Genetic theories: Eugenics

Question 1

What were the Eugenicists obsessed with?

Answer 1

the fear that the human race was in danger of ‘degenerating’ because of the poor were breeding at a faster rate than the higher classes, they were passing on inferior genes for low intelligence, insanity, poverty and criminality more quickly than the higher classes

Question 2

What did the Eugenicists argue and what did this lead to?

Answer 2

‘genetically unfit’ should not breed. led to favour policies such as the compulsory sterilisation of ‘defectives’ such as criminals and those with mental illnesses or learning difficulties

Question 3

What is compulsory sterilisation?

Answer 3

Eugenicists set up pressure groups to campaign for their policies, it was legal to compulsorily sterilise the ‘unfit’ ‘for the protection of the state’

Question 4

What was the Nazais’ ‘racial purity’ policies?

Answer 4

Nazis’ strongly favoured such policies as a means of ‘purifying’ the ‘Aryan master race’ by eliminating those they deemed unfit to breed, targeted the physically and mentally disabled with 400000 people sterilised against their will and 70000 killed under the Nazai’s euthanasia policy

Question 5

Who were targeted during the Holocaust?

Answer 5

6 million jews killed, 1.5 million Gypsies/ Romas, gays and lesbians, drug users and alcoholics