Hitler on eugenics or

breeding people

In style, this argument is a ‘scientific’ one, though not a very

good one. Suppose that Hitler is right — that when two people,

ah, breed, and the result is offspring not as good as the best

parent but better than the worst. Hitler’s idea was to take all

the best specimens in Germany and get them to breed, while

forcibly stopping all the rest. Go for a moment with that. But

then what would happen? Clearly the best specimens would

still be breeding with the not‐quite‐as‐good, and so the quality

would still drop.

So the logic of the argument is to allow only a handful of

people to breed, and to build up a new ‘super gene pool’ from

this handful. This would require ‘in‐breeding’ — relatives

marrying near relatives. This practice is pretty universally

discouraged, because the gene pool degrades and children

are born with illnesses.

This way of looking at Hitler’s argument is taking it as it

stands and extending it. The extension isn’t ridiculous, but

merely logical. It leads to what looks like a contradiction ‘on

his own terms’.

Another possible objection is to ask how come any ‘high

quality’ specimens are even left at the time Hitler was writing?

If random mixing of genes drives out excellence in favour of

mediocrity, this process must have ruined the Aryan stock

long before Hitler arrived to save the nation!

But the best way to look at arguments like this is to challenge

the underlying assumptions. Here, Hitler is really advancing

his view that ‘The right of personal freedom recedes before

the duty to preserve the race’. This is a general principle that

continues to be actively debated in modern societies and

whose implications continue to be controversial. You can

refuse to accept this kind of starting assumption.