between 70000 and
93000 mentally ill patients in institutions and clinics were killed in a ‘euthanasia’
campaign.

10. HOWTHENAZISAPPLIEDEUGENICSTOPROMOTE‘ARYAN’BLOOD
• The Nazis promoted what they called the Volksgemeinschaft.
• This was the community of healthy Aryans working for the good
of the nation. The needs of the nation were seen as more
important than individual rights.
• People who did not support the ‘general good’ were seen as
outsiders who should be removed from society.

11. HOWTHENAZISAPPLIEDEUGENICSTOPROMOTE‘ARYAN’BLOODCONT.
Nazis also believed that it was the duty of people of ‘pure Aryan
blood’ to have as many children as possible.
• Women were encouraged to produce and nurture children at
home rather than joining the workforce. In this way Nazi Germany
planned to build up a strong ‘master race’ of racially pure
Germans.

12. Aryans(Desiarables)

13. Jews(Undesiarables)

14. EFECTS
03
How did the Nazi ideas affect the German
society?

15. NaziideasaffecttheGermansociety?
• The Nazis defined Jews as a “race.”
• Regarding the Jewish religion as irrelevant, the Nazis
attributed a wide variety of negative stereotypes about Jews
and “Jewish” behaviour to an unchanging biologically
determined heritage that drove the “Jewish race,” like other
races, to struggle to survive by expansion at the expense of
other races.

16. NaziideasaffecttheGermansocietycont.
• The Nazis believed that superior races had not just the right but the
obligation to subdue and even exterminate inferior ones.
• They believed that this struggle of races was consistent with the law
of nature.
• The Nazis pursued a strategic vision of a dominant German race
ruling subject peoples, especially the Slavs and the so-called Asiatics
(by which they meant the peoples of Soviet Central Asia and the
Muslim populations of the Caucasus region), whom they judged to be
innately inferior.

17. THANK YOU!