Hitler's Ethic - The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress
Richard Weikart
Palgrave Macmillan
Description
In this book, Weikart helps unlock the mystery of Hitler's evil by vividly demonstrating the surprising conclusion that Hitler's immorality flowed from a coherent ethic. Hitler was inspired by evolutionary ethics to pursue the utopian project of biologically improving the human race. This ethic underlay or influenced almost every major feature of Nazi policy: eugenics (i.e., measures to improve human heredity, including compulsory sterilization), euthanasia, racism, population expansion, offensive warfare, and racial extermination.
Contents
Introduction
Hitler as Moral Crusader and Liar
The Cult of Evolutionary Progress
Racial Struggle
Morally Upright Aryans and Immoral Jews
Hitler's Socialism: Building the People's Community
Sexual Morality and Population Expansion
Controlling Reproduction to Improve the Human Species
The Struggle for Living Space: War and Expansionism
Justifying Murder and Genocide
Conclusion
Author
RICHARD WEIKART is Professor of Modern European History at California State University, Stanislaus, USA. He has published three previous books, including From Darwin to Hitler and his prize-winning dissertation, Socialist Darwinism. He has also published numerous essays on social Darwinism in anthologies and leading journals, such as German Studies Review, Journal of the History of Ideas, and Isis.
