THE SEARCH FOR “ARYAN BLOOD:” SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN WEIMAR AND NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMANY

A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

by

Rachel E. Boaz

August, 2009

Dissertation written by Rachel E. Boaz B.A., Miami University, 1999 M.A. Ursuline College, 2003 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2009

Approved by

______, Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Richard A. Steigmann-Gall ______, Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Shelley O. Baranowski ______, Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor ______, David H. Kaplan

Accepted by

______, Chair, Department of History John R. Jameson ______, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences John R. Stalvey ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... v

CHAPTER Page

I INTRODUCTION ...... 1

II BLOOD RHETORIC AND THE EMERGENCE OF BLOOD SCIENCE ...... 15

“Contagious Blood” in German Fiction and Early Blood Science ...... 18 Origins of Serology ...... 26 The Völkisch Notion of “Blood Defilement” ...... 30 Seroanthropology ...... 39 Jewish Physicians and Blood Science ...... 50 Postwar Blood Science ...... 55

III SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN EARLY WEIMAR: BLOOD, RACE AND EUGENICS ...... 61

Verzár and Weszeckzy: Seroanthropological Research in Hungary ...... 62 Surveying “Native Germans” ...... 71 Blood Type and Genetic Inferiority ...... 88 Völkisch Research ...... 96

IV ORGANIZING SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN GERMANY: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR BLOOD GROUP RESEARCH ...... 106

Otto Reche and Racial Anthropology ...... 108 The German Institute for Blood Group Research ...... 118

V SEROANTHROPOLOGY AT ITS HEIGHT: DISTINGUISHING THOSE WITH “PURE BLOOD” ...... 126

Studies of “Native Germans” ...... 134 Biased Research ...... 148

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued)

CHAPTER Page

VI THE JEW AS EXAMINER AND EXAMINED IN SEROANTHROPOLOGY ...... 181

Manoilov’s “Serochemistry” and Jewish Blood ...... 189 Seroanthropologic Analysis of Jews ...... 192 Völkisch Propaganda ...... 205 Jews and Seroanthropology ...... 209

VII BLOOD AS METAPHOR AND SCIENCE IN THE NUREMBERG RACE LAWS ...... 224

Seroanthropology in 1933 ...... 226 Proponets of Seroanthropology...... 232 Racial “Reform” under Nazism ...... 235 “Blood Defilement” ...... 244 Seroanthropologic Research in the Third Reich ...... 257 The German Institute for Blood Group Research ...... 261

VIII THE PEDAGOGY AND PRACTICE OF SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN WORLD WAR II GERMANY ...... 277

Seroanthropology and National Socialist Medicine ...... 282 Seroanthropologic Research ...... 289 Seroanthropology and Nazi Racial Ideology ...... 297 Clinical Serology ...... 309

IX CONCLUSION ...... 327

WORKS CITED ...... 338

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE Page

1 “Bloodletting Man” ...... 21

2 Graph of Hirszfeld’s biochemical race index ...... 46

3 Map of Hungary showing Budapest, Szeged, and the Danube and Tisza Rivers ..65

4 Map of Weimar German showing the different regions referenced in Seroanthropologic research ...... 76

5 Steffan’s depiction of the Atlantic “type A” pole in northern Germany ...... 81

6 Steffan’s depiction of the Gondwanic “type B” pole in Peking ...... 82

7 Otto Reche ...... 123

8 Photograph of researcher drawing a blood sample from a child’s ear ...... 136

9 Map detailing the six cities near Frankfurt am Main surveyed by H. Schlossberger et al. in their 1928 study ...... 138

10 Map of Germany in 1930 showing regions discussed in articles...... 141

11 Diagram of facial shapes to aid examiners in shape classification from German Institute for Blood Group Research ...... 153

12 Profiles showing long, medium, and short skulls from German Institute for Blood Group Research ...... 153

13 Diagram to help determine eye color ...... 154

14 Searching for correlations: A detailed graph by Paul Steffan comparing the blood types and eye colors of 256 subjects...... 160

v

LIST OF FIGURES (continued)

Figure Page

15 Map by Paul Steffan showing Hirszfeld’s biochemical racial indices throughout Europe as of 1927 ...... 169

16 Karl Landsteiner...... 200

17 Ludwig Hirszfeld ...... 215

18 The blood types O, A, and B in “humans and several other primates” according to Landsteiner and Miller ...... 220

19 World map showing distribution percentages of type A blood ...... 230

20 Chart for the Nuremberg Laws, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, showing the proportion of “German” or “Jewish” blood that determined an individual’s racial classification ...... 252

21 All articles of original research on blood group distribution, 1919 – 1939 ...... 271

22 Lebensraum; plans and projects for German expansion in the East ...... 307

23 “Donor-on-the-hoof” system: possible placements of donor giving blood To recipient ...... 315

24 A typical example of Nazi, physiognomic-based racial propaganda ...... 323

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In Nazi Germany, racial classification was based on whether or not an individual had “German blood.” Categorization as either “German blooded” or “non-German blooded” relied primarily upon documentation, such as birth and baptismal certificates.

Labeling was compulsory, as everyone was required to carry a card indicating their race; however, in cases where parentage was in dispute or the necessary records were missing, the state often referred the matter to so-called “racial experts.” In one such instance in

1940, while preparing his analysis, Dr. Fritz Lenz explained to a district court that he could not give an expert opinion without testing the subject‟s blood type. The Ministry of Justice became involved and referred the matter to several of Lenz‟s colleagues, who replied that they did not share his views at all and that they had no difficulty in making an accurate assessment on the basis of photographs alone.1 During the Third Reich, German race theorists often referred to physiognomic characteristics. However, as examiners‟ preferences varied, determining race was often a very subjective process—some maintained that race was apparent in head shape, others that of the nose or eyes, while till

1 Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany, 1933-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 40.

1 2 others looked at the pigmentation of the hair, skin, and eyes. Nonetheless, it was most often a combination of these traits which resulted in their categorization.

A branch of medicine had developed during the Weimar Republic which sought to identify race through blood. As indicated in the term, seroanthropology was a meeting of two sciences—serology and anthropology. Some researchers came to affiliate blood type with race and a range of characteristics. In 1930, one examiner claimed that persons with type O blood had the best teeth followed by those of AB, whereas type A and B individuals were supposed to have the worst teeth. Another claimed that type O subjects had less satisfactory strength of character and personality, and that group B individuals were impulsive. Other associations were made with career choice, Platonism, sadism, and even flat feet. Later came still more obscure affiliations between blood type, IQ, and even the feeding habits of mosquitoes.2 Seroanthropology was perhaps most well- received by Germany‟s völkisch race scientists, or those who believed in the superiority of the Aryan race to all others, who were encouraged by the prospect of a simple blood test for racial identification. By World War I, there was “widespread disillusion” with skull measurements as a racial diagnostic, and it was hoped that blood might prove a more efficient methodology.3 These expectations led to an impressive amount of seroanthropological research internationally, but especially in Germany. This dissertation will trace the course of German völkisch seroanthropology from its origins in

2 George Garratty, Immunobiology of Transfusion Medicine (CRC Press, 1993), 201.

3 Christopher M. Hutton, Race and the Third Reich (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005), 23.

3

World War I until the end of the Third Reich. I will explore the ways in which political motivations influenced scientific research.

Seroanthropology temporally coincided with National Socialism—a movement which, ironically, often exploited a notion of scientific “blood difference” in propaganda.

Use of the term blood (Blut) was politically productive; one could evoke ties of blood and imply racial kinship without directly invoking the problematic concept of anthropologic race. Nazis commonly referred to Bluteinheit (“unity of blood”), Blut und Boden (“blood and soil”), Blutbewusstein (“blood or racial consciousness”), Blutsgemeinschaft

(“community bound together by blood ties”), and so on.4 They even claimed that the blood of an Aryan differed from that of a Jew or other “non-German” racial type. Many

German blood scientists attempted to validate such claims through medical fact, resulting in their nation‟s role as “the country in the forefront of developments” in the field of blood type studies during the interwar period. 5 This was a large-scale research effort; hundreds of studies were conducted, and tens of thousands of German subjects had their blood typed for anthropological purposes. 6 Despite this volume of research, the significant involvement of the völkisch medical community, the study of seroanthropology has remained neglected in the extensive historiography on German race science.

4 Ibid., 18.

5 William H. Schneider, “The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: initial discovery and diffusion,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 18, no. 3 (1996): 295.

6 Between 1919 and 1939, the total number of international subjects whose blood was typed and reported in published articles was 1,354,806; a systematic search of the major medical and anthropological journals published in the United States, Britain, France and Germany indicates that this comprised over 1,200 articles (Ibid., 280 and 287).

4

The importance of medicine and race theory to the National Socialists has been recognized only relatively recently. Müller-Hill‟s Murderous Science: Elimination by

Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others in Germany 1933-1945 is generally regarded as the first book to do so. This period is referred to as a “parallel aberration” in the history of science, which involved some of the leading figures in the German academic establishment, especially in the fields of anthropology (including human genetics) and psychiatry. Müller-Hill maintains that these individuals “aided and abetted” the racial policies of the Nazi state.7 He analyzes these policies after 1933, tracing their application to both genetic and racial concerns; however, Murderous Science was written primarily as what the author himself referred to as an “unfinished essay”— leaving the task of completing a more comprehensive analysis to others.8 This work does not refer to German medicine in the Weimar Republic, neither does it address the development of seroanthropology, but only briefly touches upon a single study of blood and race during the Third Reich.

Robert Jay Lifton‟s 1986 work The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the

Psychology of Genocide examines both the broad Nazi “biomedical vision” as a central psychohistorical principle of the regime, and the psychological behavior of individual

Nazi doctors. Lifton maintains that Auschwitz itself was a product of specifically human

7 Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others in Germany, 1933-1945 (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1988), xii. Murderous Science was first published in German in 1984.

8 Ibid., 4.

5 ingenuity and cruelty.9 His study analyzes the Nazi euthanasia program as a “bridge” to genocide in the extermination camp, and examines both killing phases of the regime. In his discussion of the physicians at Auschwitz, Lifton briefly mentions the drawing of blood for experimental purposes; however, his work does not reference the discipline of seroanthropology within the Third Reich. Furthermore, as Lifton‟s book addresses developments only after 1933, it does not explore race science before the Nazis assumed power. In Rasse, Blut und Gene:Geschichte der Eugenik und Rassenhygiene in

Deutschland (Race, Blood, and Genes: The History of Eugenics and Racial Hygiene in

Germany), published in 1988, Peter Weingart, Jürgen Kroll and Kurt Bayertz outline the history of race science and eugenics in Germany from their origins in the nineteenth century up into Nazism. They follow the roles of prominent figures in their development and application, as well as the fulfillment of völkisch philosophies in the National

Socialist state. Their work does mention the German Institute for Blood Group Research in 1926, an institute established in response to seroanthropology, and how the expectations of its members were ultimately disappointed. They do reference the far- right tendencies of institute founder Otto Reche, but only how these were revealed in his activities outside of blood type research. Reche‟s work with blood science is discussed briefly, but only in relation to paternity testing. The many studies of blood and race, and the details of seroanthropological theories, are not addressed. Also published in 1988,

Robert Proctor‟s Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis explores the place of science,

9 Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 4.

6 especially biomedical science, under the Nazis, with particular reference to “the functions of apology and social control.”10 Proctor stresses the importance of the social context in which science is formed. He also examines the development and dispersal of political initiatives within the scientific community, arguing that scientists played an active, even leading role in the initiation, administration, and execution of Nazi racial policy—but

Proctor differentiates himself with the claim that science did not “suffer” under the

Nazis.11 Racial Hygiene refers briefly to the formation of the German Institute for Blood

Group Research and the ulterior motives of its founders, but deals mainly with the

“practical” application of blood science in the Nuremberg Laws—a notion completely separate from racial analyses of blood. Studies of blood and race are not addressed.

The most extensive analysis of German medicine within this period is Paul

Weindling‟s Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and

Nazism, 1870-1945. Weindling claims that scientific medicine was an “elite profession” which would take a leading role in consolidating national unification.12 As science developed in Germany, Weindling describes how it was affected by conflicted socialist and nationalist ideologies. Between 1870 and 1945, there was an increasing influence of authoritarian politics on the health system—ultimately a “racial concept” of health was

10 Robert Proctor. Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 3.

11 Ibid., 6.

12 Paul Weindling, Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 1.

7 central to National Socialism.13 Weindling‟s study provides an impressive overview of the origins and progression of German eugenics and racial science, and how medicine was linked to societal developments. His analysis gives the most extensive discussion on the topic of German seroanthropology thus far. He discusses the origins of seroanthropology in World War I and the subsequent biased appropriation of the science.

Weindling touches on their research agenda, as well as the state‟s response. Importantly, he points out that blood science and seroanthropology were pioneered by a group of scientists with Jewish backgrounds, but does not explore their reasons for doing so or their continued involvement in studies of blood and race. Furthermore, his study does not consider the studies published by the institute for blood group research, or the course of seroanthropology after its establishment.

Since these publications, a veritable avalanche of scholarship has explored in detail the racial, welfare, and medical policies of the National Socialist regime. As one author has described it, this scholarship has moved Nazi racial and eugenic thought and policy to the center of our understanding of the nature and dynamic of the National

Socialist regime.14 Curiously, of the many aspects of Nordic race theory that have been scrutinized, racial studies of blood have not. Numerous studies refer to the tendency of

Nazis to conflate notions of blood and race, but focus on the symbolism of blood instead

13 Ibid.

14 Edward Ross Dickinson, “Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse About Modernity,” Central European History 37 (2004): 4.

8 of its application in medical research.15 Katja Geisenhainer has recently written a thorough biography of Otto Reche and, though she discusses the Institute for Blood

Group Research and Reche‟s political objectives, she also largely neglects the content of their studies and, importantly, the development of German seroanthropology outside of the institute.16 There have only been articles which analyze völkisch appropriations of blood science. Pauline M.H. Mazumdar‟s “Blood and Soil: The Serology of the Aryan

Racial State,” shows the importance of racial studies of blood to a specific group of race theorists; however, she deals primarily with the mechanics of seroanthropological research, and does not provide a thorough analysis of its theoretical implications.17

Myriam Spörri demonstrates how the popular idea of “Jewish blood” as different and contagious was also manifested in German medicine.18 She shows how seroanthropology was characterized, like other branches of race science, by a radical right wing, a more moderate center, and a radical left. I touch on this division, but focus mainly on the far- right‟s use of blood science. German seroanthropology has yet to be addressed in

15 Allyson D. Polsky, “Blood, Race, and National Identity: Scientific and Popular Discourses,” Journal of Medical Humanities 23, nos. 3-4 (December 2002): 171-186. Polsky states that “National Socialist physicians used blood (and other traits) to determine the racial identities of those with “impure” origins. (Ibid., 172). See also Uli Linke, Blood and Nation: The European Aesthetics of Race (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).

16 Katja Geisenhainer, ‘Rasse ist Schicksal’: Otto Reche (1879-1966), ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkunder (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002).

17 Pauline M.H. Mazumdar, “Blood and Soil: The Serology of the Aryan Racial State,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 64 (1990): 187-219, 190.

18 Myriam Spörri, „“Reines” und “gemischtes Blut”: Blutgruppen und “Rassen” zwischen 1900 und 1933,” in Transfusionen: Blutbilder und Biopolitik in der Neuzeit, ed. Anja Lauper (Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2005) and Myriam Spörri, ‘"Jüdisches Blut": Zirkulationen zwischen Literatur, Medizin und politischer Presse, 1918-1933,‟ Österreichische Zeitung für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3 (2005): 37-38.

9 monograph form. This gap in the scholarship prompts many questions: How did seroanthropology differ from conventional methods of racial study? How was it similar to them? How did prominent German race theorists respond to Germany? Did the Nazis refer to blood science in their racial legislation?

By responding to these questions and others, I examine an unexplored branch of racial anthropology, but also do more than simply fill a gap in the research. The secondary literature on modern German medicine has largely been so extensive due to

Nazi atrocities committed in the name of “race.” Within this historiography, discussions continue over whether there are continuities between the medicine and science of Weimar and Nazi Germany. This dissertation offers a revision of the biopolitics theory, which is central to this debate.

In this debate, “biopolitics” plays a key role as the marker and most important content of modernization.19 Edward Ross Dickinson defines biopolitics as an extensive complex of ideas, practices, and institutions focused on the care, regulation, disciplining, improvement, and shaping of individual bodies and the collective “body” of national populations—the “Volkskörper.”20 This included all of the racial sciences. In recent years, the outlines of a “new master narrative” of modern history have begun to emerge.

This narrative draws heavily on the theoretical and historical works of Michel Foucault and Detlev J.K. Peukert, and on the earlier work of the Frankfurt School, Max Weber,

19 Dickinson 2004, 1.

20 Ibid., 3.

10 and the French theorists of postmodernism.21 Their work emphasizes the continuities between modern science and National Socialist Racial Policy. In addition to Peukert,

Zygmunt Bauman, Geoff Eley, Peter Fritsche and Thomas Rohkrämer further argue that

National Socialism shows modernity‟s “most fatal potential.”22 Peter Fritzsche claims that the history of the Weimar Republic reveals the “dark shadows of modernity.”23

Dickinson believes that we are, collectively, so focused on unmasking the “negative potentials and realities of modernity” that we have constructed a true, but very one-sided picture.24 This dissertation proposes a different historical vision; I examine seroanthropology as a divergence from this model of biopolitics. I demonstrate how seroanthropology does not fit neatly into this more recent paradigm and thereby urges us to rethink the role of science in modernization. In effect, it shows a break in the

“commonality” between Weimar and Nazism, and qualifies the darker vision of modernity presented by Peukert.25

Chapter One traces some of the early, mainly pre-World War I misappropriations of the emerging science of serology, a field applicable to biopolitics. I analyze some of the stereotypes within physiognomic race theory and how these were gradually supplemented by the “racial characteristic” of blood. Despite medical evidence, propagandistic notions of blood were often portrayed as medical fact in anti-Semitic

21 Ibid., 1.

22 Ibid., 6.

23 Peter Fritzsche, “Did Weimar Fail?,” Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 632 and 649.

24 Dickinson 2004, 25.

25 Ibid., 22.

11 works of fiction. Ironically, physicians of Jewish descent were responsible for the development of this discipline being distorted by race fanatics. Karl Landsteiner made serology possible through his discovery of the blood types and, later, Ludwik Hirszfeld directed a study which initiated the science of seroanthropology. Both of these men were of Jewish descent. Historian John Efron has emphasized the “intellectual resistance” of

Jewish racial anthropologists. Because of the intellectual atmosphere of the early twentieth century, and the fact that race science was regarded as a legitimate discipline, I demonstrate that Jewish involvement in racial anthropology is more nuanced than Efron has claimed. Chapter Two examines the recognition of Hirszfeld‟s study and the subsequent diffusion of racial studies of blood in the first years of the Weimar Republic.

I look at where their research was first published, the response of the international medical community, and how racial studies of blood were introduced into Germany. The work of Hungarian blood scientists Verzár and Weszeczky, who surveyed the blood types of ethnic German settlements in Eastern Europe, was largely responsible for encouraging

German interest in seroanthropology. I further discuss the social and political circumstances of postwar Germany and how these helped to make seroanthropology attractive to a select group of far-right physicians. I also consider the reaction of non- völkisch physicians to the science, as they were also involved in studies of blood and race. Seroanthropology was initially so appealing because of its modern pretenses.

Chapter Three examines seroanthropology in the mid-twenties. I show how it had developed into a contentious topic by this point, when dozens of postwar blood type surveys had revealed inconsistencies. Although interest declined amongst physicians in

12

Britain and the United States, it increased throughout Central and Eastern Europe where social and political circumstances had a distinct affect upon medical research.

Encouraged by the implications of seroanthropological research, German anthropologists

Otto Reche and Paul Steffan established the German Institute for Blood Group Research in 1926. Although their objectives were broad and nominally professional, I demonstrate how the institute was decidedly politically-biased. Its völkisch directors were primarily concerned with determining blood‟s racial significance. This was especially apparent in their efforts to attain state funding. The response of German authorities to the notion of seroanthropology indicated their belief that studies of blood and race were less valuable, less progressive, than other medical disciplines. This set a precedent which would persist into the Third Reich. Nevertheless, extensive studies of blood and race would be carried out. Chapter Four confirms the political tendencies of the founders of the Institute for

Blood Group Research and examines how they were expressed in studies in the institute‟s publication, the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie. The institute prioritized outlining the serologic makeup of Germany and finding the most “racially pure” Germans. Reche and

Steffan wanted to determine the advance of “Eastern” blood into Germany, and other völkisch studies would examine its possible association with inferior genetics.

The first four chapters trace the development of seroanthropology until the late years of the Weimar Republic. Chapter Five continues from this point, but progresses into the early years of the Third Reich—immediately prior to the introduction of the 1935

Nuremberg Laws. This chapter mainly considers the role of Jews in relation to seroanthropology. I consider racial analyses of blood by researchers of Jewish descent,

13 in addition to studies in which Jews were the subject groups. Nazi propaganda made frequent use of blood rhetoric and, similar to anti-Semitic fiction prior to 1933, misappropriated blood science and medical fact for racist purposes. I examine the tension between Jewish contributions to seroanthropology, and its appeal for the far-right.

Despite their “rhetoric of blood,” actual reference to medical studies of blood and race by propagandists was negligible. Chapter six analyzes the role of blood rhetoric and seroanthropology during the peacetime years of the Third Reich, with particular emphasis upon the Nuremberg legislation. Within these laws, imprecise categories of blood difference were used not only in the construction of racial categories, but also in their interpretation. Eventually, the state‟s reliance upon “blood” as a measure of racial difference would reveal the difficulties of basing legislation in notions previously limited to propaganda. By this point, seroanthropology had lost many adherents and its novelty had largely worn off. At the same time, Nazi authorities would borrow heavily from other areas of medicine. Chapter Seven follows the course of seroanthropology in

Germany after the start of war in 1939. I review the perspectives of National Socialist physicians on seroanthropology as they were discussed in party-affiliated medical publications. I assess how familiar they were with the science, and its role in conventional völkisch methods of identification during the Third Reich.

Seroanthropology was essentially disregarded by the Nazis, who largely preferred physiognomic means of racial analysis. Nonetheless, the state did continue to employ blood rhetoric in its persecution of “racial others,” leading a minority of Jewish blood scientists to comment on the political misuse of serology and seroanthropology. The war

14 influenced German application of blood science and the most progressive aspects of serology were clinical—such as transfusion therapy and paternity testing. Instead of contributing towards the discriminatory racial policies of the Third Reich, seroanthropology was ignored. Despite its one-time heavy involvement of völkisch contributors, there was no “line of continuity” between Weimar and National Socialist seroanthropology.

When I began to conceptualize this topic, I had initially planned to focus solely on studies of blood and race in National Socialist Germany; however, upon visiting the

German archives, I found that blood science after 1933 rarely focused on race, but instead mainly upon its clinical applications in transfusions and paternity disputes.

Consequently, my research shifted to völkisch seroanthropological research. I show how blood scientists shared National Socialist racial philosophies, and how this agreement was often evident in their political affiliations both before and after the Nazi

Machtergreifung. I follow the most dedicated proponents of seroanthropology. Despite the popularity of the science during the Weimar Republic, it never attained the popularity of traditional physical anthropology. Therefore, it was not uncommon for physicians to publish one or two studies of blood and race as an aside interest, while their main commitment was to another field (often anthropology or serology, but even disciplines such as mathematics). As a result, many secondary individuals are brought into the narrative simply because of a study relevant to my thesis. In such instances, I have not discussed their political affiliations due usually to the brevity of their contribution, or their professional obscurity.

CHAPTER II

BLOOD RHETORIC AND THE EMERGENCE OF BLOOD SCIENCE

In early twentieth-century Europe, race and nationality shaped the political agenda—particularly throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Contributions from a range of disciplines created a diverse group of racial theorists. Different perspectives gradually created the extremes of ―völkisch‖ and ―non-völkisch‖ philosophies. The term völkisch is affiliated with notions of nationalism, imperialism, and xenophobia. From a medical perspective, völkisch theory was associated with what were referred to as ―negative‖ eugenic measures, which supported methods such as sterilization or clinical confinement.

This proposed restriction of civil liberties was often paired with a belief in the inherent superiority of certain races over others. In contrast, ―positive eugenics‖ concentrated instead on social and medical assistance.1 Despite wide disparities in philosophy and proposed applications, both groups shared the same objective of improving the racial health of their nation; this, however, could not be achieved without first instituting a reliable means of racial categorization.

1 Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling, ―Eugenics, Race and Nation in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900- 1940: A Historiographic Overview,‖ in Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940, eds. Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling (Central European University Press, 2006), 11.

15 16

Since its primitive beginnings in early modern Europe, race science had traditionally relied upon physiognomic traits to determine an individual‘s race; this meant bodily characteristics, which often included measurements of one‘s nose, various dimensions of their skull, and/or the pigmentation of their hair, skin, and eyes.2 The notion that race was evident in an individual‘s appearance was accepted among race theorists in general, but was especially promoted by völkisch race theorists from their origins in the pan-German movements of late-nineteenth century Europe until the end of the Third Reich. The later years of Imperial Germany, and the early Weimar Republic, which were accompanied by an intensification of right-wing race propaganda, underlined the idea that racial identity manifested itself in appearance. This tendency was the result of a gradual ―mathematization of medicine and anthropology‖ in which comparative craniometry, the measuring of skulls, figured most prominently.3

The emerging National Socialist movement, and other racist groups, often borrowed from existing notions of economic, political, cultural, and racial anti-Semitism which had become increasingly common in preceding decades. Of these, the notion of race proved especially useful as a political tool. Extremist propaganda would distort medical facts to confirm racial differences and justify segregation and curtailing of the

2 Pieter Campter (1722-1789) presented the ―facial angle‖ as a method of racial comparison. Europeans were at the top of a scale which included both animals and humans – the larger the angle, the ―higher‖ the race; for example, a European might have a measurement of 80 degrees, and an African 70. Certain types of primates could reach 50 degrees—therefore, a lower facial angle suggested an individual was, in fact, less evolved (and racially inferior). Shortly after Campter, Anders Retzius (1796-1860) developed the concept of the ―cephalic index.‖ [Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 12].

3 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in fin-de-siècle Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 15.

17 rights of those considered ―racial others.‖ Völkisch propaganda, however, made frequent mention of another, less-obvious racial indicator—that of blood. In this chapter, I will examine some early stereotypes of racial physiognomy and how these were gradually supplemented by the comparably elusive ―racial characteristic‖ of blood. I will demonstrate how propagandistic notions of blood, similar to physiognomic differences, were portrayed as biologic fact. I have chosen several works to do so. Although they were not written as anti-Semitic propaganda, but rather a commentary thereof, the stories by Oskar Panizza and Salomo Friedlander are useful because they depict the growing social problem of scientific racism in such a misrepresented and offensive manner— similar to Artur Dinter‘s blatantly anti-Semitic fiction work The Sin against the Blood.

Misappropriation of blood science became apparent at this point because of actual developments within medicine. I will trace the actual developments in blood science and how these compared to their representations in extremist, anti-Semitic groups.

Ironically, völkisch groups were using medical notions in fostering anti-Semitism at a time when Jews were highly visible members of Germany‘s medical community.

This was especially the case in serology; physicians of Jewish descent instituted both the discipline of blood science, as well as its later application to racial studies. In spite of the

―more pervasive and organized anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria‖ relative to

Europe as a whole, both nations had a healthy representation of educated and employed

Jews. 4 Medical interest in blood only developed erratically prior to Karl Landsteiner‘s discovery of the blood types in 1900. With this finding, Landsteiner, an Austrian Jew

4 Efron 2004, 10.

18 who later converted to Roman Catholicism, made the medical pursuit of blood science a possibility.5 The racial analysis of blood, however, was not widely practiced until after

World War I. For racial theorists, wartime population shifts provided an advantageous set of circumstances in which different peoples could be studied—which allowed Polish physicians Ludwig and Hanna Hirszfeld to conduct extensive blood type surveys of various racial types. The results of their work introduced blood type as a potential replacement, or supplementary, method of racial classification. Ironically the Hirszfelds, one of whom was of Jewish descent, set the stage for the development of seroanthropology—an area of study which would particularly appeal to proponents of

Nordic race theory.

“Contagious Blood” in German Fiction and Early Blood Science

Published in 1893 by Boskar Panizza, the fictional story The Operated Jew details the extensive efforts of a German Jew, Itzig Faitel Stern, to lose his ―Jewish identity.‖

True to völkisch technique, it begins with a grotesque physical description of Stern‘s

Jewishness:

Itzig Faitel‘s countenance was most interesting. It is a shame that Lavater had not laid eyes upon it.6 His lips were fleshy and overly creased; his teeth sparkled like pure crystal. A violet fatty tongue often thrust itself between them at the wrong time. If I may also add that my friend‘s lower torso had bow-legs whose angular swing was not excessive, than I believe that I have sketched Itzig‘s figure to a certain degree.7

5 Despite the fact that both were Roman Catholic, I refer to Landsteiner and Hirszfeld throughout this dissertation as Jewish because völkisch Germans would have classified them as such.

6 Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801), German poet and descriptive physiognomist, published Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775-1778), a compilation of essays on physiognomy.

19

The author continues, detailing a lengthy series of procedures to ―correct‖ what are malformations but, more importantly in this context, also indicators of racial inferiority.

The operations, which include ―new legs,‖ various surgeries, speech lessons, and hair straightening and lightening, successfully physically convert Stern into a German; Stern‘s physiognomy no longer betrays the fact that he is a Jew. Even when fitted with an

―Aryan‖ appearance, however, Stern still did not have a ―chaste, undefined Germanic soul.‖8 This ―undefined German soul‖ was believed to be contained in the blood since,

Panizza explained, it was ―possible to assert to a certain degree that the abode of the soul could be located in the blood and its changing condition.‖9 To remedy this absence, Stern proposes a transfusion of racially-German blood. Though discouraged to go through with a dangerous procedure that had ―fallen out of fashion,‖ Stern is adamant in his intent to

―buy [me] some Chreesten blud!,‖ and proceeds to pay six ―hardy [German] people‖ for a liter of blood each. Upon hearing that their blood was destined for a Jewish recipient, however, the German donors abruptly withdraw their offer.10 The necessary blood was eventually drawn from ―seven strong women from the Black Forest.‖ Wanting to completely shed his Jewishness, Stern ―let everything [all the blood] run out that could.‖

The eight liters of blood from the German peasant women was then transfused into Stern.

Nonetheless, this transfusion had not the desired effect as, after a few weeks, it was

8 Jack Zipes, trans., The Operated Jew: Two Tales of Anti-Semitism (Taylor and Francis, 1992), 59.

9 Ibid., 60.

10 Ibid., 60-61.

20 noticed that Stern ―was again making new attempts to gain possession of the German soul.‖11

In the late nineteenth-century, when The Operated Jew was published, rabid anti-

Semites had long been alluding to a relationship between blood and race. Even years earlier, during his racist and anti-liberal campaign, German politician Adolf Stöcker claimed that it was not possible to transfuse ―Aryan blood‖ into the veins of Jews.12

Because propaganda reflected the norms of anthropological racial classification, most racial tracts, including The Operated Jew, centered on racial physiognomy. The

Operated Jew, however, diverged from the norm in its inclusion of the procedure of blood transfusion. By making this another step in Stern‘s racial transformation, Panizza blends clinical practice with unclear notions of race. Stern‘s literal reception of ―German blood‖ to remove his Jewishness exemplifies the traditional idea that one‘s identity, which now included their race, was somehow rooted in their blood. Panizza implies the reality of this metaphor through an actual exchange of blood. His decision to include the transfusion indicates the propagandistic attraction of referring to an actual blood-race connection.

When The Operated Jew was published in 1893, blood science was still in its infancy. Though both were practiced, research and therapy involving blood were not undertaken consistently, and the results were not reliable. Medical treatment concerning

11 Ibid., 61.

12 Paul Weindling, L‟hygiène de la race. L‟hygiène raciale et l‟eugénisme médical en l‟allemagne, 1870- 1933 (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 81.

21 blood in medieval and early modern Europe had often involved ―bleeding,‖ which was favored not only because it was a quick and simple procedure, but also because it was believed to restore balance—and thereby health—within the body. (See figure 1) In this period, physicians would occasionally experiment with the opposite, with giving blood instead of taking it away. Up to the seventeenth century, however, any therapeutic efforts to transfuse blood were mostly ineffective, as blood would have been given only by mouth.13 This was followed later by a primitive means of injection of the donated blood, which was often lethal owing to the ignorance of blood type compatibility. (See Figure 1)

Figure 1. ―Bloodletting Man‖ (Aderlassmann) Hans von Gersdorff, Feldtbüch der Wundartzney (Strassburg: H. Schotten, 1528). Diagram indicating which blood vessels to bleed according to sickness. Courtesy of National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.

13 Louis K. Diamond, ―A history of blood transfusion,‖ in Blood, Pure and Eloquent, ed. Maxwell M. Wintrobe (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980), 660.

22

From its beginning and regardless of its application—whether through ingestion or injection—the act of receiving blood always elicited the public‘s curiosity and fear.

Apprehension regarding this new technique, which diverged from centuries of bleeding, was understandable. To obscure matters further, early blood transfusions were not always limited to use as a life-saving measure. Some were conducted with the hope that they would alter personality traits. For instance, blood believed to contain the ―ill- temperament‖ of a man would be replaced with that of a calmer animal, such as a lamb.

In the words of British diarist Samuel Pepys, this procedure would give the once-irritable recipient ―pretty wishes, as of the blood of a Quaker to be let into an Archbishop, and such like.‖14 This notion that blood contained that a creature‘s (human or animal) attributes became most apparent when clinical experiments with transfusing blood became more common. Interpretations of this new technique were evident in popular discourse of the time. The seventeenth-century English play The Virtuoso, a satire on contemporary science, includes a scene in which there is a discussion of a cross blood transfusion between a mangy spaniel and a healthy bulldog; predictably, this results in the spaniel becoming a bulldog, and the bulldog a spaniel.15 Although this example is simply a commentary on modern medicine, it accurately reflects the fact that early experiments in blood transfusion involved diverse research subjects. Blood might be exchanged between two different animals, or between one human and another, and not

14Samuel Pepys, a Member of Parliament, is famous for his diaries in the seventeenth century. Paul J. Schmidt and Paul M. Ness, ―Hemotherapy: from bloodletting magic to transfusion medicine,‖ Transfusion 46 (February, 2006): 167.

15 Wintrobe, ed. 1980, footnote 663.

23 infrequently—as mentioned by Pepys—also between humans and animals. In their efforts to realize possible beneficial properties of blood, researchers tested the results of blood exchange between various mammals. To some, who believed that identity was in the blood—despite no medical evidence to support this—certain transfusions became cause for concern. Given blood, some feared, would transfer the characteristics of its original possessor. This might be a character trait, such as the calmer disposition of a lamb, but could also be a physical characteristic. One writer feared that after an infusion of sheep‘s blood or ox blood, the recipient would grow horns. It was also said that a girl would assume the characteristics of a cat after receiving feline blood.16 Of course, none of these fears were scientifically founded. Blood exchange between species did not result in human adaptation of animal traits, but instead was not uncommonly fatal, as human and animal blood types were incompatible. For the same reason, transfusions between humans were similarly perilous. Due to ignorance of differences in blood type, and therefore compatibility, reception of human blood often produced adverse effects, including death. The repeated problematic outcome of blood transfusion led to its international interdiction in humans (as opposed to animals) in the late-seventeenth century.17 Still, intermittent reports of blood exchange are scattered throughout the

16 Fritz Schiff, ―Group-specific substances in the human body,‖ in Selected Contributions to the Literature of Blood Groups and Immunology IV (January 1971): 60.

17 Jean-Baptiste Denis, a French mathematician, is often regarded as the first person to perform a blood transfusion on a human being. When his patient died from the procedure, Denis was placed on trial for murder. Although Denis was exonerated, the Paris Society of Physicians declared itself against such experiments and persuaded the Criminal Court in Paris on April 17, 1668 to forbid further transfusions without approval from the Faculty of Medicine of Paris. This affected transfusion therapy outside of France. (Wintrobe, ed. 1980, 665). See also, Pete Moore, Blood and Justice: The Seventeenth-Century Parisian Doctor who made Blood Transfusion History (Wiley, 2002).

24 medical literature of the next 150 years.18 Medical progress in the mid-nineteenth century revived interest in blood transfusion therapy. The first transfusion with human blood, for the purpose of replacing blood lost and not as psychotherapy, was probably made by the British obstetrician James Blundell in the first part of the century.19

Despite this advance, most efforts continued to be strikingly similar to those in the seventeenth century. Still unaware of the different blood types, researchers would often exchange blood between incompatible types (or species). As a result, transfusions were still, at best, unpredictable. In 1875, German physiologist Leonard Landois (1837-1902) published statistics revealing the discouraging placement of blood group research at this point: of 129 transfusions conducted on humans (predominantly with sheep blood), sixty- two had been lethal. This led Landois to caution the transfusing of ―foreign‖ (i.e., animal) blood into humans. Exchange of blood between humans was still not reliable; of

347 human-to-human exchanges in 1875, 180 had given ―unfavorable results.‖20

Separate statistics published the same year similarly reported that 48 percent of more than

100 blood transfusion, again mainly with blood from lambs, ended fatally. The transfusion of human blood was even less successful since 52 of the almost 359

18 Wintrobe, ed. 1980, footnote 665.

19 John Henry Leacock published his dissertation in medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1816 in which he proposed the transfusion of human blood as treatment for both a ―deficiency‖ in the blood and a loss of blood. Leacock performed animal experiments proving that therapeutic transfusion was possible if species specificity of donor and recipient was matched. He was the first to define transfusion as medical therapy. (Schmidt and Ness 2006, 167).

20 D. Wiebecke et al., ―Zur Geschichte der Transfusionmedizin in der ersten Hälfte des 20 Jahrhunderts (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Entwicklung in Deutschland,‖ Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy 31 (2004): 12. In 1873, Gesellius presented similar statistics showing that 146 out of 263 transfusions (56 percent!) had fatal consequences. (Schiff 1971, 64-65).

25 transfusions had taken a ―less fortunate ending.‖21 Additional, desperate efforts to substitute ―organic substances‖ instead of blood—such as milk, peptone, gelatin, serum, or albumin—often only worsened matters.22 In spite of other, impressive medical advancements in the nineteenth century, the unpredictability of blood therapy prevented any significant progress in the blood sciences—a fact confirmed not only in individual cited statistics, such as those of Landois, but also clear in general medical literature.

Between 1897 and 1900, blood transfusion was not mentioned once in Germany‘s respected medical publication, Zentralblatt für Chirurgie.23

Panizza‘s reference in The Operated Jew then, to the fact that blood transfusions had fallen ―out of fashion,‖ is accurate. As a medical doctor, Panizza would have been aware of this. Neither did he think the public necessarily believed völkisch misappropriation of medical fact but he includes the transfusion episode likely to address persistent ideas that an exchange of blood could alter one‘s physical or mental state. As late as 1868, one German professor of medicine claimed that a girl would assume the characteristics of a cat after having received cat‘s blood.24 As we have seen, notions of blood and temperament existed long before the nineteenth century: in the emerging

21 A.W. Bauer, ―From blood transfusion to hemotherapy—the anniversary of the German Society for Transfusion Medicine and Immunology (DGTI) from a medicinal-historical and bioethical perspective,‖ Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy (2004): 4. Similar developments were occurring in the U.S.; syringe transfusion was documented by the Union armies in the Civil War and blood transfusion was photographed at Bellevue Hospital in New York in 1873. (Schmidt and Ness 2006, 167).

22 Wiebecke et al. 2004, 12.

23 Ibid.

24 Fritz Schiff claimed that Dr. Irenaeus Vehr believed this as late as 1868. (Schiff 1971, 60).

26

―scientific racism‖ of fin-de-siècle Europe, notions about blood and temperament increasingly began to accommodate concepts of race. The implication remained that an individual‘s personality was in their blood but now their race was added as well. The

Operated Jew demonstrates this shift in emphasis. Pending knowledge of the different blood types, there was still no recognizable difference between the blood of one individual and another. Nonetheless, Stern‘s attempt to modify his race through a donation of ―German blood‖ reflects current uncertainties regarding blood, as well as anti-Semite‘s exploitation thereof.

Origins of Serology

Shortly after Panizza‘s publication, quantifiable differences were found to exist within blood. By the late-nineteenth century, most who dabbled in blood research would have been aware that the blood of one individual would occasionally cause that of another to ―clump‖ when mixed. They did not know that this was a normal reaction between what were incompatible blood types. Instead, early blood scientists thought that this clumping stemmed from some type of pathology, or sickness, in one of the subjects.

Analyses of blood, then, often involved drawing blood from diseased subjects. In 1900, while conducting similar research on blood and disease at the Institute for Pathological

Anatomy at the University of Vienna, Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner discovered the blood groups.25 Landsteiner disregarded the association with infection entirely, and

25 Blood clumping was first recognized by Landois Eulenberg in 1866, when he demonstrated that the serum of one animal may have the property of destroying the red cells of another animal of the same species. [J.A. Buchanan and E.T. Higley, ―The relationship of blood groups to disease,‖ British Journal of Experimental Pathology 2 (1921): 247].

27 instead theorized that the clumping reaction was the result of individual differences in the blood. Through further research, he was able to confirm this theory: the clumping between the bloods of different individuals was an indicator that there were distinct blood groups, which he subsequently referred to as ―the unexpected existence of clearly demonstrable differences between the bloods within one species.‖26 Because no one within his sample group of approximately one hundred persons was the rarest type AB,

Landsteiner only proposed that there were three different blood groups, which he referred to as groups O, A, and B.27 In 1901, Lansteiner‘s theory was quietly published in the

Viennese Clinical Weekly.28 Because he believed clumping to be the result of incompatibility between these groups, Landsteiner suggested that his findings might be of use in transfusing blood. Ironically, he did not recognize the importance of his

26A.D. Farr, ―Blood Group Serology—the First Four Decades (1900-1939),‖ Medical History 23 (1979): 215. In 1899, an English physician, S. Shattock, also observed the phenomenon of isohemo-agglutination, i.e., the agglutination (clumping) of bloods when mixed, in his patients. [A. Furukawa, ―A Study of Temperament and Blood Groups,‖ The Journal of Social Psychology 1 (1930): 494-508]. The fact that Landsteiner initially suspected that agglutination stemmed from a pathological condition speaks to the scientific perspective of modern medicine at this point in time. Landsteiner had, unwittingly, further reinforced associations between ―blood mixing‖ and infection—which were used in race propaganda

26 Myriam Spörri, ‗―Reines‖ und ―gemischtes Blut‖: Blutgruppen und ―Rassen‖ zwischen 1900 und 1933,‖ in Transfusionen: Blutbilder und Biopolitik in der Neuzeit, ed. Anja Lauper (Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2005), 216.

27 Landsteiner‘s original labeling of the blood types is still that used today. Landsteiner was stung severely by subsequent American scientists‘ criticism for having only discovered three blood groups. As a result, he wrote a letter to Adriano Sturli, in which he asked the latter to confirm in writing that he (Sturli) was Lansteiner‘s pupil and that he had collaborated with Alfred von Decastelo to perform supplementary work in this field. The discovery of the fourth blood group by Decastelo and Sturli, performed on a much larger sampling, was initially designated as ―of no particular type.‖ However, it was later designated as blood group AB. [A. Matthew Gottlieb, ―Karl Landsteiner, the Melancholoy Genius: His time and his colleagues, 1868-1943,‖ Transfusion Medicine Reviews 12, no. 1 (January 1998): 18-27, 21].

28 In Karl Landsteiner, ―Über agglutinationserscheinungen normalen menschlichen Blutes,‖ Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 14 (1901): 1132-1134.

28 contribution and hoped it would ―be of some use to mankind.‖29 After recent decades of what was considered lengthy and thorough blood research, however, his claim was completely unexpected and, as a result, did not receive immediate recognition. The minimal attention resulted in others having also believed that they had ―discovered‖ the blood types. Unaware of Landsteiner‘s findings, Czech physician Jan Jansky also reported the existence of different blood types, but in 1907, and he labeled them I, II, and

III. Three years after Jansky, American William Moss did the same, but used IV, II, and

III to indicate the same. As a result, until an international nomenclature was established in 1927, the blood types were confusingly referred to in double- or even triple-meaning— depending on whose system was being used.30

It was nearly a decade after his discovery that doctors Emil von Dungern and

Ludwik Hirszfeld outlined the potential anthropological significance of Landsteiner‘s work. Hirszfeld, born a Polish Jew in Warsaw in 1884, received his medical doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1907.31 Afterwards, he assisted in the serological department of the Institute for Cancer Research in Heidelberg for its director, von

Dungern. Suspecting that blood type was a heritable trait, which had not yet been determined, von Dungern and Hirszfeld drew and recorded the blood types of seventy-

29 Gottlieb 1998, 20. Theoretically, considering the unreliable nature of blood exchange at this point, this new research should have had immediate medical consequences. For the first time, it offered the possibility of making a suitable donor choice before starting the transfusion and documentation for the methodical construction of serological transfusion theory. (Farr 1979, 215). In 1930, Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the blood types.

30 Farr 1979, 217.

31 Leo J. McCarthy and Mathias Okroi, ―The original blood group pioneers…the Hirszfelds,‖ Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine 2, no. 1 (2004): 25.

29 two Heidelberg families. Their research enabled them to ―partially record‖ three generations.32 The blood types revealed a definite pattern of heredity; for example, a child of type B with a mother of type A could never have a type A or O father; and that a child of type O could never have a type AB father (regardless of the mother‘s type).33

They were able to conclude that the blood groups were permanent biological features, passed from parent to child, and therefore followed Mendelian law.

This research was presented at a particularly opportune moment. Mendel‘s laws of inheritance had been ―rediscovered‖ about a decade earlier—around 1900—and anthropological studies, as a result, had increasingly focused on traits which were known to pass from one generation to the next. Since that time, analysis of inherited traits, whether normal or pathological, became the conventional means of racial classification.

Because of this, von Dungern and Hirszfeld theorized that heritable blood types might offer a new method of racial analysis and were, therefore, the first medical doctors to suggest an explicit, scientific link between blood and race. Testing this theory, however, was an altogether different matter. At seventy-two families, the subject group amassed to prove the heredity of blood type had been quite extensive, but determining any relationship between blood and race would require research on a much larger scale. A sufficient study would necessitate not only traveling to widely disparate regions to examine individual races, but also enough blood samples would have to be taken to serve as a proper representation of the group as a whole. Aware of the time-consuming, labor-

32 Paul Steffan, ed., Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932), 5.

33 Frank Heynick, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 2002), 434.

30 intensive, and expensive nature of such a project, von Dungern and Hirszfeld admitted that their theory would probably remain as such. As Hirszfeld later described it, the two researchers expected it to be ―a project which, under normal circumstances, would have required dozens of years of work: a project of world exploration from the serological point of view. It is possible that the project would not have been realized in our lives.‖34

The Völkisch Notion of “Blood Defilement”

In spite of the fact that no such study of blood had yet been conducted—and there was still no indication of a biological connection between race and blood—propaganda of the extreme-right continued to suggest there was a definitive medical relationship between the two. Perhaps most notable among such works is German Artur Dinter‘s The

Sin against the Blood (Die Sünde wider Das Blute). Published in 1917, Dinter‘s novel was eventually purchased by nearly a million readers, thus becoming one of the most successful racial propaganda works of the Weimar Republic. Dinter employs the typical physiognomic racial stereotypes, but also draws upon the ―invisible‖ racial trait of blood.

The novel centers on a German protagonist, Hermann Kämpfer who, with his blond hair, blue eyes, and ―racially-pure‖ agricultural background, is the Aryan ideal. Despite this, the appearance of both of the children he has with his wife Elisabeth Burghamer, clearly suggests Jewish descent; the first son is described as ―dark-haired with dark skin, and covered in curly dark hair.‖ The second child also appeared to be a ―Jewish lad‖ (jüdisch

Knabe). The reader comes to find out that their ―racially inferior‖ traits are due to their

34 William H. Schneider, ―Chance and social setting in the application of the discovery of blood groups,‖ Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57 (1983): 556.

31 mother‘s racial makeup. Though herself the daughter of a German and a Jew, the influence of Elisabeth‘s ―Jewish blood‖ takes precedence in her offspring. Later,

Kämpfer fathers another child with a second wife, Johanna, whose blond hair and blue eyes are referred to as proof of her Aryan lineage. Nonetheless, this third child, too, appeared to be an ―authentic Jewish child.‖ Although Johanna racially appeared to be

Aryan, Dinter explains how her race had been corrupted through the previous defilement of her blood, which took place when she slept with a Jewish officer. While Dinter fails to detail the biological mechanics of this change, the reader can only assume that the Jewish officer‘s semen was absorbed into Johanna‘s blood and thereby changed her racial type.

Dinter‘s intent, however, is not to call attention to the science of race, but to the problems of miscegenation between Germans and Jews, or ―racial assimilation.‖35 He is concerned about the racial degradation of the German people—which, he believes, is possible even without offspring. The Sin against the Blood is important not only because it continues a similar medical theme of blood and race previously articulated in The

Operated Jew, but also because Dinter‘s approach is sexual. In The Operated Jew, there is the implication that race could be influenced through exchange of blood. The

Operated Jew implies that race can be changed through the literal exchange of blood in a blood transfusion. Panizza stresses the clinical aspect of this exchange. The character

Stern, a medical student, first made the necessary incision himself. The eight liters of

German blood corresponds to the approximate blood volume in a human body. Panizza

35 The term ―miscegenation‖ was first coined in the United States in 1863 to describe ―interbreeding between Anglos and non-Anglos.‖ [Stefanie Wickstrom, ―The Politics of Forbidden Liaisons: Civilization, Miscegenation, and Other Perversions,‖ Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 26, no. 3 (2005): 168-198].

32 weaves notions of blood and race with medical fact. Dinter, however, claims that race could also be affected by ―pollution‖ of one‘s blood through sexual intercourse with a racially inferior individual. Increased sexual contact between Germans and Jews, unmistakable in the rising statistics of intermarriage at this time, posed, to anti-Semites, a very real threat to German identity. Both Panizza and Dinter demonstrate the malleable nature of blood and race propaganda. Although the acts are different—one is a blood transfusion, the other sexual intercourse—the end result is the same. Racist propaganda was more inclined to emphasize the threat of blood defilement which would result from miscegenation, which was much more common than the occasional blood transfusion.

Importantly, while both works imply a clinical reality between blood and race, neither abandons physiognomic racial indicators. Long before the Third Reich, then, a pattern was set in which blood and race could interact in either a clinical or sexual context.

Similar to Dinter, the novel The Operated Goy (1922), written by Salomo

Friedlander under the penname ―Mynona,‖ continues the familiar emphasis on racial physiognomy, but again incorporates the theme of blood defilement.36 This work describes an anti-Semitic German family, the von Reshoks, whose racial purity was well- documented. Accordingly, their appearance was described as ―perfectly Aryan‖:

They all had thin lips, Prussian chins, proud necks, and fabulously slender builds, and their legs, which in their innocence did not know either X or O, stood simultaneously on aristocratic and pan-Germanic feet and took strides as though descending from Mount Olympus. Above all, they did not have narrow eyes with a dark brown gloss but open, true blue ones which glistened like pure ice.37

36 Mynona spelled backwards is ―Anonym,‖ German for anonymous.

37 Zipes 1992, 76.

33

The von Reshok‘s son, the single Count Kreuzwendedich von Rehsok, is warned to be careful in the selection of a spouse—in order ―to keep his blood pure.‖ von Rehsok, however, is seduced by the wealthy, attractive Jewess, Rebecca Gold-Isaac. Similar to the von Rehsok family, author Mynona explains, the Gold-Isaacs had ―never been contaminated by alien blood.‖38 To atone for his family‘s anti-Semitism, Rebecca demands that Count von Rehsok physically and spiritually renounce his Aryanism in order to become Jewish. Similar to Itzig Faitel Stern in The Operated Jew, Count von

Rehsok seeks the help of various medical experts to enact this change. He visits Dr.

Friedlander, a prominent orthopedist, in order to ―convulse‖ his body into a Jewish one:

The doctor devoted special attention to the nose, which he endowed with an artificial hump and made the tip curl over. Thereafter, he performed one of his most famous spinal atrophies. The count‘s bones were broken at their joints and then carefully brought to heal in the shape of an egg. Then he disappeared, with brand new flat feet, to Romania to learn Yiddish from the rabbis there, as well as the gestures that go along with it.39

These adjustments eventually change von Rehsok ―from a German into a Jew.‖ Similar to both The Operated Jew and The Sin against the Blood, the author exploits the visible racial indicators, but also indicates that blood can be defiled through miscegenation.

Although Mynona makes brief reference to the ―fact‖ that Rebecca‘s marriage to von

Rehsok would contaminate her own blood, this is portrayed as negligible when compared to the völkisch fear of the ―de-nordification‖ (Entnordung) of the German race. The

Operated Goy suggests that racial defilement was not gender-neutral. von Rehsok is

38 Ibid., 79.

39 Ibid., 83-84.

34 portrayed as losing his own blood purity through a successful operation: however, the male Jew in The Operated Jew fails in his attempted Aryanization operation, even though the procedures are the same. The notion that race therefore trumps gender, and that

Jewish traits ―stick‖ more than gentile ones, is an underlying presumption of this racist genre. von Rehsok‘s own blood is affected differently from that of Kämpfer‘s Aryan wife in Dinter‘s novel, with the common result that Jewish blood proves more immutable than gentile blood.

Völkisch descriptions of blood defilement were predominantly concerned with the possible negative consequences of miscegenation for Aryan women. As demonstrated in

Dinter‘s novel, whether it resulted in children or not, sexual intercourse was believed to contaminate the blood of the racially-superior individual. Even if she had only had one sexual encounter with a man of a ―less worthy race,‖ an Aryan wife became unfit for

―noble breeding.‖40 To my knowledge, comparable propaganda describing the threat of sexual intercourse between German men and Jewish women does not exist. Because of their ability to become pregnant, and their role as bearers of the Aryan race, a different set of concerns was applied towards German women and their blood. After sexual contact with a racial other, she could then only bear racially-inferior children—even if their biological father was Aryan. These supposed negative results of race mixing, which provide the storyline for The Sin against the Blood, were by no means unique to Dinter.

Rudolf John Gorsleben (1883-1930), who began a post-war Aryan occultist movement, inveighed against the vulgar, corrupt, and wretched modern world as the ―sad result of

40 Lauper, ed. 2005, 35.

35 racial mixing.‖41 Similar to the content of The Sin Against the Blood and The Operated

Goy, Gorsleben believed blood defilement applied differently to men and women; miscegenation was detrimental for the racially-superior man since his purity was

―debased in the progeny‖—meaning, not in himself.42 An Aryan woman however,

Gorsleben continued, could be ―impregnated‖ by intercourse, even when no conception occurred, so that her subsequent offspring would bear the characteristics of this (prior) lover.43

These examples all use either blood rhetoric (Dinter) or play upon its use in völkisch propaganda (Panizza, Mynona). This stems from the fact that ―Jewish blood‖ is presumed to be ―mixed blood,‖ and therefore impure. Theoretically, such mixing would lead to the degeneration of both parts—though particular emphasis was placed upon the sexual contamination of the German constituent, instead of vice versa. Regardless of the author‘s various emphases the clinical theme of these novels reflects the public‘s greater inclination to recognize material when framed in medical language. Incorporating eugenic notions into popular literature helped to legitimize racism as scientific fact.

Aware of its usefulness, far-right propagandists would continue to employ blood rhetoric long into the Third Reich.

During the Weimar Republic, as circulating notions of blood and race continued and intensified, there were responses to distortion of medical fact. In 1921, writer Hans

41 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi Ideology (New York University Press, 1993), 157.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

36

Reimann published a parody on Dinter‘s work entitled The Sin against the Blood: A

Novel, in which he blatantly mocked the medical propaganda of the far-right.44

Reimann‘s German protagonist, Professor Hermann Stänker, conducted research on the blood of Germans and Jews. Under a microscope, he noted the German blood to be characterized by ―Aryan blood cells,‖ while the Jewish blood lacked similar ―Jewish blood cells,‖ and instead had so-called ―Semitokokken.‖ Upon placing the two different bloods in a laboratory flask together, Reimann expected the ―Israeli bacteria‖ to be destructed by the ―Teutonic blood.‖45 In the presence of the Aryan blood, the ―half-moon shaped Semitokokken‖ pressed themselves into the corner of the flask and shook with fear; it seemed the Aryan blood had ―gained the upper hand!‖46 The Jewish blood cells were then carefully separated out and placed in a vaccine. Upon their injection into a rabbit, the animal immediately gestured submissively with its front paw and froze— clearly, Sünder observed, the creature was in the trance of a ―foreign racial power.‖47

With a pen and pencil, the rabbit then proceeded to solve a difficult mathematical equation. When asked its name, it responded by writing ―Baruch Veilchenblüth,‖ and

44 Artur Sünder, Die Dinte Wider Das Blut, ein Zeitroman (Hannover und Leipzig: Paul Steggemann, 1921). Artur Sünder was one of the numerous pen-names Hans Reimann wrote under. See also Alan Levenson, ―The Problematics of Philosemitic Fiction,‖ The German Quarterly 75, no. 4 (Autumn 2002): 379-393.

45 Sünder 1921, 8.

46 Ibid., 13.

47 Ibid., 14. Laboratory animals were common in serological research. Blood type differentiation between species had been examined even before the war on rabbits, but also cattle, chickens, dogs, and pigs. (Steffan, ed., 1932, 7).

37 explained that he was from Köln.48 It was further noticed that the rabbit had ―an authentic Jewish mark.‖ After returning from a brief trip, Stänker discovered that among his thousands of laboratory rabbits, many had become ―Judaized‖ (verjudete) in his absence.49 The Jewish rabbits had been spreading their tainted blood throughout the remaining population! To counteract this process, Stänker reasoned that either an anti-

Semitic antidote would have to be found, or the Aryan blood would have to be thoroughly saturated with ―national consciousness.‖ Otherwise, he feared, the now mixed blood in the ―racial mongrel‖ would triumph.50

These fictional works were part of a larger trend. References to a relationship between blood and race were very common, but it is important to note that the idea that one‘s identity was contained in their blood was by no means a novel concept. The racial anti-Semitism of the late-nineteenth century built upon existing anti-Judaic sentiment within Christianity. Similarly, völkisch theorists were able to shape their propaganda around the notion that blood was more than just a bodily fluid, but instead represented the soul. After the beginning of the eugenics movement in the nineteenth century, there is a palpable shift in the approach of the extreme-right to racially, that is medically-oriented propaganda. Medicine was favored by propagandists because science was regarded as autonomous from all other forms of thought (i.e. religious, moral, or political). Of course, a language of blood and race continued to be used freely after the introduction of

48 Veilchen (Violet) was a common Jewish surname.

49 Sünder 1921, 21.

50 Ibid., 22.

38 race science, but this was increasingly supported by the idea that race was biologically in the blood. Despite their basis in eugenic thought, and the simultaneous development of race science and far-right movements, these fictional works fail to mention contemporaneous medical studies on blood.

Repeated allusions to differences between the bloods of individuals—whether in temperament or race—were partially realized in Landsteiner‘s discovery of the blood groups. Why did racist propagandists not make use of this finding? Landsteiner‘s work was useful in labeling the blood types of individuals, but this did not have any direct appeal for scientific or popular racial theorists. There are several reasons for their lack of interest. First, Landsteiner came across the existence of the blood groups through analyzing a relatively small sample group (only 105 of his colleagues), all of whom were

Austrian. He did not record any other characteristics in his analysis—such as coloring, skull shape, place of birth, or religion and therefore did not attempt to relate blood type to any other conventional distinguishing (racial) characteristic. The limited number of subjects, combined with their apparent racial homogeny, for the time prevented any larger presumptions about the blood types and racial classification. From an anthropological perspective, the newly-discovered differences in blood were basically useless—they made no cultural or ethnic distinctions possible.51

51 Lauper, ed. 2005, 217.

39

Seroanthropology

The first articles published on the distributions of blood types within various populations were submitted between 1916 and 1921.52 These articles gave results on the distribution of the ABO blood types in the groups studied, but none of them cited any of the other articles. They had been conducted independently, each acting upon the idea that blood type was a heritable, and therefore possibly also a racial, trait. While their purpose was to analyze blood type and race, their results did not elicit interest among racial theorists. Their subject groups received criticism for their size (too small), and their homogeneity (only Europeans or those of European descent). Anthropologists knew that determining the value of blood-type patterns required that representative groups of the different races, and in adequate numbers, be examined. A unique set of circumstances during World War I, however, would provide these necessary criteria. The war affected all aspects of European society, including medicine and its areas of research. Redirecting of funds and personnel frequently interrupted progress at home—but wartime changes also presented unique scientific research opportunities.

When World War I broke out, Serbia was devastated by epidemics of typhus and bacillary dysentery. In 1915, Ludwik Hirszfeld applied for duty there, ostensibly for medical reasons, but also in support of pan-Slavic ideas (Hirszfeld being Polish). Serving

52 These studies were: Hara and Kobayashi, 353 Japanese subjects tested in Nagano, results published in 1916 in Jji-Shinbun; Kilgore and Liu, 100 Chinese subjects tested after transfusion accident, 1918, Chinese Medical Journal; Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld, 7,900 subjects tested, 1919, Lancet and Anthropologie; Moffitt et. al., 1,122 subjects tested at U.S. army base, 1919, JAMA; Weszeckzky, 550 Hungarians, Rumanians and Germans in central Hungary, 1920, Biochemischer Zeitschrift; Alexander, 50 cases of ‗malignant‘ and infectious diseases, 1921, British Journal of Experimental Pathology; Culpepper and Abelson, 5,000 tests at Parke Davis (Detroit), 1921, Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine. [William H. Schneider, ―The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: initial discovery and diffusion,‖ History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 18, no. 3 (1996): Table 1, 283].

40 as ―serological and bacteriological‖ advisor, he would remain with the Serbian army until the end of the war. With his wife Hanna, a pediatrician, Hirszfeld spent the first two years of service in Serbia. 53 In 1916, a German offensive in Belgrade forced to evacuate to Salonika, where the Serbs were shortly joined by an Allied expeditionary force.54

Unable to advance militarily, but politically too embarrassed to evacuate, the Allies were trapped in ―the cage‖ (as they themselves called it), or what the Germans referred to as

―our largest POW-camp.‖55 For the next couple of years, between 1916 and the end of hostilities in 1918, an entire contingent of allies was confined to the area in and around

Salonika.

Hirszfeld recalled the unlikely prospect he and von Dungern had outlined years earlier, after having discovered the heritability of the blood types. He realized that he was in an exceptional position to examine a possible relation between blood type and race. The potential subjects fit the requirements perfectly. The allied troops were composed of many nationalities, including groups from throughout Europe, as well as

―natives‖ from various European colonial holdings. The subject pool was particularly favorable because its members originated from these disparate locations, and because there appeared to be sufficient numbers of each racial type. Importantly, the subjects were not related to one another, thereby excluding any possible influence of hereditary

53 Ludwik Hirszfeld remained with the Serbian army until the end of the war, serving as serological and bacteriological adviser. At this time, in the hospital for contagious diseases in Salonika he discovered the bacillus "Salmonella paratyphi" C, today called "Salmonella hirszfeldi."

54 The Allied expeditionary force was retreating from the defeat at Gallipoli.

55 Heynick 2002, 435.

41 distribution. Furthermore, determining blood type was a simple procedure; the examiner need only prick the individual‘s fingertip and wait half an hour to observe the reaction.

The Hirszfelds quickly began their research. Over the course of their two-year isolation in Salonika, they were able to collect the types of between 500 and 1,000 persons from each race. On June 5, 1918, their results were presented to the Salonika Medical Society in an article entitled ―Serological differences between the blood of different races: the result of research efforts on the Macedonian front.‖

Did this survey fulfill von Dungern and Hirszfelds‘ expectation that an extensive serological study would determine whether or not there was a relationship between blood and race? Because he had confirmed that blood type was a heritable trait, Hirszfeld believed that the blood groups were not subject to environmental change. Type did not seem to be affected by disease, either, as at the time of the Salonika study, Hirszfeld noted that the examiners‘ blood types were the same as they had been eight years before—despite the fact that one of them had had typhoid, and another had been suffering from chronic malaria.56 In addition, an individual‘s blood group did not seem to be affected by environment, passing of time, or disease. At this juncture, the complicated discipline of race science would have been quite receptive to the prospect of a new, fixed, heritable trait for racial analysis. Race theorists had long relied upon physiognomic traits

56 Ludwig and Hanna Hirszfeld, ―Serological differences between the blood of different races: the results of researches on the Macedonian front,‖ Lancet 2 (1919): 675-679. Though the existence of the blood groups was generally recognized, the Hirszfeld study‘s detailed inclusion of those sick and healthy subjects reveals that the agglutination between differing blood types was not yet completely recognized as normal. It would take years for the medical disciplines to thoroughly realize that agglutination was a normal reaction between incompatible blood types, and not the result of some other factor—such as a bacterial infection. The Hirszfelds carefully noted the health of those examined; however, they never observed any difference in blood-type distributions between healthy and sick groups. (Ibid., 677).

42 for accurate categorization. By the early twentieth century, however, these characteristics were increasingly being questioned—primarily because of the possibility of environmental influence. Anthropologist Franz Boas‘ landmark 1914 study of American immigrants strongly suggested that a change in surroundings could enact a change in appearance, which would render physiognomic racial classification ineffective.57

The constancy of blood type was further reinforced by the Hirszfelds‘ research in

Salonika. The groups tested shared many of the same circumstances—they were predominantly soldiers, living in the same climate, exposed to (or had suffered from) the same diseases, and were eating similar food (with the exception, Hirszfeld noted, of the

Indians, who were generally vegetarian). Even with these uniform conditions over the course of two years, the differences in blood type remained. This was corroborated by the blood-type distributions of examined minority groups; the blood type frequencies of the Jews in Monastir differed from the surrounding Christian majority. Hirszfeld noted

57 Franz Boas, ―Changes in the Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,‖ American Anthropologist 14, no. 3 (July-September, 1912): 530-562. In his 1899 study on the cephalic index, anthropologist Franz Boas went from defending physical anthropology to attacking one of its most cherished tools. [John S. Allen, ―Franz Boas‘s Physical Anthropology: The Critique of Racial Formalism Revisited,‖ Current Anthropology 30 (1989): 79-84, 81]. Boas and his assistants had measured the head form and stature of the parents and offspring of four American immigrant groups: ―Central Europeans (Bohemians, Poles, Hungarians and Slavs), Hebrews, Sicilians, and Neapolitans.‖ Boas found that the physiognomy of the children differed from their parents; very ―short-headed Jews‖ were becoming ―long-headed‖ and very ―long-headed‖ Sicilians ―short-headed.‖ The results indicated that physical features could change in a relatively rapid period of time due to changes in environment and nutrition. While he had examined their hair color, Boas had not reported the popular racial criteria of eye and skin color. Eye color was excluded as, he explained, it was subject to ―very strong personal equations,‖ and exposure to ―air and light‖ could cause considerable variations in the classification of skin color. Simply put, Boas believed each to be too subjective. Sophisticated for its time, Boas‘ study showed statistically that given different circumstances, people defined as being part of the same ―racial type‖ could be expected to physically change over time. [Gretchen E. Schafft, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (University of Illinois Press, 2004), 207].

43 that the Jews had lived there for several centuries. Even long-coexistence in a similar climate had not created uniform blood-type frequencies amongst the groups.

In reporting their findings, the Hirszfelds were careful to provide details on the proportions of those examined and their technique. Their blood samples were drawn from doctors, medical assistants, patients in military hospitals, prisoners, soldiers, schoolchildren, and civil servants. Although the four blood types were found amongst all of the ethnicities studied, the Hirszfelds ultimately chose to focus solely on types A and

B. Their reasons for doing so were twofold: von Dungern and Hirszfeld believed A and

B to be dominant hereditary characteristics and these types demonstrated the most conspicuous difference between regional populations. As the samples were collected and tabulated, it became increasingly obvious to the examiners that their regional origins were creating a pattern: Blood type A appeared more common in north and west Europe.

As one moved south and east, this was overtaken with type B. The blood types of the

Balkan peoples examined, including Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs, corresponded to this trend.58 The Russians tested also tended to have more type B and less A than the

Europeans of Northwest Europe. The Arabs from Tunisia and Algeria, as well as the

―Negro soldiers‖ from Senegal, fit this same pattern. This was confirmed by the highest frequencies of type B among those from the farthest-east areas, the Indochinese and the

58 Of the 500 Greeks examined, 300 came from Old Greece and the Islands, and an additional 200 refugees tested came from Asia Minor and Thrace. The 500 Bulgarians tested, all healthy prisoners, yielded results absolutely identical to those of the Greeks and Serbs. The Turkish sample of 500 – Salonika, Micra, Macedonia The Turks, also, were found to be more different than the European type; those tested were Macedonian ―Mohammedans‖ (Muslims). [L and H. Hirszfeld, ―Des Méthodes Sérologiques au Problème des Races.‖ L‟Anthropologie 29 (1918-1919): 508].

44

―Hindus‖ of South Asia. Accordingly, the Hirszfelds affiliated type B with Eastern peoples; its distribution farther west was attributed to the influx of ―Asiatic‖ peoples.

After compiling their results in a diagram—with type A represented by a white line, and type B with solid black—the comparably higher percentage of type A amongst

Northwest Europeans became unmistakable, a pattern referred to by the Hirszfelds as

―remarkable.‖59 The varying blood-group distributions of those in Salonika suggested to them that blood, though admittedly ―anatomically invisible,‖ might be a useful means of racial analysis. 60 In their general blood type distributions, the majority of Western

Europeans tested did not have less than forty-five percent type A. The decline in type B grew clearer as one moved west; the Germans were about seventeen percent, the French and Italians fourteen, and the English merely ten percent.61 The reverse was the case in

Africa and Asia: here, type A only averaged about twenty-seven percent.62 To articulate this pattern, the Hirszfelds formulated what they referred to as a ―biochemical race index,‖ an equation which would compare the incidence of types A and B within a group.

The resulting number could categorize the group as one of three different racial types. A high enough incidence of type A blood would cause an index greater than two, which indicated a ―Western European‖ type, which included peoples from approximately

Greece to England. The opposite, with a result of less than one, was the ―Asiatic-

59 L. and H. Hirszfeld 1919, 678.

60 Ibid., 677.

61 Ibid., 678.

62 Ibid.

45

African‖ type. The groups which fell inbetween, with a racial index between one and two, were labeled as ―intermediate‖ in type. This mainly included the people of the

Mediterranean basin, deemed a transitional region between Western Europe and

Asia/Africa, but also included peoples of the Middle East, Jews, and some groups in

Russia. To the Hirszfelds, the blood group distributions of the Slavs, Serbs, and

Bulgarians indicated that they were at the ―extreme limit of the European type.‖63

Because of their placement so far east, the Russians, who were traditionally classified as

Slavic, were instead categorized as ―Asiatic-African‖ in type,64 which they believed to be the result of ―frequent nomadic invasions‖ from central Asia. (See Figure 2).

The Hirszfelds believed that the wide racial disparities in blood types A and B might lend insight into the racial history of man. Based on the shift in distributions between east and west, the Hirszfelds believed it ―would be very difficult to imagine a single place of origin for the human race.‖ Instead of the human race having emerged with one blood type, the pattern of varying frequencies suggested to them that there had been two centers of origin for the human race—one in India, the other in Europe.

Because the highest frequencies of type B were found among the Indian subjects, the

Hirszfelds believed India to be ―the cradle of one part of humanity,‖ as characterized by blood type B. The other group, represented by type A, was believed to have developed in

Western Europe. Initially, the Hirszfelds believed that these types had likely been in the

63 Ibid., 537.

64 L. and H. Hirszfeld 1918-1919, 537. In the Hirszfelds‘ research, this classification also included Malaysians, Annamiten, and Indians. (Ibid., 508).

46

Figure 2. Graph of Hirszfeld‘s biochemical race index. The proportion of type A to B blood determined whether a group was ―European, Intermediate, or African‖ in type. L. and H. Hirszfeld, ―Serological Differences between the blood of different races: the result of researches on the Macedonian front,‖ Lancet 197, no. 2 (1919): 675-679.

47 same proportions. Over time, their distributions were gradually altered by ―mutual diffusion,‖ which is to say that the early, unmixed types A and B had been diluted by generations of miscegenation between them.65 The highest concentrations of type A or B were reasoned to identify where the ―purest‖ races were—before racial migration and mixing had occurred.

Not being able to publish the results in enemy Germany, the Hirszfelds submitted the results of their research, including the biochemical race index and their theory regarding the separate origins of the human race, for publication in the British Medical

Journal. Months later, the editor replied that the study ―would not be of interest to physicians,‖ and the manuscript was returned.66 Specific reasons for its rejection, however, were not provided—though certain aspects of the research may have seemed problematic. Perhaps the most unfavorable result, which the Hirszfelds themselves were careful to point out, was the fact that the four blood groups were present in every group examined.67 This eliminated the possibility of precise, individual racial classification through blood type. Admittedly, there were patterns among racial groups and their blood-type frequencies, but the Hirszfelds could not explain the reason(s) for these differing proportions, and they had not revealed a definitive correlation between blood

65 Some theorized that, when human beings first appeared on the earth, these types were present in the same proportions. For some reason—perhaps climate, for example, these gradually altered. The Hirszfelds considered this unlikely. As proof, they referred to the fact that the Russians in Siberia had the same proportion of type B as the natives of Madagascar—similarly, the Jews from Monastir had a blood-type distribution which clearly differed from that of the surrounding Balkan population.

66 Mc Carthy and Okroi 2004, 26.

67 L. and H. Hirszfeld 1919, 677.

48 and race. This was, possibly, worsened by the mechanics of expanding on their study.

Additional research would require an even larger subject group. To accomplish this, the

Hirszfelds suggested large-scale cooperation between anthropologists and serologists— ideally ―on an international basis.‖ Again, the expense and involvement of arranging this made it improbable. Research aside, the Hirszfelds‘ theories might have been the source of criticism. Their idea of two original racial types was somewhat unclear. The origins of type B were located in India because of a marked increase in type B at this location.

By contrast, because all Europeans showed relatively higher incidences of type A, its place or origin could not be precisely located; they assumed it had first been introduced somewhere in North or Central Europe.68 Confirming or refuting these group characteristics would first require a more detailed examination of all of the races in question, particularly the racial groups in Northern and Central Europe.69 Further, because their findings concerned the anthropological origins of man, the Hirszfelds pointed out that follow-up studies would be necessary on primates (―anthropoids‖), as well.70 As a result, even with its impressive numbers, the research in Salonika had left many unanswered questions. Any one of these reasons may have been mitigating factors in its initial rejection for publication. Still, the fact of the matter was that, prior to the

Hirszfelds‘ research, no study had been able to outline any semblance of a relationship

68 The Bulgarians were believed to ―have mixed with the Mongols.‖ (Ibid., 679). Theoretically, then, the Bulgarians would have had more type B; the results, however, indicated that the Bulgarians‘ frequency of type B was no higher than neighboring Balkan peoples.

69 L. and H. Hirszfeld 1918-1919, 536.

70 They called for the immediate research of ―various stocks, primitive races, and anthropoid apes.‖

49 between the trait of blood type and race. Aware that it might appeal to those in anthropology and medicine, both the English medical review Lancet, and the French journal Anthropologie, promptly printed the article in 1919.

The decision to publish the Hirszfelds‘ study was driven by several factors.

Perhaps most important was a sharpened awareness of the increasing limitations and intricacies of anthropological race science. In the first part of the twentieth century, there was a surge in scientific articles on collected metric and physiognomic criteria—the results of which often resulted in even further confusion and uncertainty over which trait(s) were worthy of consideration. Measuring physical characteristics was often problematic. Many race physiognomists were aware of the fact that these traits were subject to interpretation; a ―round skull‖ to one theorist might be a ―long skull‖ to another, and so forth. Eventually, it was not uncommon for examiners to consult hair and eye-color charts for accurate categorization. There were different charts available for use, however, and the situation was further complicated by the fact that some analysts preferred not to refer to them at all. The recording of many traits complicated matters further, as this at times enabled the subject to be categorized into more than one racial group; traits interpreted as Dinaric might also be Nordic. This, again, allowed for considerable interpretation. As a result, most racial theorists would have welcomed the introduction of a simple, objective heritable trait such as blood. The theory of two separate biochemical races, and measurement of mixing between the two, could perhaps help in removing subjectivity. Furthermore, if there had been two ―pure‖ races of types

50

A and B, their present composition might also be helpful in tracing the movements of prehistoric populations.

Jewish Physicians and Blood Science

The contributions of Jewish physicians had prompted not only the development of serology, but also, ironically, racial interest in the blood sciences. The most pivotal discovery for serology had been Landsteiner‘s finding that there were different blood groups.71 This initiated the discipline of modern blood science. Prior to Landsteiner, research on blood had been inconsistent, unpredictable, and often lethal. von Dungern, though not Jewish, had been assisted by the converted Jew Ludwig Hirszfeld, in the confirmation that the blood groups were a heritable trait. Finally, it was the research of

Ludwik and Hanna Hirszfeld which revealed the statistical distribution of blood groups to differ along racial lines; which all begs the question—why was there such a marked

Jewish presence in blood science?

In the years before the Third Reich, Germany was internationally recognized for its medical establishment. Jewish physicians, or those of Jewish descent, had been central contributors to establishing this reputation in all areas of medicine. Jewish contributions were not limited to medicine, either. Certainly, in pre-Nazi Germany and

Austria, Jews were disproportionately represented in certain professions. Jews made up an inordinately large number of artists, writers, musicians, and scientists. Although they constituted only about one percent of the total German population from the mid-1880s to

71 Gottlieb 1998, 21.

51

1933, the percentage of Jews enrolled in universities fluctuated between a much higher

4.5 and 8 percent. Jewish representation in medicine, however, had become especially apparent; from 1891 to 1911 the number of Jews enrolled in medical faculties remained within a ―startlingly high range,‖ between ten and sixteen percent.72 Many of these, however, were not German Jews.

The pogroms and increasing anti-Semitic restrictions throughout Eastern Europe and Russia created a near-constant influx of Jewish refugees into the comparably more tolerant nations of Western Europe. Of those fleeing were victims of Russia‘s numerus clausus, which severely limited Jewish access to university education. The mass migration of some 2.75 million Jews from Russia between 1881 and 1914 led the majority to pass through Germany on their way farther west.73 Many, however, decided to stay, which swelled statistics in German medicine. On the eve of World War I, Jewish

Russian students represented eighteen percent of the students enrolled in the faculty of medicine in Berlin, twenty-six percent in Leipzig, and thirty-two percent at Königsberg.74

As a Polish Jew in Germany, Hirszfeld would have been part of the foreign Jewish community being schooled in Germany. After attending Gymnasium in his hometown of

Lodz, Hirszfeld decided to study medicine in Germany. In 1902, he entered the

University of Würzburg, and later transferred to Berlin in 1904. His doctoral dissertation,

―On the Agglutination of Blood‖ (Über Blutagglutination), was completed in 1907; this

72 Efron 2004, 30.

73 Ibid., 9.

74 Weindling 1998, 9.

52 was the first indication of Hiszfeld‘s later interest in blood science. Although serology would eventually become his main area of focus, after graduating Hirszfeld became a junior assistant in research at the Heidelberg Institute for Experimental Cancer

Research—of which Emil von Dungern was director.

Born a Jew in Austria, and therefore not part of the influx from Eastern Europe,

Landsteiner still would have been included in most statistics on Jews in the medical professions. He graduated from the Medical Faculty of Vienna University in 1891, and later worked in the Vienna Institutes of Hygiene and Pathology.75 In 1908, he was appointed Director of Pathology and Assistant Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the

Wilhelmina Hospital in Vienna.76 Landsteiner would hold these appointments until

March of 1920. The experiences of Hirszfeld and Landsteiner were part of a German trend to disproportionately train and hire physicians of Jewish descent—whether they were German Jews or Jews from Eastern Europe. Despite slight numbers within the general population, their elevated numbers in medicine made the Jewish community a highly-visible group within Germany. The same applied to Landsteiner‘s Vienna. From

1880 to 1910, because of flight from Eastern Europe, Vienna‘s Jewish population alone increased from 72,543 to 175, 318.77

75 Gottlieb 1998, 21.

76 Ibid., 19.

77 Or 8.6 percent of Vienna‘s population. (Efron, 2004,156). At the beginning of World War I there were approximately 90,000 Jewish foreigners in the empire. Then, during the war, some 30,000 more Jews from the territories occupied by Germany were either recruited or forced to work in Germany while additional Jewish war refugees crossed the border. [Steven M. Lowenstein, Michael A. Meyer, Michael Brenner, and Paul R. Mendes-Flohr. German-Jewish History in Modern Times: Integration in Dispute, 1871-1918 (Columbia University Press, 1998), 20-21].

53

The continued arrival of Eastern European Jews coincided with an ―explosion of higher learning‖ which took place in Germany between 1870 and 1914. Between these years, enrollments at universities and technical schools expanded from 14,000 to 61,000 students.78 Jewish prominence in the universities was exaggerated by Eastern European refugees, both of which, as a result, became increasingly subject to harsh anti-Semitism within German academia and the larger society. Their presence strengthened and renewed existing anti-Semitism, regardless of whether the Jew in question was ―German or Eastern.‖ Despite the apparent success of assimilation, the emerging völkisch movements, as well as incidents such as the Dreyfus Affair, indicate that anti-Semitism had a place in Western Europe as well. Even with its reception of oppressed Jews, and a collegiate tolerance for them, Germany was also host to a particularly virulent form of anti-Semitism. The type and threat of this anti-Semitism is evident in the 1893 decision of a group of German Jews to establish a self-defense organization, the Central

Association for German Citizens of Jewish Faith (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens). Conspicuous anti-Semitism within Germany‘s medical community also began in the late-nineteenth century.79 In spite of the notable number of Jewish doctors in Germany in 1900—they accounted for sixteen percent of all doctors—they were still often denied prestigious academic appointments, were largely excluded from

78 Efron 2004, 93.

79 So widely publicized was the ostracism and anti-Semitism encountered by Jewish doctors in fin-de-siècle Germany and Austria that the topic was the central theme of the Viennese Jewish playwright and physician Arthur Schnitzler‘s Der Bernhardi (1912). (Efron 2004, 31).

54 research positions in theoretical medicine, and were frequently charged with malpractice.80

As a result, it was relatively common for Jewish individuals, particularly those seeking professional positions, to convert to the prevailing state religion.81 At the time of his discovery of the blood types, Landsteiner was Roman Catholic, the majority faith in

Austria; however, he had been born Jewish in Vienna in 1868—his father, Leopold

Landsteiner, was a practicing Jew and had his son accordingly circumcised on June 21,

1868.82 Ludwig Hirszfeld, also born Jewish, converted to Roman Catholicism before

World War I. We are not certain of the reasons for his conversion, though anti-Semitism and career opportunism likely played a role. Landsteiner‘s relationship with his wife

Helene Wlasto, however, suggests that the Catholic faith specifically, and not just

Christianity, was not a trivial matter. In 1918, after two years of marriage, Helen finally acquiesced to her husband‘s wishes and severed her association with the Greek Orthodox

Church.83 Even with conversion, however, Jewish-Austrian (or Polish, or German), was frequently interpreted by anti-Semites to be a kind of ―inauthentic mimicry.‖84

Anti-Semitism can partly explain the disproportionate role of Jews in the development of serology. The clinical fields within medicine, into which serology would

80 Ibid.

81 See Stephen M. Lowenstein, ―Jewish Intermarriage and Conversion in Germany and Austria,‖ Modern Judaism 25, no. 1 (2005): 23-61.

82 Although the percentage of Catholics dropped between 1910 and 1934 from 93.7 percent to 90.5 percent. Austria was considered a Catholic country. (Löscher, ―Blood and Homeland,‖ 301).

83Gottlieb 1998, 19.

84 Christopher M. Hutton, Race and the Third Reich (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005), 111.

55 have been classified, tended to have higher concentrations of Jews when compared to academic medicine. This was for two reasons. First, after 1890, clinical medicine underwent a general expansion that created room for professional advancement, and Jews flocked to the various specialties of internal medicine, gynecology, ophthalmology, dermatology, and psychiatry.85 Second, specializing in one area of clinical medicine allowed the Jewish doctor the opportunity to enter into private practice, whereas research medicine could only lead to a university position. When Jews did accept such appointments, especially unconverted ones, their status in academe was usually limited.

The theoretical fields were the older ones and, with a more entrenched and conservative faculty, therefore more inclined to deny access and professional advancement to individuals of Jewish descent.86 Serology was among the various medical specialties which developed late, after 1890. Its newness would have contrasted with the more established theoretical fields, and therefore would have been appealing to Jews. This would partly explain Landsteiner‘s, but especially Hirszfeld‘s, involvement in serology.

Postwar Blood Science

Although generally impressed with their results, the Hirszfelds were cognizant of their drawbacks: the four blood types existed in every racial group studied, and there seemed to be no connection between an individual‘s blood type and their physiognomic traits. Notwithstanding these caveats, the results of the surveys in Salonika still strongly

85 Efron 2004, 30.

86 Ibid.

56 suggested that blood type and race were somehow linked—so much so that the findings would mark the beginning of seroanthropology, an offshoot of existing blood science committed to determining the racial value of the blood types, as well as their worth for anthropological studies of race and racial history. As a result, the Hirszfelds were responsible for introducing yet another potential means of racial differentiation—a possibility which would be welcomed among völkisch race theorists.

In spite of their extensive contributions, both Landsteiner and Hirszfeld would eventually leave the German medical community—Landsteiner forcibly, Hirszfeld by choice. Before the war, in 1911, Hirszfeld left Heidelberg to accept an assistantship at the Hygiene Institute of the University of Zurich.87 In spite of the close friendship he had formed with von Dungern, Hirszfeld eventually felt his work in Heidelberg to be too limited. In contrast, Zurich presented the opportunity to research Hirszfelds‘ specific areas of interest previously suggested in his dissertation topic—hygiene and microbiology. In Zurich, Hirszfeld was made an academic lecturer based on his studies of agglutination, and was also named associate professor. In spite of his own involvement, and continuing progress in the discipline of serology, Karl Landsteiner was placed on

―permanent retirement‖ by the Austrian government in May of 1920. The reasons for this decision are unclear, although anti-Semitism remains a possibility. 88 A letter in

November of that year, from the Provincial Government of Lower Austria, informed him

87 Hanna Hirszfeld became an assistant at the Zurich Children‘s Clinic.

88 Hans Peter Schwarz and Friedrich Dorner mention that this may have been because of anti-Semitism. [Hans Peter Schwarz and Friedrich Dorner, ―Karl Landsteiner and his major contributions to Haematology.‖ British Journal of Haematology 121, no. 4 (May 2003): 556-565].

57 of the pension to which he was entitled. An amount, it has been noted, which ―was insufficient to provide a family with the bare necessities of existence.‖89 Certainly, his work had been indispensable to the introduction of serology as a credible science. His later service indicates that he was an asset to both his employer and the Austrian government. In the years following the discovery of the blood types, Landsteiner received various awards. In 1909, the Medical Faculty of Vienna University proposed his appointment to Associate Professor of Anatomy; the ―Imperial and Royal Apostolic

Majesty,‖ Franz Joseph I, was ―graciously pleased‖ to appoint Landsteiner to this position in 1911.90 From July 1910, Landsteiner held the position of Senior Medical

Officer (Oberarzt). A year after the outbreak of World War I, he was promoted to the

Administrative Council (Regierungsrat).‖91 Despite these accomplishments, the

University of Vienna decided on Landsteiner‘s abrupt dismissal. In that same year, 1920,

Landsteiner took an appointment at a medical facility in Holland. Apparently frustrated with the limited potential there, he sought work elsewhere. With the endorsement of the

Dutch authorities and Simon Flexner, the director of the prestigious Rockefeller Institute,

Landsteiner was offered a position at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City.92 His appointment as the institute‘s director, which lasted from 1921 to 1939, indicates the

89 Paul Speiser and Ferdinand G. Smekal. Karl Landsteiner: The discoverer of the blood groups and a pioneer in the field of immunology: biography of a Nobel Prize Winner of the Vienna Medical School (Vienna: Hollinek, 1975), 59.

90 This appointment did not come with an increase in salary.

91 Gottlieb 1998, 19.

92 Ibid., 22.

58 appreciation of an internationally-recognized medical institute, but also confirms the

Austrian loss of a major asset in Landsteiner.

Because of its pronounced interest in racial science, one would have expected the

Hirszfelds‘ research to have elicited an immediate response from German physicians concerned about the prospect of national eugenic and racial decline. Germany‘s eugenicists were appalled by considerable wartime population losses; of the pre-war population of approximately 65 million Germans, there had been approximately two million military deaths, four million military wounded, and half a million civilian fatalities. Between its dead, wounded, or missing, Germany had lost nearly seven million people—and the German birthrate had been considered alarmingly low even before the war; between 1906 and 1910, 31.6 children were born for every 1,000 members of the total population.93 Levels would continue to decline throughout the Weimar Republic.94

The loss of men during the war was partly to blame for this decrease, but other factors were also believed responsible. Many referred to the increase in sexually transmitted diseases. Syphilis, which could cause stillbirths, premature death, or birth defects, was believed to be extremely common. For eugenicists, the specter of venereal disease was made worse by ―racial mixing, the ineffectiveness of natural selection, and birth

93 D.V. Glass, Population Policies and Movements in Europe (Oxford University Press, 1940), 269-270. Refer also to table, ―The Prussian survey of the declining birth rate of 1912: summary of provincial reports‖ in Paul Weindling, Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 269-280.

94 By 1933, with the exception of Austria, the German birthrate was the lowest in all of Europe. In 1932, only 15.2 children were born for every 1,000 Germans. (Glass, 1940, 269-270).

59 control.‖95 To this list, some added sexual promiscuity, youth delinquency, crime,

―trashy literature,‖ rising divorce rates, and illegitimate births.96 Both eugenicists and race theorists feared the degeneration (Entartung) of the Aryan people. Observers argued that new approaches were needed to deal effectively with these matters. Physicians joined together to pressure the government to protect these interests. In postwar

Germany, clinics rapidly emerged to address child and maternal health, venereal disease, alcoholism, and tuberculosis.97 In order to keep tabs on their predicament, and in the interest of improving their genetic plight, screenings and surveys for various physical and psychological pathologies became standard. In fact, plans for racial biological surveys were rooted in the formative period, 1919-1924, and drew on advances in research on hereditary diseases and serology.98 As a hereditary trait, blood type had both eugenic and racial implications which would appeal to the German medical community during the

Weimar Republic.

The initial publication of the Hirszfelds‘ study in English and French would slightly delay its reception in Germany. The fact that the Hirszfelds‘ study was first published in English explains the fact that the first studies to follow their example were in

95 Katja Geisenhainer, „Rasse ist Schicksal‟: Otto Reche (1879-1966), ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkunder. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002: 120. See also, Lutz Sauerteig, Krankheit, Sexualität, Gesellschaft. Geschlechtskrankheiten und Gesundheitspolitik in Deutschland im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Franz Steiner Verlag: 1999).

96 Nikolaus Wachsmann, ―Between reform and repression: imprisonment in Weimar Germany,‖ The Historical Journal 45, no. 2 (2002): 415.

97 Dorothy Porter, Health, Civilization, and the State: A History of Public Health from Ancient to Modern Times (Routledge, 1999), 200.

98 Weindling 1989, 464.

60 the United States, Denmark, South Africa, and China. 99 Seroanthropology was first introduced to Germany largely through a postwar study conducted by Hungarian researchers, but published in German. It would be quickly appropriated by völkisch physicians intrigued by the possibility that there was some biological connection between racial type and blood.

99 Schneider, ―Initial discovery,‖ 288-289.

CHAPTER III

SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN EARLY WEIMAR: BLOOD, RACE AND EUGENICS

The results of the Hirszfelds‟ research in Salonika attracted considerable international interest. It was a remarkable anthropological study for its time. The fact that the blood groups differed among the various ethnicities examined proposed a new method of racially screening populations. The study had the added benefit of having had surveyed a particularly large subject group (8,000 people)—a necessary criterion for a thorough scientific analysis. In addition, their interpretation of results was attractive to many race theorists because of its simplicity in the claim that there were originally two racial types: A in the West, and B in the East. Furthermore, comparing these types was quantified through the biochemical race index. The resulting number classified the group studied as one of three different serological racial types. Relatively high levels of type A within a group would yield an index greater than two; these groups were labeled

“Western European.” The opposite, a group with an elevated frequency of type B and an index of less than one, were classed as “Asiatic-African.” Populations which fell inbetween one and two were “intermediate” or Mediterranean, in type.

In spite of its simplicity, the study prompted many questions. The Hirszfelds had referred to the “purity” of the different races in relation to “blood mixing.” Did this mean

61 62 that “pure” races still existed, and these could be “sorted out” by examining blood?

Could blood determine the extent of miscegenation, and with whom it had occurred? If so, was it then possible to indicate when and where this had taken place? If blood types

A and B were related to “Western” and “Eastern” races, respectively, was it then the case that individuals with a certain type of blood exhibited mental or physical racial characteristics associated with that race? As I will demonstrate, reactions to the Hirszfeld study varied widely…and often by nationality. Germans were first introduced to seroanthropology not through the Hirszfelds‟ work, but primarily by way of their academic exchange with Eastern European physicians—who often structured their research and analyses in ways that appealed to völkisch German blood scientists. This chapter will trace the development of seroanthropology in its immediate postwar years, with an emphasis upon the reaction of far-right physicians to new research and how the urgency of their racial and eugenic concerns affected its reception in Germany.

Verzár and Weszeczky: Seroanthropological Research in Hungary

The European study generally regarded as the first to duplicate that of the

Hirszfelds‟ was published by Drs. Frigyes Verzár and Oskar Weszeczky of the University of Debreczen (Hungary), in 1921.1 The authors had set out to establish whether or not different racial groups, which were believed to have coexisted for centuries in and around

1 In 1919, unaware of Hirszfelds‟ simultaneous research in Salonika, Weszeczky researched the blood types of 457 Hungarians, 81 Rumanians and 12 Germans in Hungary. Despite the limited size of the test group, it was clear that the blood-type distributions in Hungary differed from those in Germany and the United States. Weszeczky theorized that these variations might have stemmed from racial differences, though recognized that they could be due to factors such as diet or climate. Determining this, however, would require more extensive research, which was prevented by enemy occupation during the war.

63

Budapest, would show variations in their blood-type distributions. Their study presented an important divergence from the wartime serologic research conducted in Salonika; the

Hirszfelds‟ subjects had only lived together under the same circumstances for approximately two years. The results of an analysis of peoples which had lived together for many generations would be decisive as, in spite of evidence to the contrary, some still theorized that blood type could change with environment. As a result, if no serological differences were found between the groups in Hungary, it would effectively refute the

Hirszfelds‟ hypothesis, as well as the claim that blood types were actually Mendelian characteristics. In contrast, if each racial group demonstrated a distinct blood type distribution pattern, it would substantiate the Hirszfelds‟ findings and the possible anthropological significance of blood type.

The three racial types studied by Verzár and Weszeczky comprised 1500 native

Hungarians from Debreczen, 476 Germans from three villages near Budapest, and 385

“Gypsies” (Zigeunern, subsequently referred to as Roma and Sinti).2 Their biochemical racial indices were found to be, respectively, 1.6, 2.9, and 0.6. 3 These results were promising. Verzár and Weszeczky‟s findings agreed with the categorization of these groups in the Hirszfeld study; based on their serological index, the Germans were classified as Western European in type, the Hungarians as Intermediate, and the Roma-

2 “Sinti” refers to the Sindh River in India, and “Roma” to “human beings” in the Romani language, though they were generally called “Gypsies” (from Egyptians) at the time. [Deborah Dwork, History of the Holocaust (W.W. Norton and Co., 2003), 91].

3 F. Verzár and O. Weszeczky, “Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen mittels Isohämagglutininen,” Biochemisches Zeitschrift 126, nos. 1-4 (1921): 34.

64

Sinti as Asiatic-African. Significantly, despite centuries of living together in the same environment, the three groups had retained their serologic identities. This confirmed the fact that blood type was a static, hereditary trait and, as such, would be eligible for use as a racial indicator. To determine why the Hungarians had more type B blood than the

German settlers, Verzár and Weszeczky reconstructed the possible historical movements of the peoples they believed had introduced Eastern blood into present-day Hungary. The

Hirszfelds had referred to “mixing” between East and West, but only loosely, and had not specified when, or with whom exactly, it had taken place. In their depiction of events, the peoples of Central Europe, in the “transition zone” between East and West, had a lower biochemical index because of the influx of those with higher levels of type B blood from farther east. But who were these “Easterners” exactly? Was there more than one group of them? When and where had they first appeared?

Verzár and Weszeczky theorized that the oldest “mixing” between the original

Hungarian peoples and Easterners had taken place around the seventh century. After 600

A.D., they explained that the groups native to Hungary had merged with groups from present-day Turkey and Bulgaria. Miscegenation between them continued throughout parts of southern Russia, north of the Crimea. After some point in time, the authors fail to specify, the two groups separated; one remained along the Black Sea, while the other traveled both north and south. The most extensive “blood mixing” was believed to have occurred with Turkish peoples, and Verzár and Weszeczky noted this to have been especially pronounced in the regions north of the Tisza River in Hungary, on account of

65 the Cumans‟ (a nomadic Turkic tribe) settlement there in the thirteenth century. 4 (See

Figure 3). Further Turkish invasion and conquest followed throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which, predictably, had resulted in more “mixing.”5 The consequence of these movements was evident in the relative increase of type B blood among modern Hungarians.

Figure 3. Map of Hungary showing Budapest, Szeged, and the Danube and Tisza Rivers. Tim Roufs, Map of Hungary [online], available from www.d.umn.edu/ cla/faculty/troufs/zanth1095/images/map_Hungary_Factbook.gif, 1 June 2009.

The ancestors of the Germans studied had been in Hungary for a comparably much shorter period of time than the Roma and Sinti. The Germans descended from colonists who had settled in Hungary in 1710—long after the authors‟ referenced Turkish

4 The Tisza River, one of the main rivers of Central Europe, originates in the Ukraine, flows through Hungary and eventually into the Danube in Serbia.

5 Verzár and Weszeczky 1921, 36.

66 immigrations. Verzár and Weszeczky attributed the German‟s higher biochemical index—it will be recalled that theirs was 2.9, and the Hungarians only 1.6—partly to the

German‟s racial origins farther west, more removed from the influence of Eastern peoples, and also to the fact that they generally had not mixed with non-Germans after their arrival in Hungary, which the authors felt was obvious considering their retention of

German language and culture. There must have been some Germans who had mixed with the surrounding population, however, as Verzár and Weszeczky were careful to note that they did not include the few who were not German when selecting subjects for research.6 Interestingly, they did not specify which characteristic(s) marked these individuals as such. Nevertheless, the results met their expectations. In spite of the

Germans‟ presence in Hungary for over two centuries, their blood type distribution almost exactly matched that of German farmers in Heidelberg (the area from which their ancestors had migrated): the biochemical index of the German settlers around Budapest was 2.9, it was 2.8 among Germans in Heidelberg.7

The Roma and Sinti were the third, and final group, to be researched. So as not to skew their results, Verzár and Weszeczky took the precaution of only including those

Roma and Sinti most likely to be “racially pure”—specifically, the “wandering,” or

6 Verzár and Weszeczky 1921, 36. The native German subjects pooled were all school children, older than ten years, to ensure that the findings would as accurate had they been tested on adults. Although blood type was fully developed by the first year of life, for many years there was the common misconception that this process actually took years; The reader can only assume, based on the text, that these subjects were excluded based on the presence of “non-German” characteristics—in this case, probably their language or culture, but possibly also their appearance (or possibly a combination thereof).

7 The biochemical index from Heidelberg was based on von Dungern and Hirszfeld‟s “inheritance study” of 1910. [E. von Dungern and L. Hirszfeld, “Über Nachweis und Vererbung biochemischer Strukturen,” Zeitschrift für Immunitätsforschung 4 (1910), 531-546].

67 nomadic, type. These were not to be confused with other groups which might also be categorized as Gypsies, such as half-settled Gypsies (halb angesiedelte Zigeunern) or

“mixed breeds” (Mischlinge), both of which were known to be “very common.” Roma or

Sinti employed as “musicians or horse-dealers” were also excluded—presumably on the grounds that these occupations involved a higher level of interaction (and therefore miscegenation) with the local population. In contrast, the ostracized wandering Roma and Sinti, not unlike the settler Germans, were largely believed to have kept to themselves—this included the stationary Roma or Sinti. Furthermore, Verzár and

Weszeczky assured the reader, the three different “types of Roma and Sinti had remained

“mutually isolated”(gegenseitig isoliert) from one another, and often disliked one another—additional reassurance that the blood of their Roma-Sinti subjects had not been affected by outside mixing.8

With the highest proportion of type B blood among the groups studied, the Roma and Sinti‟s biochemical racial index had been extremely low—only 0.6, which was believed to indicate strong Eastern origins. Where had the Roma or Sinti come from that they had so much type B blood compared to the Hungarians and Germans? Based on the belief that the Roma and Sinti had first appeared in Germany in 1400, Verzár and

Weszeczky estimated that they had probably first appeared in Hungary 500 to 600 years earlier. Linguistic studies by the German linguist August Friedrich Pott, the authors

8 Verzár and Weszeczky 1921, 37.

68 observed, suggested the Roma and Sinti to be of the “Indian race” (indische Rasse).9

Rooted in the popular dialect of Northern India, their language was related to Sanskrit. It was suggested that their physiognomy, too, associated the Roma and Sinti with India:

Even after centuries of separation from the environment of India, the authors observed that the Roma and Sinti of Hungary had “hardly changed in their physical characteristics.”10 These findings supported Hirszfeld‟s hypothesis. The blood type distributions of their Indians, the supposed “cradle” of the type B races, were nearly identical to those of the Roma and Sinti in Hungary. From a serological perspective, these results were even more impressive than those gathered from the German subjects.

While the German group had been separated from its homeland for just over two hundred years, the Roma and Sinti had left India much earlier, which meant that their groups‟ blood type distribution had not changed for at least 1200 years.

Verzár and Weszeczky‟s results benefited seroanthropology. Their research supported the theory that the blood types faded from A to B across the Eurasian continent. The study of three different racial types in one locale was also important because it reiterated the claim that blood type was not affected by environment, even if a group had been exposed to that environment for a considerable length of time. Verzár and Weszeczky maintained that blood type remained a racial trait for hundreds of years,

9 Verzár and Weszeczky are referring to August Friedrich Pott (1802-1887), a German linguist who helped to establish the study of Indo-European etymology.; Based on semantic (historical-linguistic) research, Verzár and Weszeczky pointed out that the Hungarians were believed to belong to the Finnish-Hungarian language family—part of the Ural-Altaischen language group. Turkish was reasoned to be of the same descent. According to Verzár and Wescezcky, the ancestors of the Hungarians they examined had first settled in Hungary in 896 AD.

10 Verzár and Weszeczky 1921, 37.

69 and further claimed that a population‟s racial origins could be traced through examining their blood. Because of its völkisch tone, their analysis was especially attractive to far- right anthropologists. Their study drew the attention of German physicians partly because it was the first to perform a comparative serological study of Germans‟ blood types. In Salonika, the Hirszfelds had obviously not been able to collect blood samples from the German forces detaining them. They did list a biochemical race index for

Germans in their results, but this had been determined from pre-war studies of German subjects conducted by von Dungern and Hirszfeld in Heidelberg, and Landsteiner in

Vienna. Verzár and Weszeczky‟s German subject group was not only much larger, but it was also outside of Germany—which would more effectively prove that race was “in the blood.” The matching indices between Germans in Budapest and those in Heidelberg seemed to confirm this. They repeatedly emphasized the Germans‟ higher levels of blood type A—the surrounding peoples, in contrast, did not have as much because of miscegenation with Eastern types.11 The serological classification of the Germans as members of the “Western European” type, in contrast to the “Intermediate” or more obviously pejorative designation of “Asiatic-African,” was certainly pleasing to Nordic race theorists. Indeed, despite living amongst non-Germans (as revealed by their racial indices), the blood of the Germans revealed their “complete [racial] difference” from the natives.12

11 Ibid., 36.

12 Ibid.

70

Less Eastern type B blood among the Germans in Hungary was also considered important because it suggested that the Eastern influx had mainly stopped short of

Germany. It also objectively demonstrated that miscegenation did affect racial purity.

Völkisch race scientists had long warned of the perils of race mixing, and Verzár and

Weszeczky clearly showed that it could alter a group‟s racial makeup. Peoples who did not mix retained their purity. This was evident not only amongst the German settlers but also, even in spite of their “lesser” racial status, among the Roma and Sinti. Verzár and

Weszeczky further demonstrated, as the Hirszfelds first suggested, that blood type could be useful in tracing the historical movements of different racial types. Verzár and

Weszeczky‟s article, “Blood-typing as a means of racial analysis,” was published in the

October 1921, issue of the German medical journal Biochemische Zeitschrift. Duplicate studies followed quickly in Germany. Intrigued by Verzár and Weszeczky‟s findings,

German naval physician Paul Steffan tabulated the blood type distributions of 500

German sailors.13 He noted an elevated presence (43 percent) of Type A blood. Steffan agreed with Verzár and Weszeczky that the blood types could be used as racial characteristics, and that they were key to the “reconstruction” of human history.14

13 Steffan did not actually collect the blood samples; he simply referred to their Wassermann Tests, which were mandatory in the military during the Weimar Republic. The “Wassermann Test,” introduced in 1905 by German Jewish physician Ausgust von Wassermann, was a diagnostic test for syphilis based on analysis of blood serum. (Weindling, 1989, 169).

14 Katja Geisenhainer, "Rasse ist Schicksal". Otto Reche (1879-1966): ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkundler (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002), 128.

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Surveying “Native Germans”

In the interest of identifying “racially pure” Germans, völkisch physician Paul

Steffan continued seroanthropological research. He was particularly wary of the racial status of populations in large cities or “nomadic groups.” Intending only to examine

“relatively pure races” (verhältnismässig reinen Rassen), urban areas were to be strictly avoided. 15 Cities, it was believed, regularly attracted Germans from the countryside, as well as foreigners seeking opportunity or refuge. For the most part, these immigrants had been Eastern Europeans and Germans, but also Jews. Their influx to cities was so pronounced that, by 1914, one quarter of Prussian Jews were concentrated in Berlin.16

Rural Germany, overall less tolerant, and presenting fewer prospects than urban areas, had generally been a site of less miscegenation; however, for all the racialist presumptions of Nordic theorists, German villages were not always regarded as more

“homogeneous.” Racial analysts were cautioned to be very particular in selecting a group for study because of itinerant travel throughout Germany, whether by “nomads” or others. Many issues were to be addressed before beginning research: which events, if any, may have made a group more susceptible to past incidences of miscegenation?

Which group(s) might this have involved? Steffan carefully took these matters into consideration when arranging for seroanthropological research of German subjects.

15 Paul Steffan, “Weitere Ergebnisse der Rassenforschung mittels serologischer Methoden,” Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropenhygiene 29 (1925): 370.

16 Weindling 1989, 58.

72

Steffan arranged for colleagues throughout Germany to assist in his research. He expressed particular interest in Schleswig, a remote northern region of Germany, as he believed this area to have been “outside the reach of Slavic influence.”17 (See Figure 4).

Dr. Franz Schütz was to sample blood types from the East Schleswig region of Angeln.

The village of Peterstal was selected because of its isolated location deep in the Black

Forest where, again, the population was less likely to have been exposed to miscegenation. Steffan was certainly pleased with the results, as Germans in both areas were found to have particularly high percentages of type A blood. Of 502 subjects examined in Peterstal, 56 percent were found to have type A blood and only 7.8 percent

B, which gave the group a much-elevated biochemical index of 4.9; the 253 Germans in

Angeln had 50.6 percent type A blood, and 7.5 B, which increased their figure even further to 5.3. These numbers suggested that the preliminary selection process was successful, and confirmed Nordic race theories that the German peoples had originated somewhere in Northwest Europe, which was correlated with type A blood. Low percentages of type B blood indicated that racial mixing with Eastern races had either not occurred, or had been so minimal as to not affect the German‟s racial index. These results were encouraging to Steffan, but he required further results to verify his theories.

Steffan had initially suggested surveying the people of North Frisia (Schleswig-

Holstein), because he believed that they possibly represented the last remnants of original, “pure” Germans (Urbevölkerung).18 Because of its isolation, the island of

17 Steffan 1925, 370.

18 Ibid., 370-371. We can assume that Steffan is referring to the “original” Germans.

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Pellworm would have been ideal for his purposes; however, the physician assigned to the area had only been able to collect forty-six blood samples. Steffan recognized that the number was too small (the racial index was not even calculated) and could provide “no further insight” into whether or not the island was composed of native Germans. 19 It was also possible, Steffan mused, that these “original peoples” still existed among the “West

Frisians, Jutes, and blond Scandinavians”—but, again, he could only theorize as the necessary studies either had yet to be carried out or, if they had been, were too small to merit analysis. The same was also the case in two other areas Steffan expressed interest in: a small fishing town, Massholm, situated on the Baltic Sea island of Öhe, and

Berchtesgaden. The numbers, again, were too slight; blood samples had been collected from only 78 individuals in Massholm, and 100 in Berchtesgaden (Bavaria).20

Nonetheless, the fact remained that many of the blood type surveys of Germans had confirmed higher percentages of type A blood, enough to categorize them as

“Western European.” In this sense, seroanthropology seemed consistent, but opinions varied widely. An article published in 1923, on the heels of the first series of blood type surveys of “original Germans,” considered potential drawbacks within the emerging discipline of seroanthropology. Hungarian physician Aladár Béla László Beznák, a colleague of Fritz Verzár, claimed that “it was still not possible to absolutely differentiate

19 Dr. Spangenberg in Pellworm examined 46 subjects; 34.8 A had type A blood, 13 percent B; under “notations,” Steffan commented that the number (of those examined) was “too small” (“Zahl zu klein”). (Steffan 1925, 371).

20 Steffan 1925, 372. These islands were sparsely populated, so the subject groups would have been small regardless.

74 between the bloods of various people, families, or racial groups.”21 He recognized that

Type A blood was known to be more common in “Germany and England,” but noted that a clear explanation for this “strange” (merkwürdigen) pattern had not yet been given.22

Although Beznák found Verzár and Weszeczky‟s research “interesting,” it was still not conclusive. He reiterated that it was still not possible to determine from one person‟s blood whether they belonged to “this or that race.” Only the frequencies of different blood types could demonstrate noticeable differences.23 He also found it “very curious” that both blood types A and B blood were found within each race studied. Despite his misgivings, the fact remained that certain patterns had been observed. Furthermore, seroanthropology was a new science, and blood type surveys would continue.

In 1924 German physician Wilhelm Sucker, of the Hygienic Institute at Leipzig

University, praised Steffan for having coordinated the only sufficiently extensive serological study of Germans. 24 In his own survey of one thousand Germans in Leipzig,

Sucker reported a frequency of 41.5 percent type A blood, and 16.5 percent B. This diverged slightly from Steffan‟s analyses, which were higher in type A blood. Due to

Leipzig‟s location farther east, Sucker expressed concern that his subject group had

21 A. Beznák, “Unterscheidung von Menschenrassen durch Blutuntersuchung,” Kosmos 20 (1923): 92-94. From the Institute of Experimental Pathology, University of Budapest. See also Imre Zs.-Nagy, “Fritz Verzár was born 120 years ago: A personal account,” Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 43, no. 1 (July-August 2006): 1-11.

22 Beznák 1923, 93.

23 Ibid., 94.

24 Wilhelm Sucker, “Die Isohämagglutinine des menschlichen Blutes und ihre rassenbiologische Bedeutung,” Zeitschrift für Hygiene und Infectionskrankheiten 102, ¾ (1924): 482-492. See comparative chart between Steffan and Sucker in same, 486.

75 possibly not been composed of “racially pure” Germans. Perhaps, he theorized, his study had been distorted by the presence in Leipzig of many who had either come from the

East, “appeared” to be of Jewish descent, or were verifiably Jewish. Sucker decided to repeat the study after first examining the subjects to ensure their racial purity. After excluding individuals with “foreign” or “Jewish-sounding” names, Sucker was able to collect samples from 730 individuals. This second, “purified” sampling had 41.4 percent

A blood, and 16.7 percent B.25 Despite the removal of potential Eastern influences, the frequency of type A essentially remained the same (it actually decreased by 0.5 percent), as did type B, which rose by 0.2 percent—a difference Sucker referred to as insignificant.

Nonetheless, he remarked that such a slim increase in type B probably meant that the possibility of Eastern influence could be disregarded. Despite surnames which suggested racial mixing had occurred, the blood types indicated that it was minimal. Furthermore,

Sucker remarked, the serologic indices of his “racial Germans” were comparable to those recorded by Steffan, as well as Verzár and Weszeczky. The stability between the studies was impressive, and many international blood type surveys had indicated similar consistency across racial types. By 1924, Ludwig Hirszfeld was confident that it “was now possible to differentiate between „serologic races.‟”26

In that same year, however, German Jewish physician Fritz Schiff, renown for his contributions to blood science, published an article with his colleague, Heinrich Ziegler,

25 Distributions of the 730 Germans in Leipzig: AB- 7 percent, A- 41.4 percent, B- 16.7, O- 34.9. (Ibid., 487-488).

26 Ludwik Hirszfeld, “Die Konstitutionslehre im Lichte serologischer Forschung,” Klinische Wochenschrift 3, no. 26 (1924): 1180.

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Figure 4. Map of Weimar Germany showing the different regions referenced in seroanthropologic research. John O‟Loughlin, “The Electoral Geography of Weimar Germany: Exploratory Spatial Analyses (ESDA) of Protestant Support for the Nazi Party,” Political Analysis 10, no. 3 (1992): 217-243.

77 which disputed the connection between blood and race. Schiff and Ziegler had decided to conduct a survey in response to Verzár and Weszecky‟s work, which they believed responsible for the recognition of blood type as “a highly sensitive means to prove or disprove differences in the descent of individual groups of people.”27 They examined the blood types of 750 hospital inmates in northern Berlin, as well as those of 230 German

Jews. These figures were further supplemented by statistics previously collected by other researchers.28 To Schiff and Ziegler, the results suggested that Verzár and Weszeczky may have been mistaken. On account of their supposedly non-Western origins, a völkisch theorist would have predicted the Jewish subjects to have higher levels of

Eastern type B blood; however, Schiff and Ziegler‟s statistics indicated that non-Jewish

Germans and German Jews were not serologically different. They reported that their type distributions were “strikingly similar” to one another.29 The percentages were so close, they continued, that one could not, in fact prove a difference between the “blood of Jews and non-Jews.” Schiff and Ziegler attributed this similarity to miscegenation between the two groups. This was one possibility discussed. Another was that their blood types had been altered by the environment. Whatever the source, the findings caused Schiff and

27 F. Schiff and H. Ziegler, “Blutgruppenformel in der Berliner Bevölkerung,” Klinische Wochenschrift 3, no. 24 (10 June 1924): 1078.

28 Schiff and Ziegler 1924, 1078. Instead of actually individually drawing the blood, they primarily gathered this data “indirectly,” from types already recorded during Wassermann Reaction tests (for syphilis). Separate comparisons of gender and age did not appear to influence the results. See also chart on page 1078 on Germans throughout Europe.

29 Ibid.

78

Ziegler to question the reliability of seroanthropology; however, their doubts were largely ignored by other German, particularly völkisch, blood scientists.

Interest in seroanthropology continued, growing more complex as researchers attempted to align the blood types with other, conventional racial traits. Polish physicians W. Halber and Jan Mydlarski surveyed the blood types, and various physiognomic characteristics, of a large contingent of Polish soldiers. The results of their research were published in a German medical journal, the Zeitschrift für

Immunitätsforschung und experimentelle Therapie (Periodical for Immunity Research and Experimental Therapy) .30 They recorded the blood types, skull, nose, and face shapes of 11,488 men. Their results suggested an association between popular racial physiognomic stereotypes and their Western and Eastern serologic types. Halber and

Mydlarski reported that individuals with type A blood, 37.6 percent of those tested, tended to have “longer skulls, smaller noses, and narrower faces.” This led them to express “no doubt” that type A blood corresponded with Nordicism. In contrast, on account of their rounder heads, medium-sized noses, and “particularly large faces,” those with blood type B—20.9 percent of the group—tended to be “Slavic” (Laponoidal) in type.31 Individuals with type O blood were not easily classed as either Nordic or Slavic; their mix of “long and medium-skulls,” smallish noses, and “very narrow faces,” led the

30 Wanda Halber and Jan Mydlarski, “Untersuchungen über die Blutgruppen in Polen,” Zeitschrift für Immunitätsforschung und experimentelle Therapie 43 (1925): 470-484.

31 11,488 Polish soldiers were examined, who had 37.6 percent type A blood and 20.9 percent B. Hirszfeld, 1924, page 431. To see the distributions by individual regions, see table 30 “Verbreitung der Blutgruppen in Polen nach Provinzen” (Hirszfeld 1924, 441).

79 authors to classify type O as “Mediterranean.”32 Halber and Mydlarski‟s research is important because it demonstrates an increasing trend to incorporate non-serologic racial traits, such as physiognomy, into seroanthropological studies. Because of the study‟s respective association between type A and B blood and Nordic and Slavic physiognomies, it was often cited by völkisch blood scientists.

In 1925, from the results of his own and others‟ research, Paul Steffan proposed a revised version of the Hirszfelds‟ theory of disparate serologic types. Steffan labeled those races with the highest proportions of type A “Atlantic,” and those groups with higher frequencies of type B were termed “Gondwanic.” Each type was at its racially purest in the area from which it had originated, or what Steffan referred to as its

“serological pole.” Because the area was “purely Nordic,” Steffan placed the Atlantic

(type A) pole in Schwansen (near Angeln), in northern Germany.”33 (See Figure 5). He based this location on the fact that particularly high levels of type A blood had been found in and around Schwansen. However, he admitted, the “A pole” might actually be much farther north—perhaps amongst the Swedes who were, quite possibly, even more racially pure (Nordic) than the Germans; this was only a suggestion as, of 1925, no blood

32 Results summarized in: Raymond Dujarric de le Riviere and Nicolas Kossovitch, “Les Groupes Sanguins en Anthropologie,” Annales de Medecine Legale, Criminologie, Police Scientifique et Toxicologie (1934): 275-294. Maps and a summary in German can be found in Paul Steffan, ed., Handbuch für Blutgruppenkunde (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932).

33 Hirszfeld 1924, 450. According to Steffan, the core of the “Atlantic” pole included the North European and Alpine races; he considered it very possible that the Native Americans of North America belonged to this as well. Steffan lamented the fact that the Swedes—quite possibly the “purest” (reinsten) North Europeans had not yet been examined. (Steffan 1925, 378).

80 type studies had yet been conducted on the Swedes. Steffan located the “B” or

Gondwanic pole at the opposite end of the Eurasian continent, in Peking. (See Figure 6).

Steffan‟s theory was remarkably similar to the Hirszfelds‟. In both studies, types

A and B are portrayed as opposite serological types—with type A having originated in the west, and B in the east. Steffan‟s analysis of the results is, however, clearly racially- biased. While the Hirszfelds theorized that type A had originated “somewhere” in

Europe, Steffan situated his “A pole” specifically in Germany—despite, by his own admission, the absence of complete statistics. He also placed the origins of types A and

B much further apart than the Hirszfelds had. Instead of India, the B pole was moved to the farthest eastern edge of Asia. Steffan also classed as Gondwanic in type numerous other peoples categorized as “racially inferior” in Nordic circles, such as the Burmese,

Indians, Africans, and Aborigines.34

As had been the case with the Hirszfeld study, Steffan believed that movement away from these original points had resulted in “blood mixing”—a phrase identical to that used by the Hirszfelds. 35 In other areas, however, Steffan‟s terminology differs considerably from that used in the Salonika study. Whereas the Hirszfelds categorized

34 According to Steffan, the geologic history of these areas indicated that they had at one point been connected to South Africa, Madagascar, India and, even farther back, with the Australian continent—a prehistoric supercontinent known geologically as “Gondwana.” (Hirszfeld 1924, 450). Steffan refers to the expansion of Mongolians and Negroes—particularly the “primitive” peoples such as the “Bergweddas (central African dwarf people), Australnegger (aborigines) , and the innerafrikanischen Pygmäenstämme (the pygmies of middle Africa).” (Steffan, 1925, 379). Listed in an index table (42) are the peoples and races of less A and of increasing type B blood. (Steffan 1925, 378).

35 Steffan affiliates the results with four possible areas: North Atlantic Pole, East Atlantic Mixed Area, Gondwanic Mixed Area, Gondwanic Pole. (Steffan 1925, 378).

81

Figure 5. Steffan‟s depiction of the Atlantic “type A” pole in northern Germany. Paul Steffan, “Weitere Ergebnisse der Rassenforschung mittels serologischer Methoden,” Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropenhygiene 29 (1925): 369-391.

82

Figure 6 Steffan‟s depiction of the Gondwanic “type B” pole in Peking. Paul Steffan, “Weitere Ergebnisse der Rassenforschung mittels serologischer Methoden,” Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropenhygiene 29 (1925): 369-391.

83

groups as either “Western European, Intermediate, or Asiatic-African” in racial type,

Steffan chose “Nordic” for “Western European”—the preferred designation amongst völkisch race theorists, and the odd, primitive-sounding Gondwanic in place of “Asiatic-

African.” Furthermore, unlike the Hirszfelds, nowhere in his study did Steffan mention that all four blood types were evident in every racial group examined, or the fact that seroanthropology was based on differences in frequency, not kind. By portraying

Atlantic and Gondwanish as distinct polar opposites, Steffan implied that racial categorization via blood was a simple procedure.36

Steffan applied his theory of serological poles to Germany itself. The high frequency of type A blood in Peterstal did not surprise him, Steffan explained, as these people were members of the “Alpine race”—a type which had not been exposed to

Gondwanic (Eastern) blood.37 As for Angeln, Steffan believed that it had served as a passageway for Northern Europeans headed south. He could not be certain, however; because of resistance from part of the population, they had only been able to test 253 individuals. For theoretical purposes, Steffan compared their figures with some from

Schwansen, an area he believed to be similar in racial makeup. It was as Steffan

36 The Hirszfelds had their bar graph, Steffan had his map. In 1925, Steffan presented the first worldwide “cartographic” representation of the serologic types. Based on these images, Steffan made additional incredible speculations on global racial migration patterns, and even continental drift. (Steffan, “Weitere Ergebnisse,” 388). Other methods were made to analyze race through arithmetical means. In 1926, Otto Streng presented a geometrical theorem in which each blood type was assigned a particular point in a triangle. By use of this methodology, Streng felt that he could demonstrate an “ethnic type,” and therefore suggested that racial classification might be better represented through serology than other anthropological characteristics. Streng suggested that his methodology was more concise than other techniques, while in reality many found that his indices of serological similarity instead sooner disguised than clarified such correlations. (Steffan, ed., 1932, 15).

37 Steffan 1925, 370.

84 expected—their racial purity was still intact. Previous physiognomic studies of the

“blond, blue-eyed, lightly-pigmented” Northern European people throughout England,

France, and Germany, led theorists to suspect that they had “kept free of” racial mixing.

This theory was confirmed by seroanthropology; Steffan observed that all of the blood type surveys conducted in Northern Europe revealed that these peoples were members of the Atlantic (or Nordic) race.38

Steffan‟s analyses reveal that he did not believe that all Germans were racially

Nordic. He wanted to examine subjects in Berchtesgaden not because of their racial purity, but because some anthropologists believed that these Germans were Dinarian—a racial type presumed common in Eastern Europe, believed to be the result of mixing between Western and Eastern peoples. According to Steffan, Dinarians were the first

Europeans to have experienced significant Gondwanic influence.39 Blood type research showed that Germans in this area generally had more type B blood than those to the north and west of them. Steffan attributed this increase to earlier migrations of Eastern races, which he believed had been relatively common from the European foothills up to West

Prussia, Posen, Berlin, Leipzig, and even in more isolated areas, such as the “Polish- settled” industrial province of Westphalia.40 The prospect of employment had drawn many Eastern Europeans to Westphalia; their influx had been what Steffan referred to as

“extremely strong.” Their influence became particularly conspicuous, Steffan believed,

38 Ibid., 372. Steffan uses the terms Nordic and Atlantic interchangeably.

39 They were suspected to be related to the “alarodischen” (Caucasian) races. (Steffan 1925, 371).

40 Hirszfeld 1924, 451.

85 if one were to simply review existing racial studies of their “most important” anthropologic traits (Stigmata). Clearly alarmed by the strong Eastern component,

Steffan warned that miscegenation in Westphalia had become “so extreme” that it was comparable to that of a large city.41 To Steffan, the increase in type B blood amongst

Westphalians served as further evidence of racial decline.42

German physicians W. Klein and H. Osthoff of the Municipal Health Office in

Herne, sampled the blood, and recorded various physiognomic characteristics, of 1,229 schoolchildren.43 Existing studies indicated that peoples in this area had elevated levels of type B blood. Like Steffan, Klein and Osthoff theorized that this difference was the result of local industry, which had been responsible for the “strong influx” of foreign workers—from the eastern provinces, but also from the Rhineland and Westphalia. As a result, they divided their subjects into one of three separate groups—“Eastern, Western, or Mixed” (Mischlinge).44 Their results were similar to those previously reported by

Halber and Mydlarski. Blood type B was found to be more common among brunets than blonds, as it was among round skulls as opposed to long ones.45 They believed that

41 Steffan 1925, 375.

42 Dr. Klein‟s blood type survey of 718 individuals in the city of Herne in Westphalia, with its higher incidence of type B blood, seemed to confirm Steffan‟s theory.

43 W. Klein and H. Osthoff, “Hämagglutinine, Rasse und anthropologische Merkmale,” Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie 17, no. 4 (1926): 371.

44 Magnus Hirschfeld, “Über die Verwendung serologischer Methoden zur Rassenforschung,” Zeitschrift für Tierzüchtung und Züchtungsbiologie 8, no. 1 (1926): 135-136.

45 Hirszfeld 1924, 438-439.

86 individuals with type B blood were descendants of Eastern peoples, and therefore appropriately looked Eastern.

Many researchers were much more cautious when interpreting their results.

Although it had focused on the same basic subject—whether or not physiognomy and blood type were related—an article published in the American medical journal Eugenical

News came to a very different set of conclusions.46 Ella F. Grove, of the Cornell

University Institute of Immunological Research, traveled to Japan and the Philippines to study the Ainu peoples. The United States National Research Council expressed particular interest in this group because they were recognized as “pure blooded,” and were believed to be threatened with (racial) extinction. The same principle had applied in part when Steffan chose villages to investigate for racially pure Germans; isolated groups of “unmixed” peoples were preferred for seroanthropological study. The Ainu were regarded to be racially different from surrounding types, and had remained separated throughout the generations. To racial theorists, their physiognomy clearly indicated that they were a distinct racial type. Grove agreed, explaining that all the Ainu had “abundant black hair, black eyes, and the same placement of the eyes and other features, as well as the same skin color.”47 Their appearance differed from that of the surrounding Asian peoples: the Ainu were considered to be “white.” Based on her examinations of the blood and physiognomy of two separate Ainu groups, Grove concluded that blood type

46 E.F. Grove and A.F. Coca, “On the value of the blood group „feature‟ in the study of race relationships,” Eugenical News 11, no. 6 (1926): 89-91.

47 Ibid., 90.

87 was not useful in racial classification.48 The supposed uniqueness of the Ainu racial type was not evident in their blood type distribution. Instead, the blood type indices placed these “white-skinned, hairy peoples” into the same serological category as the „“racially- dissimilar” Senegal Negroes, Sumatra Chinese, Annamese Malays, and Javans.‟49 Grove observed that blood tests could clearly not be used for racial differentiation if such

“widely different races” had the same blood indices.50 By the mid-twenties, there were conflicting views within the scientific community over whether or not blood type and physiognomy were related. Non-physiognomic traits, while a common means of racial classification, were not the only ones referenced. It was commonly believed that every race possessed its own characteristic interconnection of both physical and psychological traits.51

Völkisch theorists believed that Nordic individuals had stronger constitutions than other racial types, which was supposedly evident in their lower incidence of mental and physical disorders. The Nordic mentality was noted for its “industry, vigorous imagination, intelligence, foresight, organizing ability, artistic capacity, individualism, willingness to obey orders, and devotion to plan or idea.”52 German race theorist Fritz

Lenz added the traits of “self-control, self-respect, respect for life and property, desire to

48 The two groups studied were 442 “Sulu Moros” and 500 “Samal Moros, ”

49 E.F. Grove, “On the value of the blood-group feature as a means of determining racial relationship,” Journal of Immunology 12, no. 4 (1926): 251-262, 260.

50 Grove and Coca 1926, 91.

51 Richard T. Gray, About Face: German physiognomic thought from Lavater to Auschwitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), 243.

52 According to German race theorist Eugen Fischer

88 know the unknown, a certain wanderlust, and fondness for the sea.”53 The racial anthropologist Otto Ammon classified the “Aryan longhead” as prepared “to risk death and to work for a poor financial reward in order to attain a higher ideal.”54 In theory,

Nordic individuals were not as likely to be incarcerated in asylums, convicted of a capital crime, or similarly-immoral conduct. It was conceded that some were mentally or physically degenerate, but their incidence was considered minor when compared to its frequency and severity among the “less noble” races. To völkisch blood scientists, who were biased towards equating Western peoples with type A and Eastern with type B, it only made sense for there to be a relationship between blood type and these other, non- physiognomic racial characteristics. As one symptom of this belief, völkisch blood scientists were particularly interested in the serologic type distributions of groups distinguished by some mental or physical affliction. Nordic racial theorists tended to interpret the trait in question—whether it be, for example, mental retardation, criminal tendencies, or venereal infection—as a racial trait.

Blood Type and Genetic Inferiority

Studies of blood and pathological conditions were common and were not necessarily associated with race theory—most were interested in how blood type might alert physicians to predispositions to illness, or which treatment therapies worked better for specific diseases. Testing of blood types was made easier by the fact that the subjects

53 Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 56.

54 Weindling 1989, 167.

89 were often gathered together in one place, such as hospital and asylum inmates, and convicts in prisons. The results served völkisch interests. In 1924, Doctors Franz Schütz and Edgar Wöhlisch, of Kiel and Würzburg universities respectively, found elevated levels of type A blood among college graduates and more type B among prisoners.55

This pattern was confirmed by the anthropologist Max Gundel, also at the University of

Kiel, who reported very dissimilar blood type distributions between those with mental disorders, and those without. He remarked on the “significant increase” (bedeutende

Zunahme) of type B among 422 asylum inmates examined, who had 25.1 percent—a much higher percentage than the 10-12 percent in the lay population.56 Perhaps suspecting a link between blood type B and mental instability, Gundel then decided to research criminals‟ blood types. The results of his surveys of 884 prisoners from various

German penal institutions (those in Neumünster, Rendsburg, Altona, Glückstadt, and

Flensburg) were published in 1926.57 Gundel also compared the prisoners‟ blood type frequencies to those of the surrounding (non-criminal) population of Schleswig-Holstein, who had 41.3 percent type A blood, and 12.5 percent B. In contrast, the prisoners had

55 Franz Schütz and Edgar Wöhlisch, “Bedeutung und Wesen von Hämagglutination und Blutgruppenbildung beim Menschen,” Klinische Wochenschrift 3, no. 36 (1924): 1614-1616. Franz Schütz and Edgar Wöhlisch were physicians at the Hygienic and Medical Clinic of Kiel University and Physiologic Institute of Würzburg University, respectively.

56 Gundel examined 402 asylum inmates: 39.3 percent were type A, 25.1 were type B (see table on page 52 in Hirszfeld, 1924). Ludwik Hirszfeld commented that it was “notable” that Gundel found a higher percentage of type B individuals than the average in Schleswig-Holstein. (Hirszfeld 1924, 481).

57 The results were published on 12 Nov., 1926. [Max Gundel, “Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen an Strafgefangenen,” Klinische Wochenschrift 5, no. 46 (1926): 2165]. See also Max Gundel, “Einige Beobachtungen bei der Rassenbiologischen Durchforschung Schleswig-Holsteins,” Klinische Wochenschrift 5 (1926): 1186.

90

44.2 percent A, and 19.1 percent B.58 What may have appeared minor variations were important, according to Gundel. The most impressive difference was the “significant increase” in blood type B among the prisoners—who had about six percent more than the general population. 59 After rearranging the results, Gundel was able to make the discrepancy even more dramatic; he classified the prisoners into one of three groups, depending on the severity of the crime committed, and then recalculated the blood type frequency for each. Group I included the blood types of all prisoners found guilty of one or more of the following crimes: murder, attempted murder, infanticide, child murder, manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, robbery, and assault. Group II comprised those who had been convicted of theft, attempted theft, and/or concealing stolen property for profit. The last group were those found guilty of arson.60 Group I prisoners were classed as the most heinous criminals, and the seriousness of the crime(s) lessened with categories II and III. Of the 110 offenders in group I, 34.5 percent were type A, and 30 percent type B. With 447 subjects, group II was the largest, and had 46.1 percent type A, and 18.2 percent B. The last group, which consisted of 31 arsonists, had 51.6 type A, and only 3.2 percent B.61 Gundel prepared yet another graph which grouped prisoners

58 Gundel, “Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen,” 2165. These statistics were contrasted with the Germans in Schleswig-Holstein; of 3156 examined, 41.3 percent were type A, and 12.5 percent B. (Hirszfeld, “Über die Konstitutionsserologie,” 430).

59 Gundel, “Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen,” 2165. Compared to the general population of Schleswig- Holstein, the prisoners overall had considerably lower levels of type AB (this had dropped from 5 to 2 percent).

60 Ibid., 2166. Gundel refers to the groups as “A, B, and C,” but I have substituted Roman numerals to prevent confusion.

61 Ibid.

91 according to the length of their sentence. Those with the shortest sentences, one month to three years in length, had 17.4 percent type B. The second group, which included prisoners with sentences ranging from four to eight years, had 21.2 percent type B blood.

As would be expected by the results of his previous compilation, the final, and most severe criminals, also had the longest prison terms—from nine years to life; their incidence of type B blood was a noticeably higher 33.3 percent.62 To Gundel, these results confirmed the fact that blood type B was “much more frequent” among severe and repeat (rückfällige) felons.63

The clearly biased interpretation of the results made Gundel‟s völkisch tendencies obvious. His study strongly suggested a definitive relationship between blood type and criminal behavior. Not only was type B more widespread among felons in general, but it was especially frequent among the worst prisoners— those found guilty of offenses such as murder, manslaughter, and rape. Many within this group had been repeat offenders, and some were so delinquent as to be categorized as “beyond reform,” a source of considerable anxiety during the eugenic concerns of the Weimar Republic. The pattern was reversed concerning type A blood, which was less common among the prison population overall (when compared to law-abiding Germans), and its decline became even more conspicuous after the results were arranged according to conviction or duration of sentence.

62 Blood type A distributions in the three groups: I 46.8 percent, II 42.5 percent, III 33.3 percent.

63 Gundel, “Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen,” 2166.

92

Gundel‟s initial research on blood type distributions amongst mentally unstable groups confirmed that they had more type B blood than the regular population. His subsequent work on prisoners revealed the same, which strengthened the notion that type

B blood was a marker of racial and eugenic inferiority. Gundel‟s statistics drew particular interest during the Weimar Republic, amidst anxieties about the cost and care of the mentally and physically incapacitated, as well as the rising crime rate. Most

Weimar prison officials and criminologists were convinced that some individuals were destined to offend repeatedly, and that biological factors played an important role in these

“incorrigibles” (unverbesserlich).64 While some prisoners may have been suitable for rehabilitation, many authorities were of the opinion that the incorrigibles had to be isolated indefinitely—in most cases for life. It was “madness,” Franz Liszt exclaimed, to ever again let such an offender “loose on the public like a wild beast.”65 The Weimar shift in categorizing criminals was strongly influenced in Bavaria by the prison doctor

Theodor Viernstein, a key figure in the criminal-biological movement and a fanatical racial-hygienist. In several high-profile lectures in 1930, Viernstein claimed that half of all inmates were the dreaded “incorrigible,” and this was mostly on hereditary grounds.66

Gundel‟s study was certainly relevant to larger German societal and political concerns and would be repeatedly cited throughout serological literature and in particular, because

64 Nikolaus Wachsmann. “Between reform and repression: imprisonment in Weimar Germany.” The Historical Journal 45, no. 2 (2002): 423.

65 Ibid., 415.

66 Ibid., 429.

93 of its racial implications, among those with far-right tendencies. Other German physicians who duplicated Gundel‟s research on separate subject groups with mental disorders reported a similar increase in type B blood. 67 When compared to the “normal”

German populace, researchers W. Dölter and H. Heimann reported more type B among epileptic and paralyzed individuals. Numerous studies pointed to its higher incidence among such groups as imbeciles, manic-depressives, psychopaths, and hysterics, which led others to conclude that there was in fact a “clear relationship” between mental health and blood type.68 This pattern was intriguing. One examiner reiterated that a connection between blood type and illness would prove “important in light of racial studies.”69

Völkisch blood scientists also anticipated more frequent diagnoses of physical illness among individuals with type B blood. Like studies of blood and race, extensive serologic studies of sick individuals had only followed after World War I. In 1921, an

American physician commented that analyses of blood and disease had received

“practically no consideration.”70 One of the earliest surveys of blood type and disease was published in 1921 by British physicians J. Arthur Buchanan and Edith T. Higley.

Curious about whether or not there was a “fixed relationship” between the two, they

67 Refer to Kretschmer, Körperbau und Charakter (Berlin: Springer,1926).

68 See B. Chominskij and L. Schustowa, “Zur Frage des Zusammenhanges zwischen Blutgruppe und psychischer Erkrangung,” Zeitschrift für Neurologie 115 (1928): 304.

69 L.H. Snyder, “Human blood groups: their inheritance and racial significance,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 9, no. 2 (1926): 250.

70 J.A. Buchanan and E.T. Higley, “The relationship of blood groups to disease,” British Journal of Experimental Pathology 2 (1921): 247.

94 analyzed the blood types of numerous subjects suffering from a range of diseases.71 The results were inconclusive, however. In the postwar rush of blood type surveys, many examiners returned to this question. The results varied. In a study of 250 individuals suffering from tuberculosis, two Russian physicians noticed an increase in type B blood.72 A German physician, M.M. Alperin, however, found both types A and B to be elevated. 73 Another physician in Moscow examined a group of malarial individuals and reported a predominance of type AB blood.74 Although his group was much smaller

(only 100 cases), one English researcher reported the same. Ludwig Hirszfeld believed that certain diseases could be correlated with certain blood types.75 In the same year, however, an American serologist claimed that there was no “conclusive evidence” of a relationship between blood type and disease.76

A broad overview of studies on blood and disease indicates that these surveys often presented inconsistent, and even contradictory, information. German examiners

Hallo and Lenard could not detect any difference between the blood type distributions of

71 Including carcinoma, pernicious anemia, lymphatic leukemia, myelogenous leukemia, splenic anemia, hemophilia, purpura, kidney disease, cardiac/valvular/myocardial disease, thyroid disease, non-cancerous tumors, calculi, fibroid uterus, gall-bladder disease, ulcers, and jaundice.

72 The increase in B was also associated with a lower frequency of type O blood.

73 Alperin, Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift. 1926; Hallo and Lenard, Münch Med. Wochenschr. 1926; Lachowetzkij, Moskovskij medicinskij žurnal 1924, Nr. 5.

75 Hirszfeld, L. “Über die Konstitutionsserologie,” 423. Ludwig and Hanna Hirszfeld did publish a study on blood type and diphtheria, see L. and H. Hirszfeld, “Étude sur l‟hérédité en rapport avec la sensibilité à la diphtheria,” Comptes Rendus Des séances de la société de Biologie 90, no. 15 (1924): 1198-1200.

76 Snyder 1926, 251.

95 consumptive and healthy individuals.77 A Russian physician who examined 532 patients with scarlet fever, also found their blood type frequencies to be comparable to those of the general population. Many other physicians, reporting from various nations on an assortment of diseases, came to the same conclusion and were not able to detect any difference in blood type distributions between their sick and healthy subjects.78

Nonetheless, due to conflicting evidence, the purported relationship between blood type and disease would remain a contentious topic and relevant studies would continue for years.

By the mid-twenties, the Hirszfelds‟ original theory of different serological types had been broadly received and reproduced on an international scale. In 1926, American blood scientist Laurence H. Snyder commented that biochemical indices of various nationalities had been determined “everywhere.”79 The initial appeal of the study can be attributed to its relative ease of application and its objectivity. Unlike racial physiognomy, blood typing did not involve the use of color charts to assess a subject‟s hair, skin, and/or eye color, or calipers for their skull measurements. A clumping reaction indicated which one of the four types the blood was, with little apparent ambiguity. When enough samples had been gathered, the next step was to calculate the group‟s racial index. In addition to these attributes, there was the simple allure of a

77 Alperin, ref. Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift 1926; Hallo and Lenard, Münch Med. Wochenschr. 1926.

78 As cited by Chominski and Schustowa Alexander, Johannsen, M. Hirschfeldt and A. Hittmair, Geza Weitzner, Hoche and Moritsch.

79 See Table XI “Percentages of the four blood groups among various peoples, with the frequency of each factor concerned.” Includes all (international) blood type surveys up to 1926. (Snyder 1926, 245-247).

96 potentially more efficient means of racial classification. Despite these advantages, interest in seroanthropology was not unanimous. Instead, it tended to vary by country; an indication of the geographical dimension of the research can be found in the country of origin of the authors.80 Because of its initial publication in English and French, the

Hirszfelds‟ research first gained the attention of physicians in Great Britain, the United

States, and France. With the publication of Verzár and Weszeczky‟s study, interest in

Central and Eastern Europe followed shortly thereafter. Even Ludwig Hirszfeld referred to Verzár and Weszeczky‟s work as “interesting and important,” noting that it had confirmed the fact that (the frequencies of) blood types A and B were “racial characteristics.”81 After several years of postwar research, however, American and

British interest in seroanthropology began to decline. Its appropriation by völkisch

European physicians would gradually replace their disinterest.

Völkisch Research

Certain traits of völkisch blood type research distinguished it from impartial analyses. Nordic blood scientists strongly emphasized results which aligned with their racial beliefs. They favored the Hirszfelds‟ theory because it implied significant racial differences between the peoples of the East and West, and because it associated the

German people with “Western European” type A blood. Consequently, Paul Steffan eagerly reported elevated frequencies of type A blood among the Germans he studied, but

80 William H. Schneider, “The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: initial discovery and diffusion,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 18, no. 3 (1996): 287-288.

81 Hirszfeld 1924, 437-438.

97 failed to acknowledge examples to the contrary (i.e., Schiff and Ziegler). For this same reason, völkisch scientists stressed correlations between positive characteristics and type

A blood—and negative ones with type B. Because of its purported origins in the East, far from the Aryan peoples, biased theorists considered B an indicator of racial and eugenic inferiority. To verify that the two were related, many would refer to studies which indicated that Nordic “long heads” and light pigmentation were more common among subjects with type A blood, and “round heads” and darker coloring amongst type B individuals. The racial biases of Schütz, Wöhlisch, and Gundel were evident in their contention that type A blood was elevated amongst college graduates, while type B was more common amongst mental patients and hardened criminals.

Völkisch interpretations of blood science required exaggeration. Blood type surveys had revealed differences between ethnicities, but seroanthropology was hardly an exact science. In Verzár and Weszeczky‟s study, type A blood was 43.5 percent among the Germans, but only 39.7 among the Hungarians. The Germans, in turn, only had 12.6 percent type B blood, while it was 18.8 among the “Magyar” Hungarians. At first glance, the differences undoubtedly must have appeared extremely minor. Still, Verzár and

Weszeczky would repeatedly emphasize the distinct racial differences between the two groups, claiming that the Germans had retained their “complete racial difference” from the surrounding population. Based on these arguably slight differences in percentages, they claimed that the blood types could be used as racial characteristics. Similarly, his studies of mentally-unstable Germans in asylums and prisons led Gundel to fixate on type

B blood as a marker of inferiority. In reality, the highest percentage of type B recorded

98 by Gundel was 33 percent, which meant that the vast majority of the subject group did not have type B blood. At 33 percent, its incidence was much higher than the general population of Schleswig-Holstein, which was reportedly 13 percent type B blood, but hardly enough of a difference to propose reforming the penal system. Other examiners also employed loose statistical terms to support their argument; Halber and Mydlarski, as well as Klein and Osthoff, claimed that more brunets appeared to have type B blood and rounder heads—both indicators of Eastern racial influence. Steffan also broadly referred to the “Mongoloid” (mongolide) bodily characteristics of the peoples of Central Europe, who also had elevated levels of type B blood.82 Making such statements in the broad science of seroanthropology required overlooking potential flaws or contradictions in the research. For instance, nowhere in his study did Gundel consider the fact that each of the four blood types had been present in the population—a common criticism leveled by others. Neither did he present his theory with the stipulation that further research would be necessary before implicating type B blood as a marker of mental instability.

Omissions were hallmarks of völkisch racial research—regardless of the trait (blood type or other) in question.

The reality of the situation was that seroanthropology had many inconsistencies.

Comparison between studies revealed that blood type distributions could vary considerably even within the same racial types. For instance, while Hirszfeld reported a blood type index of 4.5 for the English in 1918, a later analysis by authors Buchanan and

82 Steffan 1925, 384-385.

99

Higley—again of English subjects—yielded a much lower 2.5. Among the Italians he examined, Dr. Emilio Rizzatti calculated a value of 5.4, yet his colleague Ruggero

Romanese‟s survey came to only 2.1. Schiff and Ziegler found Berliners to have a biochemical index of 2.1. As Magnus Hirschfeld pointed out, this was quite close to the

Jews‟ 2.7—a difference so negligible that both would have been classed together as

“intermediate” types, according to the Hirszfeld biochemical index.83 Mixed findings led

German Jewish physician Magnus Hirschfeld to question the “usefulness of the blood types in racial studies.”84 Another noted that the “cradle” of the individual races could apparently not be learned from blood type data alone.85

Opinions on a possible connection between blood type and physiognomy were similarly diverse. Ever since his pre-war research with von Dungern—involving the blood types and physiognomies of a schnauzer, shepherd, and their offspring—Ludwig

Hirszfeld suspected that there was no fixed relationship between blood group and appearance.86 Later, in Salonika, a cursory examination of some of the subjects‟ physiognomic traits seemed to confirm this. Nonetheless, the matter was still pursued as both physiognomy and blood type were commonly regarded as Mendelian traits. A connection would have been extremely useful in racial research. In 1924, explaining that he had been occupied with the matter for a “long period of time,” Hirszfeld reiterated his

83 Hirschfeld 1926, 136.

84 Ibid.

85 Snyder 1926, 256.

86 In his study, Hirszfeld used a German Shepherd and a Schnauzer. (Hirschfeld 1926, 139).

100 original claim that physiognomic characteristics and blood type were not related.87

German physician Wilhelm Sucker agreed. His research indicated that the people of

Leipzig were very similar in their blood type distribution to the Balkan peoples examined by the Hirszfelds; the two groups, however, generally “looked different,” with the

Germans tending to have much lighter pigmentation than individuals from the Balkans.88

American researcher Grove similarly observed that one racial type of subjects, the Ainu, had the same blood type index as the Senegalese Negroes, a group regarded by anthropologists as an altogether separate racial type. The reverse set of these circumstances could occur as well: groups could appear similar, but have very different blood type distributions. Portuguese physician Dr. Mendes-Corrèa referred to the

Japanese and Chinese who, in spite of their different blood type indices, were known to fully resemble one another (des affinitiés anthropologiques bien connues).89 To complicate matters even further, some studies revealed that even groups of the same nationality and “relative physiognomic homogeneity” could have widely-divergent blood type indices. Steffan found that the blood type distributions of some groups in Central

Europe, “in spite of their appearance,” suggested that they were related to Northern

Europeans. How the “Alpine” groups of Central Europe came to acquire “Mongoloid” bodily characteristics, he did not know; the blood type index of “racially pure Mongols”

87 Hirszfeld 1924, 1180.

88 Sucker 1924, 487.

89 A. Mendes-Corrèa, “Sur les prétendues „races‟ sérologiques,” L’Anthropologie 36 (1926): 440.

101 did not indicate that they were closely related to the “Alpine” peoples.90 Mendes-Corrèa interpreted such results more bluntly, commenting that the racial types of A and B simply did not correspond to those categories already established by physiognomy.91

In spite of such inconsistencies, many felt that there were still reasons not to completely abandon studies of blood and race. In its defense, völkisch physicians frequently drew attention to the positive attributes of blood science. Blood type was still predominantly recognized as a Mendelian trait, and hereditary features were still the preferred means of racial classification. Some still questioned whether or not blood type might change with environment, but these were in the vast minority.92 Extensive postwar studies further confirmed the inheritance of the blood types—by 1924 more than 600 families altogether had been studied.93 Most agreed that blood type was a lifelong

90 Steffan 1925, 387. Steffan explains that how the Alpine came to acquire Mongoloid bodily characteristics was unknown—it was “just as difficult” to explain why the North American Indians have these as well. The racial index of “pure Mongols” did not suggest a relation to the Alpine, however. For the time being, in contrast to Günther, Steffan did not label the Alpine as “Eastern.” (Ibid., 378).

91 Mendes-Corrèa 1926, 439.

92 Studies such as Harper and Byron, “Influence of diet on blood grouping,” JAMA 79 (1922): 2222-2223. In 1925, German physician Groll mentioned that “some believed” that the protein in blood could change, after which point its racial value would be partially, or completely, lost. [Groll, “Blutuntersuchung zum Rassennachweis,” Berliner Tierärztliche Wochenschrift (1925): 113-116, 114]. By 1923, many researchers had clearly shown that the blood groups were in no way affected by various factors, such as quinine, calcium, digitalis, salicylates, arseno-benzol, arsenic, mercury, ether, chloroform, morphine, protein therapy, serum and vaccine therapy, infectious and other diseases, pregnancy and childbirth, castration, sports, X-rays, radium, galvanization, and so on. Blood groups even remained constant after death. [L.W. Howard Bertie, trans. Individuality of the Blood in clinical and forensic medicine (Oxford University Press, 1932), 45].

93 Snyder 1926, 237. This refers to international studies on inheritance. Felix Bernstein, a leading biomathematician confirmed and amended the work of Hirszfeld and Dungern on ABO blood groups describing a more exact manner of inheritance. The three allele concept (A, B, and O) was found to fit the population and family data best. [A. Matthew Gottlieb, “Karl Landsteiner, the Melancholoy Genius: His time and his colleagues, 1868-1943,” Transfusion Medicine Reviews 12, no. 1 (January 1998): 21].

102 characteristic.94 By 1926, the German courts had even begun to allow blood typing in resolving paternity cases and as forensic evidence. Legal use and recognition of the blood types was so reliable that some cases resulted in charges of perjury, or even

“reverse perjury,” if blood types revealed that an individual had lied about their past sexual activity.

As a fixed, hereditary characteristic, the blood types could be used to study “racial origins and relationships.”95 Paul Steffan believed that the bulk of research indicated that blood type could serve as a racial characteristic, and Ludwik Hirszfeld continued to maintain that blood science had proved to be useful in anthropological studies.96

Furthermore, proponents of seroanthropology rightfully pointed out that it was a very new area of study—really only a few years old, and many theorized that the anthropological significance of blood would only become apparent after more extensive studies, and more involving blood in addition to other inherited traits. When American blood scientist Ella Grove questioned the racial significance of blood because of the fact that two disparate racial types shared the same biochemical index, her colleague Dr.

Clark Wissler remarked that the only way to prove the value of the blood was “to take some definite anatomical character and correlate [the two].”97 To Grove, the trait of blood type alone did not seem useful for racial classification, but she admitted that it

94 Due to factors such as age, sex, vocation, disease, drugs, anesthesia, Roentgen rays, climate or living conditions. (Snyder 1926, 251).

95 Ibid., 233.

96 Steffan 1925, 390 and Hirszfeld 1924, 428.

97 Grove and Coca 1926, 91.

103 might be useful when “supplemented with other characteristics”—such as the “the color of the eyes, hair and skin.”98 Karl Landsteiner similarly remarked that blood type by itself could not be used to identify an individual‟s race; it had to be placed in the context of other anthropological traits. It was not possible, he claimed, to make a system of races by taking the size of the nose or any other one character, and the same was true of blood type; it was just “one factor” in classification.99

In addition, because of its newness, no specific protocol had been established in the postwar rush of blood type surveys. All types of physicians had researched seroanthropology—analysis was not limited to anthropologists or blood scientists. One theorist commented that blood studies merited “closer study by competent anthropologists”—a remark clearly directed at medical “amateurs” who, curious about the new science, had set out to investigate it themselves.100 Because of this, the methodology in blood surveys was not consistent. If performed incorrectly, some argued that even the relatively-simple procedure of typing blood could yield inaccurate results.

There were inconsistencies elsewhere, as well, such as how many subjects were needed to support a hypothesis. No number had been agreed upon, but most knew “too small” when they saw it. Even with the volume of research, and repeated reports of discrepancies, certain researchers stubbornly clung to the belief that blood science had yet to reach its potential. With the correct guidance and supervision to ensure

98 Ibid.

99 Ibid.

100 Snyder 1926, 257.

104 consistency between studies, they speculated that blood science might provide useful, hitherto-unknown details about race, mental illness, pathology, criminology, and other traits. Even Ludwig Hirszfeld remarked on the irregularities in applications of research: the methods used were inconsistent and the subject samples were sometimes too small to allow for larger generalizations.101 In 1926, he called for continued (well-organized) seroanthropological research and even suggested extensive blood type surveys of primates across the globe to determine whether or not they had “different blood type distributions as humans do.”102 Hirszfeld firmly believed that blood science would contribute to some of the most pressing issues in anthropology.103

As a result, when the German Institute for Blood Group Research was established in 1926, it was addressing a field of study which had already been the subject of years of research. Postwar blood type research turned up many issues. The results of analyses prompted further interest in seroanthropology for some, while contradictions and inconsistencies discouraged others. This caused a decline in seroanthropological research, particularly within Britain and the United States; however, many remained uncertain as to whether blood and race, but also blood and eugenics, were related. After this point, studies of blood and race would be more strongly marked by a völkisch presence and the contributions of Central and Eastern European scientists. These researchers, too, must have been aware of uncertainties in the field, but reasoned that

101 Hirszfeld 1924, 434.

102 Ibid., 427.

103 For details on methodology, see Ibid., 455.

105 these might be overcome through more careful and thorough research. Furthermore, there had been correlations realized between blood and race. In addition, pending the uselessness of race, there was still the possibility that blood science could assist in areas of medical, social, and legal reform.

CHAPTER IV

ORGANIZING SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN GERMANY: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR BLOOD GROUP RESEARCH

After several years of postwar research and dozens of blood type surveys, seroanthropology had developed into a contentious area of study. Völkisch researchers emphasized findings which affiliated type A blood with the Western European races, and contrasted this with the supposedly Eastern trait of type B blood. There had been results which indicated that individuals with type A blood were predominantly blond-haired—a recognized Aryan, or Western European, characteristic. Predictably, those with blood type B were mostly dark-haired. Nordic theorists suspected that differences in blood type were not limited to physiognomy, either. Because of its non-European origins, blood type B was also believed to be more common among individuals with flawed genetics, which manifested itself in criminality, mental disorders, and disease. Some even claimed that type B blood predisposed one to infection with syphilis.1 To völkisch theorists, these patterns made sense: type B blood was connected to weak or faulty constitutions because the Eastern peoples were physically and morally “inferior” to the races of Western

Europe. By the mid-twenties, the balance of interest in seroanthropology had begun to

1 Katja Geisenhainer, "Rasse ist Schicksal". Otto Reche (1879-1966): ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkundle (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002), 137.

106 107 shift from British and American researchers, who had learned of the Hirszfelds‟ study somewhat earlier, towards Central and Eastern Europe. Encouraged by the blood type studies, researchers in these nations believed that seroanthropology might assist in meeting their racial and eugenic objectives. In response, the German Institute for Blood

Group was established in 1926.

This chapter will focus on the formation of this institute and the reactions of the

German medical community and state to its research plans. I will demonstrate how Paul

Steffan‟s postwar studies of the blood types of “native Germans” piqued the interest of anthropologist Otto Reche and played a key role in the decision to create an organization focused solely on blood science. Reche and Steffan, along with Hungarian blood scientists Verzár and Wescezky, founded the German Institute for Blood Group Research which, in spite of its appellation, was receptive to foreign membership and contributions.

Although Steffan co-founded the institute, I will focus primarily on the völkisch tendencies of his colleague Reche, as he was the principal founder and Chair of the institute. I will demonstrate how Reche‟s instruction and experience in the field of racial anthropology, and his wartime experiences, shaped his decision to form the institute and would continue to influence its methodologies. This chapter will further examine the research agenda of the institute and the results of Reche‟s efforts to acquire state funding.

108

Otto Reche and Racial Anthropology

Reche was born a Prussian citizen in 1879, in lower Silesia, on the border of

Bohemia. His mother had been born in Magdeburg, and his father in Upper Silesia.2 He studied medicine at the universities of Jena and Breslau, where he was exposed to a range of subjects—including anthropology, ethnology, anatomy, zoology, geology, geography, comparative philology, botany, but also folk history and prehistory. Reche was instructed by Ernst Haeckel, a recognized figure in German race science, who had once been an assistant to Rudolf Virchow. Haeckel‟s Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte

(Natural History of Creation), published in 1868, represented the human species in a hierarchy from the lowest “racial types,” such as the Papuan and Hottentot, to the highest, or the Caucasian peoples, which included the “Indo-German and Semitic” races.3 His penchant for ranking peoples was also evident during the polygenism/monogenism controversy—polygenists believed that the different human races had distinct origins, while monogenists claimed they came from common biologic roots. Haeckel believed that Orangutans were the primal ancestors of the Asians, the Gorillas of the Africans, while Europeans had descended from the Chimpanzees—generally recognized as the most “advanced” of the primates. Haeckel and Reche corresponded on many subjects— especially zoology, biology, the origins of man and the different races—especially the

2 Ibid., 23.

3 Robert J. Richards, The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle Over Evolutionary Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). It is important to note that Haeckel did not support natural selection, but instead believed in a Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. [Michael Ruse, The Darwinian Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1979)]. There is still discussion over whether Haeckel was a Darwinian or a Lamarckian; there is much debate surrounding Haeckel‟s role in the rise of völkisch race science in the beginning of the twentieth century.

109

Aryans (Indogermanen).4 Their correspondence might explain Reche‟s inclination to accept that the Eastern and Western peoples had developed separately of one another.

Reche had also been a student of Felix von Luschan. Unlike Haeckel, Luschan was widely regarded as the leader of the liberal tradition in German anthropology after the death of Virchow in 1902. In 1911, Luschan was appointed the first Chair of

Anthropology at Humboldt University in Berlin. He also acted as director of the department for Africa and Oceania at the Museum for Ethnology (Museum für

Völkerkunde) in Berlin.5 Although Luschan did not make hierarchical observations similar to those of his colleague Haeckel, he was similarly interested in racially categorizing individuals. Luschan became particularly well known for his creation of a chromatic skin pigmentation scale. To determine the category of the subject, the examiner would compare their skin tone to one of Luschan‟s thirty-six opaque glass tiles.

This emphasis on physiognomy possibly played into Reche‟s consistent reliance upon physical “racial indicators.” Later, he would eventually prepare careful guidelines for such criteria to be collected with blood type.

In the summer of 1906, Reche was hired by the Hamburg Museum for Ethnology as a scientific assistant and director of the anthropological department. By the following winter, he was already giving lectures on “Characteristics of the human races,”

“Geographic expansion of the human races,” and “The influence of environment and

4 Geisenhainer 2002, 46.

5 James Braund, “The Case of Heinrich Wilhelm Poll (1877-1939): A German-Jewish geneticist, Eugenicist, Twin Researcher, and Victim of the Nazis,” Journal of the History of Biology 41, no. 1 (March, 2008): 10.

110 culture on physiognomy.”6 In the following year, Reche taught physiognomic measuring techniques in his first “Anthropometric Practicum.” He provided instruction on conventional means of racial categorization, but also hoped to revise and improve existing methodologies. In his early years at Hamburg, Reche closely examined skull and nasal indices of both humans and animals. Similar to the cranial index, the nasal index was simply another characteristic of the skull used within racial anthropology. The supposed objectivity of each trait made them popular references amongst race theorists.

In principle, measuring the skull and nose were simple. For each, low figures were associated with “inferior” racial types, while higher results indicated “superior” racial makeup. Among his subjects, Reche found the lowest nasal index to belong to a Fox terrier, and the highest to a person from Hamburg or “a representative of the Northern

European race.”7 Although nasal indices were used to classify dog types, Reche‟s reference to the lowest nasal index of the Fox terrier seems odd because he has compared the dimensions of canine and human nasal indices. The implication is clear; Reche has contrasted the two to stress the supposed vast differences between individuals at opposite ends of the “nasal spectrum.” Why did Reche decide to focus on the nose instead of some other trait? Given their choice, most racial analysts undoubtedly would have preferred measuring only the nose, as it was considerably smaller than the skull, and

6 Geisenhainer 2002, 58.

7 Anhand einer Messtabelle versuchte er (Reche) zu zeigen, dass unter Anwendung des von ihm entwickelten Indices der Foxterrier den niedrigsten Nasenindex habe und “bei den angeführten Hamburger Schädeln, die als Vertreter der nordeuropäischen Rasse gelten mögen” die höchsten Nasenindexes errechnet würden. (Ibid., 58).

111 therefore less affected by the complexities of facial shapes.8 Reche‟s first anthropological publication in Hamburg proposed a new, supposedly more efficient method of measuring the nose as a means of racial differentiation.9 However, his proposal failed to elicit any notable response from German anthropologists. In the years leading up to World War I, Reche continued his employment in Hamburg, where he remained for the most part with the exception of an anthropological fieldwork study in the South Pacific between 1908 and 1910.

In this timeframe, Reche participated in the Hamburg South Sea Expedition, a study which proposed a complete survey of the anthropological and ethnological traits of natives in Melanesia. The research took place in a militarized atmosphere, in which scientists often used weapons and threats of violence to force their subjects to hand over cultural artifacts or participate in measurements. Scholars often arrived at villages backed by armed escorts, as groups of antagonized islanders had attacked the anthropologists on several occasions.10 They were able to collect the skulls and skeletons of about 800 (deceased) subjects for the Hamburg museum.11 Reche examined various physiognomic traits of his subjects. He had separate skin and eye color charts, but also

8 For instance, in the 1890s, Aurol von Török, who held the first anthropological chair at the University of Budapest, made 5,371 measurements on a single skull. [Benoit Massin, “From Virchow to Fischer: Physical Anthropology and „Modern Race Theories‟ in Wilhelmine Germany (1890-1914),” in Volksgeist as Method and Ethic. Essays on Boasian Ethnography and the German Anthropological Tradition, ed. George W. Stocking (Madison, 1996): 107].

9 Geisenhainer 2002, 58.

10 Glen Penny and Matti Bunzl, eds. Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of Empire (University of Michigan Press, 2003), 214.

112 recorded hair color. Of particular interest to him were the subject‟s head- and face- shapes. He observed that the physiognomy of most of the subjects was “was quite dull and less intelligent…this race gave a very ethnic and primitive impression” (recht stumpf und wenig intelligent).12 He commented that some of the South Sea natives had an almost Jewish appearance (ein fast jüdisches Aussehen)—from their Jewish noses to their

Jewish profiles.13 Reche and his colleagues published their results in the series

Ergebnisse der Südsee Expedition 1908-1910 (Results of the South Sea Expedition).14

For his role, Reche was awarded a medal of honor from the city government.15

During World War I, Reche took part in both active military service and in anthropologic research. He was thirty-five when the war broke out in the summer of

1914, was commissioned as a Lieutenant and sent to the front, where he was appointed

Major Lieutenant early in 1915.16 As a result of a gunshot wound, Reche was relieved of duty in October, 1917, after which point he joined a study on prisoners of war.17 Similar

11 Josef Mengele took his first doctor‟s degree under Theodor Mollison, a member of the German Institute for Blood Group Research, with a paper on anomalies of the jaw detected on Melanesian skulls possibly stemming from the spoils of Otto Reche. [Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, The Holocaust and History: The Known, The Unknown, The Disputed, and The Reexamined (Indiana University Press, 2002), 121].

12 Geisenhainer 2002, 67.

13 Ibid.

14 Thilenius, Georg, ed. Ergebnisse der Südsee-expedition 1908-1910 (Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter & Co.m.b.H., 1936). See also, Otto Reche, “Untersuchungen über das Wachstum und die Geschlechtsreife bei Melanesischen Kindern,” Korrespondenzblatt Deutsch Gesellschaft für Anthropologie 41, no. 7.

15 Berenbaum and Peck 2002, 120.

16 On August 1, 1914, he was named Lieutenant of Militia (Landwehr), then appointed (Ober) lieutenant on February 9, 1915. (Geisenhainer 2002, 94).

113 to the circumstances in Salonika, the wartime confinement of diverse peoples in other areas of Europe provided ideal conditions for anthropological research. In contrast to the

Hirszfelds‟ study, however, these other analyses were primarily interested in contributing to the development of physical anthropology—particularly in Germany and Austria. As indicated in their research, many anthropologists in these nations regarded the soldiers held in prisoner of war camps as prime “material” for scientific research.18 These studies were often initiated and financially supported by the state; in 1915 a commission was established in Germany to gather information on different racial groups in their camps.

The study that Reche was involved in was directed German anthropologist Rudolf Pöch and his assistant Josef Weninger. They arranged for the examination of several thousand captured soldiers in camps in both Austria-Hungary and Germany.19 Thousands of data sheets were compiled on these groups, in addition to hundreds of photographs, plaster casts of heads, and hair samples collected.20 Felix von Luschan helped coordinate the study, working with Pöch to standardize physiognomic measurements. He eventually invited Reche, a previous student of his, to join the project.

Reche‟s interpretation of his findings reveals his developing preoccupation with

European racial types, and in particular the Germans. The subjects Reche examined were

17 Reche was shot in the chest, and this injury caused an “innervation” of the heart, which affected its beat. (Ibid., 94). See also Margit Berner, “From „Prisoner of War Studies‟ to Proof of Paternity: Racial Anthropologists and the Measuring of „Others‟ in Austria,” in Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940, eds. Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling (Central European University Press, 2006): 44.

18 Ibid., 42.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid., 43.

114 primarily of Central or Eastern European descent. Despite their relatively close geographic proximities, Reche claimed that there were distinct racial differences between his subject groups, and often drew attention to those individuals of “superior” racial stock, or those with “German” racial traits. He concluded that Estonians, Latvians, and

Lithuanians possessed an extraordinarily strong proportion of “Northern European blood,” and that the Flemish were “anthropologically German.”21 Reche‟s early schooling and participation in studies reveal his developing völkisch tendencies, as well as his reliance upon physiognomy in determining race.

After the war, Reche remained in Hamburg until 1924, when he was named

Professor of Anthropology and Ethnography at the University of Vienna. In December of

1924, he was appointed Vice President of the Vienna Institute of Anthropology, of which he had been a correspondent member since 1920.22 As a professor, Reche would repeat lectures on anthropometric practice consistent with his previous work. His subject matter and methodology did not noticeably shift until 1926, when he was almost certainly first introduced to the concept of seroanthropology. In that year, Dr. Paul Steffan presented the results of his blood type surveys to the Vienna Institute of Anthropology. Steffan expressed his belief that the blood types could be used as a racial characteristic. The possibility of a new means of racial classification would have been interesting to Reche, as would have the intent of Steffan‟s research, which was to determine the extent

“Eastern” type B blood had affected “pure” German stock. Like Reche, Steffan‟s

21 Ibid., 44.

22 Geisenhainer 2002, 113.

115 völkisch tendencies were expressed in his scientific work. Despite the fact that it was long understood to be the natural consequence of incompatibility between types, the

“clumping” or agglutination of blood was attributed by Steffan to a more sinister cause.

He claimed in 1923 that

the agglutination of red blood cells to a foreign blood type (serum) suggests that these cells are all equipped with immunity against this type. Immunity is always formed in response to a threat—similar to reactions against parasites or poisons. Therefore, when one blood type agglutinates certain cells, but has no influence upon others, this confirms to us that the cells of some men in relation to others are perceived as foreign...23

Steffan intentionally likened incompatible blood types to “parasites,” or “poisons.” It was not uncommon for Nordic race theorists to refer to allegedly inferior racial types as such; Steffan was simply applying this same principle to blood by likening serologic incompatibility to a hostile, “foreign,” bacterial source. 24

Steffan would have had a particularly receptive audience in Reche, who had expressed mutual interests in identifying and preserving the German race. Furthermore, his political activities indicate that Reche‟s concerns for the German Volk had become even more pronounced after the war. The already-low German birthrate had declined even further and the racially “most valuable” among Germans were also having the fewest children. Even the German peasants, Reche exclaimed, the “healthiest racial

23 Myriam Spörri, “‟Jüdisches Blut‟: Zirkulationen zwischen Literatur, Medizin und politischer Presse, 1918-1933,” Österreichische Zeitung für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3 (2005): 36.

24 Ibid. Similar analogies—again, though incorrect—were often repeated in the blood group research— despite Italian serologist Leone Lattes report in 1923 that “at the present time, the view that iso- agglutination is related to disease of any kind is definitely abandoned and is only of historical interest.” [Leone Lattes, “L‟individualità del sangue,” Bibl. Di. Haematol. 1 (1923), translated into English Individuality of the Blood in Biology and in Clinical and Forensic Medicine (Oxford University Press, 1932)].

116 stock,” were practicing birth control.25 Reche was also concerned about the effects of miscegenation upon the German people. Consequently, Steffan‟s research would have seemed promising. His analyses of “native” or “original” Germans revealed that they had elevated levels of Western type A blood. Reche was evidently intrigued by the possibility of a more efficient means of racial classification. With his own training and experience in conventional (often physiognomic) methods, he was aware of the drawbacks of existing techniques. In his own practice, Reche had found determining race especially difficult in individuals who were “mixed.” In such instances, he felt it necessary to examine the entire family—both children and adults. In order to avoid mistakes, Reche also advised repeatedly measuring children throughout the course of their development as it was known that external characteristics could alter with time.

Even with such precautions, however, accurate racial classification of a mixed people might still prove entirely futile, as “almost every phenotype could be a falsification of the actual facts.”26 In comparison, simply testing an individual‟s blood would have seemed much more attractive. Unlike the range of anthropomorphic racial criteria, blood type was objective. Its unchanging, heritable nature was well-documented. It would not be necessary to reexamine subjects periodically, as blood type did not change; it was set by the first year of life. Rare medical reports of blood types that had changed within an individual were disregarded by the German medical establishment and simply attributed to flawed research.

25 Geisenhainer 2002, 121.

26 Ibid., 115.

117

Reche had also remarked on the impracticalities and inconvenience of physiognomic research during his prewar fieldwork in the South Pacific. Measuring subjects had often been time-consuming, as it was not uncommon for anthropologists to make detailed physical examinations with numerous calipers and color charts. To expedite the process, Reche had used specific hair and eye color charts in his evaluations.

Nonetheless, he still experienced difficulties in quickly and efficiently examining so many individuals. 27 In addition, Reche‟s analyses were further delayed by the role of interpreters, who were often employed to explain to foreign subjects the purpose of the exam and the measuring tools. Reche complained about having had to share one interpreter:

It grows increasingly obvious that we only have one interpreter. Naturally, Dr. M has him almost the entire day for his language studies and, without the interpreter, it is often almost impossible to measure and photograph the people. It takes at least three times as long otherwise, and I have so many who are afraid of the [measuring] instruments that they run from them. Of course, Professors F. and Hellwig need the interpreter as well. It has turned into a daily struggle.28

In addition to the comprehensive nature of physiognomic research, there was the additional possibility that physical traits were affected by environment. Reche knew of research, notably that of German anthropologists E. Hahns and Eugen Fischer, which suggested this to be the case. These potential drawbacks led Dr. Robert Stigler, a participant at the 1926 meeting of the German and Viennese Anthropological Society, to

27 Ibid., 67.

28 Ibid. (Reche commenting on his anthropological expedition in the south seas, Melanesien, August, 1908). Reche is likely referring here to Wilhelm Müller who accompanied the expedition as an ethnologist and linguist; the other researchers are Friedrich Fülleborn and Franz Emil Hellwig. (Ibid., 63).

118 emphasize the need to explain inconsistencies in racial physiognomy. 29 Steffan agreed, claiming that anthropology had been “misled for decades” by the cranial index, which often resulted in “arbitrary and false” results. 30 For these reasons, Reche would have been interested in the possibility of an alternative means of racial analysis. Furthermore, blood science had already proven useful in studies of heredity, human biology, eugenics, criminal anthropology, ethnology, history, and geography. Prior to meeting Steffan in

1926, there is nothing to suggest that Reche was familiar with serology, much less its application to race science. He nonetheless claimed that he had been interested in seroanthropology much earlier:

I had already considered researching human blood for anthropological purposes before the war; however, I conducted research with animal immunizations. After the war, I was able to continue my original train of thought and, in my search for experienced serologists, made the acquaintance of Dr. Paul Steffan.31

In truth, Reche‟s first encounter with Steffan was probably not the result of careful planning. Either way, it fulfilled a need for both. Steffan had hoped to elicit a response with his research, and Reche was willing to support him.

The German Institute for Blood Group Research

Shortly after their first meeting, in the summer of 1926, the German Institute for

Blood Group Research was established by Steffan and Reche, acting as Chair, along with

Hungarian physicians Verzár and Wescezcky. (See Figure 7). They submitted an

29 Otte Reche, “Zum Geleit,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 2.

30 Steffan 1932, 394.

31 Geisenhainer 2002, 128-129.

119 application for recognition to the Department of the Interior of the Chancellery in Vienna.

The statement of purpose was rather general: the institute planned to conduct “uniform and precise” blood type surveys throughout Austria, Germany, the remainder of Europe and, if possible, other continents. Relevant scientific contributions from outside the institute would be considered as well. They also pointed out that blood type research could benefit other, non-racial areas of study.32 Curiously, race was not referred to in the formal statement, but Reche did mention his hope that the institute would resolve two important issues: whether there was a connection between serological type and other racial characteristics, and the precise nature of the inheritance of the blood groups. He acknowledged that responding to either would first require more extensive (and expensive) research, but reiterated the fact that other disciplines posed to benefit from this work, such as “immunity, eugenics, genealogy, and anthropology.”33

In October of 1926, Reche submitted a letter to Württemburg‟s Medical Research

Office seeking state assistance. The institute wanted to conduct blood type surveys of

500 children in 22 districts. Reche knew that this was no small proposal, and prefaced his request by emphasizing the value blood might have in racial classification. The first priority of the institute, he explained, was to determine whether or not the blood types were “in some way related to the human races—as the Hirszfeld brothers have pointed out.”34 Although a minor mistake for his purposes, Reche‟s error in referring to the

32 Ibid., footnote 75.

33 Ibid., 130.

120

“Hirszfeld brothers” contradicted his professed familiarity with blood science. His ignorance is further suggested by the call for more “extensive statistical surveys” in order to determine the nature of the relationship between blood and race. In fact, by 1926, the list of international serological studies was extensive.35 Reche loosely referred to initial seroanthropological research—first with the Hirszfelds in Salonika, then following in the

United States, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Hungary (curiously, he does not mention the large contingent of Asian blood scientists). In fact, many of these nations had surpassed the “beginning” stages of seroanthropological research. A significant number of researchers, disillusioned by their inconsistent results, had discounted seroanthropology altogether. Conveniently, Reche did not mention these developments.

Reche‟s claim that blood type surveys had only “partially begun” in Germany and

Austria was, however, accurate. In spite of the postwar boom in serological surveys, statistics on Germans were still lacking. Because they were unable to draw blood from enemy forces, the Hirszfelds had had to rely on limited data from the prewar period.

Because of poor funding and coordination, postwar data continued to be slight.

Accordingly, the first priority of the German Institute for Blood Group Research was a large-scale survey of the native peoples of Germany and Austria. Reche explained to the

Württemburg officials that this would only be possible through government support.

34 E151/54, 377. Reche eventually became aware of the fact that the Hirszfelds were a married couple, as he later referred to them as such, see Otto Reche, “Blutgruppenforschung und Anthropologie,” Volk und Rasse 3, no. 1 (1928): 6.

35 For a complete list of literature on blood science between 1901-1931, see Michael Hesch, “Das gesamte Schrifttum der Blutgruppenforschung in den drei ersten Jahrzehenten ihrer Entwicklung, 1901-1933,” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932).

121

Continuing his plea, he pointed out how state funding had enabled impressive anthropologic accomplishments in the past, specifically the work of anthropologist

Rudolf Virchow. Hoping to determine the racial lineage of the German people, in the nineteenth century Virchow had recorded the physiognomic measurements of 6,760,000 children—the largest racial study ever conducted.36 Based on his results, Virchow concluded that racial uniformity did not exist anywhere in the Reich.37 The results were so inconsistent as to lead him to discredit racial theory. Furthermore, many Germans had criticized the study as a wasted effort and poor use of government funds. Of course,

Reche did not refer to the fact that Virchow‟s strongly questioned the need for racial anthropology, but instead only emphasized how “extremely important” the study had been, and how it was made possible by the financial backing of the German Ministry of

Education.

Despite critical overtones, interdepartmental correspondence expressed interest in

Reche‟s proposal.38 The officials in Württemburg were apparently not concerned about the anthropological objective of Reche‟s research; race science was a recognized area of study and such studies were common. The authorities did, however, question the feasibility of the research; Reche‟s calculation that fifty blood samples could be collected

36 Gregory Paul Wegner, Anti-Semitism and Schooling under the Third Reich (London: Routledge Falmer, 2002), 12. Over the course of several years, the children‟s eye, hair, and skin pigmentation, and skull indices were recorded. See Rudolf Virchow, “Beiträge zur physischen Anthropologie der Deutschen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Friesen,” Abhandlungen der königlichen preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Physisch-mathematische Klass, Abt. I (1877): 1-390. Virchow‟s article was translated into English and published as “Blondes and Brunettes in Germany,” Science 7, no. 157 (Feb. 5, 1886): 129-130.

37 Wegner 2002, 12.

38 E151/54, 377. From the District of Württemburg Medical Research Office, November 25, 1926.

122 in an hour seemed to them a “gross overestimation.” They believed that even under the most ideal conditions, with the necessary disinfection, perhaps only ten could be finished in the space of an hour—which meant that it would take at least “six days of continuous work” to perform 500 tests. This difference in estimates was significant. It seemed unlikely to the officials that the serological tests could be finished within the proposed timeframe. In fact, the process was most likely a lengthier one, and therefore more expensive, than that being presented. Nonetheless, the officials were sufficiently interested to recommend that Reche be accommodated as, they reasoned, blood science was still “a relatively new area of research” which might prove to be “quite important.”

The Württemberg medical authorities recommended that those districts with full-time medical officers (Stuttgart, Ulm, Heilbronn, and eight rural districts) assist, and that the results be processed at Tübingen.39

Reche submitted similar letters of request to state authorities throughout Germany and Austria. The Reich Ministry of the Interior reviewed the proposal and, like officials in Württemburg, also expressed reservations about the pace of the research. 40 They found it unlikely that fifty blood samples could be taken in an hour, but this minor technical concern paled in comparison to their larger misgivings about the project.

Because it was recognized by their courts for forensic purposes, the authorities in Prussia

39 The ministries of Justice and the Interior supported the plan because of its value in paternity and criminal cases. (Weindling, Health, race and German politics, 466).

40 E151/54, 377. Reich Minister of the Interior, 22 Jan. 1927, to the Provincial Government (Landesregierung) of Prussia.

123

Figure 7. Otto Reche. Katja Geisenhainer, Rasse ist Schicksal” Otto Reche (1879- 1966): Ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkundler (Leipzig: Evangelisches Verlaganstalt, 2002). would have been much more familiar than those in Württemburg with the clinical procedures, and thereby potential complications, involved in blood science. For them,

Reche‟s letter raised many questions: Even if the blood was efficiently collected, how could they be certain that it would be typed properly? To ensure complete accuracy, should not each individual have their blood type tested more than once? This was standard procedure when using blood as forensic evidence. The matter of the “test serum” was a source of unease as well. Test serum, a byproduct of human blood, was a necessary component in blood typing. Because the serum was an organic material, the

124

Prussian officials were concerned that it was “subject to change,” which could lead to errors in blood typing. The only way to prevent such errors, they explained, was to employ “expert serologists,” who were trained in the most accurate methods.41 On these grounds, the Ministry of the Interior believed it unlikely that the Reich Health Office would assist Reche. Why did Reche‟s proposal, which was processed with relative ease and encouragement in Württemberg, meet instead with apprehension in Prussia?

The difference in responses can be attributed to their respective experience with blood science. Because of its position as a national organization, the Reich Health Office was more familiar with blood science. Their correspondence indicates that they were well-versed in the subject. Their misgivings and doubts about Reche‟s research came from experience. By 1927, when the Reich Health Office received Reche‟s letter, blood typing was routinely being used in regional German courts. In paternity disputes, blood type could be used to rule out (but not identify) a suspected father. In criminal cases, typing the evidence, such as blood spatter on a suspect‟s shoe, could help determine their involvement. Because of the seriousness of the matter—which could result respectively in alimony payments, lengthy imprisonment, or even capital punishment—the blood in question was often tested more than once. Although it was relatively uncommon, the tests were sometimes inconsistent. On occasion, for instance, a putative father might be

41 For further discussions concerning methodological errors, the author refers to the work of Schumacher and Artzerodt, “Fehler und Gefahren bei der Bestimmung der Blutgruppen,” Klinische Wochenschrift (1926): 2016. The Italian serologist Lattes believed errors in blood group determinations to be an important cause of discrepancies: “the possibility is clear. Even in the particularly accurate determinations carried out in the Mayo Bros. Clinic, errors have occurred: out of 1,000 determinations studied by Pemberton nine were found to be erroneous.” (Lattes 1923, 51).

125 type A in the first testing, and B in the second. The need for reliable results created a new medical/legal niche filled by the so-called “expert serologist”—an individual schooled in the most recent and foolproof methods of blood science. Admittedly, as the

Hirszfelds explained, typing blood was a relatively simple process, and this had been demonstrated in past blood type surveys, many of which had not been conducted by serologists, much less “experts” in their field. Still, the Reich Health Office believed that they were necessary to ensure accuracy, even in anthropological research. This opinion, combined with an awareness of the details of blood typing, explains the difference in perspective between local administrators in Württemberg and the national Reich Health

Office. When responding to Reche‟s proposal, officials in Württemburg made no comparable references to any potential inaccuracies or inconsistencies presented by serologic research. No mention was made of expert serologists. Quite the contrary, the

Württemburg authorities had suggested commissioning regional (non-serologist) physicians in the surveys.

In order to decide whether or not to fund the German Institute for Blood Group

Research, the Prussian Health Council formed a committee to discuss the possible racial significance of blood. Ironically, Heinrich Poll, who had also been the director of the

World War I prisoner of war study in which Reche took part, was responsible for evaluating the proposal. Poll advised caution in funding what was still a “controversial area of research” because of its novelty.42 Hesitation in Prussia affected decisions

42 Weindling, Health, race and German politics, 466.

126 elsewhere. In the spring of 1927, Württemburg‟s Ministry of Culture explained their delay to Reche:

This decision is not being taken lightly. Accordingly, the Reich Health Office has formed a committee to further discuss research of the blood groups and advise accordingly. The Ministry feels it necessary to await the advice of this committee prior to fulfilling the request of the German Institute for Blood Group Research.43

However, the Prussian officials had already denied the grant in March. Shortly thereafter, when this decision reached other offices, Reche‟s plans were abandoned by

Württemberg, and were further declined by authorities in Saxony, Bavaria, and Baden.

The decision of the Prussian officials revealed what little interest and confidence they had in racial applications of blood science. This was further verified by a decision made by the Emergency Association late in 1927. Friedrich Schmidt-Ott, president of the organization, invited a number of well-known anthropologists and geneticists to a meeting, along with some officials of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. “For some time now the applications for support in the area of blood group research, of race research, and of anthropological studies have been increasing,” Schmidt-Ott explained in the invitation, adding that “with this abundance of individual applications,” it was often difficult to select the projects to be funded. The purpose of the meeting with the invited specialists was thus to outline “the existing research tasks in this area” and sound out “the possibilities of working on them with the most extensive possible exploitation of the available funds.” The meeting took place on December 17, 1927. Among the participants were the leading genetic researchers Erwin Baur, Carl Erich Correns,

43 E151/54, 377. Letter dated 29 October 1926.

127

Richard Goldschmidt, Hans Nachtsheim, and the anthropologists Eugen Fischer, Theodor

Mollison, and Otto Reche, along with the university lecturers Walter Scheidt and Karl

Saller.44

In this capacity, Reche had hoped to shift blood group research into the center of the research agenda, but Fischer pointed out that as seroanthropology recorded just one single hereditary attribute, one might “just as well support nose research.”45 Fischer‟s

“instinctive feeling” that the blood types had nothing to do was instrumental in the association‟s demotion of seroanthropology. Therefore, in addition to state and education, Reche even lacked the support of some in his own camp. Eugen Fischer was a member of the German Institute for Blood Group Research, and had previously acknowledged that “in Central Europe, serologic differences appear to exist between the

Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean racial types.”46 Steffan later complained to Reche about Fischer‟s disinterest, which had been clear to him in an earlier visit to Freiburg in

1922 or 1923. At that time, Fischer calmly stated that he “didn‟t think much of the blood groups” (for anthropological study).47 The conference in 1927 further declared itself against mass statistical studies of cross-sectional groups like army recruits or

44 Hans Walter-Schmuhl, The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945: Crossing Boundaries (Springer, 2008), 84.

45 Ibid., 85.

46 As quoted in Siegmund Wellisch, “Blutsverwandtschaft der Völker und Rassen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1, 1928: 21-34. In a Nov. 23, 1926 letter to his colleague Oswald Streng Otto Reche complained that Fischer was “not really to be convinced…because he has the „instinctive feeling‟ that blood groups do not have anything to do with race.‟ (Geisenhainer 2002, 132).

47 Ibid., 172.

128 schoolchildren—the very groups that the institute proposed examining.48 Before the institute was even two years old, Reche already found himself grappling with rejections of his proposed plans and efforts to attain financial support.49 The authorities‟ responses cannot be attributed to financial difficulties; the biological sciences prospered during the

Weimar Republic, even during the national economic crisis.50 By 1933, Germany, along with Austria, had collected more Nobel prizes in medicine than all of the countries in the world—and more than France, Great Britain, and the United States combined.51

Generous funding was also given to racial anthropology. In 1927, the Kaiser Wilhelm

Institute was established, which became the premier race science institute in Weimar and

National Socialist Germany. Curiously, the topic of race and blood types was dealt with in only one paper produced at the institute before 1933: in 1929, external staff member

Max Berliner studied the blood of the cattle at the Institute for Animal Breeding in

Berlin, and he concluded that blood type was not a reliable criterion for race determination.52 As it had elsewhere, blood group research did achieve practical importance with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in connection with paternity tests, which were requisitioned by the Berlin courts starting in 1928.53

48 Schmuhl 2008, 84. The conference was for compiling the selective, tendentially complete genealogic- genetic biological records of isolated populations.

49 Geisenhainer 2002, 132-133.

50 Weindling 1989, 469. See also, Aristotle A. Kallis, The Fascism Reader (Routledge, 2003), 401.

51 Since the introduction of the Nobel Prize in 1901. (Weindling 1998, 5).

52 Schmuhl 2008, 69.

53 Ibid., 70.

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Ironically, the rejection of Reche‟s extensive survey plans of Germany and

Austria created an opportunity for his colleague and institute member Eugen Fischer. In

February 1928, at the Emergency Fund for German Science, Fischer presented a proposal for a national anthropologic survey. In spite of Virchow‟s study, Fischer argued that little was known of the hereditary and racial composition of the German Volk and planned to include studies of “stable, rural” groups to determine this.54 The study was to include blood types, as well as physical traits. There appeared to be many parallels between

Fischer‟s and Reche‟s proposals. Both were primarily concerned with identifying

“racially pure” Germans. Both planned to examine rural, isolated peoples, and both proposed examining blood and physiognomy. However, while Reche‟s request for funding was denied, Fischer‟s was granted. The most glaring difference between their proposals was Reche‟s emphasis on blood instead of physiognomy. Why was physiognomy preferred? The “normative methodology” of race science was comparative anthropometry.55 The classical idea of beauty was the measure by which Europeans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries determined what was and what was not visually pleasing. Since its origins, race theorists created idealized images of beautiful races and juxtaposed these with stereotypes of racial ugliness.56 Beauty became quantifiable in the

1770s when the Dutch anatomist Peter Campter invented the facial angle; the more the

54 Weindling 1989, 466-467.

55 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in fin-de-siècle Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 11.

56 Ibid., 14.

130 jaw protruded, the greater the angle, and thus, according to Campter, the more it resembled the angles of apes and dogs. According to this system, the Negro was more like the ape than like the Caucasian.57 In Germany, the place where physical anthropology can be said to have been born, these ideas were very clearly articulated.58

They were particularly favored by völkisch theorists for their ranking of racial types within a hierarchy. Despite the subjective nature of cranial measurements, they remained the standard means of racial classification.

State authorities were hesitant to back racial studies of blood, despite the recognition of blood science in courts. In the year just prior to Fischer‟s proposal, the

Emergency Fund had voiced its criticism of blood group research for “anthropological, racial and constitutional studies.”59 Nevertheless, Reche‟s institute in Leipzig eventually did participate in the study. Among the characteristics considered “absolutely necessary” were the shape of the head, height, hair color, eye color, shape of nose, and “as many photographs as possible, as good as possible.” Blood type was included only in a secondary list of “highly desirable,” but not “necessary,” characteristics.60

As a racial anthropologist schooled in the German tradition, Reche had been taught to focus on conventional, often physiognomic, traits. This was consistent throughout his education, and into his career as an instructor and researcher. At the same time, Reche was frustrated with the nature of anthropomorphic research, which could be

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Weindling 1989, 466.

60 Schmuhl 2008, 85.

131 exhaustive in its detail, as well as time-consuming. Furthermore, he recognized that physical features were not necessarily reliable for racial categorization. There was the possibility that they could alter with time or environment, and their analysis was particularly difficult in subjects who were “mixed.” His own methods to improve physiognomy, evident in his effort to revise the nasal index, had been unsuccessful.

Furthermore, his wartime research was a routine anthropological study similar to those that had been conducted for decades. There was nothing novel about their methodology, which included the standard collection of skull measurements and pigmented traits (eye, hair, skin). Blood typing, the focus of the Hirszfelds‟ study, was conspicuously absent.

When Reche first learned of seroanthropology, he was immediately interested. Blood was something altogether new. This, and the problematic nature of physiognomy, prompted Reche to diversify his professional interests and establish the German Institute for Blood Group Research. Reche had lofty plans for blood type research, and this was perhaps shaped by his previous work experience. The statistics of Reche‟s proposal were not unprecedented—millions of German schoolchildren had been examined under

Virchow‟s direction—but the technique was. To state administrators, examining a subject‟s physiognomy and drawing their blood were two very different requests.

Authorities were clearly more comfortable with examining conventional, usually visible, racial traits. Blood science was increasingly recognized in their courts, but respect in this area did not translate into anthropology. As a result, Reche‟s appeals for funding were denied and the German Institute for Blood Group Research would be forced to modify its original plans.

CHAPTER V

SEROANTHROPOLOGY AT ITS HEIGHT: DISTINGUISHING THOSE WITH “PURE BLOOD”

Despite funding setbacks, the German Institute for Blood Group Research was able to pursue its research, albeit on a much less extensive scale than that originally proposed. Although its directors welcomed analyses of non-German subjects, they were particularly interested in determining the serologic makeup of “native Germans.”

Finishing the “mapping out” of the German people would remain one of the institute‟s main objectives, and throughout the late twenties it would collect and examine the blood types of carefully-selected German populations. Before 1926, institute co-founder Paul

Steffan had been the first German physician to coordinate serologic research with the purpose of determining the progress of “Eastern” type B blood into Germany. Despite his efforts, only minimal studies had been conducted, causing Steffan to complain in

1925 about how incomplete research in this area was.1 The institute would resume his work in more detail. In their search for the most “racially pure” (native) Germans, studies would become increasingly intricate, and often interdisciplinary—not rarely including historical, archeological, and geographic details. This chapter will focus on the development of seroanthropology in the latter half of the Weimar Republic, with an

1 Paul Steffan, “Weitere Ergebnisse der Rassenforschung mittels serologischer Methoden,” Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropenhygiene 29 (1925): 376-377.

132 133 emphasis on the studies reported by the German Institute for Blood Group Research. An overview of their research within this timeframe will demonstrate certain authors‟ preoccupation with the racial implications of the different blood types, which was most apparent in the attempts of völkisch researchers to demonstrate an association between type B blood and racial or eugenic inferiority. As a result, earlier surveys of blood and other variables, such as disease or criminality, would continue.

I will mainly consider articles published within the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie (Periodical for Racial Physiology), the publication of the German

Institute for Blood Group Research, but will also consider contributions from the larger

German community of blood scientists. Publication of the Zeitschrift began in 1928. As the title indicates, it was not limited just to seroanthropologic research, but on occasion also included articles on other aspects of racial science. The main emphasis remained on blood science, however, as the editors saw themselves as the center of a “national and international effort to study blood group distribution.”2 Accordingly, both non-German membership in the institute and articles by foreign authors were common. For an article to be eligible for inclusion in the periodical, Reche and Steffan were mainly concerned that the study present original research. A close analysis of these studies—how they were structured, which subject groups they examined, how their results were interpreted—will lend insight into the motivations for their research. I will show how

2 William H. Schneider, “The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: initial discovery and diffusion,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 18, no. 3 (1996): 295-296.

134 their research diverged from, or was similar to, seroanthropological studies in the immediate postwar years before the institute was founded.

Studies of “Native Germans”

The German Institute for Blood Group Research was able to conduct studies of

German schoolchildren through support from the Vienna Academy of Sciences, though their subject group was much smaller than the 400,000 originally proposed (See Figure

8). The researchers, doctors Hans Schlossberger, Kurt Laubenheimer, Werner Fischer and F.W. Weichmann were very particular in choosing their subjects, as their intent was to determine the serological makeup of native Germans. A number of villages in the region of Frankfurt am Main were selected, the examiners explained, because they believed their inhabitants to have descended from the original occupants—a claim

“supported by previous anthropological research and confirmed by a professor consulted at the Historical Museum of Frankfurt, as well as a teacher in Rendel.”3 The settlements did have an extensive history; the names Rendel and Randwilre (Randweiler) had first been mentioned in documents dating back to October 780. The nearby communities of

Grosskarben, Kleinkarben, and Carbah had been referred to only shortly after, in 817.4

The archeological evidence indicated that persons, awkwardly referred to by the authors as “pre-Germans” (vorgermanischen Bevölkerung) had been in the area even earlier;

3 Hans Schlossberger et al., “Blutgruppenuntersuchungen an Schulkindern in der Umbegung von Frankfurt a.M.,” Medizinische Klinik 24, no. 22 (1928): 851. The seven cities researched were Grosskarben, Kleinkarben, Rendel, Niedererschbach, Obererlenbach, Niedererlenbach, Petterweil. The study includes a table which lists the specific blood types distributions of each location, see Schlossberger et al. 1928, 852.

4 Ibid., 851.

135

Figure 8. Photograph of researcher drawing a blood sample from a child‟s ear. Reche assured authorities that “thousands of schoolchildren” could be examined without danger to either the children or their hand; only two small drops of blood would be taken from their fingertip or earlobe. E.D. Schött, “Die Technik der Blutgruppenbestimmung” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932), 470.

sometime after the middle of the first millennium B.C. These pre-German peoples, in particular the Celts, had completely conquered west and southwest Germany. The researchers knew that the border of the vast Roman Empire had been close to this region and further theorized that its various subjects had moved into Germany from regions as disparate as “Gaul, North Africa, and Asia.” Roman influence was also suggested by historians‟ claims that the ending “weil,” as in the village Petterweil, stemmed from the

Latin word “villa.” In historical documents, Roman presence had been mentioned as early as the eighth century A.D. Based on this evidence, the authors believed that the

136

Rhineland had been, at one point, largely a Roman settlement.5 As a result, they expressed no doubt that their subjects were the descendants of “a mix of different tribes and races.” Miscegenation had likely occurred more recently, as well: refugees and immigrants had been brought to the area by wars, the Counterreformation, and even the

French Revolution—which introduced “Walloons, Flemish, and French” groups.

Industrialization in the second half of the nineteenth century attracted foreign workers which also resulted in “further [racial] mixing.”6

The examiners‟ stated reason for selecting these subjects—because they had descended from the “original inhabitants”—becomes puzzling in light of their discussion of the region‟s history. Who, in fact, were these so-called “original inhabitants”? Were they Celtic, Roman, or both? Did this also include the influx of peoples from throughout other areas of Europe, as well as Africa and Asia? Population movements in the area clearly suggested that miscegenation had been common. The examiners acknowledged this but, at the same time, claimed that this had only been minimal among their chosen subjects, the “greater portion” of whom they believed to be related to the original settlers.

To confirm this, they referred to the church registries, which revealed that most of the subjects‟ families had been settled in the area as far back as the Thirty Years War (1618-

5 The authors explained that “many of these areas” had originally belonged to the French. Even Niedererlenbach originated in the time of Charlemagne.” Hans Schlossberger, “Blutgruppenuntersuchungen an Schulkindern im Niedgau und in der südlichen Wetterau,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie (1928/1929): 118.

6 Ibid. In this area, about “half to two-thirds” of the inhabitants were textile workers.

137

1648).7 Further inquiries revealed that this was also the case with the children‟s parents; most of their fathers had been born in the immediate area and their mothers frequently came from neighboring regions, such as Rhön, Vogelsberg, Odenwald, or Rheinhessen, but it was only “rarely the case” that they had lived far from Germany.8 In selecting the children, the researchers mentioned that they had “strictly avoided” those who had recently settled in the area because of new industry.9

Even though the authors fail to clearly identify who these “original inhabitants” were, they were confident that their sample was representative of racially pure Germans.

Their research was thorough; the birthplace of each parent was recorded, as were the child‟s age, sex, religion, blood type, hair and eye color, and skull and face shape. The groups‟ racial purity was supposedly confirmed in the general Nordic appearance of the children, most of whom had the requisite light hair and eyes. Their blood types confirmed this: a compilation of the results gathered from the areas revealed that they had

47.17 percent type A blood, and 9.4 percent B.10 (See Figure 9). In spite of extensive population movements in the area, and the miscegenation which had occurred, it appeared that the “Germanness” of the subjects had remained largely intact. Traits

7 Völkisch race theorists often lamented the increased “racial mixing” which had occurred after this point. These categories were almost always left undefined, serving more as shifting, prima facie cultural focal points rather than empirically demonstrated bases upon which experimental results could rest. This was a change also recognized by extreme-right political figures; in Mein Kampf, Hitler grieved the “poisonings of the blood which have befallen our people, especially since the Thirty Years War.” [Ralph Mannheim, trans. Mein Kampf (Mariner Books, 1998), 396].

8 Schlossberger 1928/1929, 119.

9 Ibid., 118.

10 Schlossberger et al. 1928, 852.

138

Figure 9. Map detailing the six cities near Frankfurt am Main surveyed by H. Schlossberger et al. in their 1928 study. Helfriede Meyer and Paul Steffan, “Die Beziehungen zwischen Blutgruppe, Pigment und Kopfform,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 2, no. 2 (1929): 46-60.

139 regarded as “Eastern,” such as dark pigmentation and high levels of type B blood, were relatively uncommon.

Doctors Helfriede Meyer and Paul Steffan reported similar results in their research in Osnäbruck, Germany. 11 Their analysis was comparable to that employed by

Schlossberger et. al.; they examined the blood types, and various physiognomic traits of

500 subjects. Similar to the study in Frankfurt am Main, they chose Osnäbruck because it “still included many descendants of the native inhabitants” (enthält noch viel alteingesessene Bevölkerung). Steffan also described the area‟s history, explaining how, in 783 AD, while under attack by the Saxons, Charlemagne had moved the center of his diocese to Osnäbruck. Foreign military occupation of the city had taken place intermittently since the Middle Ages; the Swedes had been in the area for about a decade during the Seven Years War—later came soldiers from both England and Hanover.

During the time of Napoleon, the French had passed through numerous times.

Osnäbruck‟s booming iron and textile similarly brought a large influx of workers throughout the Industrial Revolution; many of these groups had come from nearby agricultural areas, but some had traveled from farther away (for instance, Harz or

Böhmen). Any Jewish influence was unlikely, Steffan explained, as no Jews had lived in the city between 1424 and 1800.12 Meyer and Steffan chose their subjects on the premise that they had remained separate from these foreign peoples; however, most of the

11 Helfriede Meyer and Paul Steffan, “Die Beziehungen zwischen Blutgruppe, Pigment und Kopfform,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 2, no. 2 (1929): 46-60. Most of the subjects were medical assistants employed in Osnäbruck.

12 Ibid., 57.

140 subjects (adult women) were not native to Osnäbruck, and were only employed there as medical assistants. To work around this discrepancy, Steffan and Meyer divided the women according to whether they were from rural or urban areas of Germany. Steffan anticipated that their findings would reveal the extent of German migration to the cities, as he believed that many rural areas had remained untouched by “modern traffic.” 13

Their findings met the authors‟ völkisch expectations; the traits of women from cities were found to be “completely different” from subjects in agricultural areas. Urban women had higher levels of blood type B, and were also less Nordic in appearance—with higher frequencies of dark hair, skin, and eyes. In contrast, the rural subjects had proportionately more type A blood and other Aryan physiognomic markers. It was clear to Steffan that the miscegenation which was theorized to have been more frequent in urban areas manifested itself not only in the subjects‟ appearances, but also their blood type distributions.

Wilhelm Klein, a district medical officer in the Rhineland, studied schoolchildren in Oberlahnstein and St. Goarshausen, though his results were not entirely consistent with those of Schlossberger et. al., and Meyer and Steffan.14 Similar to the Frankfurt am Main and Osnäbruck, both Oberlahnstein and St. Goarshausen were also believed to be occupied by (descendants of) their original peoples. A survey revealed that the children from these areas did have what Klein referred to as a “noticeably high

13 Ibid.

14 Wilhelm Klein, “Ergebnis der Blutgruppenbestimmung in Oberlahnstein und St. Goarshausen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 12. 492 of the approximate 800 children in Oberlahnstein were examined, and 92 of the 150 children in St. Goarshausen. Klein mentions that he was unable to obtain further children‟s blood group samples from elsewhere in the area, but does not explain why.

141

Figure 10. Map of Germany in 1930 showing regions discussed in articles. John O‟Loughlin, “The Electoral Geography of Weimar Germany: Exploratory Spatial Analyses (ESDA) of Protestant Support for the Nazi Party,” Political Analysis 10, no. 3 (1992): 217-243.

142 percentage” of type A blood. It was so pronounced among individuals from Nassau

(Rhineland) that Klein decided to separately calculate the blood type distribution of those whose parents were native to that region; this group had 52.4 percent type A blood, and only 8.3 percent B. A comparison of the children‟s blood types and physiognomic traits, however, strongly suggested that there was no correlation between the two. Even though there were more blond children overall, considerably more brunettes had type A blood— and high levels of type B, in turn, were reported among the blonds. Klein‟s results unexpectedly associated type A blood, that typically associated with Western European origins, with a dark, Eastern appearance. Similar inconsistencies came to light when

Klein examined the subjects‟ skull shapes in relation to blood group. He noted a predominance of Nordic long skulls among both A and B types, but A was more common among individuals with the characteristically Eastern “round skull.” Klein concluded that there were still, fittingly “more blonds with long skulls, and more brunets with round ones.” Importantly, however, these were both physiognomic characteristics, separate from blood. In relation to the physical criteria, the serologic types seemed anthropologically amiss.

Klein evidently believed that the racial traits of blood and physiognomy were related and referred to his apparent inconsistencies as a “phenomenon” that could not yet be explained. He contemplated the possibility that the subject group had not been as pure as expected—perhaps there had been miscegenation with which anthropologists were not yet familiar? Klein felt this to be a definite possibility, since the Rhineland had been a site of extensive population movements over the course of the past thousand years; the

143 region had long served as a “convenient passageway” between Oberlahnstein and Caub.

Regional conflicts, in particular the Thirty Years War, had also brought contact with other diverse peoples. Spanish conquests, Klein observed, had certainly introduced “a certain measure of Spanish blood.”15 This was believed to have taken place in the village of Sauerthal where, during the Spanish War of Succession, many of the German inhabitants had either abandoned the area or were killed. The area was then settled by

Spanish mercenaries; their influence was still apparent in local Spanish surnames.

Subsequent shifting ownership of the lands—which belonged at one point to the clergy, then to various nobles, was also believed to have resulted in “strong mixing” (starke

Vermischung). In contrast to his colleagues‟ studies in Frankfurt am Main and

Osnäbruck, Klein conceded that the extensive population movements over the centuries had resulted in a “racially mixed” German peasantry—and that this miscegenation had resulted in the present discrepancy between the subjects‟ racial blood type and appearance.

Doctor P. Schridde, of the Hygiene Institute at the University of Heidelberg, similarly examined rural German subjects, but explained that his research was different as “previously, no blood type surveys have been conducted on a group living in the Oden

15 Klein 1928/1929, 14.

144

Forest (Hesse).” 16 Schridde also claimed that villages in the Oden Forest were populated with descendants of the original “unmixed” (unvermischter) inhabitants. Nonetheless, he took the usual precautions of selecting areas which had evidently not been exposed to miscegenation. The chosen villages—Gumpen, Reichelsheim, Winterkasten,

Schlierbach, Mossau and Hiltersklingen—were “almost exclusively” occupied by farmers. Additional information, gathered from the towns‟ mayors and clergymen, indicated that immigration to the area had been rare. Church registries showed that most of the subjects could also trace their lineage in the settlement as far back as the Thirty

Years War. To further ensure that his subject group had not been affected by racial others, Schridde only examined individuals whose both parents and grandparents had been born in the immediate area. With the exception of Hiltersklingen, Schridde was able to analyze approximately thirty to fifty percent of the residents in each village.17

Despite his efforts, the results were inconclusive. Schridde was surprised by the inexplicably-high frequency of blood type O. Type A was elevated in certain areas, making up about half of the population of Reichelsheim, Winterkasten and Mossau, but at the same time was quite low in others. Schlierbach was only “modestly represented” with its 28.8 percent type A blood, and shared similar percentages of type B with Mossau

16 P. Schridde, “Über die Blutgruppenzusammensetzung in einigen Odenwalddörfern mit altangesessener Bevölkerung,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 2, (1929/1930): 62-72. Schridde was from the Hygiene Insitute of the Univeristy of Heidelberg, under the direction of Dr. Emil Gotschlich. The Oden Forest, or Odenwald, is a wooded region in Germany about 80 miles long, and 25 wide, situated mainly in Hesse. It is also referred to as the “Badisch-Sibirien” (Siberia of Baden) because of its isolated location. Its remote location and harsh climate prevented any cultural or economic growth for centuries. [Winifred Wackerfuss, ed. Beiträge zur Erforschung des Odenwaldes und seiner Randlandschaften (Breuberg-Bund, 1982)].

17 Schridde 1929, 62.

145 and Gumpen, whereas the other villages did not.18 There appeared to be no specific pattern to the blood type frequencies. Most prior studies of isolated agricultural settlements, in particular those coordinated by Steffan, had been consistent with increased levels of type A blood, and relatively low type B. Schridde‟s findings from the

“untouched” villages, though, were hardly comparable to other remote locations—not even to the “ancient farming areas of Oberhessen or Schleswig-Holstein.”19

In an attempt to define the racial identity of the German people, researchers also studied groups which were not carefully pre-selected, but simply easily accessible—such as military personnel and hospital patients. In 1929, the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie reported on a study in which Dr. M. Reich, Assistant Medical Director and Officer of

Troop Physicians, examined 660 soldiers, most of whom were from Eastern Prussia.20

The men‟s blood types were recorded, as well as their head and eye shapes, their surname and their mother‟s maiden name, as Reich—like his colleagues—believed that such details might be useful in gauging non-German influence.21 The soldiers were found to have 38 percent type A blood, and 13 percent B. At 2.08, their biochemical racial index technically grouped them as “Western European” in type, and Reich remarked that type B was still “relatively rare”; however, its incidence was enough to bring the group‟s index

18 Ibid., 72.

19 Ibid., 65.

20 M. Reich, “Soldatenuntersuchungen nach Blutgruppen und Konstitutionstypen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928-1929): 147-150.

21 Ibid., 147.

146 close to the Hirszfelds‟ 2.0 “Intermediate” racial category than German groups farther west. Reich noted that their biochemical index was comparable to that of 11,588 Polish recruits and civilians from regions east and southeast of Germany.22

By comparing and contrasting the various traits, Reich claimed that he was able to recognize certain patterns between the Eastern and Western types within the group. Type

A blood was less common among the subjects with both “non-German” names and

“Mongoloid-shaped” eyes (29.7 percent A, 17.6 percent B). This suggested that blood and other racial traits were related, but the correlation between skull shape and blood type was negligible. Of those with Nordic long skulls, 41.7 percent had type A blood which declined to 33.5 percent among individuals with round skulls. 23 The long-skulled subjects were barely in the majority with type A blood. Perhaps because of their purported non-Aryan racial origins, Reich predicted that individuals with type B blood would be more susceptible to disease than those with type A. He knew that because his subjects were only “strong, resistant” men, this may have adversely affected his results.24

Reich also sorted the distribution frequencies of those subjects suffering from any type of infection or disease. Of the men with type A blood, 54.6 percent were sick. This increased to 75.5 percent in the type B group.25

22 Ibid., 149.

23 Ibid., 148.

24 Ibid., 150. In spite of the fact that many of the men were endomorphic (muscular, big-boned), Reich also examined body type in relation to blood group, but the number of subjects was too small to make any correlations.

25 Ibid., 149.

147

Doctor G. Schaede, director of the Medical Research Office in Gumbinnen

(Prussia), conducted a follow-up study which harshly criticized Reich‟s research.

Schaede was particularly taken aback by the unexpectedly high levels of types AB and O reported. They were possible, he supposed, but there was also the chance that Reich‟s research had been flawed. He noted that Reich had not used an appropriately representative subject group, but had only examined “strong men between twenty and forty years of age” (an obvious risk when using military subjects as subjects). Because of this, Schaede felt it “desirable” to duplicate Reich‟s study.26 Two-thirds of his subjects were from Gumbinnen, the remaining third from Allenstein and, at 3,000 subjects, it was considerably larger than Reich‟s. The individuals were Prussians and “settlers from the

Reich, but also those who had mixed with peoples from Salzburg. Their surnames indicated German, but also Lithuanian and Polish descent. Each subject‟s age, gender, and occupation were recorded. Schaede found an elevated frequency of type B blood, but claimed through more careful analysis that it was only higher among individuals with

Eastern characteristics. Type B blood was most common, for instance, among those with

Polish surnames who, Schaede claimed, “undoubtedly represented the average” (of the population in East Prussia).27 In contrast, the blood type distributions of those whose parents were born in East Prussia were found to be comparable to Germans from

Westphalia—they had the anticipated higher proportion of Nordic blood type A.

26 G. Schaede, “Blutgruppenuntersuchung in Ostpreussen,” Zeitschriften für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 151.

27 Ibid., 153. Schaede noted that these men were generally residents of East Prussia, or had perhaps only been allowed to remain temporarily in East Prussia for “research purposes.”

148

Biased Research

These articles, all of which were published in the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie, have traits characteristic of völkisch seroanthropologic research. The interest expressed by the German Institute for Blood Group Research in rural, racially- pure Germans was a popular theme amongst anti-Semites and far-right ideologues, who had been critical of German metropolitan growth since the nineteenth century. To them, the process of building up industry and cities merely seemed “materialistic,” and it was destroying the old pastoral Germany, an “essential idyll in the romantic celebration of

German identity.”28 From the fin-de-siècle period into the Third Reich, the image of the strong, hard-working German peasant was repeatedly contrasted with the cosmopolitan, uprooted, and foreign embodiment of the Jew.29 Hostility was also directed against

Slavs, who not only migrated to German cities seeking employment, but also to the more remote agricultural districts as seasonal workers.

These concerns were also apparent in pseudo-medical völkisch propaganda. In

1928, race fanatic Richard Walther Darré published The Peasantry as the Living Source of the Nordic Race, which was followed in 1930 by A New Aristocracy from Blood and

Soil. Darré‟s work was a blend of zealous Nordicism and medicine. His dissertation had been on the domestication of the pig, and he used this to demonstrate how the degenerative effects of domestication were comparable to civilized society. This led to a

28 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi Ideology (New York University Press, 1993), 4.

29 Geisenhainer 2002, 136.

149 doctrine of racial hygiene based on breeding a [racial] aristocracy from “uncorrupted peasant stock.” The racial nobility would replace the worn-out ruling class, and have all of the attributes “superior” races did—willpower, bravery, health, and intelligence.30

Darré‟s publications contributed heavily to National Socialist teachings; A New

Aristocracy from Blood and Soil eventually shaped the Nazi‟s “blood and soil” doctrine.

German racial anthropologists had also been long preoccupied with distinguishing

“native Germans,” those who represented the “original” type (Urtypus) from those who had mixed with “racial others.” 31 During the Weimar Republic, increased fears regarding miscegenation and eugenic decline led researchers to pursue racially-pure

Germans even more aggressively than they had previously. They sought to determine not only how much racial mixing had occurred, but also how a “contemporary race” was related to its “original type.”32 The objective was to ensure the existence of these original

German peoples. Martin Staemmler, a Chemnitz doctor and advocate of sterilization, demanded family welfare measures in “support of the German peasantry.”33 State authorities agreed; the recognized German scientist Erwin Baur “fell foul of the authorities” when he slandered certain rural settlements at a meeting of the Prussian

Health Council.34

30 Weindling 1989, 475.

31 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in fin-de-siècle Europe (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004), 102.

32 Ibid., 105.

33 Weindling 1989, 479.

34 Ibid., 471.

150

By publishing articles on the racial makeup of isolated German peoples, the editors of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie were speaking to an area of interest within their political circle. Even before the establishment of the German Institute for Blood

Group Research, Nordic blood scientists had theorized that type B blood would be more common among urban than rural populations. The research of both Paul Steffan and Max

Gundel implied that type B blood was non-German.35 Numerous studies in the immediate postwar years revealed elevated levels of type A blood in remote German peoples, thereby confirming the hypothesis that type B blood was an Eastern trait. In the areas surrounding Frankfurt am Main, nearly half of the schoolchildren examined had the expected frequency of type A blood. Klein‟s survey in St. Goarshausen and

Oberlahnstein yielded a similarly high percentage of type A, which became even more conspicuous in Nassau. Schridde noted the same pattern in the villages of Reichelsheim and Mossau, and Steffan and Meyer also reported that their subjects native to rural areas had “completely different” blood type distributions than those from the cities. In all of these studies, type B was relatively uncommon. The results seemed to fit with the völkisch claim that rural, untouched Germans were more racially pure than those in metropolitan areas.

Another indicator of völkisch tendencies in these articles was their methodology, in particular the continued presence of physiognomic racial traits and an emphasis upon results which suggested a relationship between Western type A blood and a Nordic

35 Max Gundel, “Rassenbiologische Untersuchungen an Strafgefangenen,” Klinische Wochenschrift 5, no. 46 (1926): 2165-2166.

151 appearance. A belief in recognizable differences between racial types was especially pronounced amongst right-leaning race theorists, and their studies routinely included anthropomorphic characteristics. As a result, studies directed by the German Institute for

Blood Group Research surveyed not only blood type, but also the common racial traits of pigmentation and anatomical shapes with which Reche and his colleagues familiar.

Furthermore, as the primary objective of the institute was to determine the link between race and blood, it was necessary to place seroanthropology in the context of familiar methods of racial analysis. This was an interesting decision, however, as there were known discrepancies in racial anthropology which Reche himself had referenced.

Shortly before establishing the serologic institute, Reche had commented that genealogy stood to benefit from the study of “external racial characteristics.” Examining these was often possible through portraits, which revealed the “color of the skin, eyes, and hair, as well as the shape of the head, face, hair, and so on.” For instance, he explained, a family of light pigmentation would be classified as Northern European and

“racially Germanic.” At the same time, he cautioned, one could not rely solely upon physiognomy. Though “Germanic” in appearance, this same family also had

“Mediterranean blood.” This was not evident in their portrait, but was clear in their

“lively, passionate temperament” and “heightened sensuality.” As indicated in Reche‟s remarks, he believed that race affected a person‟s entire being—both how they looked and acted. Racial mixing was believed to compromise accurate racial categorization. In the event that it had, Reche explained, close “expert” scrutiny was required to sort the various characteristics. It was not Reche‟s intent to replace existing methods of racial

152 analysis with seroanthropology, but to supplement them with blood in the hope of facilitating accurate racial identification. In 1926, the institute prepared form which provided detailed instruction to researchers on which traits to record; in addition to such information as the subject‟s surname, mother‟s maiden names, and birthplaces, columns were also provided for the subject‟s hair and eye color, as well as their skull and face shape. 36 To ensure that examiners who had not received any “systematic training” in anthropological measurements would make no “significant mistakes,” thorough explanations were provided. 37 The comprehensive nature of this racial research, the reference to a wide, flexible range of supposed racial characteristics, was symptomatic of völkisch racial philosophy. (See Figures 11, 12, and 13).

The racial biases implicit in articles chosen by the German Institute for Blood

Group Research, as well as their methodology, were further suggested by the organization‟s membership profile and its publisher. The Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie was printed by J.F. Lehmann Press in Munich—one of the largest publishers in the first half of the twentieth century, but importantly the single largest

36 These are the criteria listed in Form 8d of the German Institute for Blood Group Research. For a blank version, see Steffan, ed., Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, 390-391. There were also spaces for the subject‟s sex, age, first name, last name, where they lived presently, where they were born, the religion of their parents, and the birthplace of each parent. Hair color was recorded as white blond, yellow blond, dark blond, brown, black, blue black, red blond, red brown, or “fox” red (Fuchsrot, a very bright red). Eye color (only the color of the iris was examined) was classified as blue, grey, blue outer ring with orange inner, blue outer ring with brown inner, green, gold brown, brown, dark brown, and black. (Steffan 1932, 392).

37 Ibid., 393.

153

Figure 11. Diagram of facial shapes to aid examiners in shape classification, from German Institute for Blood Group Research. From left to right: thin, medium, wide (schmal, mittelbreit, breit). Paul Steffan, “Die Bedeutung der Blutgruppen für die menschliche Rassenkunde” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932), 393.

Figure 12. Profiles showing long, medium, and short skulls (left to right: lang, mittellang, kurz), from German Institute for Blood Group Research. Paul Steffan, “Die Bedeutung der Blutgruppen für die menschliche Rassenkunde” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932), 392.

154

Figure 13. Diagram to help determine eye color. Not e the detailing of the “outer” and “inner” rings of the iris; color classification was very specific. Paul Steffan, “Die Bedeutung der Blutgruppen für die menschliche Rassenkunde” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932), 392.

155

German publisher of works in the field of racial hygiene.38 Julius F. Lehmann and Reche were acquainted before his affiliation with the institute. When Lehmann launched the popular right-wing race journal Volk und Rasse (Nation and Race) in 1926,

Reche was appointed as editor-in-chief. Similar to Reche, Lehmann‟s political tendencies were clear in his professional work; he regularly assumed publication of racially-biased periodicals such as Volk und Rasse and the Archiv für Rassen- und

Gesellschaftsbiologie (Archive for Racial and Social Biology); Lehmann‟s takeover of the publication Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie in 1918 marked a fundamental shift in the political orientation of Germany‟s racial hygiene movement.

During World War I, Lehmann published military tracts and, in 1917, founded the nationalist Deutschlands Erneurung (Germany’s Renewal), the “first German journal to give the question of race and racial hygiene its deserved and proper place.”39 Following the war, Lehmann continued to be an active participant in the German nationalist and race movement. After Christmas, 1918, he spent several months in prison for having plotted a coup d‟état unifying the League of Pan-Germanists, the anti-Semitic Thule

Society, and the Oberland League against the Republic of Soviets of Munich. Upon liberation, Lehmann helped to organize the ultra-nationalist Deutschvölkische Schutz- und

Trutz-Bund (German People‟s Protection and Defense League) which mobilized the

38 Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 122.

39 Proctor 1988, 26.

156 public with its anti-Semitism and xenophobic belligerence.40 In 1919, Lehmann was sent back to prison after one of the members of the Thule Society assassinated Kurt Eisner, leader of the Bavarian communists. He then rejoined the Freikorps headed by General von Epp, who reclaimed the city of Munich from the communists. Lehmann even played a role in the Hitler putsch on Munich in 1923, and continued distribution of National

Socialist material while Hitler was imprisoned at Landberg.41 He has rightfully been referred to as “the most powerful force for ideological unity among right-wing racist culture.”42 During the Weimar Republic, racial tracts assisted in forging an alliance between the political right and racial hygienists.43 Lehmann did much to create a climate of opinion that “blurred science and völkisch nationalism.” The Lehmann publishing house once boasted that it had never allowed Jews to work in any positions of power.44

Admittedly, Lehmann Press did distribute medical journals and textbooks for students and doctors which were, at one level, strictly scientific. At another, however, they served to “racialize” medical science.45

The fact that the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie was published by Lehmann is not in itself an indicator of völkisch sympathies; however, Lehmann acted as co-editor of the Zeitschrift, which helped to set its racial tone. Lehmann‟s politics helped to shape the

40 Weindling 1998, 179.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., 471.

43 Proctor 1988, 27.

44 Ibid., 26 . 45 Weindling 1989, 471.

157 work of the German Institute for Blood Group Research, and the activities of other institute members further revealed its far-right leanings. Lehmann himself was a member of the institute, as were the eugenicists Eugen Fischer and Erwin Bauer, Philalethes

Kuhn, Hanno Konopacki-Konopath, and the architect Paul Schultze-Naumberg.

Philalethes Kuhn became a National Socialist in 1923. Konopacki-Konopath, a Ministry of Reconstruction civil servant, acted as editor-in-chief of the far-right review Die Sonne

(The Sun) and, in 1926, founded the “Nordic Ring,” a league of Aryan supremacist groups—of which fellow institute member Paul Schultze-Naumburg was a leader.46 He also authored Kunst und Rasse (Art and Race), and had been an acquaintance of Hitler‟s since 1926.47 The institute clearly appealed to a certain political faction. Based on their membership, emphasis was often placed upon political sympathies instead of medical expertise. Many members were not even trained as physicians, much less blood scientists.

Certainly to the satisfaction of Reche and his colleagues, the initial studies supported by the institute largely suggested that blood type had some racial significance.

The Nordic labeling of type B as an Eastern trait had been confirmed by its relative infrequency in remote areas. In addition, studies in the Zeitschrift associated it with other non-German traits, such as foreign-sounding names, round skulls, darker pigmentation, and even the “Mongoloid” eye shape. This corroborated the findings of earlier Weimar research which had linked type B to racial or eugenic inferiority. Encouraged by specific

46 Ibid., 474.

47 … „proche de Hitler…‟ Weindling 1998, 279.

158 findings, particularly Max Gundel‟s report that type B blood was much more common among criminals, völkisch German blood scientists continued the study of blood type as a marker of genetic inferiority. Doctor K. Boehmer of the Institute for Forensic and Social

Medicine at the University of Kiel, duplicated Gundel‟s analysis of prisoners‟ blood types. The results of his research were published in 1927.48 Boehmer noted the “same pattern” of a disproportionate increase of type B blood among the criminals. Of the 150 men examined, 20 percent had type B blood—a much higher percentage than the non- criminal population. The levels of type B became even more obvious when Boehmer, like Gundel, rearranged his results according to conviction and sentence. Type B blood occurred much more frequently among habitual criminals, those who had been given particularly lengthy sentences, or were considered “incorrigible” (unverbesserlich). 49

Some scientists implied the inferiority of type B blood through even more obscure traits.

In the medical journal Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, also published by

Lehmann Press, Dr. J. Warnowsky claimed that the “time of defecation” varied by serologic type; on average, those with blood type A took only a few minutes, yet it took those with type B quite a bit longer—specifically, anywhere from “20 to 40 minutes.”50

48 K. Boehmer, “Blutgruppen und Kriminalstatistik,” Forschungen und Fortschritte 3 (1927): 141-42. Because Kiel is also located in Schleswig-Holstein, Boehmer referred to the same “non-criminal” population frequencies as Gundel: O 20 percent, A 52.2 percent, B 20 percent, AB 8 percent.

49 Although his results do not list physiognomic characteristics, Boehmer noted the subjects‟ body types and commented on a tendency among those with type B towards an “asthenisch-athletic” body type.

50 Type O individuals were referred to as “somewhere inbetween.” Warnowsky also explained that, after an evening of “excessive alcohol intake,” an individual with type A blood suffered the next day, but his cohort with type O felt even better and “more refreshed” than before. Drinkers with type B blood fell somewhere inbetween these extremes. [J. Warnowsky, “Über Beziehung der Blutgruppen zu Krankheiten: Heterohaemagglutination,” Münchner medizinischer Wochenschrift 74 (1927): 1758-60].

159

To the dismay of such theorists, however, inconsistencies within blood type studies at the same time suggested that there was no connection between blood type and any other trait. In his study of East Prussian soldiers, Reich was puzzled by the low incidence of type B blood among subjects with Eastern surnames and Mongoloid eye shapes—both of which were regarded as non-German racial characteristics. His research further suggested that the type B group did not have stronger criminal tendencies. Only two subjects in the group had received military discipline—one was type B, the other type A. When presented with his “contradictory results” which linked type B to blond hair, and type A to dark, Klein could only theorize that “strong mixing” had taken place.51 Presumably, had the men not been products of miscegenation, their serological type and physiognomy would have matched. Similarly, when Klein found no discernible relationship between blood type and skull shape, he suggested that the findings had been adversely affected by racial mixing. After reviewing the results of their research of

Rhineland Germans, Drs. T. Wohlfeil, a professor at the Hygiene Institute of Bonn, and

F. Isbruch, an assistant medical director of a women‟s clinic in Nuremberg, reported no recognizable connection between appearance and blood type.52 Many other studies further contradicted the idea that blood type manifested itself in non-physiognomic racial traits. (See Figure 14).

51 Reich 1929, 149.

52 T. Wohlfeil and F. Isbruch, “IV. Mitteilung Über die Blutgruppenverteilung im Rheinland. V. Mitteilung Zur Frage der Korrelation Zwischen Blutgruppe und Anthropologie,” Klinische Wochenschrift 8, no. 47 (November 1929): 2186.

160

Figure 14. Searching for correlations: A detailed graph by Paul Steffan comparing the blood types and eye colors of 256 subjects. Paul Steffan, “Die Beziehung zwischen Blutgruppe, Pigment und Kopfform,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 138.

In 1928, Dr. Augustin Foerster of the Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine in Münster, criticized Gundel and Boehmer for having possibly “overestimated” their results in their studies of prisoners‟ blood types. 53 Foerster found no such correlations with type B in his own study of penitentiary inmates who, according to their crimes, were also classed as the “most severe” type of offenders. Indeed, to ensure that his study was sufficiently comparable to those of Gundel and Boehmer, Foerster made certain that his subjects were either habitual offenders, categorized as “incorrigible,” or the recipients of

53 A. Foerster, “Blutgruppen und Verbrecher,” Deutsche Zeitschrift Gerichtliche Medizin 11, no. 6 (1928): 487-490. Foerster was at the Institute for Forensic and Social Medicine in Münster.

161 particularly long sentences. Of the 371 individuals Foerster examined, 136 men fit into one of these categories: 41.3 were type A, and only 12.7 percent type B blood.54 Foerster immediately noticed the proportionate level of type B blood. It was even slightly lower

(12.4 percent) among those individuals found guilty of the most violent crimes (rape, murder, manslaughter)! In Gundel‟s study, the same class of convicts had 30 percent type B blood. Based on his own research, Foerster believed that Gundel and Boehmer‟s association between type B blood and criminal behavior was mistaken.55

Though he did not respond to studies which contradicted his work, it is possible that Gundel himself eventually suspected there to be no relationship between serologic type and mental instability. After his studies on criminals and asylum patients, Gundel shifted his interests to surveying blood types of diseased subjects. Perhaps, as he referred to it, he was drawn to the “repeated research” in this particular area. Largely because of its practical implications, surveys of sick individuals had attracted more attention than those of other subject groups. In spite of the then-substantial amount of evidence which refuted any connection between blood type and disease, Gundel conducted his own study of syphilitics in the late stages of the disease—those suffering from tabes and/or

54 Foerster 1928, 489. Type O was 41.7 percent and AB, 4.3.

55 In addition, Foerster had not noticed that type B individuals were predisposed to one specific body type, whereas Boehmer noted that type B persons were inclined to be “athletic” (Gundel had not considered body types). Like Fritz Schiff, Foerster was rightly wary of any studies which drew correlations between physiognomic characteristics and social status. (Schiff, 1928).

162 paralysis.56 Gundel was, again, struck by the higher incidence of blood type B; of the

402 patients, between 25 and 28 percent were type B, a far greater number than the non- diseased average of 11 percent. The results were consistent with Gundel‟s previous work with mentally ill patients and criminals, and led him to theorize that individuals with type

B blood had a “unique predisposition” for syphilis.57 Further analysis, however, revealed that this was not the case. Because of the Wassermann Test for syphilis, which required drawing blood, statistics of blood types among syphilitics were available in the thousands during the Weimar Republic. By supplementing his own subject group of 402 with these existing statistics, Gundel was able to expand his sample pool to 10,550 samples.58 He then “discovered” what many already knew—the blood type distributions in this larger sample revealed no elevated incidence of type B blood, or any other type for that matter.

56 Tabes dorsalis, the result of an untreated syphilis infection, is a slow degeneration of the nerve cells and nerve fibers that carry information to the brain (demyelination). It can lead to paralysis. Symptoms may not appear for several decades after the initial infection. [“NINDS Tabes Dorsalis Information Page,” National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD); http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tabes_dorsalis.htm (2 June 2009)].

57 Max Gundel, “Bestehen Zusammenhänge Zwischen Blutgruppe und Luesdisposition sowie zwischen Blutgruppe und Erfolg der Luestherapie?,” Klinische Wochenschrift 6, no. 36 (Sept. 1927): 1704.

58 Ibid.

163

Gundel was forced to admit that blood type appeared to play no role in susceptibility to syphilis.59

Serological research conducted by other scientists continued to refute a connection between type B blood and disadvantageous traits. Some results even suggested that type A was inferior. Based on the fact that there were more individuals with type B among his subjects over twenty-five years of age, a Danish contributor to the

Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie first theorized that individuals with type B blood lived longer than the other three types. Even though this proved not to be the case, as a later examination of 2,000 additional samples yielded “a completely different result,” the lack

59 Even in the late twenties, some physicians suspected that a particularly virulent infection could even change an individual‟s blood type. Records from the Robert Koch Serological Institute detail one such case reported by a Greek physician, Dr. Jack Diamontopoulos. Diamontopoulos claimed to have observed changes in the blood types of two patients. Suffering from gonorrhea, the first patient had arrived towards the end of April 1926 and, after receiving treatment, had left the hospital on June 10 (1926). She returned again on January 1, 1928, with a secondary syphilis infection and, after ten neosalvarsan [a mercury-based chemical used to treat syphilis] injections, was cured of this as well; she was then released from the hospital a second time on March 31, 1928. According to Diamontopoulos, the patient had blood group B when tested on January 26, 1928; however, five weeks later, she was now type O! The second patient came to the hospital in the middle of August, 1926, also due to a gonorrheal infection. She was treated and left the hospital on December 31, 1926. She returned in August of the following year due to a primary syphilis infection. After having received extensive treatments (probably also salvarsan injections), she was released on October 27, 1927. In February, 1928, she was readmitted to the hospital because of gonorrhea. A test in January of 1928 indicated that she had blood type B; after four weeks, however, Diamontopoulos claimed that she had blood type O. After another four weeks, he noted, she “again proved to have blood type B.” Diamontopoulos was convinced that the apparent change in blood type had resulted from immunities built against the infections; this had enacted a change in the quantity and/or quality of the blood‟s agglutins. He also referred to Raphalkes‟ work, who purportedly had also observed changes in blood type following extreme infections. The Robert Koch Institute simply stated that these cases described by Diamontopoulos “could not be considered [reliable] evidence against the constancy of the blood groups.” His reference to “frequently occurring pseudoagglutinations,” which the Koch Institute believed to be quite rare, led them to speculate that perhaps Diamontopoulos had used “defective techniques” in his analysis. Diamontopoulos had failed to indicate in his work that he had analyzed not only the blood types, but also the serum of the concerned patients. Therefore, the Koch Institute judged his data on both cases to be “incomplete.” In the past, they emphasized, all researchers who had followed the correct procedure, had consistently observed the constancy of the blood groups—even after cases of extreme sickness and/or particularly aggressive medical treatment. (R86/3781).

164 of consistency was clear.60 Polish physician Eugeniusz Wilczkowski reported that the schizophrenics he examined tended to have type A blood. In their survey of 500 subjects with “endogenous psychoses” (in this case, schizophrenia and manic-depression),

Ukrainian Drs. B. Chominski and L. Schustova also found a “relative predominance” of type A.61 Nonetheless, the authors commented that there appeared to be “no affiliation” between blood type and disease. In Germany, not surprisingly, Foerster agreed. German physicians C. Dolter and M. Heimann had similarly found no difference between the blood type distributions of Germans with mental disorders and those without. The same was the case in Fr. Meyer‟s study of inmates at an institute of mental health in Silesia.62

Despite the wide range of disorders, including “schizophrenia, manic-depression, progressive paralysis, epilepsy, imbecility, idiocy, senility, and dementia,” no pattern could be noted between mental condition and serologic type.63

These irregularities did not go unnoticed. In 1926, Portuguese physician Antonio

Augusto Mendes-Corrèa pointed out that peoples of different “serologic types” could resemble one another. The reverse could be true as well—populations which shared the

60 Sören Hansen, “Methodologisches über Blutgruppenforschung durch Massenuntersuchung,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 2 (1929/1930): 74.

61 Subjects were patients at the Ŝevčenko-Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Kiev. B. [Chominskij and .L. Schustowa, “Zur Frage des Zusammenhanges zwischen Blutgruppe und psychischer Erkrangung,” Zeitschrift für Neurologie 115 (1928): 305]. This was, however, a very brief notation. Their use of the term “relative” was quite liberal: with 44.3 percent A blood, the schizophrenics did have slightly more than the general populations‟ 43 percent. The difference was clearly too small to make any larger hypotheses.

62 Fr. Meyer, “Blood group distribution in the Silesian population and the relation of blood groups to mental illness,” Deutscher Medizinischer Wochenschrift, no. 35 (1928): 1461.

63 Foerster 1928, 488.

165 same distributions of blood type could look very different, which led Mendes-Corrèa to voice a “very strong reservation” (une réserve très forte) regarding the taxonomic value of the blood types.64 In her research, also published in 1926, American examiner Ella F.

Grove was also presented with conflicting results—the blood type distributions of the

Ainu, supposedly a Caucasian people, were found to be the same as “Senegal Negroes.”

The two looked completely different, and were regarded as separate racial types by anthropologists, yet had similar blood type distributions. The findings suggested to

Grove that blood was useless as a racial indicator. British physician Matt Young also observed how even peoples far removed from one another and “divergent in physical type” could have identical blood type distributions, as had been the case between the

Senegalese and Sumatran peoples. Such discrepancies similarly led him to question altogether the value of blood typing for racial differentiation.65 The once-committed

Polish blood scientist Jan Mydlarski, a previous student of Ludwik Hirszfeld, now believed that blood science had only a “secondary value” in anthropological studies.66

In response to doubts concerning seroanthropology, völkisch physicians drew attention to noticeable patterns in the research and claimed that, as this was still a relatively new science, further research would be needed prior to completely denying its significance for analyses of race. Dr. Ella Grove, who had been surprised to find that two supposedly-disparate racial types had the same blood type distributions, nonetheless

64 A.A. Mendes-Corrèa, “Sur les prétendues „races‟ sérologiques,” L’Anthropologie 36 (1926): 439.

65 M. Young, “The problem of the racial significance of the blood groups,” Man 28, no. 9 (1928): 171.

66 A.A. Mendes-Corrèa, “Sur la valeur anthropologique des groupes sanguins,” Sang, no. 4 (1927): 323.

166 admitted the lingering possibility that additional studies would better explain the nature of the relationship between blood type and appearance. To determine the association,

Grove suggested continued blood type surveys with other characteristics, such as “the color of the eyes, hair, and skin,” as this might “provide insight on the complete [racial] identity of the individual.”67 Her colleague, Dr. Clark Wissler, agreed; the only way to prove the value of the blood test was “to take some definite anatomical character and correlate it with blood type.”68 Karl Landsteiner still felt it necessary to study blood in the context of other racial traits. It was not possible, he pointed out, to classify races by measuring just the nose or any other one trait, and this applied to blood as well—blood type was simply “one factor” in [racial] classification.69

Many noted that, also because of its relative newness, studies of blood and race had been erratic, without specific guidelines, and theorized that this might be the source of inconsistencies. The matter of subject group size continued to be cause for concern.

Making definitive statements on results first required a sufficiently-large sample group; however, the number required was subject to debate. In his study of 660 soldiers, Reich added that his results could not be applied “without reservation,” as his subjects were only a small sample of East Prussia‟s population; however, he failed to specify how many blood samples would be needed. At the same time, in Klein‟s analysis of approximately six hundred schoolchildren in Oberlahnstein and St. Goarshausen, he did not refer to any

67 Grove, E.F. and A.F. Coca. “On the value of the blood group „feature‟ in the study of race relationships,” Eugenical News 11, no. 6 (1926): 91.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

167 such requirements. On occasion, even significantly larger studies were criticized for insufficient sampling. British Dr. Matt Young was wary of Verzár and Wescezky‟s 1921 study in which they theorized, based on the comparable distributions of blood type between their Hungarian Roma Sinti subjects and the Indians in the Hirszfelds‟ 1918 research, that blood type was an unchanging racial characteristic. He complained that neither study had tested enough people native to the region to arrive at such a conclusion:

It is very doubtful if the results of 1,000 observations can be accepted as in any way representative of the blood grouping in India, in which there appears to be evidence of several racial types. Perhaps too much emphasis has been laid on this particular example of apparent persistence of blood type.70

Otto Reche, who was intent on justifying his own racial convictions through medicine, predictably defended seroanthropology. In 1928, he responded to misgivings in a Volk und Rasse article entitled “Blood Group Research and Anthropology.” In spite of mixed physiognomic results, he reasoned it was still possible that blood types A and B had, at one point, been connected with other anthropomorphic characteristics; modern studies of blood and physiognomy often showed no correlation because of racial mixing.

The same phenomenon, Reche explained, could also be observed in “racially-mixed” individuals (Mischlinge) who still had lighter eye, hair, and skin coloring (in spite of their mix). Reche was not discouraged, and believed that more extensive research might indicate some connection between physiognomy and serologic type. There was the further possibility that it might not be physiognomic, but psychological traits which went

70 Young 1928, 172.

168

“hand in hand” with certain blood types.71 Even though no definitive correlation had yet been realized, Reche still referred to seroanthropology as a worthy pursuit. Blood type surveys continued to confirm the Hirszfelds‟ pattern of A in the West, and B in the East.

(See Figure 15). Furthermore, he persisted, “new research” suggested that a relationship between the blood types and racial physiognomy and pathology might exist. He did not, however, mention studies which contradicted this and instead remained convinced that serology would ultimately benefit racial hygiene, and pleaded with blood scientists to

“energetically” continue their work.72

Perhaps the clearest indicator of völkisch leanings was an unwavering belief in the existence of races, and a racial hierarchy, even though there was no one objective, reliable “racial indicator.” A commitment to find this one identifying trait was most pronounced amongst Nordic race theorists. Reche held certain cultures in higher esteem than others and claimed it was “completely obvious” that some races possessed much higher capabilities, as well as the gift of “cultural creativity.” This disposition applied to the northern European racial types.73 In addition, Reche was a negative eugenicist and believed that a struggle would have to be led to maintain and improve the superior racial elements; he recommended sterilization laws to prevent “reproduction of the less valuable.” In conjunction with this legislation, he also supported immigration restriction,

71 Otto Reche, “Blutgruppenforschung und Anthropologie,” Volk und Rasse 3 (1928): 8.

72 Ibid., 10-11.

73 Geisenhainer 2002, 119.

169

Figure 15. Map by Paul Steffan showing Hirszfeld‟s biochemical racial indices throughout Europe as of 1927. Paul Steffan and Siegmund Wellisch, “Die geographische Verteilung der Blutgruppen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928-1929): 46-60.

170 which would help to prevent racial mixing.74 Völkisch blood scientists, like Reche, simply applied their existing racial stereotypes to blood science.

Even with its intriguing patterns between blood type and race, seroanthropology appeared to have the same drawback as physical anthropology—in which no one feature was used to identify a subject‟s race. As a result, whether using blood type or physiognomy, Nordic race theorists varied in their methods of racial analysis, and were often flexible in their definition of race. In 1919, Reche first explained that race was characterized by a number of distinct, consistently occurring “morphological, physiological, and psychological hereditary traits,” and one race was sharply separated from the next by its “Volk, language, and cultural community.”75 Nearly a decade later, after co-founding the German Institute for Blood Group Research, he explained it somewhat differently:

A race is a group of people connected by a blood relation...they demonstrate this relation through shared hereditary dispositions as well as certain characteristics …Racial characteristics consist of not only externally visible physical…features, but also of physiological and spiritual traits…And just as all “culture” and “civilization” are products of both hereditary racial predispositions and “environment,” the vast differences in the sophistication and the manifestation of cultures and civilizations lead us back, for the most part, to the different spiritual dispositions of the races; it has been repeatedly observed that a culturally-creative race (like the Northern Europeans) can produce cultural value in an unfavorable environment, while an untalented race under favorable conditions doesn‟t rise out of its primitive state. The most important observable characteristics are as follows: the color of the skin, eyes and hair, the texture of the hair, the shape of the skull and face, the shape and proportion of the limbs and torso, and general body measurements.76

74 Geisenhainer 2002, 121.

75 Otto Reche, “Rasse und Sprache,” Archiv für Anthropologie 46 (1921): 208.

76 Geisenhainer 2002, 139-140.

171

As these examples demonstrate, völkisch blood scientists also tended to embellish their findings to reassure themselves of German racial purity, even when research suggested otherwise. The level of type B blood had been high enough among Reich‟s East Prussian soldiers to noticeably lower their biochemical racial index. He still claimed that type B was “relatively rare.” Schaede admitted that his German subjects had a higher percentage of type B blood, but specified that this was only noticeable among Germans with Polish surnames. Furthermore, he pointed out, those born in East Prussia had blood type distributions similar to the “racially pure” Germans of rural Westphalia.

Perhaps most startling was blood scientists‟ blatant disregard for historical and archaeological evidence which clearly implied that there was no pure German race.

Examiners had gone to great lengths, consulting primary documents and corresponding with historians, to discover that extensive population movements had occurred in the areas they were examining. First it was the “pre-German” Celts in and around Frankfurt, who were followed by an influx of peoples from the Roman Empire—which, it was acknowledged, may have included peoples from Gaul, North Africa, and Asia. With its past settlement by Swedes, English, and French, Osnäbruck was not terribly different.

The clear implication was that the subject groups were, in fact, racially mixed.

Nonetheless, many scientists maintained that their selected subjects had not been exposed to miscegenation. The researchers of Frankfurt am Main did admit that, based on their research, theirs was certainly a mixed group. However, they claimed that they had been able to “sort out” those who had descended from the “original inhabitants.” Family names, church registries, parents‟ birthplaces, and other criteria were carefully examined

172 in the hopes of ensuring that their subjects had not been exposed to “foreign” racial influence. In Osnäbruck, Steffan and Meyer believed that they had accomplished the same. Schridde simply claimed that his villages were “unmixed” on account of their location. These findings would have appealed to völkisch ideologues, who feared that there was no distinct German race. Numerous anthropologic studies had suggested this to be the case. Besides Virchow‟s findings in the nineteenth-century, German anthropologist Wirth claimed that the German Volk had been originally composed of

“Celtic, Lithuanian, Germanic and Slavic blood, then Romans, Jews, Huguenots and

Italians, with a smattering of Swedes, Scots, Croats, Irish, Hungarians, Spaniards, and

Turks.”77 Liberal politician and psychologist Willy Hellpach, the Democratic Party‟s presidential candidate in 1925, agreed. In 1928, he rejected the idea of a racial essence peculiar to the German character—there were too many ethnic types in Germany for the nation to be identified “with a single race or blood type.”78

Völkisch studies of race reflected the ambiguity of Nordic race theory. Long before blood science, physical athropologists commonly made references to “foreign blood,” “German blood,” or “blood mixing,” despite their obscurity. Such elusive terms were incorporated into seroanthropology. Klein, for instance, remarked on “a certain measure of Spanish blood” in the Germans he examined, but he did not refer to specific blood type proportions or any other clinical details. To Reich, type B blood was the

Eastern type, but he failed to explain which racial type(s) was Eastern. Other, similarly-

77 Christopher M. Hutton, Race and the Third Reich (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005), 20.

78 Weindling 1989, 482.

173 vague phrases were used; Schaede took pride in his “regularly mixed” population, as did

Schridde in his “unmixed” one. Steffan assured that there had been no “Jewish influence” in Osnäbruck, and Schridde claimed that his forest settlements were

“untouched.” Ambiguity allowed for a great deal of subjectivity, so its usage was common amongst völkisch race theorists. It would have been difficult for physicians who employed such expressions to actually provide definitions for their terms. Who, for instance, were the obscure “original inhabitants” referred to throughout blood type surveys? How much miscegenation would have to take place, and with whom, to classify a population as “mixed” or “unmixed”? How could one be certain that a group was

“untouched,” as Schridde assured his was? How far back did historical documentation have to go to confirm this? If miscegenation occurred before the Thirty Years War, did this mean a group could still be referred to as “untouched”?

Similar idiosyncrasies were also apparent in the works of foreign contributors to the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie in studies on their own populations. As in

Germany, areas were often chosen based on historical migration patterns. Physicians

Seisow and W.T. Zontschew chose to examine the blood types of schoolchildren in Sofia,

Bulgaria, because the Balkan region was traditionally believed by racial theorists to have been exposed to extensive miscegenation.79 Positioned at the “crossroads between

Europe and Asia,” the authors explained, the Balkan Peninsula had experienced frequent population movements over time. Eventually, many “completely different racial types”

79 Seisow and W.T. Zontschew, “Blutgruppenuntersuchungen an Schülern in Sofia,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1929): 143-146.

174 had become mixed, with the result that the modern Balkans was a “colorful mixture” of different races. It was “hardly an accident,” they incorrectly claimed, that Hirszfeld had begun his research in the Balkans.80

Meticulous documentation of possible “racial traits” in addition to blood was also practiced in foreign studies. Seisow and Zontschew divided their 1,000 Bulgarian schoolchildren subjects according to those who had been born in Sofia and its immediate surroundings (as well as their parents), and a second group from outside of Sofia, whose parents were from throughout Bulgaria. Various physiognomic traits of the children were examined, though no “significant difference” was noted between the groups except, perhaps, the “predominance of blonds with blue eyes and wide faces in the first group,” as well as a higher incidence of types A and AB blood. These findings confirmed the authors‟ opinion that Sofia was [racially] homogeneous and had remained “protected” from foreign influence.81 In a separate study conducted in Szegedin, in the south of

Hungary, Dr. Rosztóczy drew blood samples from 1,800 subjects and, “for purposes of racial classification,” also recorded the color of their skin, eyes, and hair, their family name, birthplace (as well as the birthplaces of both parents), and their religion.82

Rosztóczy referred to a group of Hungarian soldiers studied as “racially pure Magyars—

80 Ibid., 143.

81 Ibid., 146.

82 E. von Rosztóczy, “Untersuchungen über Isohämagglutination in der Umgebung von Szegedin,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 4 (1931): 146-147.

175 with few exceptions.”83 He also differentiated between subjects whose paternal and maternal grandparents had “pure Magyar” names. In the event that the subject did not appear to be “completely Magyar,” he believed that name analysis could help to reveal possible German or Slavic influence. He also closely considered those who were believed to have had some type of “foreign racial influence.”84

In 1934, Lajos von Méhely, a Hungarian member of the German Institute for

Blood Group Research, also presented the results of his blood type studies of several

Hungarian villages in an article entitled “Blut und Rasse” (Blood and Race), published in the German Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie (Periodical for Morphology and Anthropology).85 The objective of Méhely‟s research—to locate the region‟s

“original inhabitants” and determine the amount of miscegenation which may have taken place—was identical to studies carried out in Germany. Like his German colleagues,

Méhely closely researched historical documents for evidence of “foreign” names; after

1716, church records indicated that “non-Hungarian” (i.e., German) names had become much more common. Méhely noted that those individuals with surnames such as Simon,

David, Jakab, Abraham, and Dienes (presumably of Jewish descent) represented the

“Oriental type” and were of small or medium build, with dark hair and eyes, and a small

83 Ibid., 145-146.

84 Ibid., 147.

85Lajos von Méhely, “Blut und Rasse,” Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie 34 (1934): 244-257.

176 but “strongly projecting, hook-shaped nose.”86 Méhely found that longer skulls were most common among those with blood type A, which indicated “Nordic and Dinaric” descent.87

Based on the blood type distributions, Méhely believed that the “original blood” of the Mongolian Hungarians had been strongly affected over the centuries by extensive miscegenation. He concluded that the subject group in Dudar was only 12.6 percent

“pure-blooded” Hungarian.88 In the village of Bakonynana, Méhely also found strong

German influence, even though the subjects had many Hungarian traits. The vast majority had “round skulls,” half were even extremely round (hyperbrachycephalic); only

1.6 percent were categorized as having long skulls—a group Méhely referred to as “the last Mohicans” of the Nordic element.89 With hair color, 66 percent had brown hair, and only 20.9 blond. Of those with “Western blood” (type A), Méhely observed, the majority were brown-haired, though he reminded the reader of the genetic dominance of dark coloring.90 Those with Hungarian names and of Hungarian descent were affiliated with type B blood. Méhely was of the opinion that type B among German settler families originated from mixing with Hungarians. Type B blood was also found, he claimed, in

German families in which “the mother or one grandmother” was Hungarian. Therefore, for instance, both Marie and Johann Mail were German, but their maternal grandmother

86 Ibid., 249.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid., 250.

89 Ibid., 253.

90 Ibid.

177 was Hungarian (Therese Viczay). Similarly, Méhely continued, the mother of Franz

Biernbaum maiden‟s name was Asvanyi. Méhely provided several such examples, explaining that the children of all those named, despite their German parentage, had type

B blood.91 This was even the case in subjects who did not “appear” Hungarian. With

“surprise,” Méhely reported, he often noted a large man or a small woman with a “small face, blue eyes, and blond hair.” In some cases, he even felt obliged to ask: “which of their grandmothers was Hungarian?” They then “marveled” that he could tell so much from a small drop of blood. Nevertheless, he explained, his suspicions of “racial mixing” usually proved correct.92 From his study, he concluded that miscegenation did not always lead to “vile consequences,” but it was still necessary to work towards “the preservation and care” of the Magyar race.93

In the late twenties, as more figures were gathered on larger and more varied groups throughout Europe and elsewhere, the findings often chipped away at the practicality of seroanthropology, or prompted even further questions. In their study near

Frankfurt am Main, Isbruch and Wohlfeil remarked that the nearby city of

Niedererlenbach had an “unusual” frequency of both B and AB blood that was apparent neither in other German areas examined, nor amongst those in Frankfurt.94 Higher levels of type B blood had also been reported in other German subject groups. Foerster

91 Ibid., 254.

92 Ibid., 255.

93 Ibid., 257.

94 Wohlfeil and Isbruch 1929, 852.

178 questioned the validity of Gundel and Boehmer‟s work when he pointed out that other studies had found increased levels of type B blood among the “normal” German population; Heinrich Kliewe and R. Nagel had found 17.7 percent type B blood in

Giessen and Vogelsberg, and this increased to 20 percent in Wetterau, and then 25 percent in northern Wetterau.95 A comparison of statistics gathered throughout Germany similarly indicated wide discrepancies in blood type. In 1928, the highest incidence of type A within a population (76.4 percent) was recorded in Nordostharz; the lowest (21 percent) was in Bavaria. At 23.4 percent, type B was most common in Westphalia, but this dipped to only 6.4 percent in Baden.96 An overview of the various surveys questioned the notion that type B was an indicator of Eastern descent, or a trait which predisposed an individual to mental and physical disorders. A simple review of other studies, and his own work, led Foerster to claim that an increased frequency of type B blood among the criminal population “could not be confirmed.”97

Additional research also drew attention to the presence of the other, “neglected” types O and AB blood. Eurasian patterns with these types were less distinct than those with types A and B. Consequently, blood scientists were often not sure what to make of them. Schaede was “puzzled” by the high frequencies of O and AB in Reich‟s study.

Schridde noted that his group, overall, had high incidences of type O, but he did not speculate as to why. The racial worth of O and AB was often discounted on the grounds

95 Foerster 1928, 489-490. See also H. Kliewe and R. Nagel, “Über die Blutgruppenzusammensatzung der Bevölkerung Oberhessens,” Klinischer Wochenschrift (1927): 2332-2335.

96 Wohlfeil and Isbruch 1929, 852.

97 Foerster 1928, 490.

179 that both were relatively recent developments in human history. Many believed that they were probably the result of mutations after the racial types had emerged. Therefore, only

A and B could be used to study anthropology. But some argued that O and AB were not the product of mutation, were actually much older than originally thought, and therefore just as important for racial research as types A and B.98

After several years, and dozens of further blood type surveys, seroanthropology was in a similar set of circumstances as it had been when the German Institute for Blood

Group was first established. Certain studies suggested that blood might be of some value in anthropological studies, while others indicated that it was completely unreliable. The völkisch blood scientists of the institute expected research to reveal an association between type B blood and Eastern peoples, as well as greater susceptibilities to mental and physical illness or disability. Membership in the German Institute for Blood Group

Research weighed heavily on one‟s political inclinations and possibly, as the lists indicate, their race; the impressive, but comparably “liberal” contingent of Jewish blood scientists was largely absent. Institutional research interests were biased as well. Efforts were put forth to provide a general overview of developments in serology, but its founders were mainly interested in determining the potential of blood as a racial indicator. The institute was marked by desperate attempts to draw some correlation between blood and other characteristics. By the late twenties, however, the tangled

98 In 1925, Russian physician Wischnewsky introduced a racial-serological index which took into account all four blood types, see B.M. Wischnewsky, “Zur Frage d. biochem. Rassenindex,” Wratsch. Djelo, no. 6 (1925) and “Blutgruppen und Anthropologie,” Verhandl. D. Ständ. Kommission für Blutgruppenforschung I, no. 2 (1927): 1-25. See also, U.U. Melkich, “Der neue biochemische Rassenindex,” Verhandl. D. Ständ. Kommission für Blutgruppenforschung I, no. 2 (1927): 26-39.

180 consistencies and inconsistencies of blood type surveys led to serious misgivings concerning race and blood type. From his findings, Klein claimed that any conclusion was “improbable on account of their complexity.” 99 In 1927, another physician dryly commented, “as far as racial studies are concerned, we still do not know whether or not the blood types are useful.”100 For the purposes of racial classification, many still preferred physiognomic characteristics. In spite of the latter‟s “imperfections and faults,”

Portuguese Dr. Mendes-Corrèa felt it was still more efficient than blood science.101

Young similarly cautioned that the existing evidence did not seem to be sufficient enough to attach more importance to blood in racial analyses than other racial traits—such as

“head or hair form or skin color.”102 Reche downplayed such “discrepancies” and simply claimed that further research was required.103

99 Klein 1928/1929, 12.

100 Mendes-Corrèa 1927, 332.

101 Ibid., 322.

102 Young 1928, 172.

103 Geisenhainer 2002, 130. It is possible that these developments played a role in the increasing cancellation of memberships in the institute, though many cited financial reasons for doing so.

CHAPTER VI

THE JEW AS EXAMINER AND EXAMINED IN SEROANTHROPOLOGY

The objectives of the German Institute for Blood Group Research, the content of its studies, and the racial rhetoric of its publication all strongly suggest sympathies with the far-right, which would further imply that the institute was also anti-Semitic. Based on its membership, this seemed to be the case; several historians have noted the absence of

Jewish researchers. This was certainly more than a coincidence, when one considers the central role of physicians of Jewish descent in blood science. In 1900, Karl Landsteiner discovered the blood types, which led to the development of modern serology. In the course of the next decade, Ludwik Hirszfeld assisted in confirming the heredity of the blood types and, during World War I, coordinated the first large-scale study of blood type and race. The results of his research, published in 1918, began the science of seroanthropology. Both Landsteiner and Hirszfeld, as well as other Jews, continued to figure prominently in blood science during the Weimar Republic.

This chapter will examine the continued participation of Jews in seroanthropology during this time as researchers, but also their position as subjects. How did the conspicuously-völkisch German Institute for Blood Group Research deal with their involvement? Were attempts made to include physicians of Jewish descent? How did

181 182 surveys of Jewish subjects influence existing theories on Jewish racial identity? The dynamic of Jews as directors and objects of seroanthropological study occurred during the rise to power of the National Socialist party. A popular theme within Nazi propaganda continued to be the notion of “blood defilement”—the result of contact with

Jews. I will touch on their misappropriations of blood science, how these compared to medical fact, and the response they elicited from the Jewish community.

Since the nineteenth century, German völkisch anthropologists had studied Jews to rationalize their own anti-Semitism and justify Jewish exclusion from the “national community.” They believed that racial classification of the Jewish minority would ultimately benefit the wellbeing of the Aryan people. Nordic race theorists frequently claimed that Jewish ancestry was evident in appearance, and often referenced such traits as dark pigmentation, disproportionately large noses, and small, closely-set eyes as proof.

Still others cited excessive body hair, narrow chests, or lack of musculature as “typically

Jewish.” At the same time, however, there were many Jews who “appeared Nordic,” which questioned the accuracy of physiognomic analysis. In 1929, American anthropologist Stephen Rich claimed that hair, eye, and skin color were strictly hereditary and not subject to environmental change. Consequently, he observed, if the Jews were direct, pure descendants of the ancient “Hebraic racial type,” they would not have blond hair, blue eyes, or the “typically Teutonic” fair complexion that many of them did—as none of these characteristics were found amongst their darker “presumed congeners.”

“Certainly,” Rich claimed, “there were more than one-fourth of blue-eyed or “rufous”

(red-haired) Jews among those from Germany and the Ukraine.” In his extensive

183 anthropomorphic study, German anthropologist Rudolf Virchow had also reported that a substantial percentage of Jewish children had these traits. Several studies in physical anthropologist Maurice Fishberg‟s book indicated thirty percent blonde hair among Jews, which led Rich to estimate that they had had at one point at least fifty percent blonde ancestry (as blondeness is a recessive Mendelian trait).1 Consequently, many race theorists formed the opinion that a psychological examination was necessary for racial classification, as Jews were believed to have higher incidences of immoral behavior and mental illness.2 As a result, anti-Semites relied upon a wide range of traits when referencing the Jews‟ supposed “racial otherness.”

It was often claimed that the Jews were not one racial type, but actually two or more. Anthropologists commonly divided Jews into the Sephardic and Ashkenazic racial types, which were mainly based on appearance: Sephardim were described as dark with

“long heads,” and Ashkenazim as fair with “round heads.” German anthropologist Felix von Luschan theorized that modern Jews included three types: Semites, Aryan Amorites and, predominantly, descendants of the ancient Hittites. Houston S. Chamberlain similarly believed that the Jews represented a mixture of Semitic, Indo-European, and

Hittite types. Austrian Jewish anthropologist Ignaz Zollschan claimed that Jews were the

1 Stephen G. Rich, “The Jews: race or conglomerate,” Journal of Educational Sociology 2, no. 8 (April 1929): 474. See also Maurice Fishberg, The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment (Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1911), 508.

2 To substantiate this claim, many medical researchers made reference to the greater incidence of suicide among Jews. See, for example, statistics compiled on suicide in Prussia from 1912 to 1919, which revealed that approximately two percent were Jewish. [Edgar Schultz, “Judentum und Degeneration,” Ziel und Weg 16 (1935): 354].

184 result of miscegenation between two ancient peoples—the Egyptians of North Africa and the Mesopotamians of the near East, which categorized the Jews as a mix of “mainly

Oriental and Near Eastern” racial types. Zollschan‟s hypothesis was popular: Germans

Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz, Hans F.K. Günther, and Ludwig F. Clauss all came to the same conclusion. 3 In spite of their perceived threat to the German Volk, there was no consensus as to the Jews‟ racial type or how to go about identifying them. As a result, when blood was proposed as a possible racial trait at the end of World War I, it was immediately applied to the matter of the Jews‟ racial identity.

Jews had been included as one of the sixteen racial types analyzed by the

Hirszfelds in their wartime study, and many Weimar-era studies followed their example.

Blood type surveys of Jews were particularly common throughout Central and Eastern

Europe. The results, however, were not consistent. The Hirszfelds‟ analysis of 500 Jews from Monastir yielded a biochemical index of 1.35 which categorized them as

“Mediterranean” in racial type—somewhere between the “African-Asian” serological category (0-1), and the “Western European” type (2+). As subsequent studies revealed, though, levels of types A and B blood could vary significantly from one group of Jewish subjects to the next. Many studies did place the Jews racial index between 1 and 2, which agreed with the Hirszfelds‟ initial classification. Romanian blood scientist Sabin

Manuila reported his 211 Romanian Jewish subjects to have an index of 1.54. Similarly, an analysis of 384 Ukrainian Jews by Russian scientists came to 1.63. A study published

3 Siegmund Wellisch, “Serologische Untersuchungen über das Rassentum der Juden,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 204.

185 by Polish physicians W. Halber and Jan Mydlarski also classed 818 Jews as

“Mediterranean” with an index of 1.94, but results were not always within this range.

Several Russian analyses of Jewish groups classified them instead as “Western

European”: one survey of 257 White Russian Jews yielded a biochemical index of 2.42.

A study of 1,475 Jewish subjects from Odessa gave a comparably high 2.20, while a separate survey of 529 Jews in the same region came to 2.96. Similar results were reported farther west. Schiff and Ziegler found their Berlin Jewish subjects to have an index of 2.4. Similarly, a result of 2.45 had been reported in a study of 705 Dutch Jews.4

Due to the relatively high proportion of “Aryan” type A blood, a significant number of surveys on Jewish subjects yielded indices greater than 2, thereby giving results which were comparable to, and at times even higher than, the surrounding gentile population.5

Völkisch blood scientists focused upon certain disparities, however slight, as further evidence of the Jews‟ supposed racial difference. In the simplest of terms, they

4 For instance, refer to the following studies of Jewish subjects: Ukraine, 384 subjects, 1.63 biochemical index. Rubaschkin and Derman, “Die Hämoisoagglutination als Grundlage der Methode zur Erforschung der Konstitution,” Vrač. Delo, nos. 20-23 (1924): 1153-1162. Poland, 818 subjects, 1.94 biochemical index. W. Halber and J. Mydlarski, “Recherches séroanthropologiques en Pologne,” Comptes Rendus de Société Biologique 89 (1923): 1373-75; White Russia, 257 subjects, 2.42biochemical racial index. Rachowsky and Suetin, “Über eine Untersuchung von weissrussischen Juden,” Sapiski Bolr. San.-Bakt. Ist., no. 2138 (1926); City Odessa, 1475 subjects, 2.20 biochemical index. A.L. Barinstein, “Zur Frage des biochemischen Rassenindex der Bevölkerung von Odessa,” Ukrain. Zbl. Blutgruppenforschung 2 (1928): 55-61. Settlers near Odessa, 529 subjects, 2.96 biochemical racial index. M.S. Leitschik, “Die Blutgruppen und die Untersuchung der Vererbung der agglutinerendedn Substanzen bie den übergesiedelten Hebräern der Odessaer Gebiete,” Ukrain. Zbl. Blutgruppenforschung 2, no. 3 (1928): 30- 44. Holland, 705 subjects, 2.45 biochemical index. M.A. Van Herwerden, “Les groupes sanguins en Hollande,” Inst. Internat. D’Anthrop. III Sess Amsterdam (1928): 456-461.

5 See A. Eisenberg, “Zur Frage nach den Isoagglutinationsgruppen des Blutes bei Menschen,” Folia Haematologica 36 (1928): 316-336. Of the 1,000 individuals examined from Charkow; 823 were Russian, and 114 were Jewish, and the remainder represented different populations. The blood type distributions of the 823 Russians were as follows: O 33 (percent), A 36.8, B 22.1, AB 8, Unclear .1. The distributions of the 114 Jews were: O 27.2, A 44.8, B 21.9, AB 6.1. The Hirszfeld Index was 1.81 for the Jews, and 1.53 for the group as a whole. That of the Russians was calculated to be 1.49.

186 hoped to substantiate biologic differences between the blood of Jews and non-Jews. As it had been in the pre-war period, anti-Semitic blood rhetoric was characteristic of far-right political movements throughout the Weimar Republic. Still popular was the idea that intercourse with a Jew resulted in literal “defilement” of the German partner‟s blood—as expressed in a poem titled “Blood” in a 1923 issue of Nazi Julius Streicher‟s Der

Stürmer:

As the blood is, so is the soul Women who let Jews have their way with them defile their body and soul. Whosoever carries Jewish blood in their veins thinks and behaves Jewish.6

More often than not, such propaganda was clearly allegorical, though it did on occasion assume medical objectivity. Several years later, in yet another issue of Der Stürmer, an excerpt instructed readers on blood group research which, according to the authors, had confirmed that the blood of Jews was entirely different from that of all non-Jewish races.

The convenient flexibility of völkisch notions of race was apparent in the same publication only months later, when it was reported that the Jews were not a “specific race” like the “Germans, Mongols, or Negroes”—but were in fact a “mixing” of these three. Evidently, this was not the only difference, as the article continued to explain how blood samples revealed that the blood of Jews was “partly animal and ape blood.”7

Berlin doctor Fritz Schiff, a German Jew and one of the most respected serologists in interwar Europe, was quick to recognize the rising racist and political implications of far-right seroanthropology and decided to respond to these developments

6 Der Stürmer, July 1923, 2.

7 Ibid., 42.

187 with science. Schiff and his colleague H. Ziegler surveyed the blood types of German and German Jewish hospital inmates. Their findings, published in 1924, were not consistent with an emerging, völkisch-based consensus that the Jews were a serologic race apart from the Germans. They revealed instead that the blood type distributions of

Jewish subjects were comparable to the majority population. Schiff and Ziegler denied that blood enabled proof of (racial) difference, but acknowledged that it might be useful in examining miscegenation. Their intent was not to completely discredit seroanthropology, but to prevent its misappropriation. They cautioned researchers to be more thorough in their studies prior to making any hypotheses.

The implications of Schiff and Ziegler‟s research were largely ignored by Nordic seroanthropologists. German critics, eager to discredit this exception, drew attention to potential flaws in the research; it was not a sufficiently heterogeneous group, they claimed and, as the subject pool was entirely made up of hospital inmates. They theorized that a “weaker disposition” might have affected the results. Furthermore, unlike many seroanthropologic studies, theirs had not compared the subjects‟ physiognomies with their blood type. This had, however, been an intentional oversight on the part of the authors, who warned against broader efforts to correlate somatic similarities or dissimilarities of various groups of people, and against research which compared these traits with blood. Schiff and Ziegler were especially critical of the methodology employed by Hungarian physicians Verzár and Wescezky, whose racial beliefs were later confirmed by their co-establishment of the German Institute for Blood

Group Research. By analyzing the serologic and physical traits of their subjects in their

188 landmark 1921 study of “Hungarians, settler Germans, and Gypsies” in the region of

Budapest, Verzar and Weszecky had claimed that blood type was a reliable racial indicator. In turn, Schiff and Ziegler observed that this theory was based on “small subject groups” and had been conducted mainly by “white researchers.”8

Schiff and Ziegler‟s findings were well-received by the German-Jewish community. In various periodicals, German Jewish anthropologists Franz Weidenreich and Hans Friedenthalin reiterated the main point that the blood group distributions of the

Jews approximated those of their “host nation” and, as a result, no “foreign blood” as such could be established.9 Schiff and Ziegler‟s research was also referred to in an article entitled “The so-called human blood types and their incidence amongst the Jews,” printed in Jewish Family Research.10 This excerpt again emphasized the finding that the blood type distributions of the examined Jews were comparable to those of neighboring non-

Jews. Schiff theorized that their biochemical racial indices were similar because of the

Jews‟ lengthy existence in the Diaspora, and more recent assimilations into the majority population; Jews‟ blood was similar because they had mixed with the Germans. In a separate article, “Blood groups and their areas of application,” Schiff reminded readers

8 Because the size of an “adequate” subject group was not standardized, Schiff and Ziegler did not elaborate on how many individuals of each racial type were necessary (to make a hypothesis). This omission, and the simple fact that their own blood type survey in Berlin had even less subjects than that of Verzár and Weszezky, weakened Schiff and Ziegler‟s criticism.

9 Franz Weidenreich, “Das probleme der jüdischen Rasse,” Morgen 7 (1931): 78-96. See also Hans Friedenthalin, “Ober den Grad der Blutverwandtschaft in der Familie oder Sippenschaft,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie XL, no. 8 (1916): 25.

10 Fritz Schiff, “Die sogennanten Blutgruppen des Menschen und ihr Vorkommen bei den Juden,” Jüdische Familienforschung (December, 1926).

189 that both history and anthropology confirmed these patterns in Jewish history. In spite of

Schiff‟s findings, blood scientists continued their scientific research to distinguish Jewish from non-Jewish blood.

Manoilov’s “Serochemistry” and Jewish Blood

In 1925, the results of a Russian seroanthropological study entitled “Efforts to discern the human races by blood,” were published in the German medical periodical

Biochemische Zeitschrift. The author of the article, Dr. E. O. Manoilov, claimed that he had devised a technique which allowed the blood of different races to be recognized through an intricate chemical process. The inconsistencies of physiognomic racial classification had initially prompted Manoilov‟s interest in blood science. He found the popular skull-index particularly frustrating; “skulls of the same size,” he complained,

“belong to the most different nationalities with the most different civilizations.”11 In contrast, he believed his new serochemical process—the result of “years of research”—to be a much more reliable method of racial analysis.

Unlike other seroanthropologists, Manoilov‟s research was not influenced by, or acquainted with, the Hirszfelds‟ conventional survey technique. Instead, his analysis was modeled on sex differences in blood. Scientists knew that the presence of hormones in blood could be used to determine whether a sample had been taken from a male or female subject. Manoilov reasoned that a similar principle might be applied to distinguish the race of the blood‟s donor. To test his analogy, Manoilov conducted chemical analyses of

11 E.O. Manoiloff, “Discernment of human races by blood: particularly of Russians from Jews,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 10, no. 1 (1927): 12.

190 blood samples from various racial types. The two main subject groups were gentile and

Jewish Russians, chosen mainly because of the “many circumstances” which Manoilov believed made the two separate races; specifically, he believed that miscegenation had been relatively uncommon amongst Russian Jews.12 To ensure accuracy, Manoilov was careful to test only the blood of subjects with at least three generations of exclusively

Russian or Jewish ancestry, respectively, and on both their maternal and paternal sides.13

Manoilov‟s technique was unique from other seroanthropologic studies in that actually typing the subject‟s blood was not necessary. Instead, five separate chemical reagents were used which reacted with the blood sample to determine the individual‟s race. If administered correctly, Manoilov explained, the mixture would turn a characteristic color. The presence of Jewish blood in the test tube caused the sample to take on a greenish cast. Russian blood could also turn a shade of green, but it was comparably a much darker green. Besides, Manoilov observed, the reaction time was generally “much quicker” with Jewish blood. His technique was tested on blood samples drawn from 2,000 subjects—800 of which were Jewish, and the remainder Russian. By the end of 1923, Manoilov claimed that he had been able to distinguish the blood sample of a Jew from that of a Russian 88.6 percent of the time. Encouraged by these results, and in anticipation of presenting his findings at the upcoming Eighth Conference of

Russian Therapists, Manoilov solicited the assistance of his Russian colleagues in collecting additional blood samples. In his request, Manoilov reiterated the need for the

12 Ibid., 16.

13 Anna T. Poliakowa, “Manoiloff‟s „race‟ reaction and its application to the determination of paternity,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 10, no. 1 (April 1927): 24.

191 sample to come from either a Jewish or Russian individual with the appropriate number of “racially pure” ancestors. To better determine the consistency of his method,

Manoilov also requested that they “mark the test tubes only with numbers, without either family names or designation of nation (nationality).”14 Numerous physicians responded;

Russian Drs. P.S. Medowikoff and Rachel Liwschitz, a physician at the German Red

Cross Hospital, and others throughout Russia submitted samples.15

In these later analyses, the accuracy seemed to have improved. Of this new batch,

Manoilov claimed that he was able to correctly identify the subject‟s race 91.7 percent of the time.16 This “success rate” was much more impressive than both conventional physiognomic methods of race research, as well as surveys of blood type and race.

Seroanthropologic research focused only on the distributions of blood types within a population; an individual‟s blood type was irrelevant outside the context of the group to which they belonged. Manoilov‟s work was promising because it suggested that blood might be useful in racial classification on an individual basis. He mentioned that it also seemed to have potential with other racial types. When applied to Chinese, Germans,

Estonians, Finns, Poles, and Armenians, Manoilov stated that he was often able to distinguish between them. However, the subject groups had not been large enough to make any substantive claims.

14 Manoiloff 1927, 16.

15 Their subject groups were often small; Professor P.S. Medowikoff donated thirty-seven Jewish samples, forty-four Russian and Dr. Rachel Liwschitz, sixteen Jewish, twelve Russian.

16 Manoiloff 1927, 17.

192

In spite of its scientific overtones, Manoilov‟s technique was far from objective.

Due to the similarity in reaction colors, classification at times had to rely upon slight differences in shades. In addition, the process of the obscure chemical reaction primarily met with criticism and doubt from the medical community. Skepticism was certainly made worse by Manoilov‟s response. When questioned about the specifics of the reaction, Manoilov admitted that he could not say much, principally for the reason that the part played by the critical element cresyl-violet was unknown.17 For these reasons,

Manoilov‟s technique only attracted minor attention. Even though their statistics were not nearly as precise, studies of blood and race continued to rely upon the survey methodology. In these studies, Jews remained a popular subject group. By 1926, the year the German Institute for Blood Group Research was founded, there had been dozens of blood type studies on Jews.

Seroanthropologic Analysis of Jews

In 1928, the first edition of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie published an article by Siegmund Wellisch, an engineer employed with the Vienna Magistrate, on the serologic identity of the Jews.18 Wellisch believed that the Jews shared both a physiognomic and spiritual uniformity—such that “one could almost designate them a

17 Ibid., 21.

18 Siegmund Wellisch studied at the Vienna Technische Hoschschule. In 1889 he was an assistant in astronomy and geodesy and, in 1893, began working at the Vienna Municipal Building Authority. In 1922 he worked for a division of the Vienna Magistrate. [Katja Geisenhainer, "Rasse ist Schicksal". Otto Reche (1879-1966): ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkundler (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002), 198].

193 special race.” He agreed with the popular notion that the Jews were made up of

Ashkenazic and Sephardic racial types; the Sephardim, who were believed to approximate one-tenth of all Jews, were descendants of Semites, a racial type with

“predominantly Oriental origins." The majority of Jews, the Ashkenazim, were “thought to be” more closely related to the Aryans, with a strong “Near Eastern” influence.19

Wellisch‟s article reviewed the results of blood type surveys of 5,243 Jewish subjects from ten different regions of Eurasia. He calculated the blood type distributions based on their classification:

Ashkenazic AB 7.1 A 40.8 B 18.7 O 33.4 Sephardic AB 5.0 A 33.0 B 23.2 O 38.8 20

Wellisch devised an equation with which he claimed he was able to determine with whom the Jews had mixed, to what degree they had, and what their original racial types had been. The results were startlingly precise: The Ashkenazim were described as a racial mix of “62 Near Eastern, 24 Oriental, and 14 percent Mongolian” blood. The

Sephardim were made up of these same three types, but their proportions were different—“12 Near Eastern, 80 Oriental, and 8 percent Mongolian.”21 To identify their so-called “source races,” Wellisch analyzed the lineage of the mixed Near Eastern and

Oriental racial types. By using a complex and unclear mathematic equation involving

19 Or, as Otto Reche claimed, the “Taurian race.”

20 Wellisch 1929, 205.

21 Ibid., 206. These figures are listed in the same, “Table 7,” page 206, along with the “difference, margin of error, and blood-type formula.” See also Table 8, page 206 “Blood groups of Jews,” and Table 9, page 207, “Near Easterners” and “Orientals.”

194 blood types and “gene ratios,” Wellisch believed that he had discovered the exact racial composition of the Jews and maintained that all were a mixture of the following types:

Near Easterners, Semitic Orientals, and Aryans [Nordic Amorites, Hunnish (Southwest

Asian) Mongols, and Egyptian Negroes].22 The proportion of each type within a Jewish population determined whether it was Ashkenazic or Sephardic.

According to Wellisch, the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe were the descendants of Jews who had originally migrated northward from northern Palestine. In the course of their travels, they had received a significant quantity of “Mongol blood”

(mongolisches Bluteinschlag). In contrast, the Sephardim had migrated westward out of the southern parts of Palestine and had absorbed more Mediterranean or “Negro” blood from the peoples of North Africa. Because they had not mixed with the “colored racial elements” of the Mongols and Negroes, Wellisch explained, the majority of Ashkenazim

(84 percent) were “light-skinned.”23 His findings were supported by physiognomic studies of Jews; Italian physician Cesar Lombroso had similarly claimed that modern

Jews were physically “more Aryan than Semitic,” and race theorist W.Z. Ripley theorized that approximately nine-tenths of modern Jews were different from “original

Semites” in terms of their cranial shape. The Jews‟ frequent Aryan appearance was, according to Wellisch, the result of generations of miscegenation; “true Semitic blood,” he claimed, “pulses in less than half of the mixed Jewish race” (Echt semitisches Blut pulsiert in weniger als der Hälfte des jüdischen Rassengemenges).

22 Ibid., 207.

23 Ibid.

195

In the end, seroanthropology seemed no more “accurate” than physiognomy.

Despite compiling and reviewing all available statistics on Jewish blood type, and formulating complex mathematical equations to better analyze them, Wellisch still concluded that Jews were predominantly Ashkenazim—a common claim, which was similarly problematic on account of its generality. Even though it seemed he had

“quantified” Jewish blood, Wellisch too recognized the limitations of seroanthropology.

“Currently,” he admitted, “it is still difficult to give a definite serological response to the racial identity of the Jews.” He attributed this to the fact that blood type surveys of

Jewish populations, particularly throughout Southern and Western Europe, had “left much to be desired.” 24 The main problem, he explained, was that there had not been enough studies of the Sephardim minority. Of the 5,243 known seroanthropologic analyses of Jews, only the 500 subjects from Monastir (examined by the Hirszfelds in

Salonika) were “definitely” Sephardic. Consequently, the majority of the data represented the Ashkenazim.25

The need to identify the Jewish race through science suggests Wellisch‟s biases, and those of the Institute, which published a blatantly anti-Semitic article on the “racial odor” of the Jews by Hans F.K. Günther shortly thereafter. Günther, who was notorious for blending racial prejudice with medical fact, was later nicknamed “Race Günther”

24 Ibid., 205. In serochemischer Beziehung auf die Frage der rassenmässigen Zusammensetzung der Juden eine endgültige Antwort zu geben, fällt be idem Umstande, dass die agglutinatorischen Untersuchungen jüdischer Bevölkerungsmassen, namentlich im Süden und Westen Europas, noch viel zu wünschen übrig lassen, heute noch schwer.

25 According to existing serological studies, Wellisch further explained that the two types of Jews could be distinguished by various types of “blood type ratios,” see tables I-IV, Ibid., 205.

196

(Rassengünther) by his contemporaries. At the request of extreme-right publisher J.F.

Lehmann, Günther wrote Rassenkunde des Deutschen Volkes (Racial Anthropology of the

German Volk). First published in 1922, and reprinted many times without any substantial changes, it became the standard work of National Socialist racial doctrine.26 His contribution to the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, was representative of his ideals.

Günther did not discuss the role of blood science in racial differentiation, but instead the völkisch notion that each racial type had its own unique smell. 27 He was most preoccupied, however, with the supposed “racial odor” (Völkerodor) of the Jews, a peculiar characteristic which he claimed had been commented upon throughout history.

He then proceeded to cite numerous examples from Roman into modern times which described the “smell of the Jews,” an “odor Judaeus,” and how “even their small children smelled.” 28 Günther claimed that his analysis was not meant to denigrate the Jews, but his bias was clear. Having approved the article for publication, it would seem that the institute shared its racial principles. But was the institute, in fact, anti-Semitic?

26 Ute Deichmann, Biologists under Hitler (London: Harvard University Press, 1996), endnote 40, 389.

27 Hans F.K. Günther, “Der rasseeigene Geruch der Hautausdünstung,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 2, (1929/1930): 94-99. Günther described peoples from Central Europe as having an almost “pungent and rancid” smell—“especially from their armpits.” Medical research indicated its basis in fact; the sweat glands in the armpits of the Central Europeans were found to be “much larger” than those of the Japanese, whose were quite small and only discernible with a microscope. (Ibid., 95-96).

28 Günther‟s account describes how in Ancient Rome, Ammianus Marcellinus reported to Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD) on the “smell of the Jews” as he passed through Palestine to Egypt. According to Günther, the Grimmsche described the term “Jüdern” as meaning “like a Jew or having a Jewish smell.” Several early medieval Christian poets made similar references to an “odor Judaeus.” Later, in the early eighteenth century, Schudt mentioned how “the Jews of Frankfurt and other places smell”—a trait believed to be inherited, as “even their small children smelled.” (Ibid., 98).

197

In the same edition of the Zeitschrift as Günther‟s work, a separate article disputed Manoilov‟s ability to discern Jewish from non-Jewish blood. 29 In 1927, the

Russian physician was still claiming that he could identify race via blood “91.7 percent of the time.” Dr. S.P. Grigorjewa, at the Ukrainian Institute for Protozoan Research, questioned the nature of Manoilov‟s technique as the chemical reaction involved was inexplicable. Grigorjewa tested Manoilov‟s reaction on 900 subjects of various racial types. Nearly half were categorized as “Slavs”; also included were 168 Jews, 28 individuals from throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and 261 subjects of “mixed descent” which, the author explained, usually meant that the individual was a mix of

Russian and Ukrainian, or of Russian and/or Ukrainian with Jewish blood.30 Over the course of two months, Grigorjewa repeatedly tested the reaction process, from two to six times, for each of his 485 subjects. Thirty-two of these were examined even more closely: for six days, blood was drawn from the same individuals at the same time everyday. The sample was then immediately mixed with Manoilov‟s chemicals to obtain the race of the subject. The thoroughness of Grigorjewa‟s research revealed that the colors could vary from blue-green or violet to other, inbetween shades which were, importantly, completely different from the color given by the subject‟s first blood sample.

Grigorjewa‟s analysis strongly suggested that Manoilov‟s chemical reaction was not nearly as accurate as he maintained. The Russian subjects examined had given a

29 S.P. Grigorjewa, “Die Manoilowsche Reaktion als Mittel zur Rassenbestimmung beim Menschen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 2 (1929/1930): 92-93. 30 Among these were 443 “Slavs”—309 of whom were Russian, 128 Ukrainian, four Polish, one Serbian, and one Moldavian. The subjects examined also included 168 “Hebrews,” seventeen Armenians, seven Greeks, one “Tatar,” one German, two Lithuanians and 261 individuals of “mixed descent.”

198

“characteristically Russian” violet color in just over half (62.8 percent) of the cases. Of the remaining, Grigorjewa reported that about a quarter had turned a shade of blue or green which, according to Manoilov, indicated Jewish blood. However, none of the

Russians in Grigorjewa‟s study were of Jewish extraction. Furthermore, Grigorjewa found that twelve percent of the reactions were so imprecise as to allow no classification whatsoever. Results were similar with the Ukrainians, whose blood gave the expected

(Ukrainian) reaction 60.8 percent of the time, a Jewish reaction 29.7 percent, and an

“indefinite response” the remainder. The Jews only gave a Jewish reaction 40.4 percent of the time.31 Seventy percent of the time, the color of “mixed descent” subjects indicated that they were racially-pure Russians. As for the remaining thirty percent, the reaction color again indicated that they were Jewish. Grigorjewa explained that the most accurate results had been realized with the Russians—who yielded the “correct”

(Russian) color 62.8 percent of the time. The most unreliable in terms of Manoilov‟s study were the Jews, whose blood frequently prompted an “irregular reaction.”32 The inconsistencies in his research, such as the “Jewish reactions” among non-Jews, or variable reaction colors recorded with one subject, led Grigorjewa to conclude that

Manoilov‟s so-called “racial hormones,” if they existed at all, were not constant.33

31 Grigorjewa 1929, 92.

32 Ibid., 93.

33 Grigorjewa noted that the presence of malaria in the subjects, who were hospital inmates, may have distorted the results.

199

In addition to this publication, other incidents suggested that anti-Semitism within the German Institute for Blood Group Research was not as obvious as has been claimed.

A closer look at the publications within the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie shows that authors commonly recognized converted Jewish physicians Karl Landsteiner and Ludwig

Hirszfeld for their contributions to blood science.34 Paul Steffan, one of the institute‟s co-founders, acknowledged in 1932 that Hirszfeld‟s research had prompted some of the most important anthropological questions since “the beginning of classical blood group research.”35 Oswald Streng, another institute member, referred to Hirszfeld‟s 1918 study as having been “fundamental” in demonstrating that blood type distributions varied across groups of people—a fact which had since been confirmed by “hundreds of researchers around the world.”36 On one occasion, Reche invited German Jewish blood scientist Felix Bernstein to participate in an institutional colloquium. In 1924,

Bernstein‟s explanation of the genetic transmission of the blood types led to its increased forensic use in German courts. In spite of the many, prominent German Jewish blood scientists, such as Bernstein and Fritz Schiff, they were not members of the institute. It stands to reason that they were excluded because of anti-Semitism; however, in 1928,

Reche invited Karl Landsteiner, then employed at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, to become an “honorary foreign member.” In the summer of that year, Reche met with

34 Even Reche acknowledged Landsteiner and the Hirszfeld for their discoveries, see Otto Reche, “Blutgruppenforschung und Anthropologie,” Volk und Rasse 3, no. 1 (1928): 2.

35 Paul Steffan, ed. Handbuch für Blutgruppenforschung (Munich: JF Lehmann, 1932), 385.

36 Oswald Streng, “Die Bluteigenschaften (Blutgruppen) der Völker, besonderers die der Germanen,” Germanen und Indogermanen,” Festschrift für Hermann Hirt I (1936): 412.

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Landsteiner (See Figure 16). Reche‟s colleague, Paul Steffan, later described Reche‟s account of this:

I have an interesting piece of news! A few days ago I visited Landsteiner in New York! He is a tall, slim, attractive man with a slight scar on his left cheek; his racial type is not very obvious. He gave the impression of an individual completely and exclusively devoted to one topic—any divergences from this were somehow objectively related back to it. Landsteiner had just returned from a visit to Berlin, where he had met with Schiff. I mentioned to him that I found his relationship with Schiff to be mysterious. I don‟t think he appreciated my opinion. Landsteiner‟s work has been extraordinarily interesting. He has generated some very good ideas.37

Figure 16. Karl Landsteiner. Paul Speiser and Ferdinand G. Smekal, Karl Landsteiner: The discoverer of the blood groups and a pioneer in the field of immunology: biography of a Nobel Prize Winner of the Vienna Medical School (Vienna: Hollinek, 1975).

37 Geisenhainer 2002, 135.

201

When Landsteiner received Reche‟s offer, he initially declined, explaining:

I hope you will understand that this decision was not an easy one for me, and only came after a great deal of personal reflection. I have heard that Dr. [Fritz] Schiff, one of the most esteemed authorities in the area of blood group research, was not invited to join [the institute]. I believe that it might be awkward if I were to proceed independently of my esteemed colleague Schiff.38

The institute had not extended an offer of membership to Schiff, Reche explained, for two reasons: Schiff had “expressed differences” with their work, and he had attempted to

“turn others against” the institute. Reche was also convinced that Schiff had tried to influence Ludwig Hirszfeld in this respect, but did not explain his reason for this suspicion.39 Landsteiner‟s compliment was accurate, Schiff was one of the most renowned serologists in Weimar Germany; however, he was Jewish, and while it could be assumed that Reche decided against him for this reason, he was still courting

Landsteiner‟s membership at the same time. In addition, Siegmund Wellisch often contributed to the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, even though Reche strongly suspected that he too was Jewish. In the summer of 1929, he wrote to Steffan: “Wellisch is a brilliant (grossartige) contributor…if we only knew which racial type

(Menschengruppe) he belonged to!”40 Reche had questioned his colleagues in Vienna to this effect, but had not yet received a response. Despite these doubts, Wellisch remained a member of the institute, and was still in its published membership list in 1930.

38 Ibid., 134.

39 Ibid., 134-135.

40 Ibid., 198.

202

Wellisch‟s past contributions, which often emphasized the role of blood as a means of effective racial analysis, served the objectives of the institute well. In the first edition of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, Wellisch authored an article on the

“blood relations of people and races” in which he claimed that the blood types were,

“without a doubt,” a suitable way to distinguish between the races.41 Wellisch‟s work was also very scientific in tone. He formulated a new theory concerning the separate

“zones of origin” of the A and B serological racial types in which the blood type distributions between the A and B zones could be mathematically analyzed to indicate whether they were closer in origin to the “A- or B-type race.”42 Wellisch claimed that his formula represented a quantitative relationship which would remain unchanged throughout successive generations—as long as no miscegenation occurred, which would cause this “balanced condition” to fluctuate.43 Wellisch believed that his theory of

“agglutination poles” corresponded with German race theorist Eugen Fischer‟s belief that there had been three different original races. According to Fischer, these races—the

Germans, Celts, and Slavs—had moved (to various extents) away from the native land of the Indo-Germans. Wellisch theorized that their comparable frequencies of types A and

B blood would reveal which type they had originated from.44

41 Siegmund Wellisch, “‟Blutsverwandschaft‟ der Völker und Rassen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 21.

42 Ibid., 28.

43 Ibid., 24.

44 Ibid., 30.

203

In addition to the seeming objectivity of Wellisch‟s work, his conclusions were in line with the institute‟s objectives of confirming the Nordic racial type of the German people. Based on the overall higher frequency of type A blood within the German population, Wellisch placed Germans closest to the “A pole.” In contrast, with their higher levels of type B, the Slavs were farthest from it, with the Celts somewhere inbetween.45 Many of Wellisch‟s classifications fit with existing völkisch racial classifications. Included among the other groups closest to the A pole with the Germans were the Anglos, Swedes, Norwegians, English, and Dutch. According to his calculation, the Slavic types included Poles, Lithuanians, and Russians.46 Wellisch further claimed that his calculation could determine the amount of miscegenation that had occurred between an original group and its surrounding peoples.47

Wellisch also compared the degree of “blood relations” between some Aryan peoples and the Nordic race. Though he felt that there were still gaps in the research, he believed that general population movements could be inferred from the distributions of types A and B blood. His comparisons further supported notions of the Germans as an

45 Included among the other groups closest to the A pole were also the Anglos, Swedes, Norwegians, English and Dutch-- Others closest to the A pole were also Anglos, Swedes, Norwegians, English, Dutch, Austrians, Serbs, Macedonians, Gypsies, and Indians. Those groups classified as “Slavic” were East- Germans, Finns, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Koreans, Chinese, Ainu-Japanese, and Manchurians. Those considered “intermediate” Celts were Belgians, French, Italians, North Africans, Sephardim, Egyptian, Senegalese, and those from the regions of Madagascar and the Congo. (Ibid., 30).

46 Ibid.

47 From the blood-type patterns, Wellisch claimed that the “German stream” of the Nordic race had moved over the Alpine, Dinaric, and Middle-Eastern races into India. The “Slavic” group of Nordics had traveled over the Baltic and Eastern races to Mongolia, while the “Celtic” group of the Nordic and Alpine races had cut over the Mediterranean and Oriental races to Negroes. (Ibid.)

204

“Aryan” people. The results indicated to Wellisch that the Anglos of the East Schleswig area of Schwansen and the indigenous peasant Germans of Prüm were “just as Aryan” as the Swedes.48 Just as the Magyars could not deny their “Mongolian origins,” Wellisch claimed, neither could the Egyptians deny their Negro and Oriental descent, nor the

Gypsies their close relations with the Indians.49 In another contribution in the introductory issue of the Zeitschrift, Wellisch placed the Nordic Aryans and Indians, represented respectively by types A and B blood, at opposite ends of a racial spectrum.50

The inclusion of Wellisch‟s work suggests that an individual‟s opinion of seroanthropology as a valid science, and their interpretation of it, was perhaps more significant to the institute than their “racial type.” Furthermore, in his works published prior to 1933, definitively identifying the Jews‟ racial makeup was not a main priority for

Reche. His references to Jews as Homo mediterraneus, Orientalis, and Semitisches revealed his conviction that they were a “non-German” race, but he had not seemed particularly preoccupied with determining which specific race they were.51 As for the institute‟s exclusion of the German Jewish Schiff, he had devoted his work and research interests primarily towards forensic and therapeutic applications of blood science instead of racial studies. Schiff had repeatedly questioned the usefulness of seroanthropology in

1924, when his study on Berliners indicated no pattern between race and blood type. In

48 Ibid., 31.

49 Ibid., 33.

50 Siegmund Wellisch, “Die Analyse der Dreirassentheorie,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 66-71.

51 Geisenhainer 2002, 188.

205

1929, after having conducted yet another study on the blood types of Berliners, Schiff‟s perspective had not changed.52 Although he had taken the necessary precaution of gathering a large, adequately representative set of subjects, he again failed to note any correlations between blood and race. Schiff also criticized the notion that there was some relationship between blood type and mentality, referring to Boehmer and Gundel‟s contention that type B blood was more common among criminals than the general population. He pointed out that type B blood was also more common in eastern Germany than elsewhere in the country; “are we to conclude then,” he mocked, “that Prussians are more criminally inclined than Rhineland Germans because they have a higher incidence of type B blood?”53 Schiff was clearly no proponent of seroanthropology. His colleague

Landsteiner, however, did join the German Institute for Blood Group Research in 1928, at which point Reche expressed his pleasure that the “discoverer of the blood types,” was now a member.54

Völkisch Propaganda

Neither the many blood type surveys conducted on Jews during the Weimar

Republic, nor the unique efforts of Russian physician Manoilov, had managed to reliably differentiate the blood of Jews from non-Jews. Nevertheless, anti-Semitic propaganda

52 Fritz Schiff, “Zur Serologie der Berliner Bevölkerung,” Klinische Wochenschrift 8, no. 10 (5 March 1929): 448-450. Schiff‟s 1924 study examined 750 patients; there were 2,500 subjects in his 1929 research. Schiff did acknowledge that further serological research could change any conclusions he arrived at. (Ibid., 448).

53 V. Myslivec, “A Contribution to the study of human blood groups,” Royal Anthropological Institute Journal,” (1941): 70.

54 Otto Reche, “Mitteilungen des Vorstandes der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Blutgruppenforschung,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 1 (1928/1929): 5.

206 persisted in its use of scientific blood rhetoric. In 1927, an article in Der Stürmer made reference to the inferiority of Jewish blood in a call for donors:

The unemployed in Fürth have just as much blood as those in Nürnberg and other cities. On the other hand, the Jews of Fürth have blood to donate as well. Due to their inferiority, however, their blood is not needed. Jewish blood is a combination of Negro-, Mongolian-, and a portion of animal (probably ape) blood. A transfusion of such blood into the body of a non-Jew would have a poisonous effect.55

There was no medical evidence to substantiate the claim that Jewish blood was any different from non-Jewish blood, much less bore any resemblance to that of primates.

Similarly, there were no findings which indicated transfusions between different racial types were harmful. The author simply fabricated the notion that transfusing “non-

German” blood into a German would poison the recipient. Lethal “poisoning” could, in fact, take place in transfusions, but this was only the result of blood type incompatibility.

Weimar health officials did not even differentiate between blood donations based on race.

Ironically, at the same time, there had been findings in seroanthropology which völkisch ideologues could have exploited for political purposes. In fact, it was rare for right-wing propagandists to draw upon blood type studies in their efforts to reinforce ideas of racial difference—though it was, on occasion, discussed in more “respectable” anti-Semitic literature. The popular Handbook on the Jewish Question, which was reissued forty-nine times between 1907 and 1944, first commented on seroanthropology in 1931.56 In a chapter devoted to the “racial anthropology of the Jews,” reference was

55 Der Stürmer, 30 September 1927

56 This handbook was originally published in 1887. See Theodor Fritsch, Antisemiten-Katechismus (Hermann Beyer Verlag, 1887).

207 made to the “question” of serology; it was reported that blood type surveys had revealed close relations between the “Eastern, Middle Eastern, Southern Jews, and the Oriental races.” The book also noted Wellisch‟s observations concerning the Ashkenazic and

Sephardic Jews; each type had both “Middle Eastern and Oriental blood,” and their proportions determined to which they belonged. Propagandists likely did not refer to seroanthropology because of the simple fact that there were only four blood types, and these existed in all peoples. This did not, however, prevent more general references to biologic differences of blood.

In The Myth of the Twentieth Century, published in 1931, National Socialist author Arthur Rosenberg often incorporated blood rhetoric into his racial descriptions.

His pseudo-medical language was of the same type found in Der Stürmer:

A new faith is awakening today: the faith that blood will defend the divine essence of man; the faith, supported by pure science [italics mine], that Nordic blood embodies the new mystery which will supplant the outworn sacrament.57

Of course, the supporting “pure science” is not cited, but Nazis still maintained that actual, physiological blood defilement could occur in one of two ways—through sexual contact with a racial other, or by receiving their blood via a transfusion. German readers were continually warned about the manner and consequences of this defilement.

In 1932, a small notice detailing two scenarios of “blood defilement” appeared in

The Hammer, the monthly periodical of the German Nationalist Workers‟ League.58 The

57 Arthur Rosenberg, The myth of the twentieth century: an evaluation of the spiritual-intellectual confrontations of our age (Torrance, CA: Noontide Press, 1982) (first English edition).

58 The Hammer also appeared as a supplement to the Ostdeutsche Rundschau.

208 first example mentioned Artur Dinter‟s literary bestseller of 1921, The Sin against the

Blood, summarizing how the blood of a once-Aryan woman was “permanently” defiled by sexual relations with a Jew. Because of this relationship, the woman later gave birth to a child who appeared “completely Jewish,” in spite of the fact that his father was

German. The second example described how the blood of a “racially pure” Jew was transfused into a patient “of German origin.” The passage described a 1919 incident in a

Mainz clinic in which six anemic women received blood transfusions from healthy men.

The medical report mentioned a “surprisingly quick” improvement in five of the cases.59

The sixth case, however, was an exception. The patient in this last case had received only 50 ccm of blood (versus the 100 to 400 ccm of the others), but her body had reacted strongly to even this small amount. After receiving the blood, the report continued, the woman began to shiver and her pulse dropped—a “very negative reaction overall.” It was perhaps of significance, the author mused, that in this last case the German woman had received the blood of a … “racially pure Jew!!!” (reinrassigen Jüdin).

“Unfortunately,” the article explained and, unbeknownst to the patient, this had

“infected” (infiziert) the recipient with inferior blood. Furthermore, the transfusion would effectively contaminate the blood for generations, preventing “true German descent.”60 The incident was also reported on in a Der Stürmer article entitled “Jewish

Blood—a startling scientific finding.”61 This account further claimed that the donor had

59 G. Lindeman, “Über Blutüberpflanzung in der Geburtshilfe und Gynäkologie,” Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, no. 11 (1919): 286-186.

60 “Rassenverschlechterung durch Juden,” Der Hammer, no. 725/726 (September 1932): 246.

61 Der Stürmer, December 1932, 3.

209 been “quite anxious” about the results, which proved Jewish blood to be “poisonous” for every German. Dr. Hentschel, a contributing author, confirmed that blood typing was necessary for transfusion compatibility—an accurate statement—but then added that exchange between individuals “completely dissimilar in appearance” should not be permitted. The article warned:

The Jews know that if the Germans were to find this out, they would then recognize the enormous racial difference between Germans and Jews. Perhaps only then would German women and girls avoid the Jewish pest and not receive his poison into their bodies.62

In fact, these accounts summarized an article in the Münchener Medizinische

Wochenschrift, which did describe an anemic woman‟s unexpected adverse reaction to a relatively small blood transfusion. Her reaction, which Der Hammer and Der Stürmer conveniently neglect to mention, was the result of blood type (not racial) incompatibility.

Jews and Seroanthropology

German Jews not affiliated with Zionism were vehemently against the gathering scientific fiction of “Jewish blood,” and strongly criticized all relevant research. In 1925,

German Jewish psychologist Kurt Lewin wrote in the C.V. Zeitung, the weekly publication of the assimilationist group Central Committee for German Citizens of the

Jewish Faith, that “anti-Semitic race theorists have still not recognized that the blood type

62 Ibid. No initial or first name are referenced for Hentschel. This was certainly Willibald Hentschel (1858-1947), who has been referred to by one author as “one of the most eccentric but influential propagators of racial hygiene and rural romanticism in the Wilhelmian and Weimar eras. Hentschel co- founded the periodical Der Hammer in 1903. [Richard S. Levy, Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (ABC-CLIO, 2005), 296].

210 cannot be definitively linked to race.” Lewin explained that it was not possible to differentiate “a Jew from a German” by blood type. Furthermore, he expressed his own reservations concerning the heredity of the blood groups themselves; what if these, like physiognomic characteristics, were not also affected by “climate, lifestyle, or other environmental factors?”63 Lewin further discussed these matters in the 1928 article

“News on blood group research,” in which he noted that continued efforts to align blood and race had proved “completely worthless.” Like Lewin, liberal German politician Paul

Nathan criticized völkisch seroanthropology. His own political bias, he assured the reader, was not to prevent the distribution of scientific fact. However to Nathan, a self- proclaimed “layperson in this area,” it seemed that seroanthropology worked to divide humanity and elevate certain racial types among others.64 Non-völkisch race theorists responded similarly to biased studies of race and blood. Schiff and Ziegler‟s landmark study was referred to by physicians Franz Schütz and Wolfgang Kruse, both respected blood scientists. In 1927, Kruse wrote that the Jews “approximated their host population in their blood group distributions.”65 Ironically, however, physicians of Jewish descent had played a central role in the development of seroanthropology. Were Jews, in part, to blame for its misappropriation by the far-right?

63 Centralverein Zeitung, 1925, 43.

64To indicate at least a cursory knowledge of developments in the field, Nathan did mention various medically-based blood type studies in a footnote. Among the works referenced was that of Schiff and Ziegler.

65 W. Kruse, “Über Blutzusammensetzung und Rasse,” Archiv für Rassenbiologie 19, no. 1 (1927): 20-33.

211

The converted Roman Catholic Ludwig Hirszfeld was internationally recognized for his landmark study of race and blood. During the Weimar Republic, Hirszfeld was in

Warsaw where he had returned after the war to establish an institute for blood science. In relatively quick succession, he was appointed deputy director and scientific head of the

State Hygiene Institute in Warsaw and, in 1924, professor. In 1931 he was named full professor at the University of Warsaw and served on many international boards.

Hirszfeld variously headed the Epidemiology Institute, the Department of Bacteriology and Experimental Medicine, and the Serum Section of the State Institute of Hygiene and the Institute of Science. His achievements and continued research turned Warsaw into an international center for blood science and seroanthropologic study.66 He was most renowned for his work in Salonika. American Jewish serologist Philip Levine remarked that “there was no question that the Hirszfelds‟ work began the application of anthropology towards blood science.”67 The Salonika article was cited as the first discovery, and a source for comparative data, “as far away as India and Brazil, and as close as Rumania and Bulgaria.”68 Hirszfeld had first considered studying blood and race in 1910, after having confirmed the heredity of the blood types with his colleague Emil

Von Dungern. When presented with the opportunity to do so during the war, Hirszfeld

66 Frank Heynick, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 2002): 438.

67 Philip Levine, “Menschliche Blutgruppen und individuelle Blutdifferenzen,” Ergebnisse der Inneren Medizin und Kinderheilkunde 34 (1928): 146.

68 India (Chaudhuri); Brazil (Aben-Athar); Romania (Manuila) and Bulgaria (Seisov). [William H. Schneider, “The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: initial discovery and diffusion,” History of Philososphy and Life Science 18, no. 3 (1996): 286].

212 immediately coordinated an analysis of the blood types of the various ethnic types accessible to him. Why was he so eager to apply blood science to anthropology?

The very premise of his wartime blood type study indicates Hirszfeld‟s belief in qualitative racial differences. His work has since been criticized as racist, which seemed to be confirmed by his interpretation of the results, in particular his portrayal of types A and B as “racial opposites.”69 Furthermore, Hirszfeld generalized the traits of his different subject groups, explaining that they had to approach the groups differently in order to collect the necessary samples:

We had to speak in a different way to each nation. It was sufficient to tell the English that our objectives were scientific. We allowed ourselves to fool our French friends by telling them that we could determine with whom they could sin with impunity. We told the Negroes that the blood tests would show who deserved leave; immediately, they willingly stretched their black hands out to us.70

While the English appear to be neutral and rational, the French only needed the justification of sexuality. Hirszfeld further noted that many of the Russians had fainted,

69 Author Myriam Spörri suggests that the Hirszfelds‟ analysis and presentation of their results were racially biased. As she points out, in their 1918 diagram of the various serologic distributions, only types A and B of the four different types were referred to, a clear indication of their polarity. Differences between the two are further emphasized by their representations in a line graph: type A is only slightly shaded, and B is solid black. Were these colors coincidental? The study had predominantly associated type A blood with the white, European peoples, whereas the dark-colored races were linked to B. Spörri pointed out that even the label of “A,” as the first letter of the alphabet, could be construed as yet another marker of the (racial) superiority of the Western Europeans. The biochemical index, presumably the most innovative component of their study, also seems to place more “value” in type A blood. Those racial types with more type B blood, traditionally viewed by Nordic ideologues as anthropologically inferior, were also fittingly given lower biochemical indices; the Hirszfelds theorized that groups with indices under one were of African or Asian descent. “Mediterranean” types were those peoples between 1 and 2.5, while the label “Western European” was reserved for populations with a higher index—between 2.5 and 4.5. [Myriam Spörri, „“Reines” und “gemischtes Blut”: Blutgruppen und “Rassen” zwischen 1900 und 1933,” in Transfusionen: Blutbilder und Biopolitik in der Neuzeit, ed. by Anja Lauper (Zürich-Berlin: Diaphanes, 2005), 220].

70 Ibid., 218.

213 although they had “punctured only one finger and collected only a few drops of blood.”71

His belief in different races did not mean that Hirszfeld accepted the völkisch notion of a racial hierarchy. Hirszfeld hoped to simplify existing racial anthropology. Like many of his colleagues he, too, was often flexible in his categorization of subjects. The Hirszfelds categorized their subjects into different national types; however, Lisa Gannett and James

Griesemer have called attention to the fact that these classifications were heterogeneous.

Some categories, such as the Jews and Arabs, touched upon ethnicity. In other cases, however, religion played a key role—as in the case of the Turks, who were labeled

“Mohammedans.”

What may now seem biased research was largely a product of Hirszfeld‟s education and his having adopted the discourse of his German colleagues. Extensive schooling and employment in Germany shaped his later work. Hirszfeld received his medical doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1907.72 Afterwards, he assisted in the serological department of the Institute for Cancer Research in Heidelberg for its director.

Non-Germans often sought entry into German medical schools for their esteemed reputation. Racial anthropology and eugenics were respected areas of study in Western medicine, and particularly in Germany. In fact, medicine was suffused with the language of race science, and articles in medical journals discussed particular diseases or

71 Leo J. McCarthy and Mathias Okroi. “The original blood group pioneers…the Hirszfelds,” Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine 2, no. 1 (2004): 25.

72 Ibid., 25.

214 pathological states as though they were racially determined.73 Hirszfeld would have been aware of the strong preference for physiognomic Mendelian traits in determining race, but also their apparent flaws, which led him to later apply blood science to anthropology.74

When Hirszfeld decided to study blood and race in 1916, he certainly had pre- existing notions about race; his comfort with German racial discourse is apparent in his analyses. Based on his results, Hirszfeld claimed that there had been two original, “pure races” represented by blood types A and B; over time, their purity was diluted by “blood mixing.” They divided the origins of humanity based on the geographic placement of the centers of types A and—in Europe and India respectively. The “biochemical race index” was formulated to compare the distribution of these within a population, as well as provide information on them within a racial spectrum. The rhetoric in the Salonika study

73 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in fin-de siècle Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 11.

74 Ludwig and Hanna Hirszfeld made a negligible attempt to record physiognomic traits of their subjects. Of the 500 blood samples drawn from English subjects, their hair and eye color were also noted—as were the hair and skin colors of the 500 French. The simple pigmented traits they noted among the English and French did not suggest that blood group could be related to appearance. Furthermore, he had already tested this association years earlier in his work with von Dungern, except on dogs, and no connection appeared to exist; he found that anatomically-different dogs could share the same blood type (they were “biochemically similar”) or, vice versa, physically-similar dogs could have different blood types. Young dogs with “the structure of the body and the coloring of their mother,” would have the blood group of their father, and so on. To Hirszfeld, this suggested that the heredity of blood types and that of physical traits were entirely independent from one another. The same seemed to be the case in his subjects in Salonika. Again, none of the physical characteristics suggested any pattern specific to blood type. The Indians (“Hindus”) whom the Hirszfelds considered to be “anthropologically most similar to the Europeans” were, in fact, completely different in their blood type distributions; statistically, Indians had much more type B blood than any of the European groups. At the same time, Russians and Jews, who were traditionally considered to be so different from one another in “anatomical characteristics, mode of life, occupation, and temperament,” had the exact same proportion of types A and B blood. 74 There was no discernible pattern. The dogs, Hirszfeld pointed out, were not always “racially pure.” [L and H. Hirszfeld, “Des Méthodes Sérologiques au Problème des Races,” L’Anthropologie XXIX (1918-1919): 508].

215 seems remarkably similar to that found in völkisch racial studies. In fact, it was not uncommon for scientific analyses of race to assume what now appears to be a biased perspective. Because of their studies in the science faculties of the universities and their heavy representation in the medical profession, Jewish scientists were well situated to employ the discourse and methodology of race science and ethnography.75 Hirszfelds‟ perspective was merely a part of the academic discourse of the time. In this sense, he could be referred to As a “racialist,” rather than a racist. (See Figure 17).

Figure 17. Ludwig Hirszfeld. Paul Speiser and Ferdinand G. Smekal, Karl Landsteiner: The discoverer of the blood groups and a pioneer in the field of immunology: biography of a Nobel Prize Winner of the Vienna Medical School (Vienna: Hollinek, 1975).

75 Efron 2004, 7.

216

Hirszfeld structured his research in response to the uncertainties of race science, and he was not the only non-German physician to have been influenced by education and employment in Germany. The origins and diffusion of seroanthropology were largely traceable to German influence. Arthur F. Coca, the editor of the Journal of Immunology in the United States and the first researcher to note the high frequency of type O blood in

Native Americans in 1923, had also been mentored by Emil von Dungern in Berlin, with

Hirszfeld, in the early 1900s.76 Some of the prominent early Asian seroanthropologists— such as Tanemoto Furuhata and Balcian Liang—had also received their medical training in Germany.77 These physicians then instructed others on methodology and interpretation. Nicholas Kossovitch, an influential blood scientist in interwar France, served on the Macedonian front during World War I, where he had been under the direction of Hirszfeld.78 Kossovitch was convinced of the anthropological significance of the blood types. After conducting research in Northern Africa, he believed that

“physiognomic characteristics” were “useless” in differentiating between the Arab and

Berber tribes.79 Both of these groups, he explained, were of the “white race,” with similar heights, cephalic indices, nose and face shapes. Serologic testing, however, did

76 A.F. Coca and O. Deibert, “A study of the occurrence of the blood groups among American Indians,” Journal of Immunology 8 (1923): 487.

77 Schneider 1996, 286.

78 Ibid. [N. Kossovitch, “Les groupes sanguins chez les Tschéques,” Comptes Rendus de Société Biologique 93, no. 35 (1925): 1343-44 and N. Kossovitch, “Récherches sur la race arménienne par l‟isohémagglutination,” Comptes Rendus de Société Biologique 97, no. 19 (1927): 69-71].

79 R. Dujarric de la Riviere and N. Kossovitch, “Les Groupes Sanguins en Anthropologie,” XIX Congrès de Médecine Légale.‟ Annales de Medecine Legale, Criminologie, Police Scientifique et Toxicologie. Bruxelles, 1934: 285.

217 reveal differences between them. He also referred to the “Hovas,” a racial type

Kossovitch had examined in Madagascar, as an example of the “fixity of the blood groups.”80 Jan Mydlarski, a physician who worked with Hirszfeld in postwar Poland, also published extensively on his own seroanthropologic studies.81 The influence of

German medicine in blood science was even apparent in the source of the testing materials. Test serum was often used in determining blood type. The Robert Koch

Institute in Berlin, a provider of this sera, would often receive requests from within

Germany itself; the Greifswald University Pediatric Clinic, the Viral Research

Department at the University of Jena, the National Medical Research Office, the

Pathological Institute at Wiesbaden City Hospital, and the Hygiene Institute of Albertus

University all forwarded requests for sera. The Robert Koch Institute was even contacted by international clientele—France, the Netherlands, Italy, and South America requested the same.82

The Manual of Blood Group Science (Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde), a rare monograph on the clinical, legal, and racial applications of blood science published in

1932, illustrates the many important contributions of Jews within the field of blood science. Edited by Paul Steffan, a founding member of the German Institute for Blood

Group research, it was compiled to provide a general history of blood science since

80 Ibid., 285.

81 J. Mydlarski, “Vorläufiger Bericht über die militäranthropologische Aufnahme Polens,” Kosmos 50, (1925): 530-583. J. Mydlarski, “Probleme der Konstitution in Lichte der Anthropologie,” Polska Gaz. Lek, no. 5 (1926). J. Mydlarski, “La différenciation du sang corrélative aux races humaines,,” Inst. Internat. Anthrop. 2. sess. Prague (1926): 189-199.

82 R86/2792

218

Landsteiner‟s discovery of the blood types in 1900, and detail recent developments in the field. Hesch made reference to the “most important” contributions by Karl Landsteiner

(1901), Emil von Dungern and Ludwig Hirszfeld (1910), Ludwig and Hanna Hirszfeld

(1919), and Felix Bernstein (1924).83 Each of the works cited had either been authored or co-authored by an individual of Jewish descent (with the exceptions of Emil von Dungern and Hanna Hirszfeld).

After immigrating to the United States after World War I, Landsteiner continued his work in blood science at the Rockefeller Institute. His research concentrated mainly on blood‟s practical applications, such as its therapeutic benefits. The importance of his

1901 discovery was slowly realized and Landsteiner was eventually awarded a Nobel

Prize in medicine for this on December 11, 1930.84 When responding to the award,

Landsteiner reflected briefly on the diverse uses of the blood types since their finding, which had mainly been in transfusion therapy and forensic analyses. This was apparently

Landsteiner‟s objective in his initial research. When asked in 1930 about what had

83 K. Landsteiner, “Erkennung der physiologischen Natur der gruppenspezifischen Substanzen”; von Dungern and Hirszfeld, “Feststellung des mendelistischen Charakters der Blutstrukturen”; Ludwig and Hanna Hirszfeld, “Statistische Erhebung an Soldaten der Salonikiarmee des Weltkrieges über die Verteilung der Blutgruppen bei verschiedenrassigen Völkern Europas, Asiens und Afrikas” Felix Bernstein, “Ergebnisse einer biostatistischen zusammenfassended Betrachtung uber die erblichen Blutstrukturen des Menschen,” Klinische Wochenschrift, no. 3 (1924): 1495-7. Bernstein presented a more accurate theory of the blood groups‟ heredity, one which helped to remove lingering doubts over whether or not the blood types followed Mendelian Law. This reassurance was useful in considering blood‟s potential racial application, as well as its use in cases of disputed paternity.

84 Landsteiner did not consider the „sheer accident of discovery‟ of the blood groups and their elaboration as his greatest contribution to medical science. Although he derived great personal satisfaction from the Nobel Prize award, he would have preferred to be honored for his critical demonstration of the specificity of serological reactions, the title of his book. (Gottlieb 1998, 18).

219 inspired him to detect differences in individual‟s blood, he explained that he was motivated by the fact that

Differences exist in the blood of different animal species. I set out to examine the question whether individual differences are not present within a species. This led to the demonstration of individual differences, the blood groups in humans…but this will not interest the layman.85

Race was not a guiding factor in Landsteiner‟s research. He mentioned that the basic mode of the blood types‟ inheritance, a requisite for racial characteristics, was only made years later by Von Dungern and Hirszfeld.86

Landsteiner acknowledged the Hirszfelds‟ role in seroanthropology. It was during the war, he remarked, when Hirszfeld had first made the “remarkable observation” that there were characteristic serologic differences among the various racial types examined. By the time of Landsteiner‟s award in 1931, seroanthropology had become its own, entirely separate field of study. By the end of the Weimar Republic, the blood types of tens of thousands of subjects had been collected and carefully analyzed for anthropological research. Landsteiner remarked that the volume of this research was

“nearly impossible of complete review.” Although he felt discussing the results of these investigations to be “beyond [his] province,” he was aware that seroanthropology remained a contentious topic.87 Landsteiner was of the opinion that blood types were more significant for what he referred to as “practical medicine,” or therapeutic purposes,

85 Ibid., 26.

86 Karl Landsteiner, “Individual Differences in Human Blood,” Science 73, no. 1894 (Friday, April 17, 1931): 406.

87 Ibid.

220 as with blood transfusions. Nonetheless, he did research seroanthropology while at the

Rockefeller Institute and co-authored an article with his colleague, C. Philip Miller Jr., that suggested primate blood types were comparable to those in humans .88 According to their blood tests of “white and Negro” subjects, blood type distributions in these groups were less obvious than the difference between the blood of man and the anthropoid apes.89 (See Figure 18).

Figure 18. The blood types O, A, and B in “humans and several other primates” according to Landsteiner and Miller. Oluf Thomsen, “Serologie der Blutgruppen” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan. (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932): 96.

88 Ibid., 407.

89 Karl Landsteiner and C. Philip Miller, “Serological studies on the blood of the primates: the blood groups in anthropoid apes,” The Journal of Experimental Medicine 42 (1925): 853-862.

221

In 1926, Landsteiner and Philip Levine discovered the MNP system in the blood.

The MNP factors were simply another set of differences within blood that, like the blood types, were due to the presence or absence of certain protein molecules called antigens and antibodies on the surface of the blood cells. Because these were heritable like the classic four blood types, Landsteiner examined their frequencies amongst various racial types and found that, similar to the blood types, the MNP characteristics also varied across racial groups. He found their incidence to fluctuate noticeably between

“Caucasians, blacks, and Native Americans.”90

Compared to the biased interpretations of far-right blood scientists, however,

Jewish researchers were generally more conservative when analyzing their results. The crux of Hirszfeld‟s theory was that types A and B blood were representative of two separate, Eastern and Western racial types. At the same time, Hirszfeld had been careful to emphasize the fact that each of the four blood types had been found in every group examined. In contrast, when the results of Schiff‟s 1924 study led him to question any relationship between blood and race, he did not completely discredit it. Instead, like

Hirszfeld, he claimed that further research was needed. Unlike biased blood scientists, neither Hirszfeld nor Schiff spoke in absolute terms or framed their work to support a certain hypothesis—such as strong völkisch associations between type A blood and positive traits.

Both racially biased and non-biased seroanthropological research continued throughout the twenties. By 1927, one German scientist reported that the blood types of

90 Steffan 1932, 15.

222

92,144 subjects, comprising “198 different racial types,” had been examined.91 By the end of the Weimar Republic, it was estimated that 1,000 seroanthropological articles, based on over half a million individual tests, had been published.92 Repeated efforts to discern the blood of Jews from non-Jews through blood science, much to the dismay of anti-Semites, had not been successful. The Jews‟ biochemical racial indices were not consistent, and offered no new insight into the matter of their contentious racial classification, as indicated in Wellisch‟s article. Furthermore, Manoilov‟s attempt at individual racial classification through blood was both unreliable and inexplicable. One

French physician bluntly put it, “as everyone knows, we still do not have a method which allows the identification of an individual through their blood.”93 As a result, seroanthropological research of Jews attracted negligible attention from völkisch ideologues.

91 Of these, 56,922 were Europeans. Scheidt specifically listed which Europeans were studied: Swedes 1384, Norwegians 136, Scandinavians in general 138, Island 800, Lapland 183, England Scotland and Ireland 1015, Denmark 662, Holland 200, Germans 15,500, Swiss 543, Germans in Hungary and Romania 1191, Austria?, France 500, Italy 3059, Poles 11588, Slovakians 461, Russia 4726, Hungary 1874, Romanians 5325, Bulgarians 872, Serbians 500, Turks 527, Greeks 359, Middle East 387, Egyptians 417, North Africa 500, Jews 1875, Gypsies 385 Scheidt, Dr. Walter, Associate Professor for Anthropology, at the University of Hamburg, „Rassenunterschiede des Blutes,‟ 1927, Georg Thieme, Leipzig, Germany, 26. In 1926, Hirszfeld had also referred to numerous mass racial surveys which had been conducted as of this date (Staquet, Belgians; Weil, French; Clairmont, German Swiss; Hoche and Moritsch, Viennese; Kassowitsch, Tschechen; Streng, Finns; Bruynoghe and Walravens, Congoese; Paseual, Philippino; Burton, Southern Australians; Nigg-Clare, Indians. [Walter Scheidt, Rassenunterschiede des Blutes (Leipzig: Georg Thieme, 1927), 25-26].

92 William H. Schneider, “Chance and social setting in the application of the discovery of blood groups,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57 (1983): 558.

93 Paul Moureau, “Contribution a l‟étude des facteurs d‟individualisation du sang humain et leurs applications en medicine légale,” Revue Belge des Sciences Medicales 7, no. 3 (March 1935): 178.

223

Nevertheless, many proponents of seroanthropology, like Siegmund Wellisch, stubbornly clung to the idea that more useful anthropologic knowledge might be gathered from additional research. As was the case with all “mass statistics,” Wellisch noted, every additional study had the potential to alter, if not completely change, all previous findings.94 It was important not to become discouraged by the present findings, he explained, in light of the “inadequacies” in both seroanthropology and racial anthropology in general. Even Grigorjewa, a contributing author to the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie whose own research with Manoilov‟s technique had proved completely futile, did not suggest abandoning it altogether; there was the lingering possibility that the diseased (malarial) subjects in the study may have affected the results, or that the nature of the so-called “racial hormones” was not yet completely understood.

Others theorized that the anthropological significance of the blood types would only be apparent after more extensive comparisons with other racial characteristics—a

“prevailing belief” even Landsteiner agreed with.95 Even after the extensive, albeit largely inconclusive seroanthropological research of the Weimar Republic, there were still proponents of seroanthropology. The imprecision of the science would stymie its progress during the Third Reich, when the state mandated individual classification; however, the Nazis would continue their use of scientific blood rhetoric and even incorporate it into their legislation.

94 Wellisch 1929, 21.

95 Landsteiner 1931, 406.

CHAPTER VII

BLOOD AS METAPHOR AND SCIENCE IN THE NUREMBERG RACE LAWS

Hitler‟s eugenic and racial beliefs drew the attention of völkisch political and medical ideologues long before his appointment as Chancellor in 1933. In 1930, German race theorist Lenz lauded him as the first politician “of truly great import, who has taken racial hygiene as a serious element of state policy.”1 The National Socialist Worker‟s

Party was arguably the first political party in which racial hygiene was a central part of the political platform. When they did seize power, the Nazis immediately began to apply these ideas through separating Germans from those categorized as “non-German.”

Because of their conviction that race was a biologic state, the cooperation and support of physicians was deemed essential. To ensure this, Gleichschaltung forced all medical institutions, propaganda programs and policies to serve the aims of Nazi selectionist racial ideology. 2 It had consistently been the Nazis aim to apply their principles under the pretense of legal, bureaucratic, orderly measures; with the guidance of doctors and lawyers, eventually all “racially other” individuals would be stripped of their civil rights.

1 Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 61.

2 Paul Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism (Oxford University Press, 2000), 490.

224 225

Separating Germany‟s predominantly-assimilated Jewish minority was dictated by the

Nuremberg race laws introduced in 1935. The legislation gave complicated guidelines for the classification of Jews which replaced any previous state directives.

It is significant, for our purposes, that the Nuremberg legislation depended on differences in “blood”—an individual was simply either “German-blooded” or not. This meant that the metaphorical notion of blood had to be quantified; how much “non-

German blood” did an individual have to have in order to be considered Jewish?

Imprecise categories of blood difference, whether portrayed in a sexual or scientific context, were used not only to construct racial categories, but also to interpret infractions of the legislation. Such references were common in Nazi discourse from the start. When the party issued its official twenty-five points program in February, 1920, point four stated that only those of German blood were considered Volksgenossen (German nationals), and only Volksgenossen could be German citizens. Hitler‟s Mein Kampf, written while he was briefly imprisoned during the early Weimar Republic, was replete with discussions of race-based differences in blood. Using this same blood rhetoric in legal categorization during the Third Reich would reveal the tensions of basing legislation in völkisch, traditionally-propagandistic ideals. By closely analyzing the 1935

Nuremberg “Blood Protection Law” and its application, I will demonstrate the disconnect between medical and völkisch notions of differences in blood. This chapter will analyze how blood science fit into the pre-war years of the “racial state” of the Third Reich.3 Did

3 Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (Cambridge University Press, 1993).

226 seroanthropology benefit from the Nazi Machtergreifung? Did Nazi bureaucrats and scientists find it useful in racial categorization? In responding to these questions, I will also address how members of the German Institute for Blood Group Research reacted to the new regime.

Seroanthropology in 1933

The considerable drawbacks of seroanthropology as a tool of racial classification, apparent since its introduction, were already clearly pronounced on the eve of the Third

Reich. Despite extensive efforts, even a cursory overview of the existing research would have shown that it was largely ineffective for racial analyses. Research had repeatedly demonstrated that no one blood type could be definitively linked to one racial type; patterns could only be broadly observed through differences in groups‟ blood type frequencies. In a 1933 article entitled “What blood tells,” American physician M.H.

Jacobs responded to the “frequent” query as to whether or not a sample of human blood could tell the race of the person from which it came. He explained that in most individual cases this was not possible, though some information could at times be obtained—

We can, for example, in many cases say with a high degree of probability that a given sample of blood could not have come from a pure-blooded American Indian. It happens that in this race three of the four well-known blood groups, for which tests are made before blood transfusions, seem either to be absent or very rare, and consequently blood of any of these three types must, as a rule, come from persons belonging to other races.4

Jacobs was referring to the high frequency of blood type O found among Native

Americans. Usually over ninety percent, theirs was the only group surveyed which so

4 M.H. Jacobs, “What Blood Tells,” The Scientific Monthly 36, no. 4 (1933): 367.

227 closely suggested a correlation between blood group and racial type. In the vast majority of other peoples studied, including Germans, there was no such noticeable pattern; types

AB and B were relatively rare, but both A and O were quite common. There had been no reports of one blood type characterizing such a large segment of the population.

Nonetheless, committed seroanthropologists clung to the idea that their science might one day assist anthropology. Perhaps, they reasoned, if the blood of enough individuals of a certain race was surveyed, a more precise relationship between blood and race would eventually take shape. This reasoning, however, was also problematic, as the necessary proportion to be studied was never determined. Some examiners believed a subject group numbering in the hundreds to be sufficient, while others claimed that thousands of individuals of a certain racial type had to be examined in order for results to be accurate.

As seroanthropology continued to develop in the post-war period, this ambiguity forced blood scientists to supplement their research. To lend insight into blood type frequencies, many now felt it necessary to review the specific settlement history of the area being studied. Efficient researchers were also expected to compare their findings with those of similarly-classed subject groups and locations. If one intended to examine the “indigenous peoples” of Bremen, Dr. Paul Steffan explained in 1932, it would also be necessary for them to consider Ostfriesland. Similarly, research conducted in Hamburg,

Holstein, or Herne required analysis of Osnäbruck, while Freiburg‟s location in the Black

Forest necessitated examining Peterstal.5 The point was that serological distributions were not to be analyzed “out of context.” Because race theorists believed the most

5 Paul Steffan, ed., Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde (München: Lehmanns Verlag, 1932), 398.

228

“useful,” racially pure peoples were found in rural areas, it was imperative that these groups be examined in order to have a comparison template for analyses of larger towns and cities. With the implication that their groups were not “normal,” and therefore not representative of the general population, the convenient surveying of hospital and prison inmates was ultimately considered “worthless” for normal anthropological research.

Research was expected to be conducted on groups which were not pre-selected in this manner. Once an appropriate subject group was found, not only were their blood types to be surveyed, but also, “if possible,” their physiognomic characteristics examined.6 A thorough blood scientist, then, had many tasks at hand. Still, even if all of these conditions were met, the most meticulous blood type research rarely yielded a quick or even clear response in turn.

For all of these efforts, perhaps most significantly, the blood type distribution patterns observed amongst Germans often conflicted with völkisch ideals. Consistently increased levels of blood type A, the type conventionally associated with Western

European descent, were far from the norm. Wide disparities between the serologic indices of groups within Germany suggested to examiners that substantial miscegenation with non-Germans had occurred in the past. In addition to this explanation, which was clearly not in agreement with the racial principles propagated by the far right, blood science had even associated groups long recognized by anthropologists as racially distinct from one another. On occasion, subjects with very different historical backgrounds and physical features would have precisely the same distributions of blood type: the

6 Ibid.

229

Cantonese of China were serologically identical to the people of Katanga in the Congo and the Kazans of Russia. The inhabitants of Greenland even matched the aboriginal population of Australia.7 As for the notion that blood type A was indicative of Aryan descent, additional research showed that the aborigines in Australia had levels of type A comparable to those, and sometimes even higher than, the distributions reported among

Germans.8 (See Figure 19).

Serologic studies of Jews had similarly frustrated the efforts of blood scientists to discern the blood of a Jew from a non-Jew. As had been the case with other groups studied, no one biochemical index (much less blood type) was found to be uniquely

“Jewish.” In 1934, Dr. Nicolas Kossovitch, who had been trained in Salonika during

World War I by Hirszfeld, observed that certain Jews were found to have a percentage of types A and B blood very similar to “that of Europeans”; German and Dutch Jews were, respectively, similar to German and Dutch gentiles, while Persian Jews and most of the

Jews of the Middle East were comparable to the Asian peoples.9 These similarities led

Kossovitch to conclude that Jews served as one of the “best examples” of changes in serologic distributions due to miscegenation.10 This correlation, too, was another

7 William H. Schneider, “Chance and social setting in the application of the discovery of blood groups,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57 (1983): 560.

8 See Leland Wyman and William Boyd, “Human blood groups and anthropology,” American Anthropologist 37, no. 2 (1935): 189.

9 Kossovitch, a native Serb, went to Paris after WWI, where he obtained a position at the Pasteur Institute. He secured a position at the École d‟anthropologie in 1931 and was the first in France to conduct research comparable to that of the Hirszfelds. [William H. Schneider, Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 225].

230

Figure 19. World map showing distribution percentages of type A blood. Leland Wyman and William Boyd, “Human blood groups and anthropology,” American Anthropologist 37, no. 2 (1935): 181-200.

10 Raymond Dujarric de le Riviere and Nicolas Kossovitch, “Les Groupes Sanguins en Anthropologie,” XIX Congrès de Médecine Légale, Annales de Medecine Legale, Criminologie, Police Scientifique et Toxicologie (1934): 286.

231 instance in which seroanthropology posed no benefit for völkisch race theorists interested in confirming a biologic difference between Jews and non-Jews.

Even the research of Russian Dr. E.O. Manoilov had not proved useful to racial studies. In 1925, Manoilov claimed that his chemical-based technique could determine the race of an individual from a sample of their blood alone. Manoilov‟s claim was initially promising for blood science because it differed from the Hirszfelds‟ traditional, survey-based approach. Further research, however, indicated that Manoilov‟s mysterious chemical reaction was largely not reliable. Many years later, after repeated efforts to do so, Manoilov himself was forced to admit that he could not explain the chemistry behind his technique. American Dr. Charles Abromavich appropriately described his procedure as one which incorporated “various ingredients” in the manner of a cook book recipe, in which “so much of this and so much of that is added, some kind of result is obtained, sometimes good and sometimes bad.”11 In response, Manoilov could only weakly speculate that the blood of different races “probably” had a different “capacity of oxidation.” As a result, the majority of blood type studies continued to rely upon the survey technique and, by the early thirties, hundreds of thousands of individuals had had their blood analyzed for seroanthropologic study. Even with these statistics, however, as

Belgian blood scientist Dr. Paul Moureau pointed out, “we still do not possess a method

11 Charles E. Abromavich, Jr. and W. Gardner Lynn, “Sex, Species, and Race Discrimination by Manoilov‟s Methods,” Quarterly Review of Biology 5, no. 1 (March 1930): 68-78, 71. Despite his own criticism, Abromavich conceded that “nevertheless, the fact remains that under certain conditions correct results may apparently be obtained.” (Ibid., 72).

232 which enables the identification of an individual through their blood.”12 These developments explain völkisch race theorist‟s Hans Günther‟s shift in attitude in regards to seroanthropology. In 1922, when the science was first introduced, Günther had acknowledged that there were “broad differences” between the blood of the different racial types and speculated that “extremely informative results” might be gleaned from blood science. This estimation had radically changed by 1933, however, when Günther warned that that it was clearly not possible to determine an individual‟s racial type from their blood (die rassische Zugehörigket eines Menschen aus seinem Blut ablesen).13

Proponents of Seroanthropology

In spite of these drawbacks, there were those who remained optimistic towards seroanthropology and drew attention instead to its advantages. Kossovitch explained that blood science allowed examiners to “isolate peoples of different origin living within the same country.”14 Furthermore, despite the “group dynamic” characteristic of seroanthropologic research, blood‟s potential as an individual racial marker had not yet been entirely discarded. By this point, many blood scientists were of the opinion that blood type was one trait within a mosaic of racial indicators. As a result, research of blood and race had become much more labor-intensive by the end of Weimar than it had been initially. The majority of seroanthropologic studies supplemented blood type with

12 Paul Moureau, “Contribution a l‟étude des facteurs d‟individualisation du sang humain et leurs applications en medicine légale,” Revue Belge des Sciences Medicales 7, no. 3 (March 1935): 178.

13 Gerhard Baader, “Blutgruppenforschung im Nationalsozialismus” in Blood in History and Blood Histories, ed. Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio (Firenze: Sismelm, 2005), 342.

14 Kossovitch 1934, 287.

233 the “standard” physiognomic markers of pigment (skin, hair, and eyes) and cranial index.

True to the discipline, some denied any relationship existed between blood type and appearance, while others (particularly those with ulterior political motives) continued to maintain that there was a relationship between the two.

This tendency is exemplified in a study published by right-wing extremist Dr.

Hermann Gauch in the 1933 edition of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie. To better examine this possible phenomenon, Gauch contrasted his subjects‟ blood types with

“[Hans] Günther‟s markings of race”—the pigmentation of the eyes and hair. Gauch was careful to include other, “particularly noticeable” racial traits, such as hair texture and brown eyes.15 He labeled blood types A and O “Nordic,” and B “non-Nordic.” From their blood types alone, then, eighty-three percent of the 250 subjects were Nordic.16

After comparing and contrasting blood type with other conventional (anthropomorphic) racial characteristics, Gauch proceeded to categorize each individual as “Nordic,”

“Eastern,” or “Dinarian” in racial type:

Thomsen, Schleswig, Nordic-Eastern, narrow eye-opening, broad cheekbones, blue eyes, wavy light-blond hair, type A Bitterlich, Saxony, Nordic, somewhat broad cheekbones, medium-blond straight hair, blue-gray eyes, type A Schmidt, Altona, Nordic, brown eyes, light blond straight hair, type A Rindfuss, Hesse, Nordic with some Eastern influence, broad cheekbones, grayish- brown eyes, black straight hair, type O…

15 Hermann Gauch, “Beitrag zum Zusammenhang zwischen Blutgruppe und Rasse,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 6 (1933): 116-117. Gauch studied a selection of volunteers from a naval unit in Kiel, where the men‟s blood had been typed for transfusion records.

16 Of 250 men studied, 35 percent had type O, 46 A, 14 B, and 5 AB. (Ibid., 117). Gauch expressed an early interest in serology; his 1924 dissertation was on the blood types of “Dinarians” in Bavaria.

234

The list continued, providing similar detail for each of the individuals examined. The results supported Gauch‟s contention that blood types A and O were Nordic—both were predominant among the participants who “looked Aryan.” In contrast, he reported that those individuals with type B blood did not have any Nordic racial characteristics.17

These categories were flexible, however; Gauch listed some individuals as “Nordic with

Eastern influence,” “Falisch,” “Mediterranean” (Westisch). One subject was described as

Nordic, Falisch, and “Cromagnon.” Predictably, an explanation of what distinguished the racial affiliation of one trait from the next was conspicuously absent as was, perhaps more importantly, how each factored into Gauch‟s final decision. He apparently felt it significant to note such traits as “a somewhat plump chin, a unibrow, freckles, and large nostrils and earlobes.”18 His work shows how confidence in a relationship between blood and appearance, though less common by this point, still existed. Because of his political beliefs, Gauch wanted an association between blood and race to exist. This would serve as further proof that there were separate races. His Nordic bias was further evident in his general discussion of the field of seroanthropology which, he inaccurately claimed, was introduced by Paul Steffan. In reality, Steffan‟s work followed several years after the

Hirszfelds‟ and, with its classification of type A blood as “Atlantic” and B as

“Gondwanic,” was simply a variation on the Hirszfelds‟ theme of “Western” type A and

“Eastern” type B blood. Considering the fact that his 1924 dissertation had been completed on seroanthropology, Gauch was surely aware of the Hirszfelds‟ contribution.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., 118.

235

His choice not to mention them was certainly deliberate—Gauch further advocated using blood science to “uncover Jewry‟s concealment” of its racial characteristics.” 19

Gauch recognized blood type as part of the larger picture of an individual‟s racial identity, a notion would have helped to allay waning interest in racial studies of blood.

Other seroanthropologists further promoted its continued practice because of the unchanging and hereditary nature of blood—welcome attributes which separated blood from the more familiar physiognomy and pigmentation. Even after decades of research, physiognomy was still not entirely understood; there was evidence to suggest that appearance might alter in response to environmental changes. From this perspective, blood was much more reliable.

Racial “Reform” under Nazism

The process of Gleichschaltung, in which various institutions were aligned with the National Socialist worldview, was not entirely easy in the case of racial anthropology.

German race theorists were not a homogeneous group and, before 1933, were actually divided over the question of “Nordic supremacy.” Some wanted nothing to do with the

National Socialist variant of race theory. Others, such as Alfred Plötz, Fritz Lenz, and

Ernst Rüdin, sympathized with Hitler. Differences between these two groups were regional, religious, and political.20 During Weimar, seroanthropology was similarly characterized by two groups—researchers with Nordic tendencies, and those with a more

19 Ibid., 116.

20 Members of the Berlin Society for Racial Hygiene (Schallmayer, Baur, Ostermann, Muckermann, Grotjahn) tended to be more reluctant than their Munich colleagues (Ploetz, Gruber, Lenz, Rüdin) to embrace the Nordic ideals of fascism. (Proctor 1988, 46).

236 liberal perspective. The large contingent of Jewish blood scientists fit into the latter group, though the authorship of seroanthropologic studies in Germany reveals that the discipline overall had more appeal for the far-right. Serologists of Jewish descent were generally less interested in racial applications of blood science than in its therapeutic and legal uses. By the late twenties, frustrated by the relatively inconclusive research of the past decade, seroanthropologic study was most conspicuous amongst völkisch contributors intent on exploiting the science for their own needs. It was common for their work to reference definitive racial types in spite of frequent, blatantly subjective evidence—was also more prone to sweeping generalizations and vague terminology. For this reason, blood science was in a unique position to benefit from the Third Reich and its emphasis on racial identification; Nazis regularly spoke of distinct races, even if they did so with exaggeration or blatant misappropriation of medical fact. Predictably, the use of blood rhetoric, so common in National Socialist racial doctrine throughout its Weimar years, would continue after 1933. One of its most conspicuous placements was in the racial legislation adopted during the Third Reich.

The first attempt to enforce Nazi racial ideology through legislation came with the

April laws of 1933. References to blood were eventually put to use not in the definitions themselves, which categorized individuals as “Aryan” or “non-Aryan,” but in their interpretation. The text explained that a “non-Aryan” individual was one who had descended from non-Aryans, especially Jewish parents or grandparents. This applied

“even if only one parent or grandparent was of Jewish faith.” Regardless of their genealogy, however, everyone started with a clean slate as of January 1, 1800, and was

237 assumed to be Aryan. A party order concerning that date declared, “prior to the emancipation of the Jews the penetration of their blood into German folkdom was virtually impossible.” If no ancestor was either non-Aryan or the spouse or offspring of a non-Aryan after January 1, 1800, a person‟s Aryan status could not be altered by further genealogical exploration.21

If Aryan status was in question, an opinion was to be obtained from a “racial expert” commissioned by the Reich Minister of the Interior.”22 The problematic nature of the terminology quickly became apparent. Völkisch ideologues had long been using the term “Aryan,” that traditionally used to identify a language group, to designate the

Germans‟ “superior” racial type. 23 Its previous misuse in extremist propaganda had not gone unnoticed by opponents of Nordic race theory. German physician Rudolf Virchow had called the theory of an Aryan race “pure fiction.”24 French Archaeologist Salomon

21 Richard Lawrence Miller, Nazi Justiz: Law of the Holocaust (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1995), 15.

22 Ibid., 13.

23 Hitler was undoubtedly unaware of the irony that the term Aryan he so proudly bandied about had been introduced into popular usage by the son-in-law of Moses Mendelssohn, the eighteenth century “German Socrates,” who, as we have seen, interpreted Judaism in the spirit of the German Enlightenment and paved the way for Jewish intellectual participation in the wider society. Like Mendelssohn, his Christian son-in- law Friedrich Schlegel, a Romantic novelist, historian, and diplomat, campaigned for Jewish emancipation. But whereas previously the Germans, like all Christians, had sought a biblical origin for themselves (from Adam to Noah to Jepheth to Ashkenaz) and had speculated that German and all tongues derived somehow from Hebrew, studies carried out by Schlegel and others pointed, quite correctly, to a special relation of most ancient and modern European languages to the Persian of Iran and the Sanskrit of India. [Frank Heynick, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 2002), 416].

24 While investigating German heritage, Virchow conducted a census of hair and eye color of six million school children and examined skull deformities and other physical characteristics of ancient remains. Virchow concluded that modern Germans had inherited traits from multiple races. Later, in the 1930s, the Nazis tried to conceal his findings, which conflicted with their ideology of Aryan superiority and “pure German” lineage.

238

Reinach referred to it as “prehistoric romance.” Max Mueller, the German scholar responsible for having introduced the notion, bluntly rejected the distortion of his concept.25 Actual legislation, however, elicited a much more pronounced response of disapproval. Historian Saul K. Padover wrote that there was no such thing as an “Aryan race and…the Germans are neither Aryan, nor Nordic, nor a race.”26 Many ordinary

Germans were uncertain of the terminology as well; “I looked up „Aryan‟ in the dictionary, and it says they live in Asia,” one citizen wrote to a sexton‟s office in

Zehlendorf, a suburb of Berlin. “There isn‟t any branch of my family there,” the individual explained, “we all come from Prenzlau.”27

While no explicit reference to blood was made in the laws‟ definition of “non-

Aryan,” it was common in their discussion, application and interpretation. In 1934, for instance, while making his case for a Sippenamt (Genealogical Office) to assist in racial

25 Wallace R. Deuel, People under Hitler (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1942), 199.

26 After receiving his Ph.D. in history, Padover, an Austrian Jew who emigrated to the United States at fifteen years of age, worked at a number of posts in the U.S. Department of the Interior (1938-1944). He then served as a London-based political analyst for the Federal Communications Commission (1944) and as an intelligence officer for the Office of Strategic Services (1944) and the U.S. Army (1944-1946). Toward the end of his life, Padover contemplated writing a book about the American Council for Émigrés in the Professions (ACEP), an organization established to help refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and Austria. To that end, Padover secured physical possession of the ACEP files and housed them in his New School office. Padover passed away on February 22, 1981, in New York City, before he could complete this project. The materials in this collection were originally housed in a folder labeled "Foreign Affairs" that was inadvertently inserted into the files of the ACEP, which were sent to the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives in 1974. Saul Kussiel Padover, who kept the ACEP files in his office at the New School for Social Research, apparently created and misfiled this folder. The ACEP files were sent to the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, which photocopied them for preservation purposes. The M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, which sent the ACEP files to the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota after photocopying, retained possession of Padover's "Foreign Affairs" folder. [M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives. German and Jewish Intellectual Émigré Collection; http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/ger010.htm; (1 July 2008)].

27 Deuel 1942, 195.

239 identification, Achim Gercke, an official in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, argued that such an office would “watch over the purity of the blood” (Blutsreinheit) of the Volk and further added that those who worked in the office would represent the “best German blood.”28 This type of ambiguity only exacerbated existing uncertainties. Largely because of the confusion in terms, state-appointed “racial experts” were inundated with requests. In December of 1933, less than a year after the laws were introduced, correspondence within Württemburg reported the number of individuals in the Reich

Health Council to be 181—an expansion, it was noted, “due to an increase in demands for racial experts.”29 These requests would continue throughout the course of the Third

Reich. In 1938, Berlin-based expert Dr. Otmar von Verschuer requested more assistants, as he could then complete no more than five per week.30

The problematic terminology of the April laws eventually prompted the League of

German Jurists to publish a summary of the problems related to the laws. The author Dr.

Falk Ruttke, Director of the Peoples‟ Health Service (Volksgesundheitsdienst) acknowledged the lack of clarity:

While logic and consistency have traditionally been a special province of jurists and lawyers, it appears that since the Machtergreifung these faculties have eluded them. In reviewing our racial laws, it is apparent that these are lacking a certain conceptual clarity (Begriffsklarheit) in their use of such terms as “race,” “racial hygiene,” “eugenics,” and others which fall into the same category. These are oftentimes used with different and even contradictory meanings.31

28 Christopher M. Hutton, Race and the Third Reich (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005), 92.

29 E 130b/2764

30 R 3001/20487, 12.

31 Falk Ruttke, “Erb- und Rassenpflege in Gesetzgebung und Rechtssprechung des Dritten Reiches.” Deutsches Recht (January 25, 1935): 25-27.

240

In spite of these difficulties, officials became even more insistent in their racial policies with the institution of the new, “revised” Nuremberg race laws approved by the Reichstag on September 15, 1935. Bernhard Lösener and Wilhelm Stuckart, who drafted the legislation, chose to replace the previous term Aryan with that of “German-blooded”—a decision made specifically to allay further confusion.

Blood rhetoric was central to the Nuremberg Laws, and particularly to the anti- miscegenation law “for the protection of German blood and honor.” The preamble explained that the Reichstag had unanimously adopted the law “imbued with the consciousness that the purity of German blood is essential to the continued existence of the German people.”32 It forbade marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and those of “German or related blood” (deutschen oder artverwandten Blutes). Other sections of the three-part legislation were similarly phrased. Reference was made to the

“purity of the blood” (die Reinheit des Blutes) and the Citizenship Law restricted citizenship rights to those “of German or similar blood.” 33 The German populace probably would have been more familiar with references to blood and race than the notion of “Aryanism,” but this did not mean that the terminological shift helped to reduce confusion encountered in the first set of race laws. Völkisch blood rhetoric was by no means something new, but its inclusion in actual legislation was a considerable divergence from its past use in propaganda. As a result, the laws had the opposite affect

32 The laws were printed and distributed the following day. Joseph Tenenbaum, Race and Reich: The Story of an Epoch (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 3.

33 Miller 1995, 221-228.

241 of that intended and uncertainties regarding who was, and was not “German-blooded,” quickly followed.

Many commentaries and supplements on the laws were issued, though these too were often rampant with ambiguous terminology. At its most simple, a Jew was someone descended from at least three Jewish grandparents. For many individuals of mixed

German-Jewish lineage, however, classification was contingent upon the proportion of

“Jewish blood.” At the extreme end were Nazis like the notoriously disreputable Julius

Streicher, who h ad proposed that “one drop of Jewish blood” was sufficient to exclude a person from the Aryan race.34 Instead, officials explained that all Mischlinge with 75 percent or more Jewish blood were to count as Jews; on the other hand, not necessarily all German-Jewish Mischlinge with less than 75 percent Jewish blood were Jews in the sense of the law.35 Blood, as it had been all along, was still a malleable concept—race was contained in the blood, but it could also be affected by an individual‟s religious confession. This flexibility complicated effective interpretation, and therefore enforcement of, the laws. Even National Socialist bureaucrats found the phrase

“German-blooded” awkward. In December of 1935, shortly after the laws were introduced, the Reich Ministry of Justice distributed an interdepartmental memo again outlining the criteria for “proof” that an individual was of German blood (Nachweis der deutschblütigen Abstammung):

34 Karl A. Schleunes, ed. Legislating the Holocaust: The Bernhard Loesener Memoirs and Supporting Documents. Westview Press, 2001: 9.

35 R1501/5513, 17.

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1. The individual‟s grandparents are first considered when determining Aryan descent. Their relation is confirmed through civil or official parish documentation. 2. It might then be established that none of the grandparents are of the Aryan race. As non-Aryans, it is then considered whether or not they are members of the Jewish faith. 3. To prove that their grandparents were never practicing Jews, the birth certificates of the grandparents must be provided. Official parish confirmation is also sufficient—particularly in the event that the grandparents had been baptized. 4. In some instances, Aryan descent cannot be determined due to missing information or documentation. In such cases, an expert from the Reich Office for Genealogy (Reichstelle für Sippenforschung) in Berlin is to be contacted.36

Significantly, in interpreting the Nuremberg Laws, the author of the letter chose to use the term “Aryan” instead of “German-blooded,” thereby indicating the two were essentially interchangeable. The criteria listed by the Reich Ministry of Justice demonstrate the Third Reich‟s heavy reliance upon documentation. As had been the case with the April Laws, “racial experts” were to be consulted in the event this was lacking.

Without the appropriate documentation, racial experts would usually refer to physiognomic characteristics to determine race. The examination would most often consist of a blood test, a look at the shape and physiology of the eye and the shape of the head, and the taking of a photograph from the front and in profile.37 However, the characteristics chosen, and their individual significance in determining race, could vary considerably from one investigator to the next. Because there were no absolute

36 R3001/24433, 6-7. From Dr. Freisler, Reich Ministry of Justice, 7 December 1935, to: Herrn Präsidenten des Reichsgerichts, Herrn Oberreichsanwalt, Herrn Prääsidenten des Volksgerichtshofs,, Präsidenten des Reichspatentamts, Präsidenten des Landeserbhofgericths in Celle, Oberlandesgerichtspräsidenten, Generalstaatsanwälte bei den Oberlandesgerichten.

37 Gretchen Schafft, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 73.

243 guidelines, examiners were able to exercise their individual preferences. Blood was presumably drawn to test for disease, rather than for any racial reasons. The subject‟s appearance, though the preferred mode of identification, was not the only one and Nazi officials again provided “helpful” advice for racial categorization. Experts were to evaluate the subject‟s “appearance,” but also their “disposition and mental state.”

Regardless of any other characteristics, descendants of Eastern Jews or even half-Jews with a “strong Jewish appearance” were to be declined [categorized as non-German blooded].38 In a letter to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Lösener admitted that it was very difficult, and sometimes not even possible, to racially categorize an individual with

“exactly 50 percent Germanic and 50 percent Jewish blood.”39 In these cases, he explained that a decision had to be made through analyzing their “external appearance” and other factors (such as “family history,” or the individual‟s economic and political perspectives). However, considering Lösener‟s additional claim that each “half-Jew” could possess more than “thousands of Jewish and German characteristics,” this was not necessarily helpful.40 The most important of these, he concluded, were the subject‟s

“unseen traits.” Ultimately, even physiognomy was not always foolproof and determining serologic type, despite the prospect of “German blood,” was never a priority

38 R1501/5513, 45. When an opinion was finally entered, a Mischling could then apply for voluntary sterilization.

39 R1501/5513, 141-142.

40 R1501/5513, page unknown.

244 of racial experts. Not surprisingly, even Nazi authorities acknowledged that expert analysis could result in inaccurate racial categorization.41

“Blood Defilement”

The Nuremberg Laws still stubbornly indicated the Nazi‟s primary objective of keeping the blood of different races separate and were directed most strongly against the perceived “influence of Jewish blood” (jüdisches Bluteinschlages). The malleability of blood-related propaganda allowed for many interpretations as to how exactly “Jewish blood” was a threat. In a Ziel und Weg article on the “solution of the Jewish Question,” author Dr. Alfred Böttcher explained that the Jews had never “had a fatherland” or built their own state. The reason for this was an absolute “destructive power” in their blood.42

Some believed that Jews needed to actually acquire non-Jewish blood for religious ritual.

One Der Stürmer account reported how, in Madrid, the body of a four-year-old child had been found with two deep wounds in its throat, “drained of blood.” The article explained that this was reported to have been the work of the Jews and their centuries-old “vampire secrets” (Vampir-Geheimnissen).43 Völkisch propaganda on Jews and blood most frequently centered on “blood defilement,” which was believed to be the result of miscegenation between Jews and non-Jews. Nazi ideologues repeatedly emphasized the supposed adverse effects of miscegenation, thereby underlining the purity of one‟s own

41 R1501/5513, 142.

42 Alfred Böttcher, “Die Losung der Judenfrage,” Ziel und Weg 5 (1935): 226.

43 Der Stümer, May 1924, 3.

245 blood. One Der Stürmer article, entitled “The Sin against the Blood,” referenced the

New World as an example of the disadvantageous consequences of miscegenation:

The discovery of America has also had many unfortunate consequences. The Spanish, who settled especially in South and Central America, mixed over the centuries with the natives of the land. This resulted in a mixed people (Mischvölker) in which the blood of the Indians and Negroes (Negerblut) was now also carried by Europeans. 44

Mischlinge, the excerpt claimed, would always have the worst characteristics of both parents. Mischlinge were neither creative nor cultured—it was the “sin,” their mixed blood, which prevented them from ever having peace or being able to do creative work.

The article further claimed that effects of miscegenation were also evident on the

“bastard island of Cuba,” or in the Balkans, both areas of regular political turmoil.

In a 1934 interview, before the Nuremberg Laws, German race theorist Eugen

Fischer explained that women were central to effective eugenics, to prevent “damage to our [German] blood.” Men were accountable as well, as an error in judgment could cause one of these “unfortunate creatures,” or “bastards” to be born, who were then afflicted with two “opposing bloods (Blutarten) at war within them.”45 Overall, however, the Nazis expressed more concern over women‟s sexual choices, as they were believed to be physically susceptible to blood defilement through intercourse. Völkisch theorists explained that the semen of a Jewish man was absorbed into the blood of an Aryan woman during intercourse, thereby infecting her and permanently altering her racial

44 Ibid., 2.

45 Charlotte Köhn-Behrens, Was ist Rasse? Gespräche mit den grössten deutschen Forschern der Gegenwart (München: Eher Verlag, 1934), 51-52.

246 identity. As a result, even one sexual encounter with a Jew was believed to cause sufficient damage. Despite Fischer‟s warning, the same did not apply to German men, who were able to have sex with Jewish women without similar consequence. Because of the semen‟s supposed absorption into the woman‟s blood, there was a closer policing of relationships between Aryan women and Jewish men in the Third Reich. This notion of sexual blood defilement, which had been apparent for years in extremist tracts such as

Artur Dinter‟s The Sin against the Blood, was incorporated for the first time into actual legislation within the Nuremberg Laws. To stop this “blood letting,” the Nuremberg

Laws forbade sexual contact between what were considered incompatible racial types.46

Marriages were only permitted if they did not endanger the “purity of German blood” and sexual activity with “racial others” was penalized.47

In practice, the precise conditions which threatened this “blood purity” were debatable. Even with repeated caution that miscegenation would permanently pollute the blood of the racially-superior (female) participant and their children, an excerpt issued by ministerial director Dr. Arthur Gütt of the Peoples‟ Health Department of the Reich

Ministry of the Interior, suggested that the results were not irreversible:

It is possible that the mixing of a quarter and a half-Jew with an individual of German blood could result in the complete elimination of Jewish characteristics. In the event that no further crossing with Jews would take place, it can be assumed that any existing Jewish blood will be gradually diluted over generations. After many generations, one comes progressively closer to a pure Aryan. Under

46 Schafft 2004, 217.

47 R1501/5513, 26-27 and R1501/5513, 143. Restrictions were placed on marriage between many groups, namely Jews and Germans, Jews and quarter-Jews, Jews and still-uncategorized half-Jews, Germans and still-uncategorized half-Jews, half-Jews with one another and half Jews and quarter-Jews.

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these conditions, the absorption (Aufsaugung) of a Jewish Mischling into the German people would be possible.48

With special permission, even marriages between “half-Jews” and those of German blood could be granted.49 These conflicting descriptions begged the question: could Jewish blood be “diluted” over time, or was it permanent?

From a National Socialist perspective, the research of Russian seroanthropologist

E. O. Manoilov demonstrated the “adverse affects” of miscegenation. In 1925, Manoilov had introduced a serologic method of racial identification which relied on the color of a blood sample after exposure to certain chemicals. Manoilov suspected that his technique might be helpful in cases of disputed paternity in which the child was racially “mixed.”

The blood of a child born of a “pure Russian father” and “pure Jewish mother,” he reported, yielded a color different from than that of the Russian alone. A similar result was obtained in a separate instance involving a Russian father and German mother. In these cases, Manoilov noted that the reaction color of the child‟s blood, or in essence their “racial type,” matched neither parent. Even if a subject was “racially pure”

(Russian, German, or Jewish) in appearance, their blood might reveal otherwise. Despite his confidence, Manoilov‟s technique was seriously flawed. Results were subject to variations from sex, race, and how “closely-related” the racial types of the parents were.

If the father was Russian and the mother Jewish, Armenian, or Polish, the reaction of the offspring‟s blood more closely resembled that of the mother. In contrast, presumably because of their closer anthropologic origins, if the father was Russian and the mother

48 R1501/5513, 43.

49 R1501/5513, 44.

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German, Finnish, or Tatar, the color differed very little from that of an “unmixed

Russian.”50 Nonetheless, Manoilov claimed that his reaction could have a certain

“medico-legal importance if it relates to the problem of determining the parentage of a child born of a Russian mother and a Jewish father.”51 In theory, then, Manoilov‟s work would have been useful in cases of disputed paternity. However, because of its inconsistencies, researchers were understandably hesitant to employ Manoilov‟s suspicious “chemical reaction,” and instead met largely with disregard or outright criticism.52

Nonetheless, years later a July, 1936 issue of Der Stürmer reported on Manoilov‟s technique and its larger implications concerning miscegenation.53 Although over a decade had passed since Manoilov published his study the article, entitled “Blood and

Race,” excitedly detailed his findings—

Professor E.O. Manoiloff, a Russian biologist, has been successful in differentiating the blood of Jews from non-Jews with the aid of [catalyst] cresyl- violet. In the blood drawn from Jews, the color of the cresyl-violet disappeared,

50 Anna T. Poliakowa, “Manoiloff‟s „race‟ reaction and its application to the determination of paternity,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 10, no. 1 (1927): 25.

51 E.O. Manoiloff, “Discernment of human races by blood: particularly of Russians from Jews,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 10, no. 1 (1927): 20.

52 The first attempt to determine paternity based on “biometric methods and biochemical reactions” was proposed by Russian Professor Poliakow, and his analysis involved 125 questions. Poliakowa was intrigued by the prospect of a more efficient means of resolving disputed parentage. Prior to examining the legal ramifications of Manoilov‟s methodology, she first tested its reliability in determining race. She studied the reaction colors of blood samples taken from Russians, Jews, Estonians, Lithuanians, Koreans, Poles, and Kirgis. Her findings suggested the accuracy of Manoilov‟s work, as the blood of each group had turned a characteristic color. Evidently satisfied with the results, she later decided to publish the results of a study in which she had used the serologic method of chemical analysis to settle a case of disputed paternity. Nonetheless, this method of classification never progressed in American courts. Poliakowa‟s apparent “success” was an isolated event. (Poliakowa, 1927, 23-29).

53 Der Stürmer, July 1936, 3.

249

whereas in the blood of the non-Jews the color remained partially the same and took on a bluish-red hue.

Of course, the article did not mention the incidence of inconsistencies in Manoilov‟s work, the fact that one often had to rely upon interpreting shades of color or the misgivings of racial examiners—all of which had resulted in the obscurity of the

“serochemical reaction” by the time of this report. The article continued, nevertheless, and explained how the 1927 research of an American “Ms. [Doctor] Poliakowa” had noticed the blood of Mischlinge (“half-Jews”) to change the color indicative of a

“racially-pure Jew.” To the author, this was sufficient proof that the children of mixed marriages inherited the characteristics of the “racially inferior” parent.

Despite the factual overtones of this review, Manoilov‟s technique was referred to neither by German race scientists for systematic racial classification, nor by German lawyers for paternity testing. On occasion, only the actual blood types were used as legal evidence to exclude a putative father. Otto Reche claimed that “in certain instances, it can be determined whether or not the father of an illegitimate child is Jewish, because

Asian type B blood is more common among Jews than among Europeans.”54

Nonetheless, type B blood was not referred to as “Asian” or “Jewish” in court documents.

In reality, in his own practice of determining paternity, Reche explained that blood typing only allowed one to determine whether or not paternity was even a possibility.55 Blood typing presented a “great advantage,” but it was also necessary to analyze other dominant

54 Köhn-Behrens 1934, 98-101.

55 Otto Reche, “Zur Geschichte des biologischen Abstammungsnachweises in Deutschland,” Volk und Rasse 13 (1938): 374.

250 hereditary characteristics in order to attain “definitive results.” Reference to physiognomy was the oldest methodology, and this was easier in cases in which the child and putative father shared any physical abnormalities, such as “white hair, six fingers, or a hair lip.” He further noted that cases in which the father belonged to a “completely foreign race” (i.e., “Negroes”) were relatively easy to decide.56 In the majority of cases, he concluded, it was necessary to simultaneously consider a range of inherited characteristics.57 Regardless of technique, no test was able to definitively identify

“German blood.” So what did it mean to be “German-blooded”? Was there then, as this phrase implied, a “German race”?

In his 1934 introduction to genetics and eugenics, German anthropologist Otto

Rabes described the German people as only “50 percent Nordic”; the remaining half was a mix of various European racial types.58 In a 1936 commentary on the Nuremberg

Laws, senior German legal bureaucrat Ernst Brandis similarly explained that the Germans were not a “unitary race, but rather one composed of various groups (Nordic, Phalian,

Dinaric, Alpine, Mediterranean, East-Elbian) and mixtures between these.” The “blood of all of these races and their mixtures,” he explained, was that found in the German people, and therefore that “which represented German blood.”59 Similar statements were

56 Ibid., 370.

57 Ibid., 374. As with his work with blood in race science, Reche was also constantly trying to identify a definitive “paternal indicator.” In 1938, he wrote that he had already “for years” been examining fingerpring patterns between children and their fathers which, to him, “seemed promising.” (Ibid., 372).

58 Otto Rabes, Vererbung und Rassenpflege. Versuche und Stoff für den Unterricht und Rassenpflege (Leipzig: Quelle und Meyer. 1934), 44.

59 Ernst Brandis, Die Ehegesetze von 1935 (Berlin: Verlag für Standesamtswesen, 1936), 33.

251 even made by officials at the Reich Ministry of the Interior. One document noted how,

“over the course of millennia,” Germans had encountered and absorbed other “unwanted bloods” (for instance, those of the “Eastern and East Baltic” races). This mixing was so minimal (listed specifically as ½ to 1,000, or ¼ to 1,000), the author assured, that any dangers to the [German] race could be disregarded.60 Awkward, frequently inconsistent interpretations of the German race and blood were common then not only in anthropologic literature, but even among the Nazi bureaucracy. Because state authorities were not entirely certain of the German‟s racial classification, it was difficult for them to provide a logical explanation for the phrase “German-blooded.” (See Figure 20).

Certainly to the disappointment of Nazi administrators, inquiries from the German public relating to the state‟s use of racial terminology would continue.61 The influx of questions prompted the authors of the Nuremberg Laws to issue a published response less than a year after the laws had been passed. Stuckart and Hans Globke felt this necessary or the “opponents of race theory would attempt to confuse the German people and prevent its acceptance altogether.”62 The publication begins by reiterating some of the most basic questions raised: “What do race, people and state have to do with one another?

60 R1501/5513, 154.

61 For confusion relating to laws, see also Michael Robert Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945- 1946 (Macmillan, 1997); A. Margaliot, “The reaction of the Jewish public in Germany to the Nuremberg Laws,” Yad Vashem Studies 12 (1977), 75-107; Robert Gellately. Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 2002), 122; Karl Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy towards German Jews, 1933-1939 (University of Illinois Press, 1990), 115; David Cesarani and Sarah Kavanaugh, eds., Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies (Routledge, 2004).

62 Wilhelm Stuckart and Hans Globke. Kommentare zur deutschen Rassengesetzgebung (München und Berlin: C.H.B. Verlag, 1936), 1.

252

Figure 20. Chart for the Nuremberg Laws, from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, showing the proportion of “German” or “Jewish” blood that determined an individual‟s racial classification. Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, 2006-2007, [online], available from www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/pbgh.html, 1 June 2009.

253

What is race? What is a Volk?” Despite their relatively fluid use in racial propaganda,

Stuckart and Globke explained, these terms were not interchangeable. Nationality (a

Volk) was rooted in “constitutional law, national character, history, and culture,” while race was a separate “scientific notion.” To further explain, they referred to its definition according to völkisch anthropologist Hans F.K. Günther: “a race is a group of people who can be consistently differentiated from others by distinct physical and psychological characteristics.” Of course, the pamphlet did not list the specific traits, or draw attention to the fact that opinions as to which were the most reliable varied widely within the discipline of racial anthropology—and, significantly, even amongst those so-called

“racial experts” authorized by the state to assist in racial identification.

Although the specter of “blood defilement” was most often depicted in a sexual context, the Nazis believed that it could also result from other types of contact. Decisions passed in certain Nuremberg court cases show that the “purity” of an individual‟s blood could be affected without intercourse. Even platonic relationships between a Jewish man and a German-blooded woman were subject to scrutiny, and at times judged sufficiently close to result in a conviction of “race shame” (Rassenschande).63 Despite their preoccupation with blood defilement, the Nuremberg Laws also claimed that

“defilement” could result from non-sexual contact.64 National Socialists formally believed that there were race-altering consequences from literal blood mixing in the form of therapeutic transfusions. Many Nazis contended that a blood transfusion could

63 See Patricia Szobar, “Telling Sexual Stories in the Nazi Courts of Law: Race Defilement in Germany, 1933 to 1945,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, nos. 1-2 (January/April 2002): 131-163.

64 R1501/5513, 27.

254 transform “an Aryan into a non-Aryan.”65 During the Third Reich, this notion was first officially indicated in a late September, 1935 incident, in which a German Jewish physician donated his own blood to save the life of a member of the SA. The transfusion occurred in the town of Niederlungwitz, near Chemnitz, in the eastern German region of

Saxony. After being critically injured in an auto accident, the SA man was rushed to a nearby Jewish hospital where he was treated by physician Dr. Hans Serelman. At this point, stored blood was not common in Germany.66 If a transfusion was needed, a so- called “donor-on-the-hoof” was contacted—a volunteer who lived near the medical establishment. Their blood having been previously typed and on file, these individuals were expected to be accessible in emergencies in which their serologic type was compatible with that of the patient. With no such available donors, the Jewish Dr.

Serelman decided to give his own blood, which happened to be of a type compatible with the SA man, who survived and fully recovered.

The interracial exchange of blood through transfusion was not specifically referred to in the Nuremberg Legislation. Nonetheless, German physicians sympathetic to National Socialism subsequently denounced Serelman to the Gestapo for having injected Jewish, or “foreign blood,” into a German patient.67 An SA tribunal met to consider whether the man‟s receiving of this blood required expulsion from the

65 Deuel 1942, 212.

66 In the mid-thirties, blood transfusions in Germany were considerably less common and well-coordinated than those practiced in Great Britain and the United States. The Serelman case occurred sixteen years after Karl Landsteiner organized the first postwar American blood bank in 1921. Furthermore, it was two years after the Serelman case that the first full-scale blood bank for transfusion was set up with regular typing of blood in Germany. (Schneider 1983, 546).

67 Deuel 1942, 213.

255 organization. Under state examination, Serelman admitted that he had donated his own blood to an Aryan, and that this was not the first time that he had done so in an emergency (all of the patients so treated had regained their health). Because Serelman was a veteran of World War I, the court decided that his blood had not compromised the

SA man‟s racial status or purity. Their decision was made in accordance with the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Passed in April of 1933 on the insistence of President Hindenburg this law held that German Jews who had fought in the

Great War were to be exempt from National Socialist anti-Semitic legislation. The SA tribunal did explain, however, that if the Jewish donor had not been covered by the

Hindenburg Exception, the SA man‟s racial purity would have been compromised.68

In spite of his veteran status, and the fact that he had likely saved numerous lives,

Serelman was still charged with the crime of “race defilement” and sent to a concentration camp. Shortly after the judgment, a New York Times article noted the incongruity between the verdict and a statement made by Professor Leffler, a high functionary in the racial-political bureau of the National Socialist party. Despite the court‟s decision, Leffler claimed that a change in racial character following a donation was “sheer nonsense”; this notion, he explained, was simply the result of confusion derived from the figurative use of the word “blood” in regards to heredity. Blood donor cards during the Third Reich reflected Leffler‟s practicality. While the individual was required to confirm that they did not have “non-Aryan” blood, there were no medical

68 “Says transfusion can‟t alter race: Nazi expert holds recipient of alien blood will not be affected by operation: Leffler‟s declaration inspired by case involving a Jewish doctor and „Aryan‟ patient,” New York Times, October 20, 1935, 28.

256 criteria listed which differentiated between this and “Aryan” blood. Forms included the person‟s age, address, blood type, blood bank, date of donation, amount taken, and the results of hemoglobin and syphilis testing.69 No blood types were excluded from donating. Type B, for instance, that which had been associated in seroanthropologic study with “Eastern,” or “inferior” racial types, was not marked “non-German.”

Physicians labeled the groups not to indicate racial type, but simply to ensure transfusion compatibility. By the mid-thirties, one German physician remarked that this necessity was “thoroughly recognized” (by the medical establishment); type incompatibility could result in death.70 Nonetheless, this blur between medical fact and Nazi practice, exemplified by the Serelman case and the prohibition of blood transfusions between

Aryans and non-Aryans, did not go entirely unnoticed by the German public.

In February of 1937, Munich‟s Medical Weekly addressed whether or not blood actually differed, as one reader had inquired, “from race to race.”71 Two physicians responded. Dr. Albert Harrasser explained that “no certainties” had been recognized in the racial differentiation of blood, though many attempts had been made to determine individual races through the biochemical index. There was the possibility, he thought, that “species-specific” proteins were a characteristic of different racial types. For further information on the matter, he referred to the periodical of the German Institute for Blood

69 E151/54, 378.

70 Oswald Streng, “Die Bluteigenschaften (Blutgruppen) der Völker, besonderers die der Germanen,” Germanen und Indogermanen,” Festschrift für Hermann Hirt I (1936): 407.

71 “Fragen: Frage 27,” Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift (2 Februar 1937): 265.

257

Group Research, the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, and member Paul Steffan‟s edited volume Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde. The response of his colleague, Dr. Theodor

Mollison, was much more decisive. Mollison expressed “no doubt” that there were differences between the blood proteins of racially-disparate individuals, though the exact nature of this relationship was not entirely understood—nor had it been discerned among humans. The work to which Mollison referred, that of Dr. Carl Bruck, involved primates.72 Nonetheless, Mollison explained that the Anthropological Institute of the

University of Munich was planning to research this. The discrepancy must have been painfully obvious to the reader: Mollison had assured that there was a link between blood and race while simultaneously admitting that this had not yet been confirmed.

Seroanthropologic Research in the Third Reich

There were plans for other types of serologic research but, in the thirties, the traditional means of seroanthropologic research, the mass blood type survey, was still preferred among German blood scientists—even though it could not assist in the state‟s need for individual racial classification. In addition to this impractical drawback, seroanthropology was of declining interest to völkisch ideologues by this point because of its frequent incompatibility with Nordic race theory. For instance, in his 1936 article on blood group distributions, “particularly those of Germans,” Norwegian blood scientist Dr.

Oswald Streng, a member of the German Institute for Blood Group Research, remarked that “Slavic mixings” were apparent well into Western Europe. Furthermore, he claimed,

72 C. Bruck, “Die biologische Differenzierung von Affenarten und menschlichen rassen durch spezifische Blutreaktion,” Berlin Klinischer Wochenschrift 44, no. 26 (1907): 793-797.

258 the “invasion” of type B from Asia had been extensive—stretching back to the time of

Genghis Khan, perhaps even earlier. Over the centuries, the evidence revealed that “there had been repeated influxes of type B” into Europe. Geography, or the distance between east and west, explained why type B was much less pronounced in the Northwest; the lowest frequencies, Streng observed, had been found in Spain, France, Belgium, Holland,

England and Scandinavia.73 Apparently, because of its higher proportion of “Asian” type

B, Germany was not included in this list and its exclusion could have easily been supported by numerous distribution surveys of the supposedly protected, “racially- isolated” rural German populace. According to Streng, there was even the possibility that the German people were “Asiatic” in origin.74

In spite of these aspects of seroanthropology, which surely would have been viewed negatively by the völkisch medical establishment, there was minority belief that the study of blood still might offer certain benefits over existing anthropologic study.

Streng pointed out that the ease of determining both blood type and the racial biochemical index were complemented by the fact that blood type was inherited according to certain strict principles—which presented an advantage over the “gradual nuances and combinations” of other anthropologic characteristics, such as head length, skull index, and eye color.75 Furthermore, he continued, the research indicated that blood type was a constant characteristic. This was first confirmed by Verzar and Wescezky,

73 Streng 1936, 425.

74 Ibid., 429.

75 Ibid., 408.

259 whose study referenced similarities between (German and Roma-Sinti) immigrants and natives of their respective homelands, and subsequent studies had shown similar correlations. The “Negroes in America,” Streng remarked, had a similar type distribution to those in Africa. To further investigate this phenomenon, Streng conducted blood type surveys on Germans settled in Hungary, Russia, and Romania. Their average distributions were “clearly similar to one another.”76 Curiously, however, Streng chose to divide “native Germans” into “Eastern” and “Western” groups. Because of their low incidence of type B blood, the “settled Germans” in Eastern Europe had the same approximate blood type frequencies as the “Western Germans,” but this was not the case with their eastern German counterparts.77 These numbers were ultimately irrelevant, however, when one considers Streng‟s statement that all modern peoples were mixed

(gemischte), and it was difficult to say with any certainty from where they had originated.78 Therefore, even with his previous reference of the advantages of seroanthropology, Streng plainly rejected the notion that blood, or any other criterion, could racially discern between one group of people and another.

German blood scientist Siegmund Wellisch, another member of the Institute for

Blood Group Research, concurred with Streng in an article published the following year.

“Today,” he remarked, “there are only combinations of different groups, and no longer

76 German Settlers O 37.7 A 47.5 B 11.3; West Germans O 40.9 A 44.6 B 10.5; East Germans O 37 A 42.1 B 14.9.

77 Streng 1936, 411.

78 Ibid., 421.

260 any unmixed races. Therefore, their characteristics are neither qualitatively nor quantitatively ascertainable through observations and measurements.”79 The probability of finding “racially-pure” individuals through a homozygous group of characteristics was so low, he explained, that one could easily conclude that there were hardly any “pure races” left in modern Europe. Because of miscegenation, individuals with “questionable racial identities” were common within every group.80 An article published in 1937 indicated that Wellisch felt this principle applied to Jews as well.81 Based on their extensive past movements and interactions with other groups, Wellisch believed that modern Jews were thoroughly “racially mixed” even before their expulsion from Israel.

This mixing continued with other groups as they moved throughout the Mediterranean

Basin and Europe.82 Nonetheless, after “centuries of isolation,” Wellisch explained, the

79 Siegmund Wellisch, “Serologische Rassenanalyse,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 9 (1937): 38.

80 On the other hand, Wellisch continued, it was not uncommon to encounter a person with numerous characteristics associated with a distinct racial type—perhaps so many, he explained, that the person might be considered “representative” of that type. Therefore, it would on occasion be possible to recognize an “original, completely pure” race in some modern peoples but, Wellisch was careful to explain, this did not mean that it was absolutely necessary for a person to possess these same characteristics in order to belong to that same race. (Ibid., 37).

81 Siegmund Wellisch, “Rassendiagnose der Juden,” Anthropos 32 (1937): 783-794.

82 Wellisch traced the Jews‟ racial makeup as far back as 1700 B.C. Over the course of their extensive history, he claimed that they had been racially affected by interacting with the following groups: the Amorites, Hittites, Mitanni, and Kuschiten (who were varying degrees of “Oriental, Nordic, Mediterranean, and/or Negro” descent). This “mixing” continued over the centuries with other groups—the “racially- similar” Canaanites, the Phoenicians, Jebusitem, Hiwitern, Gibeonites, and other tribal groups. Eventually, Wellisch explained, the Jews finally came to be a predominantly “Oriental mixed population,” but with a strong “Armenian-Hamitic” makeup and lesser degrees of “Nordic, Mediterranean, Turanider, and Negro” influence. According to Wellisch, the Hebrews were already entirely “mixed,” before the separation of the ancient empire into the southern Jewish state and the northern region occupied by the ten tribes. After their expulsion from Israel, they interacted with various peoples throughout the Diaspora. Initially, around the eleventh century AD, Western Europe (the Spanish Moors, but also southern France and Germany), harbored the greatest part of the Jewish people. These communities continued to be met with groups from Asia and Africa. At the same time, the smaller eastern Diaspora was growing through influxes of Jews to

261

Jews had separated into the modern Ashkenazim and Sephardim “racial types” which were both “physiognomically and serologically different from one another.”83

Independently, Wellisch remarked, the Jews‟ physiognomy and blood type distributions confirmed their proportion of predominantly Ashkenazic descent (ninety percent). When compared and contrasted with one another, however, no pattern was discernible between appearance and serologic type. Further, Wellisch admitted, all efforts to trace Jewish descent through blood science had “proved futile.”

The German Institute for Blood Group Research

The contributions of Wellisch and Streng, published well into the Third Reich, were not exactly compatible with Nazi race theory. The administrators of the institute and its publication had remained essentially the same since the institute‟s establishment in 1926, and the extremist political agenda of its administrators seemed not to have changed. During the 1920s, when the United States passed its first eugenic legislation,

Otto Reche had expressed his fear that the Americans were becoming “world leaders in racial hygiene,” and urged Germans to try and catch up. “Racial hygiene,” he asserted,

“must become the foundation of all domestic policy, and at least a part of foreign

the Byzantine Empire, Persia, and southern Russia and Poland. Jewish settlements in Russia, however, met with Chasaren and Kossack tribes. As a result, some of these Jews fled west, especially to Poland. This trend reversed in the thirteenth century and, over the course of the following two centuries, Jews were continually expelled from Western Europe.82 After a point, the Jews settled mainly in areas where they were most tolerated—in Eastern Europe and in Turkey. Here, the Eastern European Jews mixed with peoples of Slavic, Tatar, Finnish-Hungarian, Turanide, Alpine, and/or Mongolian descent. Through their migration along the coasts of North Africa and southern Europe, the Turkish Jews mixed with peoples of Mediterranean, Hamitic, Turanide, and Negro descent. (Ibid., 783-787).

83 Ibid., 768.

262 policy.84 In November of 1933, Reche was among approximately 1,000 professors of

German universities to pledge their commitment to Adolf Hitler and the National

Socialist state. Reche‟s agreement with völkisch principles was born out after 1933 by his membership in various National Socialist organizations—the Nazionalsozialistiche

Lehrerbunde (National Socialist Teachers‟ Association), Nazionalsozialistisches

Kulturgemeinde (National Socialist Cultural Community), NSKOV (National Socialist

War Victim‟s Care), Reichsluftschutzbundes (National Air Raid Protection League),

Rassenpolitisches Amtes (Racial Policy Office), and the Opferrings (Circle of Martyrs).85

Certainly, then, Reche was pleased with the passing of the Nuremberg laws and he continued his “racial activism” throughout the course of the Third Reich. In 1937, the

Society for Physical Anthropology, of which Reche was a member, was reconstituted as the German Society for Racial Research. The organization was dominated by those dedicated to the Nazis racial objectives. Bruno K. Schultz and Wilhelm Giesler, both of whom had strong SS links, were appointed as directors, and party members Reche,

Verschuer, and Löffler were on its committee. In this role, Reche assisted the SS‟s organization for racial culture, the Ahnenerbe.86

Reche‟s racial anti-Semitism also grew more pronounced after 1933. After the

Nazis assumed power, he pursued more aggressively the matter of institute member

84 Proctor 1988, 98.

85 Katja Geisenhainer, „Rasse ist Schicksal‟: Otto Reche (1879-1966), ein Leben als Anthropologe und Völkerkunder (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002), 179.

86 Weindling 1989, 503.

263

Siegmund Wellisch‟s racial identity. During the Weimar Republic, Wellisch had been a frequent contributor to the Zeitschrift, two of his articles examined the seroanthropology of Jews, even though Reche strongly suspected that he was of Jewish descent. In the fall of 1935, Reche wrote to Steffan on the matter:

Wellisch has sent me an excerpt from Eickstedt‟s Zeitschrift für Rassenkunde, in which he again addressed the Jewish problem—specifically, the total number of people with Jewish blood. He was always awkward…secretive [about his own race]. At the last congress in Berlin I met some men from Vienna, reliable National Socialists, who said that if someone from Vienna was named Siegmund Wellisch they would bet “a thousand to one” that he was certainly a pure Jew. This still needs to be researched. I am investigating the matter and hope to be able to inform you soon.87

Eventually, Reche did receive a response from Dr. Herbert Orel, a physician at St. Anna

Children‟s Hospital in Vienna. Orel explained that the parents of Wellisch had married in the Jewish quarter of Vienna in 1890. His father was from Petronell, a small village east of Vienna on the Danube in which baptisms (conversions) were allowed. Though

Wellisch‟s mother had remained Jewish, the children had been raised Christian.

Therefore, according to Reche, and more importantly the Nuremberg Laws, Wellisch was

Jewish. In May of 1939, a brief article recognizing Reche‟s sixtieth birthday credited him with having made efforts to remove “Jewish influence” from blood science through the German Institute for Blood Group Research and its periodical.88

87 Geisenhainer 2002, 198. Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt developed a formula to establish people‟s race, supported by citations from Hitler and Rosenberg, with special attention to the correlation between race and character. His work Rassenkunde und Rassengeschichte der Menscheit (Stuttgart, 1934) ends with a call for eugenics, to fight the battle for the superior Nordic races against the backward southern stock. [Benjamin H. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2006), footnote 86, page 32].

88 Geisenhainer 2002, 133, footnote 87.

264

Lehmann, Reche‟s colleague and the publisher of the Zeitschrift, expressed similar far-right tendencies prior to 1933. Shortly after World War I, already a member of the Nazi party (he joined in 1920), and an active participant in both the Württemberg

Freikorps and the Kapp putsch, Lehmann argued that “Jewish-democratic and clerical circles” had tried to “neutralize” racial hygiene under the name of eugenics.89 To counteract this, his specialty as a publisher became the distribution of racially-biased medical tracts. His activities during Weimar did not go unnoticed by the Nazis; later,

Lehmann was appointed to publish the first official commentaries to the 1933

Sterilization Law and the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. He was rewarded for these contributions and, in 1934, became the first member of the Nazi party to receive its

Golden Medal of Honor (Goldene Ehrenzeichen), a recognition bestowed only upon the original 100,000 members of the party.90 Lehmann served as co-editor and publisher of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie from its beginning in 1928 until its final printing in

1943.

In view of the völkisch political activities of key figures in the Institute for Blood

Group Research, in particular the racism of Lehmann and Reche, one would have thought that the majority of the articles chosen for publication in the Zeitschrift would have suited their interests, especially after 1933. Gauch‟s report on the relationship between blood type and race, with its racist undertones, would have seemed a better fit. In addition to his racial biases, Gauch expressed a certain faith in the discipline of seroanthropology

89 They later claimed that this fault had been corrected only after the triumph of the Nazis. (Ibid., 134-135).

90 Lehmann was granted this award even before such Nazi notables as Gerhard Wagner, Walther Darré, Justice-Minister Franz Gürtner, or Finance Minister Johannes Popitz. (Proctor 1988, 27).

265 usually lacking among his colleagues. Unlike other contributors to the Zeitschrift, Gauch did not waver in his claims. He labeled types A and O “Nordic,” and “AB” and “B” as

“non-Nordic”—an association which crumbled under medical scrutiny. Nonetheless, to

“confirm” this association, Gauch reported that his subjects with type B blood did not have “any” Aryan characteristics.

By the thirties, such conviction was increasingly rare even in völkisch seroanthropologic discourse—specifically because it had proven contradictions.

Furthermore, Gauch was hardly a reputable source of anthropologic knowledge. In a separate work entitled New, Critical Issues in Racial Research, he claimed that “non-

Nordic man” occupied an intermediate position “between Nordic Man and the animal kingdom, in particular the great apes…we could also call non-Nordic Man a Neanderthal: however, the term „subhuman‟ is better and more appropriate.”91 The Stürmeresque nature of Gauch‟s writings was not appreciated by more academic race theorists.

Professor Löffler, a Nazi since 1932 and open anti-Semite, could serve as one example.92

As chief of a race-policy bureau, Löffler prevented the distribution of Gauch‟s “bizarre and amateurish” 1933 book on racial research.93 A concerted effort followed to prevent its distribution. Dr. Arthur Gütt, at the Reich Ministry of the Interior, requested that the

91 Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany, 1933-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 88.

92 At one point, Löffler had refused a chair in Frankfurt because of its large Jewish population. He subsequently accepted a chair in Königsberg, where he was appointed chief of the local race-policy bureau.

93 Müller-Hill 1988, 88.

266 prohibition of the book in Saxony be applied to all national regions.94 The Gestapo became involved in confiscating existing copies of the work. One letter issued to a publisher in Leipzig explained that Gauch‟s work was “unsuitable” and felt it threatened

“public security.”95 Curiously, the report explained that the German people had their origins not only in one race, as Gauch maintained, but were instead a “blend (Gefüge) of different races.” Truly “racially-pure” individuals, it concluded, hardly existed anymore.96 Eventually, all of Gauch‟s publications were subject to censorship through the Racial Policy Office of the Nazi Party.97 Restrictions were not enforced until the year after Gauch‟s article on blood and race was published in the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie. Nonetheless, it was apparent even before these actions were taken that Gauch was not a respected race theorist within the German medical community.

Why, then, would the editors the Institute for Blood Group Research want to include his work?

In fact, given the political circumstances of the Third Reich and the administrators of the institute, the Zeitschrift was surprisingly objective. Instead of ignoring the harsh reality of seroanthropology‟s inconsistencies and shortcomings, and censoring articles which described them, the institute often served as an impartial reporter of current developments in blood science. They also included members in their institute who did

94 R 58/904, 93. 14 March 1934, from Reich Ministry of the Interior to Prussian Ministry of Interior.

95 R 58/904, 94. From the Gestapo to publisher Adolf Klein, 16 March 1934.

96 R58/904, 94.

97 R 58/904, 104.

267 the same. Oswald Streng‟s article on blood type research, published only a year after the critical Nuremberg Laws, aptly demonstrated the deficiencies of seroanthropology. In spite of extensive analyses, blood science was clearly not helpful in determining an individual‟s “racial type”; it was only believed possible for blood to identify broad racial trends by blood type percentages which was completely inadequate for the Nazi‟s purposes of individual racial categorization. Furthermore, in addition to this “imprecise” aspect, authors themselves were openly skeptical or hesitant in presenting their findings.

Despite the volume of research by the thirties, Streng was careful to insert the caveat in his analysis that seroanthropology was “still in its infancy” and one had to be cautious in considering “current figures” as, with time, these could turn out to be “completely erroneous.”98 There was even the possibility, he remarked, that blood type could spontaneously change through mutation.99 It seemed that reporting the facts was prioritized over politics. Furthermore, in spite of his racial classification as a Jew

(according to the Nazis), Reche and Steffan did not renounce Wellisch‟s membership from their institute—presumably because this would have meant a significant loss for the institute. It was clear to Reche and Steffan, though, that they should avoid Wellisch under the circumstances. In December, 1935, Reche wrote to Steffan:

You handled the Wellisch situation very well. He has not been removed (this is not possible at the moment). The only thing you asked of him is to not comment on any political matters. Above all, contributions on the Jewish problem are naturally completely impossible.100

98 Streng 1936, 430.

99 Oswald Streng, “Blutgruppenforschung und Anthropologie,‟ Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 9 (1937): 97.

268

They clearly lamented the prospect of losing Wellisch, whom Reche had previously referred to as “brilliant,” and valued his work. As a Jew, he was what Reche referred to as their biggest “nut to crack.” Reche pointed out that at other conferences in the Reich,

“foreign,” or non-German, individuals had participated. Obviously, he mused to Steffan, it was not possible to have a “racially-foreign” serve in such a capacity as Chair… but, he would like to first ask Dr. Gross, the director of the Racial Policy Office, about allowing official Jews.101

Despite the fact that he was Jewish, another article on racial analysis was published by Wellisch in the 1937 edition of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie.102

True to Reche and Steffan‟s agreement, Wellisch did not directly comment on the Jewish

Question. Because very few individuals were “racially pure” in their physiognomy,

Wellisch explained, no “sharp line” could be drawn in racial classification.103 He referred to the Nordic race, which had a predisposition for “blond hair, light-colored eyes and skin, and considerable height”—even in a Nordic group, however, these characteristics never reached a full 100 percent. An individual of brown hair and/or eyes might be classified as Aryan, Wellisch explained, provided that the remaining characteristics were “completely Nordic.”104 His article concluded that there were

100 Geisenhainer 2002, 199.

101 Ibid.

102 Siegmund Wellisch, “Serologische Rassenanalyse,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 9 (1937): 38.

103 Ibid., 37.

104 Ibid.

269 presently only combinations of different populations, and no longer any “unmixed races.”105 Although Steffan had presumably asked Wellisch not to comment on political matters, the content was arguably political in tone. For this reason, and the fact that

Wellisch was considered Jewish, the inclusion of the article in the Zeitschrift is puzzling.

We are left to presume that Reche and Steffan felt the content safely non-political, though the claim that all peoples were mixed certainly belied völkisch teachings. At the same time, Wellisch did explicitly reference the Nordic race and its unique physiognomic characteristics.

Proponents of seroanthropology stubbornly pointed to the constancy of blood type distributions—still apparent even if a people had settled away from their native land.

Verzar and Wescezky were the first to note this pattern in their landmark study of 1921, and it was confirmed by subsequent studies of diasporic groups; however, an article in the 1937 edition of the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie questioned even this benchmark.

Dr. Gerhard Rooks drew attention to the problem of variances in blood group frequencies conducted on individuals of the same “racial type.” To demonstrate, he analyzed blood

105 Ibid., 38. Wellisch did author an article on the racial identity of the Jews also in 1937, but not in the German medical periodical Antropos. This work also refuted the existence of “pure” racial types. Wellisch observed that efforts to trace Jewish descent through surveying the blood types of Hebrews and Israelites had “proven futile.” (Wellisch 1937, 784) As to their “racial composition,” their movements throughout the Diaspora indicated that they had come in touch with many different peoples. The Jews were tolerated longer in certain areas where they could establish “a foothold”; in Eastern Europe where the German-Polish Jews settled, and in Turkey, where the Spanish-Portuguese Jews settled. Wellisch claimed that the first group had mixed with Slavic, Tatar, Finnish-Hungarian, Eastern European, Turanide, Alpine, and Mongolian peoples. As a result of their migration along the coast of North Africa and southern Europe, the Spanish-Portuguese Jews had been influenced by Mediterranean, Hamitic, Turanide, and Negro types. After centuries of isolation, Wellisch reiterated his prior claim that these two groups had developed into the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews and that the two were different from one another in both their physiognomies and blood type distributions. (Wellisch 1937, 768).

270 type frequencies among Estonians. The first study, of 560 individuals from northern

Estonia, indicated that they had 38.2 percent type O, 33.3 A, 23.8 B, and 4.7 AB. Later, a separate examiner supplemented these figures, increasing the number of Estonians examined to 849. This altered the resulting frequencies somewhat: O decreased to 34.2 percent, A remained the same, and both A and AB increased (26.2 and 6.3, respectively).

When Dr. Aleksandr Paldrock researched an additional 200 leprous Estonians, the final percentages changed yet again. This time, O again decreased slightly, A jumped to 40.5 percent, B declined to 19, and AB increased even further to 7.5. It was clear from these findings, Rooks observed, that type distributions could vary by researcher.106

In addition to its faulty mechanics, another factor in seroanthropology‟s relative disregard during Nazism would have been the simple fact that serologic findings and their interpretation were frequently incompatible with völkisch race theory. Oswald

Streng reported that it was not possible to speak of constant blood type frequencies in one population and area. In one part of Germany, there had been a regular influx of “mixed peoples.” This was evident in the eastern parts of the nation along the Oder River, and was also the case between the Elbe and Oder, and in the southern regions of Bavaria,

Baden, Württemberg, but also in the Rhineland. Germany seemed to be a nation of

“mixed peoples.” The blood type statistics of west and south Germans were found to

106 Gerhard Rooks, “Über die Verteilung der Blutgruppen bei den Esten,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 9 (1937): 34. The exclamation point is Rooks‟ inclusion. This inconsistency in findings, he explained, probably stemmed in part from the fact that the Estonians examined were not all from the same region within the country. The blood scientist Vasilii Parin, who separately examined 140 Estonians living in Soviet Russia, found them to have 30 percent O, 35.6 A, 29.3 B, and 7.1 AB.

271 clearly deviate from those in the east and central regions.107 Blood type research frequently challenged the notion that the Germans were racially-homogeneous, that the

German people were a distinct racial type. Blood type percentages were so disparate between the eastern and western halves of Germany that Streng actually divided these

Germans into two separate groups. This division, of course, contrasted with the Nazi‟s idyllic notion of German racial solidarity. Naturally, Streng‟s speculation that the

Germans might have been of “Asian” descent similarly would have been anathema to

Nordic racial theory.

By the late thirties, long past the height of seroanthropology a decade earlier, it would have been apparent that this was a field of study riddled with ambiguity and doubt.

(See Figure 21).

Figure 21. All (international) articles of original research on blood group distribution, 1919-1939. William H. Schneider, “The History of Research on Blood Group Genetics: initial discovery and diffusion,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 18, no. 3 (1996): 287.

107 Streng 1936, 420.

272

It is not particularly surprising, then, that the Nazis did not use blood science in their enforcement of the Nuremberg Laws even if, ironically, the legislation itself was based in blood rhetoric. Those who had drafted the legislation, Stuckart and Lösener, had had the unenviable task of converting National Socialism‟s ambiguous racial worldview, which pitted “German blood” against all others, into actual legislation. The application of blood rhetoric to legislation is important. The Nazis intent was to convey race as a scientific and legal precise category. This quickly proved not to be the case, however, largely because the law‟s cloudy association between “blood and race” had no scientific basis. Whereas beforehand the Nazis had been able to simply blur between propaganda and clinical reality, the Nuremberg Laws required German bureaucrats to justify and reinforce the objectives outlined in their laws. This change had immediate ramifications for physicians, anthropologists, ministers, judges, and laypeople attempting to comply with the legislation. Ironically, the initial 1933 terms “Aryan” and “non-Aryan” were replaced in 1935 with “German blooded” and “non-German blooded” in order to prevent confusion. However, none of these terms were ever officially defined. Instead, one ill- defined set of terms had been replaced with another. Even without scientific support, and the inexplicable blood defilement which resulted from sexual or medical means, the notion of “German blood” would continue to be used throughout the remainder of the

Third Reich. The only stipulation in the transfusion of blood, which arguably posed the most tangible form of “blood mixing,” was that the donor confirm their German descent.

There was no blood test to indicate the individual‟s race; it was only drawn to test for

273 type compatibility and disease.108 Nevertheless, following the Anschluss in 1938, Vienna hospitals also decided to adopt the practice of using only blood certified as having come from gentiles for transfusions performed on “German-blooded” patients, and only

“Jewish blood” for those performed on “persons of alien blood.”109

In spite of the Nazis‟ intent to protect “German blood,” and the wide diversity of the physical and mental characteristics acceptable in determining race, there is no indication that blood was thought to be useful in this capacity. Nonetheless, the laws themselves as well as their accompanying commentary were replete with references to

“German blood.” However, the racial experts relied upon during the Third Reich referred not to blood type, but appearance, when deciding whether or not an individual had

German blood. The regime‟s bias for physiognomy is apparent in an October, 1935 letter issued from Dr. Bernhard Lösener to the Ministry of the Interior on the “solution of the half-Jewish question.”110 The purpose of the letter was to advise the expert (racial) classification of so-called “half-Jews”:

In the event that a half-Jew has exactly fifty percent Germanic, and fifty percent Jewish blood, classifying them as either is sometimes not possible. In such an instance, categorization results not from anthropologic means, but can only be accomplished through analysis of external appearance.

Despite the preference for physiognomy, Lösener further explained that those with a

“strong Jewish appearance “ were to be declined, though he conceded that even this

108 3NS2/152. “Personalbogen für Mitarbeiter,” After filling out various information, the end states: “I ensure that my wife and I are of Aryan descent and have no influence of foreign blood.”

109 Deuel 1942, 213.

110 R1501/5513, 141-142. To the Reich- and Prussian Ministry of the Interior, 11 October 1935.

274 method was not foolproof. Instead, he explained, each half-Jew had “thousands of”

Jewish and German characteristics. Other race theorists similarly acknowledged the impracticality of physiognomic analysis. Many Aryans had physical features ascribed to

Jews, and many Jews looked Aryan. The Propaganda Ministry even produced a film showing how easily Jews could physically pass as Aryans; “blue-eyed” Susanne, with the blond braids, who had recently been praised in a “Racial Theory” class as a perfect example of the build and skull formation of the Nordic type, was abruptly expelled from school after being classified as 100 percent Jewish in accordance with the Nuremberg

Laws.111 In view of such exceptions, Lösener advised thorough consideration of other factors such as the “disposition and psychology” of the individual in question. Clearly, the final decision was based on personal opinion.112 Even the state acknowledged that expert analyses could result in false racial classifications!113 Nonetheless, as revealed in

German anthropologic discourse and practice of this time, the primary characteristic in racial decisions would remain physiognomy. Seroanthropology, though it was marked with similar inconsistencies, was never advised by mainstream racial experts. The use of blood rhetoric would continue in legal analysis, however, as its ambiguity made it a very versatile political tool. Consequently, propagandistic references to blood would continue and often maintain their clinical tone. The Ministry of Propaganda explained

111 Miller 1995, 12.

112 Schafft 2004, 73.

113 R1501/5513, 142.

275

We know that blood is not simply a red fluid which pulses through our veins. Rather, it is our very being—which carries our ancestry and represents the lineage to which we will return. The same physical and spiritual predispositions are only found among men who are of the same blood. We are related to those who have carried the same blood. These carriers of the same blood—the different races— are different from one another.114

Similarly, the head of the Reich Chancellery explained that it was the “blood determined” inequality among humans in all aspects of their “thought, feeling and action” which resulted directly in their legal inequality.115 Even Reche referred to blood in a metaphoric sense. In 1935, he wrote:

The blood of a gifted and culturally-creative race flows in the veins of each individual German, even if they do not externally resemble the racial ideal; blood also contains the racial makeup common to all Germans. The blood of the Nordic race makes is apparent in our superior German culture.116

The discipline of seroanthropology in the pre-war Third Reich was characterized, much as it had been throughout the Weimar Republic, by uncomfortable inconsistencies.

It was not uncommon for individuals to study blood and race while simultaneously expressing serious reservations as to its anthropologic significance. In spite of his warning that current findings might one day prove illusory, for instance, Streng still claimed that an anthropologic (racial) examination which did not consider blood type was

“one-sided.” Even though he plainly acknowledged that the connection between blood and race was not entirely clear, Dr. Theodor Mollison had expressed “no doubt” that there were differences between the blood proteins of separate racial types. Similarly,

114 NS2/162

115 Diemut Majer, “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany and Occupied Eastern Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 49-50.

116 Geisenhainer 2002.

276 though he had referred to efforts to trace Jewish descent through the study of Hebrew and

Israeli blood as “futile,” Wellisch nonetheless claimed that seroanthropology supported the theory that the Jews were ninety percent Ashkenazim. Despite their best efforts, and the völkisch activism of many of their contributors, the German Institute for Blood Group

Research failed to reach their main objective of biologically substantiating references to blood disparities. Instead, the institute‟s periodical frequently acknowledged the indeterminate nature of seroanthropology. The many uncertainties of the science, grappled with since its introduction, grew especially problematic in the context of a state based in racial divisions. Ultimately, blood science did not assist in the implementation of the National Socialist race laws. Seroanthropologists‟ own tiring efforts to make sense of their science, and prove its validity, served as a clear indicator of the role blood science would not play in Nazi racial policy.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PEDAGOGY AND PRACTICE OF SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN WORLD WAR II GERMANY

Throughout the thirties, the Third Reich focused primarily on stabilizing domestic matters in preparation for war. Over this span of time, racial segregation in Germany continued to escalate; by 1939, more than four hundred additional decrees, regulations, and amendments had consigned Jews and other “non-Aryan” groups to the outer fringes of society.1 This oppression relied mainly upon the biologic notion of race and the theories of race science to categorize individuals. It is important in this context to consider the state‟s opinion of seroanthropology as it was, categorically speaking, a branch of racial anthropology. This chapter will consider National Socialist views on racial studies of blood as indicated in party-affiliated medical publications. Were they aware of the history of seroanthropology, its most recent developments, and its position amongst conventional race theorists? Furthermore, did they know that the field of serology, and its racial applications, were the consequence of Jewish contributions? In light of the Nazi‟s rampant appropriation of racial studies and the consistent use of blood rhetoric in their propaganda, the past involvement of researchers of Jewish descent in racial research seems especially ironic. Mindful of these circumstances, some Jewish

1 Anthony M. Platt, Bloodlines: Recovering Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, from Patton’s Trophy to Public Memorial (Paradigm, 2005), 80.

277 278 blood scientists did comment on their own work and its larger political implications and misuse. I will consider their responses and the role of race in their ongoing research as

Germany advanced towards war and the carrying out of the Final Solution. The war, as I will demonstrate, had a definite impact on German medical objectives, and this was particularly apparent in blood science. By looking at how the circumstances of war affected research opportunities, racial and non-racial applications of serology, this chapter will trace the shifting emphasis within serology from the late thirties until the end of the war in 1945.

In 1938, Dr. Ludwig Hirszfeld commented on the developments in seroanthropology since the publication of his Salonika study in 1918. He knew of the societies and journals that had formed in response, and how many domestic and foreign studies had followed to determine the serologic makeup of an area‟s “original,” or native, peoples. By the late thirties, there had been so many surveys Hirszfeld judged it

“impossible” to cite them all.2 He was also aware of völkisch appropriations of his work, and pointed as an example to the Ukrainian Commission for Blood Group Research, whose objectives had been changed by the communist government. A state-appointed committee had heavily criticized the institute‟s previous research and instructed it, from that point forth, to interpret all research through the doctrines of Marx and Lenin. 3

Hirszfeld likened their biased perspective to that of the German Institute for Blood Group

2 Ludwik and Hanna Hirszfeld. Les Groupes sanguins: Leur application à la biologie, à la médecine et au droit. Paris: Masson, 1938: 130-131 and 138.

3 Ibid., 151. This censoring occurred after the death of Dr. W.J. Rubaschkin in 1932, the founder of the institute.

279

Research, which he believed had been established to meet the needs of a “specific political demographic.” This was especially apparent, Hirszfeld remarked, in an excerpt from the institute‟s Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, which praised member Paul Steffan for “having recognized the importance of serology for racial problems—particularly the study of the Jews, who have tried to „pass‟ in silence and hide their racial identity.”4

Hirszfeld refuted the institute‟s implicit notion of unique “Jewish blood,” that also shared by the National Socialists. The consequences of continuous movement and miscegenation, Hirszfeld explained, were clearest in the serologic makeup of the Jews‟ blood. In fact, they were not a racially-homogenous group—by 587 B.C., he claimed, the

Jews had already split into three types: Persian Jews (from the Babylonian exodus), the

Jews of Kurdistan (descended from the ten tribes of Israel), and the Jews of Yemen (who arrived before the destruction of the first temple. Their racial identity became even less distinct as they moved throughout the Diaspora and mixed with the peoples of their host populations. Modern blood type surveys of Spanish, Polish, and Russian Jews revealed that their blood type distributions differed by nationality. According to their blood types,

Hirszfeld observed, the Jews living in Asia or Africa more closely resembled “the people of the Orient than the Jews in Europe.”5 To better determine the source of their miscegenation, Hirszfeld consulted with his colleague, Dr. Meir Balaban. Balaban, a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Warsaw, referenced several incidents that may have affected the Jews‟ blood type distributions:

4 Ibid., 151. This is in reference to Hermann Gauch, “Beitrag zum Zusammenhang zwischen Blutgruppe und Rasse,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 6 (1933): 116-117.

5 Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld 1938, 147.

280

From the eleventh century, polygamy still existed among the Jews, and quite often slaves were taken as wives. In Constantinople and Rome, non-Jewish slaves were legally permitted to be sold into slavery. Because of this, prisoners of war were frequently circumcised and then sold as Jews. In addition, the Turks frequently attacked Poland and it was common for some (sometimes all) of the women in the villages, including the Jews, to be taken as prisoners and sold in the harems.6

Consequently, the blood of the Jews could not be differentiated from that of the

surrounding gentile majority, yet the notion that it did was common. Hirszfeld attributed

this to attempts to relate blood science to different social or political issues and adamantly

denounced racial misappropriations of seroanthropology:

I would like to separate myself from those who link the blood types to the mystique of race. We have created the notion of a serologic race analogous to that of a biologic race. A biologic race is made up of a group of individuals who share a unique characteristic. The notion of a serologic race has nothing to do with that of an anthropologic race. Furthermore, the actual distribution of blood types across the globe indicates the mixing of races and provides even more proof that mankind is a mosaic of races. The anthropologic races, in contrast, are characterized by a mix of arbitrarily-chosen traits.7

Hirszfeld‟s statement, however, seems to contradict his own prior comments on blood

and race. The metaphors of “pure” and “mixed” blood had been central to Hirszfeld‟s

original 1918 study, and it was around these that subsequent, völkisch studies were

structured.8 Even in 1938, Hirszfeld‟s racial rhetoric seemed not to have changed. He

6 Ibid., 148-149. Balaban was a recognized historian of Polish Jewry and a prolific writer. Some of his works include: Jews of Lviv on the eve of the Seventeenth Century (1916), Jewry of Lublin (1919), Jewish History and Culture with a detailed Review of the History of the Jews in Poland (1921), History of the Jews of Cracow (1931). He was a member for a short time of the Judenrat in the Warsaw ghetto. Extract from the diary of Chaim A. Kaplan on the Warsaw Judenrat, 1941. Yad Vashem, Documents of the Holocaust. Balaban died in the ghetto in 1942. [Israel Gutman, Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998), 58].

7 Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld 1938, 152.

8 Myriam Spörri, „"Jüdisches Blut": Zirkulationen zwischen Literatur, Medizin und politischer Presse, 1918-1933,‟ Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 3 (2005): 37-38.

281 again explained how their research had confirmed the existence of all four of the serologic types in each subject group examined, but they were in differing proportions; the blood type distributions of people in Asia, Africa, and Europe were “distinct from one another.”9 A mere glance (coup d’oeil) at their findings made obvious the “enormous differences in the blood type frequencies of different peoples and races.”10 Hirszfeld reiterated the fact that there were four blood types which “always” (toutefois) corresponded to three serologic “racial types” (types O, A, and B blood).11 He still claimed the precision of the biochemical index in determining miscegenation, which made it “easy” to distinguish the peoples of the Occident from those in Asia, and allowed one to see, for instance, that the peoples of Denmark and Holland were racially homogenous, while the Russians were not..12 Only racially-pure populations would retain their characteristic serochemical index, Hirszfeld explained, and this was evident in the matching blood type frequencies between “Germans in Russia and Germany, English in Australia and England, Dutch from the Transvaal and Holland, as well as blacks in

America and Africa.”13 In contrast, Hirszfeld explained, “mixed” (métisses) groups had a type distribution somewhere inbetween—miscegenation between “pure Indians” and whites affected their serologic makeup just as it had the Germans of East Prussia and

9 Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld 1938, 132.

10 Ibid., 138.

11 Ibid., 134.

12 Ibid., 134 and 145.

13 Ibid., 145.

282

Saxony, whose elevated levels of type B blood indicated past mixing with Slavs.”14

Except for the far eastern provinces of Germany, Hirszfeld referred to the German people as “unmixed.” He also used type B blood as an indicator of miscegenation with eastern peoples. In research conducted in his native Poland, Hirszfeld reported that type B blood was much more prominent in the south, a pattern he attributed to “pre-Indo-European influence and later Mongol invasions.”15 Did National Socialist physicians agree with

Hirszfeld‟s remarks? Did they find his research compatible with their ideology?

Seroanthropology and National Socialist Medicine

In a 1938 article featured in Der Erbarzt (The Genetic Doctor), contributor Hans

Weinert, a professor of anthropology at Kiel University, reported that blood type distribution could be linked to racially pure groups, and referred to the distribution of blood types in groups of “modern Gypsies,” which was identical to that of “Hindus in

India.” This phenomenon, the constant nature of the blood types, had also been demonstrated in other groups; just as all “Eskimos” had type O blood, so too did Native

Americans—as long as they were, Weinert stipulated, also “racially pure.”16 In the following year, Dr. Peter Dahr, director of the Institute for Serology at the University of

Göttingen, similarly commented on this pattern in the publication Ziel und Weg (Road

14 Ibid.

15 Frank Heynick, Jews and Medicine: An Epic Saga (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 2002), 438.

16 Hans Weinert, “Die anthropologische Bedeutung der Blutgruppen und das Problem ihrer Entstehung bei den Menschenrassen,” Der Erbarzt, no. 10 (1938): 132.

283 and Way). Despite several generations of separation from their homeland, research showed that the blood type distributions of German settlers in Bessarabia were comparable to those of native Germans. Importantly, Dahr pointed out, because they had not mixed (with the surrounding non-Germans), the German settlers had a blood type distribution completely different from that of the majority Russian population.17 The publications which printed these articles, Der Erbarzt and Ziel und Weg respectively, were both widely-distributed National Socialist medical periodicals.

Der Erbarzt, which was designed specifically to address völkisch racial concerns, had first appeared in the summer of 1934. The editor, extreme-right anthropologist Dr.

Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, described Der Erbarzt as a response to the “revolution of

1933,” and a link between “the ministries of public health, the genetic health courts, and the German medical community.” In simpler terms, however, its main purpose was to provide a forum for discussion of methods, criteria, and grounds for imposition of negative eugenic measures, such as sterilization.18 Though its overall content was more diverse, Ziel und Weg was not terribly different. Established in 1931 as the official journal of the National Socialist Physician‟s League, it served as the medical outlet of the

Nazi party.19 Both periodicals were created to speak to the medical (and thereby largely

17 Dahr is referring to a study by M. Riethmüller in Bessarabia. [Peter Dahr, “Blutgruppenforschung und Rassenhygiene,” Ziel und Weg 9 (1939): 106]. See also Peter Dahr, “Neuere Ergebnisse und Probleme der Blutgruppenforschung,” Klinische Wochenschrift 18, no. 35 (September 1939): 1173-1179.

18 Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 104.

19 Robert J. Lifton, The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 32.

284 eugenic and racial) concerns of the National Socialist party. Weinert and Dahr‟s articles indicate that the scientific research of blood and race had not gone entirely unnoticed by the Nazi medical community.

While each author acknowledged a correlation between blood type distribution and race, both were careful to emphasize its rather tenuous nature. By the late thirties, the heredity of the blood groups was not in question, but their origins were. Without knowing these, Weinert explained, it was extremely difficult to draw any conclusions between blood type and race.20

Weinert‟s own political perspectives had already been made obvious in connection with this matter. In a previous contribution to the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie, he had opened to debate the question of whether the problem of the missing link could be clarified by crossing humans and apes, since “the evidence of living bodies [has] more to say than the best fossils of extinct transitional forms.” He had even considered how one would have to proceed in practice and proposed that a female chimpanzee be inseminated with the sperm of an “African negro, preferably by a jungle

20 To research evolution, some researchers had tried to determine the blood type distributions of primates. After years of such research, however, it seemed that this approach, too, was failing to provide the anticipated insight lacking in corresponding studies of humans. Weinert was well aware of these inconclusive results—even after a “thorough overview” of the blood type distributions of anthropoids and humans, the question as to whether or not mankind originally shared one common blood group still remained. Because this was not known, Weinert further explained that the blood types were not capable of addressing the matter of polygenism (racial diversity) in human beings. In the early part of the twentieth century, it was commonly believed that Asians had descended from orangutans, blacks from the gorilla, and Europeans from the chimpanzee. This notion, Weinert assured, had been “completely refuted” by the fact that the distribution of the four blood types was comparable to that within the human population. The four serologic types were still found in each primate group studied and, as had been the case with human subject groups, there were inexplicable patterns in their distribution frequencies (i.e., comparable results between different primates, just as there were between Africans and Europeans). (Hans Weinert 1938, 133).

285 pygmy.”21 Weinert believed that the “inequality” of the human races could be attributed, in part, to the “fact” that the various peoples of the earth had evolved at different periods in history. Like African “Negroes,” Weinert also categorized Australian aborigines as inferior. As the first to evolve, he believed, they had given rise to other humans, but this also meant that they had remained retarded.22 Years later, in the Der Erbarzt article, he was forced to admit that blood type research had not seemed useful in pinpointing the origins of man or serving as a reliable racial indicator, as the four blood groups had been found in all the “main races of humanity.” Although their proportions could differ,

Weinert observed that this did not necessarily signify racial variation, as blood type distributions for widely-divergent lands and peoples had, on occasion, proved to be very close—if not the same. Similarities between the blood of peoples traditionally viewed as entirely separate racial types—like Africans and Europeans—was very damaging to blood science as a reliable racial indicator. For this reason, Weinert considered seroanthropology inaccurate for racial classification. Even worse, and more to the point, it was not possible to identify an individual‟s race through their blood. Despite the “best

21 What Weinert did not know was that the Soviet biologist Ilja. I Iwanow, a specialist for the artificial insemination in animal breeding and for experiments on hybridization between species, had tested this very idea in practice in 1926/27 on an expedition to West Africa financed by the Soviet government. Iwanow had even conducted negotiations with the governor of Guinea and the physician of the hospital in Konakry in order to procure permission to artificially inseminate African women with the sperm of chimpanzees. [Hans-Walter Schmuhl, The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945: Crossing Boundaries (Springer, 2008), 83 and footnote 205]. See also, Hans Weinert, “Blutgruppenforschung an Menschenaffen und ihre stammesgeschtichtliche Bewertung,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 4 (1931): 8-23.

22 Robert Proctor, “From Anthropologie to Rassenkunde in the German Anthropological Tradition” in Bones, Bodies, and Behavior: Essays in Behavioral Anthropology, ed. George W. Stocking (Wisconsin Press, 1990), 152.

286 expectations and efforts,” Weinert remarked, blood typing had failed to produce “proof of

Aryan descent.”23

Neither Weinert nor Dahr proposed entirely abandoning seroanthropology, however, and continued to cite the old, now very familiar justifications of völkisch blood scientists. Weinert was impressed by the fact that approximately eighty percent of the

Nordic race had either type A or O blood. In contrast, he noted how type B occurred

“only among some ten percent,” a statistic which led him to believe that type B had probably not existed among the original Nordic peoples. Weinert theorized, like

Hirszfeld, that type B blood had been introduced into the Aryan population by

Mongolians. This did not mean, he stressed, that type B indicated racial inferiority.

Despite its supposed Eastern origins, Weinert explained that type B blood was also very common amongst the “highest caste” Indians—those who had “originally belonged to the

European races” and were often “strongly Nordic.” Because of this, he assured the reader, there was no need for a German with type B blood to feel “less worthy”

(minderwertig), and further remarked that correlations between blood types and behavioral traits were “completely unfounded.”24

Weinert gives a conflicting impression of the value of seroanthropology. On one hand, it would seem significant to a reader that the vast majority of the Nordic peoples had either type O or A blood. This implied that type O and A blood were uniquely

Nordic characteristics; however, because of its affiliation with the apparently racially-

23 Hans Weinert 1938, 132.

24 Ibid. Because of its infrequency (usually less than five percent of the population), the remaining type AB blood was often not even mentioned.

287 worthy, highest-caste Indians, type B blood was also described as “strongly Nordic.”

Furthermore, type O blood, referred to here as “Aryan,” had often been affiliated with

“primitive peoples.” Dr. Joachim Richter, a contributing author to the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie, believed that type O individuals were more receptive to tubercular infection because of their type‟s origin in “primitive and isolated peoples.” 25 Their difference in opinion was representative of an ongoing discussing over which of the blood types was most primitive. Based on paleontological evidence in South Africa,

English physician R.R. Gates believed that A was older than B; apparently, this evidence indicated that the “Bushmen” of South Africa had evolved over a long period of time in an area inhabited by three types—“Strandloopers, Boskop, and Australoid.” Gates theorized that these ancestors and relatives of the modern-day Bushmen had type A blood.26 American physicians Wyman and Boyd believed that type A-individuals had been driven out to refuge areas by the “superior strength, skill, or numbers of [those with] type B.”27 In France, Nicholas Kossovitch theorized that type O blood might indicate a

“primitive constitution,” as it was very elevated among groups such as the “American

Indians, Eskimos, and Malay of the Philippines.”28 For this same reason, the high

25 Joachim Richter, “Die Blutgruppen- und Blutfaktorenverteilung in Nordhannover,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 11 (1939): 16. Joachim Richter suggested that individuals with type O were especially susceptible to tuberculosis, as an English study had found an elevated frequency of this type amongst tubercular subjects examined.

26 R.R. Gates, “Recent Progress in Blood Group Investigation,” Genetica 18 (1935): 52-53.

27 If its mutation frequency were sufficiently high or if it were favored (over O) either directly or indirectly by natural selection. (Ibid., 53).

288 incidence of type O blood among the “most primitive” peoples of the earth, Swedish blood scientist Otto Streng believed that type O blood was the first human type.29 Streng argued against the theory that type A had originated in Eurasia, based on the relatively high frequency of type A blood among Aborigines. High levels of type A blood, he pointed out, had also been found in Polynesia and New Zealand, as well as other islands in the Pacific.30 In 1939, German Jewish physician Hans Sachs similarly entertained the idea that type O came first; A and B were supposedly the result of “later mutations.” He referred to living peoples, but also the results of blood type examinations of Native

American mummies. 31 Despite an emerging consensus that type O was the most primitive, Weinert referred to it as Nordic. In the end, blood type was basically irrelevant as, just as it was not possible to identify race from a “single bodily or spiritual characteristic,” the Ziel und Weg excerpt confirmed, neither could the race of an individual be determined from their blood, or the blood of a Jew be distinguished from that of a non-Jew or, for that matter, one type definitively labeled as primitive. Dahr continued, “when the members of the Nordic race have a predominance of blood type A

28 Raymond Dujarric de le Riviere and Nicolas Kossovitch, „Les Groupes Sanguins en Anthropologie, XIX Congrès de Médecine Légale.‟ Annales de Medecine Legale, Criminologie, Police Scientifique et Toxicologie. Bruxelles, 1934: 277.

29 Oswald Streng, “Die Bluteigenschaften (Blutgruppen) der Völker, besonderers die der Germanen,” Germanen und Indogermanen,” Festschrift für Hermann Hirt I (1936): 424.

30 Ibid., 428.

31 Hans Sachs, “Blutgruppen, Bluttransfusion und Abstammung,” Practica oto-rhino-laryngologica (1939): 39. Matson‟s research revealed type O in 16 Native American mummies, whereas only three of six Egyptian mummies belonged to type O.

289 coupled with a significant decline in type B, it cannot be said that type A is only found within the Nordic race.”32

Seroanthropologic Research

As a result, conventional surveys of blood type largely fell out of favor during the thirties, though the Institute for Blood Group Research did employ this method to revisit a theme popular during the Weimar Republic—the idea that the most racially pure representatives of the German people could be found in isolated areas. Many studies during the twenties had focused on the high levels of Nordic type A blood found amongst native Germans living on remote farmland, deep in forests, or even on islands in the

North Sea. The institute published several, very similar articles in the late thirties. A

1939 Zeitschrift article examined the blood type distributions of Germans from northern

Hanover.33 As had been the case in previous studies, the author, Joachim Richter, chose the area for its “isolation from traffic.”34 And, again, references were made to the region‟s unique geography and history; Hanover was bordered by the Weser and Elbe rivers, while Hamburg was surrounded by floodplains. The supposedly pure population was referred to as an “indigenous group of farmers” who had “tilled the land for generations.”35 The results were again inconclusive, with no significantly higher

32 “Lebenspende,” Neues Volk 8 (August 1940): 27-28.

33 Richter 1939, 15-21.

34 Ibid., 15.

35 Ibid.

290 frequency of one blood type within the group, and no specific association had been noted between the blood types and incidence of disease, such as syphilis.36

In a study the following year, a subject group in Schleswig-Holstein was chosen because the researcher, Paul Schmidt, believed it to be “the part of the Fatherland

(Vaterland) with the strongest Nordic influence.” 37 When a higher-than-expected level of type B blood was found, he traced this to miscegenation in the twelfth century between the Germans and “Wends,” a Slavic minority intermittently present throughout northern and eastern medieval Germany.38 Like studies during the Weimar Republic, the examiner attributed modern blood type distributions to some obscure historical event and, despite evidence of miscegenation, concluded that the area was still “predominantly

Nordic.”39 Nonetheless, both Richter and Schmidt‟s studies focused on what were still, in effect, only minor differences in distribution frequencies. In Schleswig-Holstein, the examiner sought to determine why one village in the area had a lower incidence of type A blood than another—their frequencies were respectively 45.5 and 48.2 percent, a difference of less than three percent. The scrutiny of such small variations was typical of

36 Ibid., 16. Despite inconclusive results, Richter still believed that the “exercise” had been helpful, as it had helped organize the regional types for blood donation purposes.

37 Paul Schmidt, “Die relative Haüfigkeit der Blutfaktoren M und N und der „Untergruppen‟ A1 and A2 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Schleswig-Holsteins,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 11 (1940): 49.

38 Ibid., 53.

39 Ibid. From his own figures, Schmidt reported that both the Schleswig-Holstein areas of Dithmarschen and Holstenland-Stormann still had high percentages of type A (45.5 and 45.7 percent, respectively); however, these were not as high as some other figures reported in the area. Dithmarschen, he theorized, had probably received a stronger influx of “Frisian blood,” while Holsten-Stormann had been settled by Saxon Holsten and Stormann tribal groups. According to Schmidt, these overall “lower levels” of type A (relative to others nearby) was the result of “centuries of immigration” and also, in the case of Holstenland- Stormann, “heavy industrialization.” (Ibid.).

291

Weimar-era blood type analyses. The exaggeration of minor differences was a common völkisch tendency. Although blood type surveys had become less common during the

Third Reich, the volume of seroanthropologic research conducted during the interwar period was still impressive. In 1941, one author reported that 56,062 blood samples had been collected in West Germany alone. 40 Nonetheless, the indefinite nature of their results prompted efforts to move beyond conventional research of surveying blood type alone.

In his opinion, Dahr believed that scientists should examine not only the four blood types, but also the serologic characteristics of M, N, N1, A1, and A2, traits which were similar to blood type and the MNP characteristics—all of which were hereditary, protein-based differences in blood..41 As had been the case with mass blood type surveys, the international community of blood scientists quickly moved on to analyzing the distribution of these traits after their introduction.42 Increased interest in this area was also apparent in the Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie. In the 1940 edition alone, several

40 Hans Kerkhoff, “Blutgruppenuntersuchungen in einem Eifeldorf: ein Beitrag zur Frage der Vererbung der Bluteigenschaften ABO und MN und zu ihrer Verteilung in der Bevölkerung,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 12 (1941): 32. Of these, 41.37 percent had type O blood, 45.9 A, 9.29 B, and 3.41 AB.

41 Peter Dahr 1939, 104-105.

42 Schockaert found N in his Belgian subjects, Amzel M in the Polish, Schigeno both M and N in the Japanese, and Thomsen noted the same among the DanishIn 1931, Wiemer and Vaisberg carried out research on the heredity of M and N. Paul Steffan, ed., Handbuch der Blutgruppenforschung (Munich: Lehmanns Verlag, 1932), 15.

292 articles were published on the heredity and frequency of the MN characteristics.43

Research suggested, however, that these characteristics were fraught with the same inconsistencies and contradictions of conventional blood type surveys.44 The inconclusive nature of the survey methodology, regardless of the trait in question, prompted some to revisit the possibility of gleaning information from a single blood sample.

During the war, German anthropologist Dr. Karl Horneck explored the possible existence of race-specific proteins. Through the “cooperation and support” of the staff of the General Hospital of Havre, in German-occupied France, Horneck conducted seroanthropologic research on blood drawn from prisoners-of-war held in the area. The men, who had been in Europe for approximately two years at the start of the study, were primarily colonial subjects. Horneck collected samples of their sera (a blood derivative) and injected these into rabbits to observe the animals‟ differing reactions to “European,

Moroccan, Indochinese, and Negro” blood.45 He found the results to be “striking and unexpected”; the sera of the white men prompted a comparably faster and stronger

43 See V. Friedenreich, “Einige Bemerkungen zur Frage der Vererbungsweise der A1, A2 Eigenschaften,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 11 (1940): 22-24; Schmidt, 1940, 49-77; P. Dahr, H. Offe, and H. Weber, “Weitere Erblichkeitsuntersuchungen über den Blutfaktor P bei Familien und Zwillingen,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 11 (1940): 78-92; Gerhard Rooks, “Über die Verteilung der Blutgruppen bei den Esten,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 9 (1937): 33.

44 Between 1929 and 1930, physician Fritz Schiff examined the M and N traits of Berliners and found them to be “similar to Americans.”

45 Horneck specifically thanked Professor Vincent, his lab assistant Frau Dautry, and Dr. Boehm for making the study possible. Karl G. Horneck, “Über den Nachweis serologischer Verschiedenheiten der menschlichen Rasse,” Zeitschrift für menschliche Vererbungs- und Konstruktionslehre 26, no. 3 (1942): 309.

293 reaction—a pattern which led Horneck to theorize that the white serum contained less of a “certain protein” than the other races tested.46 He was confident that he had made a contribution to the possibility of racial identification through blood and believed it necessary to analyze these proteins when making a serologic racial diagnosis.47

The possibility of unique racial proteins piqued the interest of Berlin anthropologist Dr. Otmar von Verschuer. Verschuer was aware of the limitations of conventional seroanthropology. In 1938, he referred to racial studies of blood as having been “all the rage for awhile,” though they had not presented any new method of differentiation between the human races—again only the “proportion” of blood types in groups was somewhat relevant. There had been found a “somewhat higher proportion” of blood type B in Jewish populations, which Verschuer found to be “in keeping with our concept of the racial origins of the Jews” as somewhere between the Near Eastern and

Oriental groups.48 Nevertheless, he pointed out, it was still not possible to distinguish between Jews and non-Jews solely from their blood. Verschuer also mentioned the work of Russian physician E.O. Manoilov who, in 1925, had claimed that he had been able to distinguish between the blood of Jews and Russians through a chemical reaction. No progress seemed to have been made in this area either, as nearly twenty years later

46 Ibid., 311 and 316.

47 It was necessary to determine both the protein content and the “albumin-globulin quotient.” Ibid., 318.

48 Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden?,” Forschungen zur Judenfrage 3, (1938): 137-151.

294

Verschuer observed that “no further information” on Manoilov‟s research had been published.49

In August of 1943, Verschuer applied for and received a grant from the Reich

Research Council (DFG) to study the existence of racial proteins in subjects suffering from infectious disease. The project had been approved by Himmler.”50 In his progress report of March 20, 1944, Verschuer explained how he had been able to pool racially- diverse blood samples with the assistance of Josef Mengele, a camp physician and SS

Captain at Auschwitz.51 At Auschwitz, Mengele infected identical and fraternal, Jewish and Gypsy twins with the same quantity of typhoid bacteria, took blood at various times, and followed the course of the disease.52 Given the inadequate Auschwitz diet (though the twins‟ was better than ordinary prisoners), survivors later reflected on the surprising amount of blood taken from them—an estimated ten cubic centimeters at every session:

“We were wondering where [the blood] came from”; and toward the end they remembered it as being difficult to draw—“it wasn‟t coming anymore…from our arms.”53 The blood samples Mengele collected were then shipped back periodically to

Verschuer‟s laboratory at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. They would have been

49 Ibid., 142.

50 Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany, 1933-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 78.

51 Dr. Mengele was transferred to Auschwitz as a camp doctor on 30 May 1943. Mengele‟s first duty was to control the epidemic of typhoid brought in by the Gypsies who had been transferred from Bialystok in March of that year. He “selected” several hundred of the sick and sent them to the gas chambers. (Ibid., 76).

52 Ibid., 78.

53 Robert J. Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 350.

295 specially packed to be sent through the mail. Stamped “War Material—Urgent,” such parcels were given top priority in transit.54 In October of that same year, Verschuer reported to a colleague that samples had been collected and analyzed from the blood of more than 200 individuals “of various races, some twin pairs, and some families,” which meant that the “real research” could begin very soon.55

Dr. Bruno Weber, the chief of the Hygienic Institute at Auschwitz, also carried out experiments involving blood on Auschwitz inmates. Weber typed the blood of some, and injected others with incompatible types in order to study the degree of the resultant harmful agglutination of blood cells.56 Physicians also collected blood in sometimes- lethal amounts, whether for experimental use or for use in transfusions for German personnel—despite the “non-German blood” of the donor. After the war, one camp doctor explained, probably truthfully, that the intent was to take blood needed for producing the serum for the various blood types (to determine blood type). He further admitted that Weber had instructed SS men to “go to the camp, fetch yourselves a few fat capos, and tap [zapft] them.” SS men did not limit themselves to well-nourished inmates, however, but “tapped blood wherever they could get hold of it because it was much less

54 Müller-Hill 1988, 99. The Nazis took advantage of the racial diversity in the camps. With the approval of Himmler, many anthropological studies were carried out. In addition to the “specific proteins” project, the DFG also approved another on “eye color”; Mengele sent both blood and eye samples back to Verschuer for analysis. (Ibid., 20).

55 Ibid., 79.

56 Lifton 1986, 289.

296 work that way.” 57 In late 1944, the Germans were forced to abandon their experiments and forced drawing of blood as the Soviets neared Auschwitz.

Divergence from the typical survey technique was evident in the work of the

German Institute for Blood Group Research. In 1943, its last year of publication, the

Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie reported on a study of men detained in a German prisoner-of-war camp in North Africa. There were approximately 18,000 prisoners in the camp, from countries throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and even South America.58

Instead of only typing the subjects‟ blood, the rate of its coagulation was carefully examined. Repeated tests of the same fifty black subjects revealed that their blood coagulated “surprisingly faster” than the whites, and also seemed “especially thick and sticky.”59 On average, the blood of the blacks coagulated in 2 to 9 minutes, whereas that of the whites ranged from 6 to 14. After “careful analysis,” the researchers concluded that the rate of coagulation could not be used as a racial indicator.60

57 Ibid., 289.

58 Blood samples, the authors assured, had only been collected from healthy individuals who were reportedly not hard to find within the “spacious and orderly” accommodations of the camp, which “complied with all hygienic requirements.” French served as the common language. The North Africans were even fluent, the blacks partially so; for all others an interpreter was used. [Robert Stigler et al., “Rassenphysiologische Untersuchungen an farbigen Kriegsgefangenen in einem Kriegsgefangenenlager,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 13 (1943): 26-27].

59 Stigler examined the coagulation rate of the blood of “30 Arabs, 39 Indochinese, 4 American and 8 African negroes.” The blood temperature of the Europeans was on average 13.95 degrees. The average temperature of the African Negroes was, however, 11.79 degrees. Because their finger capillaries seemed to be deeper, the Africans had to be stuck “very deep” to draw blood. (Ibid., 36). The 50 blacks were 30 Tonkinese, 10 Senegalese, 10 Moroccans. (Ibid., 27).

60 Ibid., 33.

297

Seroanthropology and Nazi Racial Ideology

In spite of repeated disappointments in seroanthropology, there were National

Socialist physicians who still entertained the notion that blood might somehow prove useful in racial classification. The party itself, despite its continued use of blood rhetoric, did not actually use blood science to racially discern “German-blooded” from “non-

German-blooded” individuals. The recurring theme of race defilement was that most frequently used in Nazi propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that the main purpose of academics was to

burn the racial sense and racial feeling into the instinct and the intellect, the heart and brain of youth entrusted to it. No boy or girl must leave school without having been led to an ultimate realization of the necessity and essence of blood purity.61

Texts written for instruction in schools were modified accordingly. Alfred Vogel, a biology curriculum writer and elementary school principal in Baden, and Karl Bareth, a teacher, co-authored Heredity and Racial Science for Elementary and Secondary Schools

(Erblehre und Rassenkunde für die Grund—und Hauptschule). Published in 1937, the text provided elementary-school teachers with instruction on explaining genetics and race. The table of contents reveals that blood rhetoric was used even in an academic setting; there are sections on “The Nordic race as the basis of blood for German people,” and “Keeping the blood pure.”62 Another Nazi primer, given to German boys and girls

61 Ralph Mannheim, trans., Mein Kampf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943), 427.

62 Alfred Vogel, Erblehre und Rassenkunde für die Grund- und Hauptschule (Baden: Konkordia, 1937), 74 and 96. See also Gregory P. Wegner, "Schooling for a new mythos: Race, anti-Semitism and the curriculum materials of a Nazism race educator," Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education 27 (1991):189-213.

298 between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, claimed that possession of “German blood” was essential for acceptance into the community of German people.63 These were only metaphors, however; references were not made to the science of seroanthropology.

When assessing race, Nazi race theory emphasized not blood but physiognomy.

The more elongated skull of the German people, for instance, was believed to indicate their superiority over other races. This technique was not foolproof, however. Like blood scientists, physical anthropologists often found themselves presented with inconsistencies. Just as not all Germans had type A blood, neither did all have the “long skulls” or lighter eyes and hair associated with Aryan descent. As a result, even racial anthropologists were careful not to be too exclusive in their statements. Vogel‟s attention to the “elongated German skull” was offset by a separate six pages explaining the distinct skull shapes among “the six German races.”64 The Nazi concept of race incorporated a convenient, flexible mix of both physiognomic and psychological traits—as demonstrated in race theorist Hans Günther‟s definition of race as “a group of individuals differentiated from all others by a unique combination of bodily and spiritual characteristics.”65

A race would only retain its purity and characteristics if, as in seroanthropology, it did not “mix” with others. Nazis believed it to be a genetic phenomenon, passed down from parents to children—environment had no affect upon racial characteristics. Even

63 Harwood L. Childs, trans., The Nazi Primer: Official Handbook for Schooling the Hitler Youth (New York and London: Harper and Bros. Publishers, 1938) and Fritz Brennecke, ed., Handbuch für die Schulungsarbeit in der HJ. Vom deutschen Volk und seinem Lebensraum (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1937), 13.

64 Gregory Paul Wegner, Anti-Semitism and Schooling under the Third Reich ( London: Routledge Falmer, 2002), 76.

65 As quoted in Günther‟s Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Harwood 1938), 14.

299 when the tails of mice were cut off for twenty-two successive generations, the Nazi primer pointed out, they were still born with them.66 Similarly, the text explained, the blood stream of a people [race] could only be defiled by “mixing with blood” racially foreign to it.67 In this instance, the author could have referred to seroanthropology, which repeatedly mentioned how blood type distributions remained consistent unless miscegenation occurred, but did not. Consequently, all German youth were instructed to recognize race predominantly in appearance, sometimes in behavior, but not in blood.

Seroanthropology was also overlooked by Nazi racial pedagogues when instructing more mature students and racial theorists. Readings from the Race and

Settlement Main Office of the SS (SS Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt, or RuSHA), responsible for protecting the “racial purity of the SS,” those with the “best German blood,” included works by Hitler, Darré, and Günther, but none referenced blood as a racial indicator.68 Similarly, neither did a series of 1941-1942 lectures given to the SS on racial theory.69 The SS “leadership magazine” (SS-Leithefte) referred to blood, but not in a scientific context. The first four chapters in 1936, for example were devoted to the areas of “Blutsgedanke” (notions of blood), Peasantry, Jewry, Freemasonry, and

66 Ibid., 55.

67 Harwood, trans. 1938, 62.

68 NS2/152 RuSHA, 23 April 1934 and Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut”: Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas (Wallstein Verlag, 2003), 86-87.

69 R/58 7353, 37. The series on “Rassenkunde” lectures was given by Clauss and Günther.

300

Bolshevism.70 The main emphasis was on physiognomy. An important element in the publication were photos and illustrations of “Aryans,” blond- and blue-eyed children, and pictures of “racial adversaries” (rassischen Gegner).71 Nonetheless, blood rhetoric remained a mainstay of SS indoctrination. According to partyline, the SS was expected not only to oversee the “care and selection” of German blood, but to increase it as well.72

Similarly, an excerpt entitled “Volk ist gleich Blutsgemeinschaft” (“A nation shares the same blood”) from the RuSHA, explained:

We know that blood is not simply a red fluid which pulses through our veins. Rather, it is our very being—which carries our ancestry and represents the lineage to which we will return. The same physical and spiritual predispositions are only found among men of the same blood. We are related to our ancestors in that we have shared the same blood. These carriers of the same blood—the different races—are different from one another.73

The notion of “blood” was also used to motivate the men in their wartime duties. An

October 1939 order issued from Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the

German Police, explained that every war resulted in a loss of the “best blood.” The unfortunate death of the nation‟s best men was necessary; war was a “blood sacrifice.”74

Despite its prolific metaphoric use, blood science was not used in the process of racial identification, as indicated in a “race card” filled out for members of the SS the characteristics listed were height, height when seated, stature, relative length of legs,

70 Heinemann 2003, 94.

71 Ibid.

72 NS 2/152, 83.

73 NS 2/162

74 NS 6/329, 231. From the Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior to all SS and Police, 28 Oct. 1939.

301 skull shape (very short, short, middle, long, very long), the back of the head, facial shape, nose shape (bridge, nostrils, width), cheeks, eye placement, shape of eye opening, eye folds, epicanthus (epicanthic eye fold), thickness of the lips, chin profile, hair texture, body hair, color of hair, eyes, and skin.75 The objective was to exclude “non-European” blood, though blood typing was not part of the qualification test.76 The men‟s blood would eventually be typed, recorded, and even tattooed on their arm in the event a transfusion was needed. Because of their particularly “valuable” blood, members of the

Waffen-SS were required to be tattooed—though this was not consistently enforced.77

This is not to say that the Nazis did not recognize their frequent metaphoric use of the word “blood.” A 1940 article in Neues Volk (New Nation), a monthly publication of the Third Reich‟s Racial Policy Office, observed accordingly:

The life-giving bodily fluid of blood has a symbolic meaning outside of the body. We say that particularly capable or leading men are of noble blood, or we speak of “blood and soil” when referring to the fateful relationship between race and living space. Finally, blood has in another sense the meaning of race or heredity, in which it is an actual carrier of hereditary disposition. Today, the little word blood is most often used in this sense.78

This statement, short but important in its larger implications, would have reached a large audience. Published between 1933 and 1944, Neues Volk had a wide circulation; in one

75 NS2/161, 6-16.

76 “aussereuropäischen Bluteinschlages” (Heinemann 2003, 61).

77 After the war, because of the role of the Waffen-SS in perpetrating atrocities, Allies looked for these tattoos. For this reason, many men purposely removed the tattoo, leaving an often equally-suspicious scar.

78 “Lebenspende,” Neues Volk 8 (August 1940): 26.

302 calendar year, 750,000 were distributed.79 It was delivered to all doctors, dentists, and pharmacists as reading material for waiting rooms. It could also be found in schools, public libraries, and in private homes.80 Serving as a mouthpiece for the Racial Policy

Office, its text and accompanying illustrations depicted “racially pure Aryans” opposite their supposed racial inferiors—who, most often, were Jewish. The publication commented only fleetingly on seroanthropology. They found it “interesting” that blood type frequencies varied amongst different peoples, and it was “striking” that blood type A became less common as one moved eastwards. These differences were most pronounced, the article explained, if one were to compare the blood type distributions in Germany to those in India; in the Rhineland, only about eight percent of the population had type B blood, whereas it was “much higher” in India.81 The article hinted at the “problematic” nature of seroanthropology by referencing elevated frequencies of type A blood which had also been found in Australia and the South Seas. In addition, type B blood also happened to inexplicably increase among groups living on the southernmost tip of South

America.82 Seroanthropology was both “interesting” and “exciting,” but also inexplicable and therefore useless.

Despite his past support of seroanthropology, even Otto Reche‟s professional interests seemed to have conformed to Nazi interests. During the Third Reich, Reche

79 Roger Uhle, “Neues Volk und reine Rasse. Walter Gross und das Rassenpolitische Amt der NSDAP (RPA).” Dissertation. Technische Hochschule Aachen 1999; 47.

80 Carol Poore, Disability in Twentieth-Century German Culture (University of Michigan Press, 2007), 102.

81 Frequencies listed for the Rhineland: A 44, B 8, AB 3, O 45.

82 “Lebenspende,” Neues Volk, 27-29.

303 continued his duties at Leipzig University‟s Institute for Race and Ethnology (Institut für

Rassen- und Völkerkunde) and was further appointed as an advisor to the Race and

Settlement Main Office of the SS.83 Like Reche, many völkisch anthropologists benefited from the racial agenda of the Third Reich. After 1935, their services as “racial experts” were all the more necessary under the Nuremberg legislation. In cases of disputed racial identity, these anthropological “experts” relied primarily on what they believed to be visible racial characteristics; references to seroanthropology were negligible. Reche was familiar with the state‟s need for racial (and eugenic) reports issued by physicians.84 In a letter from October, 1938, Reche referenced the use of expert anthropologists to a colleague.85 Only months later, he informed the Higher Regional Court in Leipzig of his own interest in establishing, with his assistant at the University of Leipzig, Michael

Hesch, a separate branch of the University‟s Institute for Racial and Ethnological

Research specifically for the preparation of expert analyses. He further asked that

83 Gretchen E. Schafft, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (University of Illinois Press, 2004), 124.

84 During the twenties, he had devised a certificate that confirmed proof of paternity for Viennese courts. This was later extended to a genetic certificate encompassing race and family origin under the Nazis. Reche utilized blood typing in cases of disputed paternity. His characteristic arrogance was apparent in this clinical application of blood as well. In 1926, Reche reported that examinations “prompted by him” had confirmed the fact that blood types were passed from parent to child. [Margit Berner, “From „Prisoner of War Studies‟ to Proof of Paternity: Racial Anthropologists and the Measuring of “Others” in Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940, eds. Marius Turda and Paul Weindling (Central European University Press, 2006), 48]. In fact, it was not Reche but Felix Bernstein who, in 1924, presented a revised theory of blood group heredity. Bernstein‟s explanation was responsible for German legal recognition of blood typing in paternity cases. [P. Levine, "Menschliche Blutgruppen und individuelle Blutdifferenzen,'" Ergebnisse der Inneren Medizin 34 (1928): 153].

85 R3001/20487. Letter dated Oct. 21, 1938 to Dr. Volkmar, In response to your request of 18 October, in which you asked if the discussions are still taking place, I already explained that the reply you seek is only possible from those expert anthropologists who practice in this area. Heil Hitler!, Prof. Dr. Otto Reche

304 regional courts be instructed as to this “new arrangement.”86 Reche‟s request was timely.

Shortly after this letter, due to what was described as an “overload” of requests for genetic and racial reports, the Anthropological Institute at the University of Munich explained that it could not for the time being accept any more.87 The requests continued.

In October of 1940, the Supreme Court in Naumburg explained that expert reports could further be accommodated by the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem, the Institute for Genetic and Racial Research in Giessen, the University Institute for Hereditary

Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt am Main, the Racial Biological Institute of the

University of Königsberg, the Racial Biological Institute at Hanseatic University, and the

Anthropological Institute at the University of Breslau.88

In his role as an expert analyst during the Third Reich, Reche‟s shifting priorities became particularly conspicuous in one example. In 1940, while preparing a racial analysis, Dr. Lenz wrote to the district court in Cologne explaining that he could not issue an expert opinion without serological tests. The Ministry of Justice became involved and referred the matter to Lenz‟s colleagues. Professors Ferdinand Claussen (Cologne),

Eugen Fischer (Berlin), Wilhelm Gieseler (Tübingen), Theodor Mollison (Munich), and

Reche (Leipzig) replied that they did not share Professor Lenz‟s views at all and that they

86 R58/7353, 204. 30 January 1939. Reche further asked that requests outside of this geographic area (i.e. from the district courts in Dresden, Bautzen, and Freiberg) be handled by Dr. Hesch. He suggested that requests from the district courts of Leipzig, Chemnitz, Plauen and Zwickau be forwarded to him

87 R 3001/20487, 449-450. To the Regional Court Munich I, 18 Aug. 1939.

88 R3001/20487, 466.

305 had no difficulty in making reliable assessments on the basis of photographs alone.89

Despite his founding of the German Institute for Blood Group Research, which had been established largely to determine the racial significance of blood, Reche now maintained that there was no such correlation. In fact, he seemed confident enough in physiognomy to forego blood testing altogether. It is interesting to note that Mollison, who also denied the necessity of serologic testing, was a member of Reche‟s institute. There is the possibility, of course, that Reche made this decision simply to agree with the majority; the reliance upon a photograph alone for racial categorization was a common practice of

National Socialist anthropologists. If this were the case, Reche had modified his behavior for career advancement, but, there was the very real possibility that Reche, who was thoroughly familiar with the course of seroanthropology, now felt that there was no longer a relationship between blood and race.

Reche‟s disregard of seroanthropology was also evident in his work in Germany‟s occupied territories. After the war began, Reche became a member of the SS and was involved in the matter of “Germanizing” the east in his role as an adviser to the Race and

Settlement Main Office of the SS.90 His racism and anti-Semitism grew more pronounced during the war. On September 24, 1939, Reche authored a “scientific expert” memorandum describing methods to prevent “bastardization” as well as to

89 Müller-Hill 1988, 40.

90 George W. Stocking, ed., Bones, Bodies, Behavior: Essays in Behavioral Anthropology (University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 160.

306 advance ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe under German Occupation.91 Screening the resident population of the annexed territories in the Warthegau (occupied Poland) began the following month. The categories adopted there, again rooted in blood-based differences like the Nuremberg legislation, came by 1941 to prevail throughout German- occupied Eastern Europe. According to Arthur Greiser, Gauleiter of the Warthegau, the

“German Ethnic Register” (Deutsche Volksliste, or DVL), was an instrument that would maintain the memory of the pre-1939 Volkstumskampf (national struggle) and demonstrate that the Nazi regime was not setting out to Germanize those of “alien blood.” The DVL sought to define ways of separating Germans from Poles using Nazi notions of “blood.” This meant sifting the Polish population on the basis of criteria of ancestry (by way of names, language, schooling, religion, and so forth), and on the basis of racial criteria. The stated purpose was to “reclaim for Germandon” those considered to be of “German blood” regardless of their chosen national identity. (See Figure 22).

Odilo Globocnik, a senior SS commander in occupied Poland, referred to his 1941 plan for Germanization of the General Government as the “search (Fahndung) for German blood.”92 Those examined could fall into one of four categories. Those who had actively participated in German organizations and campaigns before 1939 were awarded category

1 status; those who had “retained” their German identity without engaging in the “ethnic strubble” were category 2. Both categories 1 and 2 received German nationality

91 Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, The Holocaust and History: The Known, The Unknown, The Disputed, and The Reexamined (Indiana University Press, 2002), 121.

92 Heinemann 2003, 381.

307

Figure 22. Lebensraum; plans and projects for German expansion in the East. Guntram Henrik Herb, Under the Map of Germany: Nationalism and propaganda, 1918-1945 (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 180.

(deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit) automatically. Those who were judged to have

“abandoned” their German heritage were category 3; alleged “renegades” who had actively campaigned in Polish anti-German organizations were category 4.93

Reche was one of many German race theorists stationed in the east to conduct racial investigations of locals and sort out those of German blood, although there is no indication that the subjects‟ blood was tested for this purpose. Himmler repeatedly

93 Elizabeth Harvey, Women and the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of Germanization (Yale University Press, 2003), 83-84.

308 reminded researchers to take photographs of the subjects, to prevent the inclusion of any

“falschen Blutes” (i.e. “incorrect,” or “non-German” blood).94 Even though a range of characteristics were assessed, an emphasis remained on appearance—even in spite of the size of the task at hand; the Germans planned to “resettle” (umsiedeln) up to at least 31 million “undesirables” from Eastern Europe to far regions of the Soviet Union.95 After the war, Polish physician Josef Rembacz recalled in his own examination in 1943, that the “racial experts” had recorded his “height, weight, body type, skull shape, facial width, size and placement of the eyes, eye and hair color, as well as hair texture.”96 In his role as an examiner in the east, Reche also focused on anthropomorphic traits. He argued that it was necessary to “train the eye” in determining race, and printed high-quality illustrations and photographs to instruct others in doing so.97 Reche more or less used the standard model popularized by Günther and claimed that the “long-skulled” were indigenous to Europe, and the “round-skulled” were from Asia—even though, he maintained, race revealed itself in both physical, spiritual, and psychological characteristics.98 However, during the war, Reche continued his search for a more effective racial indicator.

In April 1940 Reche communicated interest to colleague Michael Hesch, in a

“previously unexplored” potential racial trait—Jews‟ ears. Reche explained that “many

94 Heinemann 2003, 270.

95 Ibid., 161.

96 Ibid., 285.

97 Hutton 2005, 188-190.

98 Otto Reche, Die Rassen des deutschen Volkes (Leipzig: F.E. Wachsmuth, 1933).

309 observations” had been made on the shape of the Jewish nose, as well as their “cushy, bulging lips,” but no research had yet been conducted on their ears. With this in mind,

Reche asked Hesch to

Photograph as many Jews‟ ears as possible, so that the details are recognizable. I have recently received a series of photographs of Jewish faces, and it seems to me that certain characteristics of their ears occur much more frequently than they do amongst the European people. I would like to further examine this issue and publish a study on Jewish ears.99

Reche believed that this trait had significant potential—so much so that he asked Hesch to keep quiet about the project as, otherwise, someone else might attempt to “steal the idea.” If someone were to ask about the ear photos, Reche told Hesch to claim that they were being taken as references for the racial experts at the Reich Office for Genealogical

Research (Reichsippenamt).100

Clinical Serology

While blood was limited to metaphoric use in wartime racial analyses, non-racial applications of blood flourished in the German courts, and continued to do so with the increasing need for blood transfusions after 1939. During the Weimar Republic, courts had recognized the ability of blood types to exclude a potential father in cases of disputed paternity, and this practice continued uninterrupted into the Third Reich. One of the main tasks of the Reich Genealogical Office was to issue requests for paternity assessments.

Their reports served as a basis for decisions on Aryan or non-Aryan descent of extra-

99 Geisenhainer 2002, 368.

100 Ibid., 368.

310 marital children, children of adultery, “foundlings,” and so on.101 A 1939 article in Ziel und Weg referred to one such case in which a German woman claimed that her Jewish husband was not the biological father of one of their children:

A German woman had been married to a Jew for many years. They had three children—these children were therefore half-Jewish. The mother now claims that the first of these children was not fathered by the Jew, but was from an affair with a “non-Jew.” [Based on her claim alone], positively determining the descent of the child would not have been possible; however, testing revealed the following blood types—Mother O, children O, A, and B. A marriage between a German woman of type OO blood and her Jewish husband of type AB could yield three children of OO, AO, or BO.102

Therefore, the author explained, the child was “illegitimate.” However, regardless of the mother‟s claims, in the event that the Jew was “deceased or comparably inaccessible,” he still would have been considered the children‟s legal and biological father.

Using blood type in paternity disputes remained common throughout the war and, as correspondence between the Reich Genealogical Office and the Robert Koch Institute reveals, was still being used as late as 1944. In June of that year, the director of the

Genealogical Office asked the head of the Serodiagnostic Department at Robert Koch to advise on a situation in which an individual, according to his birth certificate, was the

“legitimate son of a Jew.” The subject claimed, however, that he was not the biological son of his legal parents, but instead the child of an affair. He was certain that his biological parents were “German blooded.” The legal parents of the man, as well as his alleged German parents, were deceased; however, he claimed that two legitimate

101 Maria Teschler-Nicola, “Volksdeutsche and Racial Anthropology in Interwar Vienna: the „Marienfeld Project” in Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940, eds. Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling (Central European University Press, 2007), 70.

102 Dahr, “Blutgruppenforschung und Rassenhygiene,” 100.

311 daughters of the German couple were still alive. Both they and the subject, the account continued, lived in Vienna. For the director of the Reich Genealogical Office, the case posed the following question: “With the assistance of the indirect blood groups [i.e., M,

N, A1, A2], can it be established that the subject and his supposed siblings descended from different pairs of parents (father or mother), or that they cannot be complete siblings? If this was a possibility, which authorized blood type expert would the institute recommend?” He would be extremely grateful for a “quick response,” he explained, as he had to report on the matter to the Reich Ministry of the Interior.103 Eight days later,

Dr. Werner Fischer at the Robert Koch Institute, responded that only in certain “very rare cases” would it be possible to trace whether this man and the German-blooded siblings had the same parents. Through the use of complicated mathematical principles, Fischer then proceeded to elaborate several hypothetical situations involving blood which might reveal whether or not familial relations existed. He could only conclude, however, that the probability of matching siblings to their parents through indirect blood typing methods was very low—specifically, only 1.134 percent. Therefore, the chance of proving that the subject in question was the biological brother of both German-blooded siblings was minimal. Fischer explained that they had been able to resolve questions of descent [through blood] in individual cases. For the most part, though, their findings had not indicated the identity of the parents. The “reverse” also applied; proof that the boy

103 R86/4214, 31. Director of Reich Genealogical Office, dated 20 June 1944 to the head of the serodiagnostic dept. of the Robert Koch Institute.

312 and both German-blooded siblings shared the same parents—whether through “direct or indirect” blood type testing—could in “no case” be given.104

In an interview decades after the war ended Dr. Wolfgang Abel, who had been a racial expert at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, recounted another example of blood typing in analyzing possible paternal, but also racial, identity:

There was one [report] about a young soldier who wanted to become an officer. There was a suggestion that his father had been a pharmacist of the Jewish faith. At first sight, this seemed to be true and investigations of his parents, brothers, and sisters only confirmed the supposition. The mother, whom I saw alone, admitted the truth in a state of great alarm. It was difficult to help in this case because of the photographs. After a long time, I produced a positive report which was sent to the Reich Genealogical Office. A short time later, he came back, “Professor, you were so kind to me that I want to speak frankly. A blood test, which had had to be done, come out negative, and excluded the man whom you identified as my father.” “You ill-fated young man, why didn‟t you tell me that it was going to be done?” In other instances, I had only provided reports when the blood tests were not informative. My report was rejected.105

Blood type was used in excluding a putative father, but was not useful in definitive identification. Importantly, seroanthropologic methods were not recognized by the courts; Manoilov‟s chemical racial reaction was never used, and no one specific type was interpreted as definitive evidence of an individual‟s racial lineage. Ziel und Weg reiterated the fact that a Jew could have any one of the four blood types.106

Another area of practical blood science which continued being used after the war was blood transfusion therapy. During the Third Reich, transfusions were regulated

104 R86/4214, 32. 28 June 1944, from Prof. Dr. Werner Fischer to the director of the Reich Genealogical Office, Berlin.

105 Müller-Hill 1988, 144.

106 Dahr, “Blutgruppenforschung und Rassenhygiene,” 100.

313 through guidelines issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Under the observation and direction of appropriately-trained physicians, hospitals and clinics were expected to establish offices for blood donations. Blood donors were generally to be no older than fifty but, in each case, the condition of the individual was to be considered to see if an exception was to be made. When assessing the health of the donor, the Ministry explained, it was obvious that they had to be of “Aryan descent”; they were also to be

“morally and ethically flawless.”107

During the Third Reich, each donor had a blood donation card kept on file. The card was to provide the following information: name, identification-number, address, home telephone, the nearest local police station, their place of employment with information regarding their working hours and their access to a telephone. Donors were, of course, classified by blood type, and this was double-checked for compatibility just prior to the transfusion itself.108 In addition to their racial health, donors were to be healthy in other respects as well, though this could vary according to blood bank. When a donation clinic was established in Gmünd, individuals to be excluded were those suffering from tuberculosis, venereal disease, malaria, asthma, or any heart-, blood-, or nervous-disorders. In addition, all drinkers and smokers were to be declined.109 Usually, women were not to give blood while menstruating or pregnant. The exceptions listed

107 Karl AD. Seggel and Herbert Reiher “Blutspenderorganisation und Bluttransfusion” Medical Clinic at Leipzig University, 186.

108 Ibid., 187.

109 E151/54, 378. The donors were required to undergo testing every three months and usually did not give more than 500 ccm of blood each session. Afterwards, they were not to donate again for six weeks.

314 were all clinical in tone, except for the single reference to the donor‟s race. In 1940, a circular order by the Ministry of the Interior required donors to sign the following consent: “I herewith confirm that I am of German or similar descent and that I do not have any—not more than one—non-Aryan grandparent.”110 Seroanthropology was not referenced; type B was not flagged as “non-German,” no proteins or chemical reactions were used to confirm the racial type of the donor.

The advances in forensic applications of blood science apparent in Germany‟s courts, however, were not shared in the area of transfusion therapy. By accepting only

Aryan donors-on-the-hoof, Germans severely restricted their supply of blood. (See

Figure 23). In contrast, the allied powers had already established regular systems of blood donation, banking, and transfusion in the decade following World War I.111 The

American system, largely shaped by the efforts of Karl Landsteiner, was internationally recognized for its efficiency. Already in the 1931 issue of the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie, one contributing author mentioned how the American‟s was copied by many other Western nations. Specific reference was made to the German compilation of lists of potential donors, which were then made available in most surgical institutes so that suitable (i.e., voluntary) blood donors would be on call as needed.112 Unlike the

110 Richtlinien für die Einrichtung des Blutspendewesens im Deutschen Reich. Runderlass des Reichsministers des Inneren vom. 5. März 1940, IVa 3205/40-3885. Ministerialblatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Inneren 1940, Nr. 11: 464.

111 D. Wiebecke et al., “Zur Geschichte der Transfusionmedizin in der ersten Hälfte des 20 Jahrhunderts: unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Entwicklung in Deutschland,” Transfus Med Hemother 31 (2004): 22.

112 E. von Rosztóczy, “Untersuchungen über Isohämagglutination in der Umgebung von Szegedin,” Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie 4 (1931): 145.

315

Figure 23. “Donor-on-the-hoof” system: possible placements of donor (Spender) giving blood to recipient (Empfänger). H. Bürkle-de la Camp, “Die praktische Bedeutung der Blutgruppenforschung für die ärztliche Behandlung” in Handbuch der Blutgruppenkunde, ed. Paul Steffan (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1932), 285.

316 other Western medical communities, however, German progress stopped short of storing blood and setting up blood banks. This led to a “woefully under-served” German military during the war. Allied medics who came upon German field hospitals commonly found wounded soldiers bled white.113

Unlike the allied populations, the Germans were less familiar with blood donating. The disadvantages of their reliance upon donors-on-the-hoof were exacerbated by this unfamiliarity. A 1940 article in Neues Volk reported that “countless men” had already been rescued through blood transfusions, but explained that the number of donors was still not enough and pleaded with the people to regularly donate blood and serve as givers of life to the “Volksgemeinschaft.”114 The article further assured that donating was not dangerous for the donor; giving and receiving blood was conducted “quickly and painlessly.”115

Even though National Socialist publications discussed the advantages and disadvantages of seroanthropology, the party‟s true opinion of the science was apparent in its absence from Nazi racial teachings and practice—despite its continued use of blood rhetoric. As Weinert explained, blood science had seemed helpful neither in tracing the racial history of human beings, nor in their “definitive racial categorization” and, though it had revealed some patterns among racially pure groups, the biochemical index could

113 Starr 2001, 120.

114 Neues Volk, 1940, caption 26.

115 Ibid., caption 27.

317 not be used to designate which race a specific person belonged to.116 Nevertheless, the notion that race was somehow contained in the blood served as an impetus for additional racial research. Ludwig Hirszfeld, whose research first suggested a relation between them, was not interested in validating notions of racial divisions and hierarchies, but in addressing what he referred to as the “very profound matter” of evolution. Hirszfeld was intrigued by the fact that, in some groups, such as the Native Americans, the incidence of types A and B blood was extremely low. To him, this was “proof” (preuve) that, since prehistoric times, the “primitive human races” seemed to have had type O blood. 117 He hoped that blood science might be able to provide insight into such matters as the origin of mankind and the course of human evolution. Hirszfeld‟s use of seemingly-racist terminology, even in discussing these expectations in 1938, was the result of his extensive schooling and employment, where the emphasis on racial anthropology and eugenics certainly affected his later attention to the topic. Medicine and anthropology were saturated with biologically deterministic language and reductionist methodology, and it was common assumption in all countries that dealt with human difference that

Europeans were racially superior to non-Europeans.118 Until the middle of the twentieth century, belief in racial difference was given intellectual prestige and social acceptability

116 Weinert 1938, 132.

117 Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld 1938, 149.

118 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in fin-de siècle Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 15.

318 by the development of race science, the study of human difference on the basis of supposedly “demonstrable” anthropological, biological, and statistical proofs.119

This perspective was also apparent in remarks made by German Jewish serologist

Fritz Schiff who, in 1942, referred to Hirszfeld‟s work as “the greatest step forward since the introduction of the cranial index by Anders Retzius,” and believed that one “could expect the study of blood groups, as it surely will in the future, a most prominent place in all anthropological investigations.120 Schiff, who also studied seroanthropology, reiterated the fact that the highest frequencies of type B blood were in Central Asia, while type A blood was “fairly high everywhere,” except for certain Native American tribes.121

Similar to that of Hirszfeld, Schiff‟s commentary seemed almost völkisch in tone.

However, like Hirszfeld, Schiff denounced racism, and claimed that any race

119 Ibid., 5.

120 Fritz Schiff and William C. Boyd, Blood Grouping Technic: A manual for clinicians, serologists, anthropologists, and students of legal and military medicine (New York: Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1942), 198. By far the most commonly used of physiognomic measurements was the cephalic index—the relationship of the width of the skull to its length. It was first proposed by the Swedish anthropologist Anders Retzius in the 1840s as a way of distinguishing between the so-called dolichocephalic (“long- headed”) blond Aryan peoples of northern Europe and the inferior brachycephalic (“broad-headed”) darker peoples of the south and east. [William H. Schneider, Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 217]. There were only three reasons, Schiff believed, which explained why seroanthropology did not yet have this “prominent” role. First, studies of blood and race were at a temporal disadvantage: their geographic variation had been discovered long after “other physical anthropological criteria” had enjoyed extensive use. Secondly, many anthropologists were still unaware of the nature of genetics to appreciate the advantages blood groups could offer for anthropological classification. The final reason, he theorized, was that the study of blood type frequencies often did not confirm existing notions about race. (Schiff and Boyd 1942, 198).

121 Aside from what he referred to as “several unconfirmed and random observations,” the frequency of type B decreased as one moved away from these centers. By the time one reached America, Australia, and the more remote Pacific islands, the incidence of type B fell to zero. In contrast, Schiff explained, blood type A was “everywhere fairly high,” except in certain Native American tribes, and seemed to reach its highest values in the “outlying corners of the world” (“refuge areas”)—such as Scandinavia, Spain, and Australia. (Ibid., 206).

319 distinguished on the basis of “some constellation of physical characteristics” was essentially artificial. There were all sorts of “exceptions and gradations” between the racial types. According to Schiff, the fundamental units of racial variability were populations and genes, not “the set of characters which connote in the popular mind a racial distinction.”122

In spite of its völkisch appeal, seroanthropology was simply not reliable for the state‟s need to racially categorize each individual. Instead, it was a science of nitpicking.

In 1943, Wiener stated that the most basic problem with racial studies of blood was the

“generality” of the biochemical racial index. The broad differences in type distribution frequencies led to the scrutiny and dissection of seemingly negligible differences. This was evident in the interpretations of conventional blood type surveys reported on in the last years of the Institute for Blood Group Research. The three different serologic “racial types” were distinguished from the biochemical race index, which compared the incidence of type A to B blood within a group: the “European type” yielded a number of

2.5 or greater, “Intermediate” results were between 1.3 and 1.8, and “Asio-African” groups had and index of one or lower. Extensive research, however, revealed

“transitions” between these groups, so no sharp division between the types really existed.

123 Another German scientist pointed out that the research hardly allowed any specific

122 Ibid., 202.

123 A.S. Wiener, Blood Groups and Transfusion (Thomas, 1943), 295.

320 conclusions. 124 Furthermore, as more results were gathered, it became still more obvious that levels of type A blood were not consistently high throughout Germany. On occasion, there were even found elevated levels of its supposed opposite—“Eastern” type B blood, which would have suggested to scientists past extensive miscegenation with Mongols or

Slavs. A 1941 article in a British medical periodical on the “study of human blood groups,” even mocked the implications of German völkisch seroanthropology. In 1935, author Myslivec noted, the American scientist A.S. Wiener wrote how “in Berlin and

Leipzig, the frequency of type B is higher than in the western part of Germany because of the larger Slavic element.” On the other hand, the author continued, in 1931 German physician Fritz Schiff observed that “it was found by Boehmer and Gundel that among criminals blood type B is more frequent than in the population in general. In the eastern part of Germany type B was also more frequent than in other parts of Germany. This was a result of the population stream, which substantially was directed westwards. Myslivec observed how the character B of the blood of criminals was also explained in this same way. “Are we to then conclude, he asked, that Prussians are more criminally inclined than Rhineland Germans because they have a higher frequency of blood group B?”125

This would not have been an attractive suggestion to proponents of Nordic race theory—neither would have been the division of Germany into “zones” of serologic racial type; some researchers divided Germany into two or four parts according to their

124 As stated by Sachs in 1939. A German Jew, Sachs was in exile in Switzerland at this point. Hans Sachs, “Blutgruppen, Bluttransfusion und Abstammung,” Practica oto-rhino-laryngologica (1939): 40.

125 V. Myslivec, “A Contribution to the study of human blood groups,” Royal Anthropological Institute Journal (1941): 70.

321 disparate blood type frequencies; in general, type A blood was more common in the north and west, type B in the south and east.126 As nearly half of the northwest German population had type A blood, they were often classed as “Nordic.” Further inquiry, however, indicates that this may not have been the case.

An overview of the collected German blood showed significant inconsistencies in results. Despite the fact that both were included in the Zeitschrift für

Rassenphysiologie, Hans Kerkhoff‟s figures contradicted Schmidt‟s claim that

Schleswig-Holstein was “predominantly Nordic” in its elevated levels of type A blood.

In fact, Kerkhoff had been struck by the “relatively high percentage” of type B blood in northern Germany, where it had been as high as twenty percent. In addition, Kerkhoff reported that type A was at its highest in West Germany at 45.92 percent, though Schmidt claimed that North Friesland had 48.2 percent. Furthermore, while the national average of type A blood was 43.62 percent, the highest frequencies of type A blood had not been found in Germany.127 At 52.4 percent, the Swedish Lapps had the most type A of any people tested.128 Because type A was on average only slightly higher than forty percent among the German people, this meant that the majority of the German people had a different (non-Nordic) blood type. Type O, which some thought to also be “Nordic,” was also not sufficiently high. At almost half of the population, it was the people of Sardinia,

126 Kerkhoff divided Germany into four serologic zones.

127 Germany‟s averages: O 38.26, A 43.62, B 13.04, AB 5.08. (Kerkhoff, 1941, 33).

128 Ibid., 38.

322 not the Germans, who had the highest frequency of this type in Europe.129 Besides, there was the issue of remarkably high levels of type O blood found among Native Americans

(90 percent)—hardly a group völkisch Germans would have classed themselves with.

There had also been found comparably high levels of type A among “non-Nordic” peoples. Frequencies of approximately forty percent had been reported among aboriginal groups. At 48.2 percent, the Armenians of Eastern Europe had more type A than the

Germans, and some Turkish groups were reported to have even more than fifty percent.130

Nazi race theorists instead continued to rely primarily upon physical anthropology for racial classification, a fact confirmed in their racial pedagogy and practice. (See

Figure 24). German students received instruction not on seroanthropology, but on stature and skull shape. Similarly, race experts routinely referred to appearance, but not blood type. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, considered the leading institute of racial anthropology during the Third Reich, issued no publications in which the ethnic distribution according to blood type was the principal subject.131 At the same time, the

129 Ibid.

130 Ibid., 33-34.

131 Benoit Massin, “Genetic blood characteristics and blood group research for racial research” in Rassenforschung an Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten vor und nach 1933, ed. Hans-Walter Schmuhl (Wallstein Verlag, 2003), 212-213. In 1933/34, Spanish guest scholar Jimena Fernández de la Vega was occupied with measuring the size of the blood corpuscles of twin subjects, but no publication emerged. Serological research was also conducted by Engelhard Bühler. His work on the heritability of antibodies in the blood was presented at the Convention of the German Society for Genetics in Jena in 1935. Eugen Fischer did apply to the DFG for funds to continue Bühler‟s research. Fischer gave two reasons for his interest—the possible relation of the clumping characteristics to race, and their potential to improve immunizations against infectious disease. [Hans-Walter Schmuhl, The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945: Crossing Boundaries (Springer, 2008), 175-176].

323

Figure 24. A typical example of Nazi, physiognomic-based propaganda. Der Stürmer, December, 1929.

324 institute did regularly assist the courts via serology in cases of disputed paternity.132

Though it was not used in racial matters during the Third Reich, blood science was valuable in legal cases and in transfusion therapy. Nonetheless, the Nazis continued to use blood rhetoric in their scientific race propaganda.

This disparity between spoken word and actual practice is perhaps demonstrated most perfectly in the person of Hans F.K. Günther. Like many of his colleagues, Günther often referred to differences of blood in a medical context. His work Adel und Rasse

(Nobility and Race) argued that, throughout the centuries, all the noble clans and lineages of every nation had been defined by their “Nordic blood.”133 He even referred to a unique physiognomic trait as “proof” of this nobility: “Blue blood,” as the traditional sign of nobility—“only makes sense in the context of the pale white skin characteristic of the

Nordic race, through which this blue blood becomes visible.”134 At the same time, however, Günther denied that blood science could be used to identify racial type.

Instead, he relied overwhelmingly on physiognomy in his racial analyses and maintained that all conceptions of human beauty, beginning with the ancient Greeks, were unconscious representations of the physical features that, from time immemorial, had been manifest in, and hence associated with, persons of noble character.135 Günther

132 Weindling, Paul. Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 436.

133 Hans F.K. Günther, Adel und Rasse (München, 1926), 72-74.

134 Hans F.K. Günther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes, 56

135 Richard T. Gray, About Face: German Physiognomic Thought from Lavater to Auschwitz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), 237-238.

325 preferred the conventional genealogical and physiognomic criteria.136 This was consistent with his earlier work in race theory, including his Racial Study of the Jewish

People (Rassenkunde des jüdischen Volkes). Published in 1933, this work integrated over

300 illustrations of Jews from various countries. The text argued that Jews possessed unique physical qualities that marked them as an inferior race; skull measurements were used to support certain assumptions about racial classification.137 During the war, with the objective of studying “the current racial-anthropological situation through measurements, trait research, photography, and molds,” Günther carefully selected 115

Jews to establish a collection of Jewish skeletons. He believed that these would provide information on the proportion, origins, significance, and development of the Nordic race.138

Despite its general rejection, there were researchers who pursued seroanthropology until the end of the war. Numerous wartime articles published in the

Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie stubbornly drew attention to the progress made in seroanthropology. Paul Schmidt remarked on the significant advances in seroanthropologic research.139 Peter Dahr mentioned the consistency of the blood types as revealed in Hungarian scientists‟ Verzar and Wescezky‟s study of 1921.140 For these

136 Gerhard Baader, “Blutgruppenforschung im Nationalsozialismus” in Blood in History and Blood Histories, ed. Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio (Firenze: Sismelm 2005), 342.

137 Wegner 2002, 14.

138 Ute Deichmann, Biologists under Hitler (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 255-256.

139 “within the past two decades.” (Schmidt 1940, 49).

140 Dahr, “Blutgruppenforschung und Rassenhygiene,” 106.

326 reasons, a minority of physicians continued surveying blood types, but others made efforts to move beyond examining the conventional four blood types. Dahr also believed that scientists should examine the MN characteristics.141 Von Verschuer continued his research of “specific proteins” in the blood until the last phases of the war. In October of

1944, with the Russians drawing closer to Auschwitz, Mengele still wrote a follow-up report to Verschuer in Berlin: “further research is being carried out with Hillmann, a colleague from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biochemistry.”142 By this point, Mengele had traveled to Berlin several times to report to Verschuer on the progress of their work.

Even as late as January 6, 1945, Verschuer wrote to a colleague—“you will be interested to know that my research on specific proteins has finally reached a decisive stage now that we have overcome some considerable methodological difficulties.”143 A few days later Mengele left Auschwitz and the circumstances of war prevented Verschuer from finishing his work, though he likely had time to destroy evidence of it.144

141 Ibid., 104-105.

142 Hillmann was working in Professor Butenandt‟s institute in Dahlem on a scholarship from the DFG, although Professor Butenandt himself had just moved to Tübingen. (Müller-Hill 1988, 78).

143 Ibid.

144 Dr. Mengele‟s letters and reports were probably destroyed by von Verschuer. (Müller-Hill 1988, 79).

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

The recent “biopolitics theory” within German historiography argues that medicine and science were central to modernization. This narrative emphasizes continuities between pre-1933 developments and their outcome in the Third Reich, with the claim that National Socialism demonstrates modernity‟s “most fatal potential.”1 The course of seroanthropology, and its ultimate neglect during the Third Reich, call into question the importance of biopolitics. Whereas consistencies with certain medical disciplines are obvious between Weimar and Nazi Germany, such as in the areas of eugenics and anthropometry, seroanthropology contradicts the notion that interwar biopolitics were saddled with such “negative potential.”2 Seroanthropology was unquestionably modern, however, and therefore applicable to this discussion.

Historian Edward Ross Dickinson describes modernity as being characterized by three key tendencies. The first is a distinctive “Machbarketiswahn,” or belief that things

1 Edward Ross Dickinson, “Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse About Modernity,” Central European History 37 (2004): 1-48, 6.

2 Ibid., 25.

2 Ibid., 2.

327

328 are doable, that anything can be done.3 The second is a sense of permanent crisis and urgency. Last, science is seen as having played a key role in defining the optimism and pessimism of modernity.4 These traits applied to the practice of seroanthropology as well. The initial popularity of seroanthropology can be attributed to the biopolitical concerns of the German medical community in the interwar period, as well as researchers‟ conviction that they could find a more efficient means of distinguishing between the racial types, that this was doable. At first, analyses of blood type seemed to avoid the vagueness and ambiguity inherent in other criteria of the classification of human beings.5 Blood science was applied to the eugenic and racial anxieties of the

Weimar Republic, as researchers sought to determine whether or not certain blood types were more pronounced amongst those with venereal disease, mental illness, criminal tendencies, and other traits perceived as disadvantageous to the well being of the

Volkskörper. The seroanthropological movement, though slight and short-lived compared to other branches of racial research, was at varying points considered progressive. As with other scientific disciplines, blood scientists similarly operated through the creation of “expert knowledge.”6 However, whereas other areas often did progress, seroanthropology did not. Initially optimistic about their work, seroanthropologists became increasingly pessimistic as inconsistencies and contradictions grew ever-more conspicuous.

4 Ibid.

5 Léon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism, Volume I: From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 284.

6 Dickinson 2004, 4. 329

Seroanthropology was a very minor part of the modern movement in science to discover a solution to Germany‟s “racial problems” by way of “naming, defining, measuring, quantifying, and investigating.”7 The search for “native German” subject groups, so popular during the Weimar Republic, frequently involved careful selection processes. During research, it was not uncommon for researchers to investigate an area‟s earliest historical records, the physical findings of archaeologists, as well as thorough examinations of the subjects themselves. The results of their research were accompanied by complicated, very scientific and modern-looking, charts and graphs. The seeming objectivity of blood science did make it appealing, for a short space of time, to a minority within the anthropological community. Although I have emphasized the interest of the far-right in seroanthropology, I have also demonstrated that it was not isolated to those with völkisch or anti-Semitic interests.

The research of Jewish physicians Karl Landsteiner and Ludwig Hirszfeld made possible, respectively, the fields of serology and seroanthropology. Jews were consistently involved in the blood sciences, and continued to make important contributions. Like other branches of race science, seroanthropology was characterized by far-right racist and far-left non-racist practitioners. Myriam Spörri maintains that the left had a marked Jewish presence to counter völkisch misappropriations of blood science. Similarly, in his work on Jewish race scientists in fin-de-siècle Germany, John

Efron claims that Jews took part in racial discourse largely to respond to the scientific,

7 Dickinson 2004, 2.

330 and in truth often racist, discourse on human variation. A “crucial feature” of these

Jewish scientists, Efron explains, was their complete rejection of racial science for chauvinistic purposes—in spite of their use of the contemporary language, and methodology, of race science.8 These circumstances were the same with Ludwig

Hirszfeld, whose seeming racist rhetoric and analysis were largely the result of the medical milieu in which he was schooled and eventually practiced. Like the great majority of educated whites in Europe and North America of his day, Hirszfeld probably accepted the racial and cultural superiority of Caucasians as a matter of course.9 The idea that races existed and were fundamentally different from one another, in a physical or psychological sense, was an integral element of modern Western culture. 10 As Sheila

Faith Weiss has pointed out, from today‟s vantage point all German eugenicists would be considered racist, and this type of racism was shared by most eugenicists everywhere— including those in the United States and Great Britain.11 For this reason, Hirszfeld, as well as other Jewish physicians, such as Siegmund Wellisch and Felix Bernstein, sought to contribute to the intellectual study of races and assumed the language common to race scientists, regardless of their political persuasion. This did not make them Aryan enthusiasts.

8 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 9.

9 Sheila Faith Weiss, “The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany,” Osiris 3 (1997): 194.

10 Efron, 176.

11 Weiss 1997, 194. 331

Race science was considered a legitimate intellectual pursuit. As Robert Proctor has pointed out, the study of racial anthropology was not considered “aberrant or

„pseudoscientific‟ by the international scientific community.”12 As “good” acculturated

Europeans, Jewish physicians could not but believe in the concept of race.13 Even the far-right German publication Politisch-Anthropologische Revue reported periodically

(and without comment) news from Jewish publications such as Ben Israel and the

Jüdisches Volksblatt.14 Similarly, Wellisch‟s articles were included by the editors of the

Zeitschrift für Rassenphysiologie, and the völkisch directors of the German Institute for

Blood Group Research sought Karl Landsteiner‟s membership. Apparently, Wellisch and

Landsteiner‟s opinion of seroanthropology, not their “racial type,” was the deciding factor for institute authorities. This is further suggested by the exclusion of physicians who questioned the reliability of seroanthropology. Despite his recognition in the

German medical community, Jewish physician Fritz Schiff was not invited to join. Based on his own research, Schiff doubted the efficacy of blood in racial differentiation. He realized that völkisch scientists were attempting to appropriate serology to fit their racial- political agenda and presented evidence that challenged their claims.

12 Robert Proctor, “From Anthropologie to Rassenkunde in the German Anthropological Tradition,” in Bones, Bodies, and Behavior: Essays in Behavioral Anthropology, ed. George W. Stocking (Wisconsin Press, 1990), 140.

13 Efron 1994, 176.

14 Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 142.

332

Hirszfeld did eventually recognize that his work had introduced a “discourse of segregation.”15 Because of his immersion in Western medicine, it was difficult for

Hirszfeld to recognize why his methodology and language had a special appeal for

Nordic race theorists. In fact, his 1918 study had assigned the Europeans the highest serologic biochemical index, and Asians and Africans the lowest, thus preserving a hierarchy, whether intentional or not.16 One author even claimed that, with its scale of northern and western Europeans at the top, Hirszfeld‟s biochemical index served “the same pseudoscientific purposes that the cephalic index had for Aryan racists.”17

Purported racial differences were further emphasized by Hirszfeld‟s theory that type A blood had originated in Western Europe, and type B somewhere in India. For these reasons, seroanathropology came to be most well-received by right-leaning race theorists throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, in 1938, many years after his study was published, Hirszfeld criticized political misappropriations of his theories and denied the existence of uniquely “Jewish blood.” He further reiterated Schiff‟s claim that Jewish blood was no different than the people amongst whom they lived. However, in spite of his rejection of those who affiliated blood with the “mystique” of race, Hirszfeld consistently did so himself, even after this statement. Hirszfeld‟s uninterrupted racial discourse demonstrates his familiarity, and comfort with, the notion that there were different racial types.

15 Dickinson 2004, 22.

16 William H. Schneider, Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth- Century France (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 221.

17 Ibid., 228. 333

For a period of time, racial anthropology was considered a field of “expert knowledge,” and was believed by many to be progressive. Initially, seroanthropology seemed to have a great deal of potential, and appealed to many racial theorists because of its newness. Ultimately, however, seroanthropology was static and did not progress from where it had started. In spite of discrepancies in their findings, völkisch researchers repeatedly affiliated “Eastern” (non-Nordic) type B blood with other “inferior” characteristics. Throughout their analyses, these authors associated type A blood with

Nordic descent and other, more conventional indicators of Aryanism—such as light pigmentation and “long skulls.” There came to be unexpected inconsistencies, however, such as when type A was found to be more common among brunettes than blonds, or even among those with “round skulls.” Further research on undesirable traits, such as mental illness or disease, also proved inconclusive. Völkisch researchers stubbornly pursued correlations, but eventually found themselves unable to proceed on account of mixed results. In the end, seroanthropology never offered or “discovered” a solution to the perceived eugenic and racial problems of Weimar or Nazi-era race theorists.

At the same time, while the science of blood and race was not employed by the

Nazis, the idea of racial blood difference was politically very useful. From its beginnings in the nineteenth century, anti-Semitic propaganda had often used blood rhetoric and portrayed race as being “contagious” through blood—through either sexual contact or transfusion. Race ideologues favored medical propaganda because science was felt to 334 project an “objective and value free” image.18 This notion of “blood defilement” would persist into the Third Reich, and was ultimately incorporated into the Nuremberg race laws. The shift from propaganda to law was especially problematic—one author fittingly referred to it as “absurdity piled on top of absurdity.”19 In contrast, seroanthropology never “matured” enough to be able to shape legislation.

Although the current “biopolitical” account of modern German history describes the Nazi racial state as a comprehensible, explainable phenomenon with identifiable and direct historical roots in the sciences of pre-Nazi Germany, Nazism never “planted roots” in seroanthropology.20 Biopolitical discourse in this new, particularly-negative model of

German modernity often creates a sense of impending disaster.21 Seroanthropology represents a fundamental divergence from this narrative. Instead of demonstrating the murderous potential of racial thought, it was recognized at the time as a benign science, representing a break in the alleged continuity between Weimar and Nazi racialist communities. Seroanthropology had very few outside enthusiasts, and was not used or acknowledged by the leading race theorists in Weimar and Nazi Germany. Whereas eugenics and racial anthropology, certainly no more measurably reliable, heavily influenced policies after 1933, seroanthropology had no influence upon National Socialist directives and had few committed proponents after this date. In contrast, many remained

18 Efron 1994, 2.

19 Karl A. Schleunes, ed. Legislating the Holocaust: The Bernhard Loesener Memoirs and Supporting Documents (Westview Press, 2001), 19.

20 Dickinson 2004, 5.

21 Ibid., 21. 335 committed to the traditional, physiognomic-based methods of racial analysis. This was even the case with Otto Reche, the Chair of the German Institute for Blood Group

Research. His attitude towards blood science shifted over the course of his career, revealing increasing doubt and culminating in a total rejection of seroanthropology.

Eventually, even Reche admitted that having type B blood was in no way an indicator of

Jewishness.22

By the standards of the day, the German Institute for Blood Group Research was a very marginal organization. Lack of interest in seroanthropology was also reflected in

Nazi propaganda and racial pedagogy. Nonetheless, as indicated in the volume of research on blood type and race, Germany was unique in its pursuit of the science— though fervent interest was also expressed in Central and Eastern Europe. Besides

Germany, Russia was the only nation to establish an institute devoted solely to seroanthropology; the Ukrainian Commission for Blood Group Research was founded in

1927, only a year after its German counterpart. Regular correspondence took place between German and Central or Eastern European blood scientists. A similar relationship never developed with the Western scientific communities, where only negligible attention was given to seroanthropology. In Great Britain, a total of only six articles of original research had been published on blood type distribution by 1932.23

Similarly, a French article of original research was not presented until 1925, many years

22 Karl Saller, Die Rassenlehre des Nationalsozialismus in Wissenschaft und Propaganda (Darmstadt: Progress Verlag, 1961), 101.

23 Schneider, “Initial discovery,” 300. 336 after the Hirszfeld study.24 As was the case with Great Britain and the United States, the

Pasteur Institute in France was more oriented towards practical problems of diseases in the blood rather than basic blood physiology.25 After a brief period in the early twenties,

German quickly superseded English as the most common language of publications on blood type distribution.26 Despite the similarities in blood rhetoric and racial discrimination between these nations and Germany, I agree with others‟ claims that the social and national changes brought about by World War I prompted the intellectual and political elite, particularly of the defeated powers in World War I, to look to eugenic and racial principles as “a source of hope in their disillusioning environment.”27

This investigation of seroanthropology demonstrates that the metanarrative of biopolitics, does not in itself “explain” Nazi Germany. No less objective than eugenics or racial anthropology—indeed laden with a discursive potential that the other sciences lacked—seroanthropology was never an influential part of twentieth-century biopolitical discourse. As far as the potentials and benefits of modernity are concerned, seroanthropology fell flat. Clinical serology, however, with its advances in court forensics and transfusion therapy, did progress, and its benefits for society were obvious.

There were different varieties of modernity within medicine; we should accordingly by

24 Schneider, Quality and Quantity, 223.

25 …which was being studied in Germany or Vienna. (Ibid., 225).

26 Schneider, “Initial discovery,” 301. 27 Marius Turda, “The first debates on eugenics in Hungary, 1910-1918,” in Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940, eds. Marius Turda and Paul J. Weindling (Central European University Press, 2006), 204.

337 careful not to present too undifferentiated a narrative of the centrality of biopolitics in the emergence of Nazism. That Nazism sought justification for itself in science is not the same as finding its origins in science. Nor, finally, should we overstate the degree of continuity between racial science in Weimar and Nazi Germany. WORKS CITED

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