Weimar and Nazi Germany (1918-1939): Eugenics

Eugenics is the term given to the scientific theory of selective breeding. Scientists used the ideas of natural selection and evolution to attempt to explain that this could be used within human beings. The best parents would then breed and produce the best possible children.

These ideas became fashionable in society around 1880s and the Nazis took these ideas and created policies to create the German Master Race.

Applying the ideas of Eugenics, the Nazis embarked on a programme of forced sterilisation for those not conforming to the ideas of the Master Race to ensure that those people could not breed.