Many studies of the origins of National Socialism claim that the vo;lkisch and proto-Nazi movement arose largely as a reaction to the materialistic ideas of nineteenth-century science and especially to the naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. Using hitherto unexplored material, Daniel Gasman calls this generalization into question. Arguing that the importance of science has been relatively neglected in accounts of the intellectual origins of Nazism, he attempts to show that Haeckel's "scientific" Darwinism, and his movement, the German Monist League, were proto-Nazi in character. Contrary to popular belief, Haeckel's type of social Darwinism actually played a critical role in the formation of National Socialist ideology. In his new introduction, Gasman notes that recent research goes far to confirm Haeckel's role as an ideological progenitor of fascist ideology. This is true not only for Germany, but also for the birth of fascist thought in Italy and France. In general, Gasman claims, the history of science plainly reveals how Haeckel's social Darwinism nourished the roots of fascism no less than avant-garde modernism. When The Scientific Origins of National Socialism initially appeared, the Times Literary Supplement called it a "very well-argued thesis... that is completely successful... and leaves the reader to extract his own moral lessons." Medical History, in its review of The Scientific Origins of National Socialism, said, "His book is essential for understanding modern Germany. It has a general message derived from the events in Germany, where scientific data were permitted to take on a mystical signficiance... with ghastly consequences." Bruce Chatwin, in the New York Review of Books, called the book "brilliant." Now available in paperback, with a new introduction by the author, this seminal work will be of interest to intellectual historians, as well as th

Attempts to assess the role played by Darwinian ideas in the writings of English-speaking social theorists.

In tracing the history of Darwin’s accomplishment and the trajectory of evolutionary theory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most scholars agree that Darwin introduced blind mechanism into biology, thus banishing moral values from the understanding of nature. According to the standard interpretation, the principle of survival of the fittest has rendered human behavior, including moral behavior, ultimately selfish. Few doubt that Darwinian theory, especially as construed by the master’s German disciple, Ernst Haeckel, inspired Hitler and led to Nazi atrocities. In this collection of essays, Robert J. Richards argues that this orthodox view is wrongheaded. A close historical examination reveals that Darwin, in more traditional fashion, constructed nature with a moral spine and provided it with a goal: man as a moral creature. The book takes up many other topics—including the character of Darwin’s chief principles of natural selection and divergence, his dispute with Alfred Russel Wallace over man’s big brain, the role of language in human development, his relationship to Herbert Spencer, how much his views had in common with Haeckel’s, and the general problem of progress in evolution. Moreover, Richards takes a forceful stand on the timely issue of whether Darwin is to blame for Hitler’s atrocities. Was Hitler a Darwinian? is intellectual history at its boldest.

In this work, Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. He demonstrates that many leading Darwinian biologists and social thinkers in Germany believed that Darwinism overturned traditional Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment ethics, especially the view that human life is sacred. Many of these thinkers supported moral relativism, yet simultaneously exalted evolutionary 'fitness' (especially intelligence and health) to the highest arbiter of morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics, but also euthanasia, infanticide, abortion and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles, not on nihilism.

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (Potsdam, February 16, 1834 - Jena, August 8, 1919), was a biologist, philosopher and German free thinker. He made known the theories of Charles Darwin in Germany and developed a theory of human origins. Haeckel was a physician and professor of comparative anatomy and was one of the first scientists who understood the psychology as a branch of physiology. He also participated in introducing some concepts of modern biology such as those of "branch" or "ecology." Haeckel also pointed to the policy as applied biology. He sketched on science ideology, Weltanschauung of monism and founded January 11, 1906 the Deutscher Monistenbund (monistic German law) in Jena. Ernst Haeckel contributed much through his writings to the dissemination of the theory of evolution. He is considered a pioneer of eugenics, although he has had himself no eugenic design because it escomptait, confident in the progress due to changes greater development and no "degeneration." Like other freethinkers organizations, union-tier German was banned in 1933 by the Nazis. Nazi ideologues used excerpts from his writings as justification for their racist theories of social Darwinism, but at the same time declared that the essential elements of the worldview of Haeckel were inconsistent with the views of National Socialism. Resume As an epoch-marking contribution to Natural History in the widest sense, we rank the picture which Darwin gave to the world of the web of life, that is to say, of the inter-relations and linkages in Nature. For the Biology of the individual--if that be not a contradiction in terms--no idea is more fundamental than that of the correlation of organs, but Darwin's most characteristic contribution was not less fundamental, --it was the idea of the correlation of organisms."

An analysis of the ideological influence of Social Darwinists in Europe and America.

Whilst terms such as Lebensraum are commonly associated with National-Socialist ideology of the 1930s and 40s, ideas of racial living space were in fact generated in the previous decades by an international geographic community of explorers and academics. Focusing on one of the most influential figures within this group, Sven Hedin, this is the first study that systematically connects the geographic community to the intellectual history of the development of National-Socialist ideology and genocidal practices. The book demonstrates how colonial, racial and nationalistic policies were often spearheaded by explorers and geographers such as Hedin. In Germany, Britain, France, and Russia their positions as publicly recognized authors and reputable academics made them highly influential with politicians. Whilst this influence was to become most visible within Hitler's Germany, the debates were not by any means restricted to or even originated in, Germany. Germany was the home of some of the most prominent geographers, but this scientific community had a tradition of international debate and exchange with especially British, French and Russian geographic societies and institutions. Many issues that were later discussed and championed by National-Socialist ideology were aired and debated in this international setting - raising important questions about the international character and impact of National-Socialism. Tracing the intellectual history of the international geographic community and its relationship to National-Socialism, this study provides an assessment of Hedin's close involvement with the Nazi elite as a culmination of decades of political and scientific work. In so doing the book uncovers a long ignored or overlooked important connection between exploration, geographers, and genocide.