NOTES Introduction 1. Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler (New York: Random House, 1998). 2. Robert S. Wistrich, Hitler and the Holocaust (New York: Modern Library, 2003), 7, 240. 3. One major exception is Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003). 4. My views on this have been influenced and stimulated by Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 5. A few scholars have suggested that Hitler and the Nazis embraced a consistent ethic: Koonz, Nazi Conscience; Peter Haas, Morality after Auschwitz: The Radical Challenge of the Nazi Ethic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988). Neither identify this ethic as a form of evolutionary ethics. In an essay, however, Peter Haas does astutely identify the Nazi ethic with social Darwinism: “Science and the Determination of the Good,” in Ethics after the Holocaust: Perspectives, Critiques, and Responses, ed. John Roth (St. Paul: Paragon House, 1999), 49–89; however, Haas does not analyze Hitler’s own views in any depth. 6. Richard J. Evans, Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin, 2006), 259; and Hans-Walter Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, Nationalsozialismus, Euthanasie. Von der Verhütung zur Vernichtung ‘lebensunwerten Lebens’ 1890–1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1987), 151, both mention the ethical thrust of social Darwinism. Joachim Fest, Hitler, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Helen and Kurf Wolff, 1974), 205–210, 37, 53–56, 201, 608, claims that Hitler based his ethics on nature and struggle. Many scholars have noted the importance of social Darwinism in Hitler’s world view: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 2 vols. (New York: Norton, 1998–2000), 2:xli; see also 1: 290, 2: 19, 208, 405, 780; Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin, 2004), 34–35, and Third Reich in Power, 4, 708; Eberhard Jäckel, Hitler’s World View: A Blueprint for Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), ch. 5; Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945: Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 277–78; Rainer Zitelmann, Hitler: Selbstverständnis eines Revolutionärs (Hamburg: Berg, 1987), 15, 466; Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die Deutsche Diktatur. Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des Nationalsozialismus, 7th ed. (Cologne: Kiepenheuer and Witsch, 1993) 13–15; Gerhard Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, vol. 1: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–36 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 1–6; Wolfgang Wippermann, Der con- sequente Wahn. Ideologie und Politik Adolf Hitlers (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1989), 179; Robert Gellately and Nathan Stolzfus, “Social Outsiders and the Construction of the Community of the People,” in Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany, ed. Robert Gellately and Nathan Stolzfus 206 Notes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 4; Neil Gregor, How to Read Hitler (New York: Norton, 2005), 40; Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1992), 23, 142; Stig Förster and Myriam Gessler, “The Ultimate Horror: Reflections on Total War and Genocide,” in A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945, ed. Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greiner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 67; Hans Staudinger, The Inner Nazi: A Critical Analysis of Mein Kampf (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 78–79; Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler: Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit (Munich: Bechtle, 1971), 168, 236, 255–56, 283–84; Brigitte Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship, trans. Thomas Thornton (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 102, 202–203; Jost Hermand, Old Dreams of a New Reich: Volkish Utopias and National Socialism, trans. Paul Levesque (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 63; Gilmer Blackburn, Education in the Third Reich: Race and History in Nazi Textbooks (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 21–22; Edward Westermann, Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 58; see also Hans-Günter Zmarzlik, “Der Sozialdarwinismus in Deutschland als geschichtliches Problem,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 11 (1963): 246–273. John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (New York: Vintage, 1997), 120–127, is one of only a few scholars to claim that social Darwinism was not very important in Hitler’s ideology. 7. My dissertation is published as Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein (San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1999). 8. Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Though I have constructed this pres- ent book so it can stand alone, it is a sequel to From Darwin to Hitler, so anyone wanting detailed information about forms of evolutionary ethics in Germany before Hitler should consult my earlier work. 9. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 287–289. 10. Adolf Hitler, “Hitler vor Bauarbeitern in Berchtesgaden über nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik am 20. Mai 1937,” in “Es spricht der Führer”: 7 exemplarische Hitler-Reden, ed. Hildegard von Kotze and Helmut Krausnick (Gütersloh: Sigbert Mohn Verlag, 1966), 220–221. 11. “Hitler vor Offizieren und Offiziersanwärtern am 15. Februar 1942,” in ibid., 306–7. 12. Peter Walkenhorst, Nation—Volk—Rasse: Radikaler Nationalismus im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1890–1914 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2007), shows how “radical national- ists” fused nationalism and racism under the influence of social Darwinism. 13. This is already apparent in Hitler’s early writings and speeches; see Hitler to Adolf Gemlich, September 16, 1919; and report of Hitler, “Der Arbeiter im Deutschland der Zukunft,” (November 19, 1920), in Hitler: Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen, 1905–1924, ed. Eberhard Jäckel (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), 88–89, 262. 14. The term Aryan is a misnomer, and I use it reluctantly, but since Hitler used it so often, I feel compelled to use it. I considered using scare-quotes around it, but finally decided against it, since this would make the text more cumbersome. 15. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 402; emphasis in original. I have substituted the word “evolution” for “development” in this quotation as the proper translation for “Entwicklung,” and I do so everywhere that the context demands it. “Development” is a proper translation for “Entwicklung” in some contexts, but “Entwicklung” is also the standard German term for biological evolution. Though Manheim inexplicably never translates Entwicklung as evolution, even in contexts clearly discussing biological transmutation, many translators of Hitler’s other writings and speeches, including his Second Book, frequently translate “Entwicklung” as evolution. 16. “Hitler vor Leitern der Rüstungsindustrie auf dem Obersalzberg Anfang Juli 1944,” in “Es spricht der Führer,” 336. Notes 207 17. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2 vols. in 1 (London, 1871; reprint. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 1: 98. 18. George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural, and Social Life in the Third Reich (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1966), xxvi; George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York: Howard Fertig, 1985), ch. 8. 19. Koonz, Nazi Conscience, 1–2, 254–255; see also Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2001), 317, 355. 20. Jäckel, Hitler’s Weltanschauung. Some scholars emphasizing the importance of ideology are Gregor, How to Read Hitler; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000); Evans, Coming of the Third Reich; Evans, Third Reich in Power; Peter Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Weinberg, Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, vol. 1: Diplomatic Revolution; Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997); Alexander Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003); and many others. 21. Kershaw, Hitler, 1: xxviii; 2: xli. 22. Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler, ch. 7. 23. Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler. For an excellent discussion of Haeckel’s views on evolution- ary ethics, see Jürgen Sandmann, Der Bruch mit der humanitären Tradition. Die Biologisierung der Ethik bei Ernst Haeckel und anderen Darwinisten seiner Zeit (Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag, 1990). On Haeckel’s social Darwinism, see Daniel Gasman, The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League (London: MacDonald, 1971). 24. Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna, 84, 102, 202–203. 25. Wilfried Daim, Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen Gab: Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, 3rd ed. (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1994). 26. For more on Lanz von Liebenfels’ views, see Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler, 217–219. 27. Ludwig Woltmann, Politische Anthropologie: Eine Untersuchung über den Einfluss der Deszendenztheorie auf die Lehre von der politischen Entwicklung der Völker (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1903), 266. 28. Ludwig Woltmann and Hans K. E. Buhmann, “Naturwissenschaft und Politik,” Politisch- anthropologische Revue 1 (1902): 1. 29. Walkenhorst, Nation—Volk—Rasse, 119–128, quote