Der ungelesene Julian Huxley: “Rassenbiologie” ist Pseudo-Wissenschaft (um 1935)

Pseudo-wissenschaftliche Rassentheorien entfalteten ihre schlimmsten Auswirkungen unter der Herrschaft der Nazis, waren aber zu Beginn des 20 Jahrhunderts weit verbreitet – auch in Großbritannien (siehe z.B. Post über die Rassismus-Serie der BBC; http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2011/04/geschichte-des-rassismus-die-bbc-serie.html).

Drei angesehene britische Wissenschaftler brachten schon früh ein Buch heraus, in dem sie sich damit auseinander setzten, wie wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse und pseudo-wissenschaftliche Ableitungen zu kruden Rassentheorien zusammengerührt wurden.  Das Buch erschien um 1935 (ohne Erscheinungsdatum; die letzten Referenzen sind von 1934, der Ausbruch des 2. Weltkriegs ist noch nicht am Horizont).

Das mir vorliegende Exemplar stammt aus der Bibliothek eines Hamburger Arztes, der es in den 1930er Jahren schon erworben hatte, und ich danke der Familie für die freundliche Leihgabe.

• Die Autoren thematisieren u.a. die übliche – irreführende - Darstellung der Evolutionsgeschichte als Baum. Wir hatten ja an dem Textauszug aus dem Buch des Theologen Arthur Neuberg (Ausgabe 1944) tatsächlich gesehen, wie die Baum-Darstellung dazu veranlasste, das Absterben von „Ästen“ und analog das Aussterben von Völkern in eroberten Gebieten (z.B. der Indianer) als normalen Ablauf der Evolutionsgeschichte anzusehen (http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2011/04/anstelle-eine-doktrinaren.html).
• Auch die Verwendung von Intelligenztests, um rassische „Hierarchien“ aufzustellen, und der Mythos von der Überlegenheit des „Nordischen Menschen“, werden von den Autoren ihres wissenschaftlichen Nimbus beraubt.
• Der "nordische Mythos" bildete die Grundlage des Rassenstaats der Nazis. Die Autoren weisen ausführlich darauf hin, erwähnen aber auch den Einfluss dieses Mythos in den USA, z.B. bei der Gestaltung der Einwanderungsgesetze (die, wie wir heute wissen, den Nazis in der Anfangszeit des Regimes "Argumentationshilfe" gaben und später sehr erschwerten, dass verfolgte Juden Zuflucht in den USA finden konnten).  
• Je weniger wissenschaftliche Substanz, so lautet ein Fazit, desto leidenschaftlicher das Gefühl.

 Es folgen Auszüge aus dem englischen Original-Text (Hervorhebungen durch Fett-Markierung wurden von mir vorgenommen).

We Europeans - A Survey of “Racial” Problems.
By Julian S. Huxley and A.C. Haddon.
With a Chapter on Europe Overseas by A.M. Carr.
Penguin, Harmondsworth, ca. 1935

Julian S. Huxley, D. Sc., Secretary of the Zoological Society of London

A.C. Haddon, Sc.D., F.R.S., Formerly Reader in Ethnology in the University of Cambridge

A.M. Carr-Saunders, M.A., Charles Booth Professor of Social Sciences in the University of Liverpool

p. 7

“One of the greatest enemies of science is pseudo-science. In a scientific age, prejudice and passion seek to clothe themselves in a garb of scientific respectability; and when they cannot find support from true science, they invent a pseudo-science to justify themselves. We all know that the Devil can quote Scripture for his own purpose; to-day we are finding that he can even invent a false Scripture from which to quote.

Nowhere is this lamentable state of affairs more pronounced than in regard to “race”. A vast pseudo-science of “racial biology” has been erected which serves to justify political ambitions, economic ends, social grudges, class prejudices.”

pp. 18-19

“Mankind … has shown itself to be still unprepared to accept the idea of universal human brotherhood. …

A “nation” has been cynically but not inaptly defined as “a society united by a common error as to its origin and a common aversion to its neighbours.”

The economic movements of the nineteenth century gave rise to unparalleled social and political dislocations. The resulting conflicts have by some been interpreted as originating from a disparity of “racial” elements in the populations involved. The interpretation that has been put on these phenomena must therefore inevitably lead to an inquiry as to what extent the claims to “racial unity”, which are explicit or implicit in recent nationalist controversy, have a basis in reality…. We must remember that every people has ascribed to itself special powers and aptitudes. Such claims may, at times, assume the most ridiculous forms. There is not one but a multitude of 'chosen peoples'….

When … we read in Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race that the greatest and most masterful personalities have had blond hair and blue eyes we can make a shrewd guess at its author’s complexion. … Nations, races, tribes, societies, classes, families – each and all claim for themselves their own peculiar excellences.”

pp. 21-28

“The ‘race’ soon acquired a vagueness that it has never since lost. It is probable that this vagueness, together with the occasional employment of the word by certain scientific men of a previous generation and the supposed parallel between zoological and human Races”, have combined to give it a special popularity with a group of writers who deal with scientific themes without adequate scientific equipment. From them it has descended to the literature of more violent nationalism….

If a Scottish or Irish clan is of “mixed blood”, what likelihood is there of purity of descent among the millions that make up the population of any great modern nation. Historically all the great modern nations are known to be the resultants of amalgamations of many tribes and of many waves of immigration. …

The use of the word or the idea of “stock”… introduces a biological fallacity which we shall presently discuss. …

Certainly well-marked differences of “national type” are recognized in popular judgment. If, however, we wish to keep our view clear, steady and scientific, we must constantly recall to mind how subjective, how impressionistic, how variable and devoid of standards of reference such judgments constantly are. Our German neighbours have ascribed to themselves a Teutonic type that is fair, long-headed, tall and virile. Let us make a composite picture of a typical Teuton from the most prominent of the exponents of this view. Let him be as blond as Hitler, as dolichocephalic as Rosenberg, as tall as Goebbels, as slender as Goering and as manly as Streicher. How much would they resemble the German ideal?” …

In considering the characters of different nationalities, it will generally be found that the distinctive qualities upon which stress is laid are cultural rather than physical…

In point of actual fact, the most crucial factors on which most observers’ judgment will depend will be dress and behaviour. …

It is interesting to note that in Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, his “racial” characterizations and differentiations, more especially of the Jews, are based not on any biological concept of physical descent – as to the essential nature and meaning of which he exhibits neither knowledge nor insight – but almost entirely on social and cultural elements.

pp. 43-58

“In the opening passage of the Descent of Man Darwin points out that ‘T.H. Huxley has conclusively shown that in every visible character man differs less from the higher apes than these do from the lower members of the same orders of Primates”. This was, however, very different from a demonstration of any intermediate form between man and the higher man-like apes. …

Evolutionary doctrine has not only been extended to the structure of man, but also to his habits, his language, his way of thinking. Thus has arisen the modern phrase of the science of Anthropology. …

So far as the interpretation of the inter-relationships of the groups of modern men are concerned the reader should realize that the current conclusions of anthropology are tentative to a far greater degree than are the generally accepted conclusions of most biological sciences. It is just where knowledge is least sure that feeling always runs highest! We feel must more strongly as to the conclusions of economists, sociologists and anthropologists, and anthropologists than of anatomists, physiologists and zoologists. …

The real source of the modern idea of the innate inferiority of certain “races” is the work is the French Count Joseph de Gobineau (1816-22), Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1853-5). It is essentially a plea for “national” history. He advocated especially the superiority of the so-called “Aryan races”. The idea was carried to the most ridiculous lengths in the work of his countryman Lapouge, L’Aryen (1899), in which the 'Aryans' were identified with the 'Nordic race'.  In the beginning of the present century the East Prussian Gustav Kossinna took up the idea and applied it to pre-historic archaeology and thus made German pre-history a pre-eminently national science. His object was to show that throughout the prehistoric ages advances in culture had been entirely due to peoples whom he identified as “Aryan” peoples, these terms being regarded as interchangeable, though including not merely Germans, but also Scandinavians. The “Aryan” cradle was located in the North-European forest about the Baltic and North Cost.

This theory is scientifically quite untenable on many grounds. Thus, to take a single point, the earliest rough stone monuments (of which Stonehenge is a late and highly developed example, c. 1700-1600 B.C.) go back, even in England, at least as far as 3000 B.C. The culture that they represent spread from the Mediterrarian to the Iberian peninsula … Yet these monuments, involving high enterprise, considered design, and complex social organizations, were produced by a people devoid of metal implements and quite certainly not of Nordic origin.  …

Nevertheless the Nordic theory speedily became very popular in Germany. It has been made the basis of propaganda in the pseudo-scientific writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and others in Germany, and of Madison Grant and others in America. Among its absurdities it is perhaps sufficient to mention that Jesus Christ and Dante have been turned into 'good Teutons'. The 'Nordic theory' has had a very great effect not only in serving as a basis for the 'Aryan' doctrines upon which the Nazi regime is now being conducted, but also as the inspiring influence in a great deal of political agitation which claims superiority of the 'Nordic' in the discussion of legislation determining the recent revision of the immigration laws in the United States.

We shall presently have to expound the strange origin of the myth of an “Aryan race” .. but on the general questions of the correlation of psychological characters and “race”, we must say that there is at present simply no evidence worthy of being called scientific which is capable of demonstrating such a relation.”

pp. 75-89

“Human stature is another case in point. As with other animals, various degrees of stunting can be produced by various degrees of underfeeding and other unfavourable conditions (disease, lack of exercise or sunlight, etc.). The effect will also vary according to the time at which the unfavourable conditions were operative. As shown by recent experiments in which the growth of healthy boys was still further increased by the addition of mild to an abundant and varied diet, “underfeeding” is a relative term, and apparently normal conditions may not provide the optimum.

The last example provides an excellent example of the interaction of genetic and environmental factors, and it is also important from the standpoint of so-called “racial differences”. The fact that stature can be altered by feeding and other environmental conditions does not mean that it cannot also be altered by change in genetic make-up or vice-versa. The believe that one alternative excludes the other (as many popular writers appear to do) is to fall into an elementary logical and biological error.,,,

The Scotch possess genes which make for height, the pigmees genes which keep them small. It is nevertheless doubtless true that the height of both peoples could be considerably modified by feeding and other environmental conditions.

This will show the complexity of even such an apparently simple question as that of human stature. …

What is true for stature applies with far greater force to psychological characters – of intelligence, special aptitude, temperament, and character. …

An obvious reason why children from the upper social classes obtain proportionately more scholarships than those from the lower classes is because they have better educational provided for them, whether they are better endowed by heredity or not.

The bearing of such facts upon problems of race and nationality is evident. With the best will in the world it is, in the present state of knowledge, impossible to disentangle the genetic from the environmental factors in matters of 'racial traits', 'national characters', and the like. Such phrases are glibly used. In point of fact they are all but meaningless, since they are not properly definable. …

The crossing has occurred between the major as well as the minor sub-divisions of man, between groups that show large physical differences as well as between those that approximate in type. The great majority of native Africans, the reader may be surprised to learn, are not pure negroes, but have an admixture of Caucasian genes from crosses with Hamitic stock. India is more of a racial melting-pot than the United States. Mongolian invasions from the East have left their physical traces in Eastern Europe. …

It follows that practically all human groups are of decidedly mixed origin.”

p. 104

“Considerable attention has been given, especially by American anthropologists, to the mental differences supposed to be associated with difference in “race”, in both adults and children. …

We may use the words of an eminent American authority (E.A. Hooton, Up from the Ape, London, 1931, p. 596): ‘…Until we know exactly how to distinguish a race and exactly what intelligence intelligence tests test, we shall have to hold in suspension the problem of racial mental differences.’ ”

pp. 134-136

“Descriptions of population are given a false appearance of exactness by the use of average figures for measurements, sometimes with the addition of extreme variations at either end. Such statements have little if any greater value than general impressions. …

They fill the pages of most of the many books on “The Races of Man”. This false method as been misapplied with endless industry, especially to head measurements. Such measurements are most easily made on specific social and political groups, and on their fallacious results all manner of hypotheses have been and are being erected around the unscientific conception of “race”. …

The only expression of measurement that is worthy of scientific consideration consists of curves of frequency-distribution and mathematical conceptions derived from them. But if even these are to have any value, the investigator must know exactly the nature of the group that is being measure – whether, for instance, it is a true random sample, or whether there has been some selection, and if so what kind of selection.

There is another group of ideas that has not only introduced an extraordinary number of errors and misunderstandings into discussions as to the “races” of man, but has also involved a fallacious method of presentation. The evolution of man and specifically, of the existing varieties of man, is frequently represented in the form of a tree. Much misunderstanding has unfortunately been arisen in the course of evolutionary discussion by the use of this term and its dependants “stem”, “stock”, “branch”, “root”, and so on. This simile is in many wasy very unfortunate, since the essential picture created by a tree is that of roots converging in a trunk which diminishes as it ascends, and gives off branches on the way. Now most of the elements of this picture must be discarded if we would visualize the process of biological descent. …

One of the most pernicious of all methods of viewing the European scene is what we may call the 'systematic anecdotal'… It would doubtless surprise many Germans to learn that in Germany the returned rate of illegitimate to total births is the highest in Europe except that of Austria and that it is nearly three times as high as in England and 50 per cent higher than in France…; that in Germany the suicide rate is double that in England and half as high again as in France…, and that in Germany the homicide rate is four times as high as in England and twice as high as in France. … Doubtless if we examined statistics of certain other matters we should discover that our own country was in no position to cast stone at others. And that is a very good reason to avoid national complacency and to seek that humane and objective attitude which science - through reason and absence of prejudice – alone can give. “

pp. 223-225

“Nor can the cultural level of a people serve as evidence of its innate ability or the reverse. The ancient Romans, perfectly correctly, regarded the inhabitants of this country and of Germany uncivilized. They would have been considerably surprised to find them leading the way in civilization a mere fifty or sixty generation later. In ancient Greece, some very eminent philosophers went further and ascribed to the northern “barbarians” an innate incapacity to rise to the attainments of the Greeks. They were confusing cultural level with innate capacity. The rapic rise of Arab culture to a high intellectual level and its subsequent fall and stagnation is another example. We must ourselves beware of falling into the same fallacity as regards the so-called “backward peoples” of the modern world. …

The sense of solidarity with co-nationals and of separateness from other nationals is of the essence of nationality. The nation, however, is a particular phase in the evolution of human groups, not anything permanent or inherent in human nature. It is in essentials a product of the last three hundred years, and quite different in nature and organization from others units of the same general type, such as clan, tribe, city-state, or empire. The idea of the “blood-tie” has been used to strengthen national sentiment because of the importance of such sentiment for unity and effectiveness in war. But mass-migration and military conquest, and the adoption of foreigners into the group by legal change of citizenship and by marriage… make the thesis of common descent impossible to uphold. The idea of a British, a French, a German, or an Italian “race” is a political fiction, and a dangerous one at that.

pp. 226-236

“.. besides facts and deductions, there exists what one can only characterize as a Nordic myth, ascribing to the 'Nordic race' most of the great advances of mankind during recorded history, and asserting their qualities of leadership fit them to rule over other races. The Aryan and Germanic myths are variants on the same theme… The Nordic type may be held up as an ideal, but this ideal is genetically unattainable, and will not affect the biological realities of the situation. … The word myth is used advisedly, since it frequently plays a semi-religious role, as basis for a creed of passionate racialism. …

Sweeping assertions are often made to the effect that half-castes are always unreliable, that they share the defects of both parent stocks, and so on and so forth. Such statements have no biological foundation. …

It is instructive to compare the treatment of the Jews in Germany with that of the Kulaks in Russia. The Kulaks, by standing in the way of rural collectivization, were an obstacle to the Government’s economic plans: they also provided a convenient scapegoat for any mistakes and failures that might occur. Their persecution was as horrifying as that of the Jews. But at least, it was not justified on false grounds of mysticism or pseudo-science. Their existence obstructed something which was of the essence of communist planning, and they had to submit or be killed or expelled. The Jews could not even submit; because a false ideal of race had been erected to cloak the economic and psychological motives of the regime ….

So long as national ideas, even in modified form, continue to dominate the world scene, the large-scale segregation of areas, each developing their own general type of culture, may be the policy to pursue. If unrestricted immigration seems likely to upset such a policy, restriction is justifiable … But do not let us in such cases make it a question of “race”, or become mystical on the object, or justify ourselves on false biological grounds. …

Racialism is a myth, and a dangerous myth at that. It is a cloak for selfish economic aims which in their uncloaked nakedness would look ugly enough. And it is not scientifically grounded. The essence of science is to appeal to fact.”

Julian Huxley vor dem Porträt seines
Großvaters T. H. Huxley
(“Darwins Bulldogge”); um 1935
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Huxley

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Anmerkung:

zu "Rassismus" und "sozialer Rassismus" s. auch Gutachten über Sarrazins Aussagen von Gideon Bosch, Moses-Mendelssohn Zentrum Potsdam, besprochen z.B. in der Süddeutschen Zeitung
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/gutachten-zu-sarrazin-eindeutig-rassistisch-1.54865

Zugang zum Text des Gutachtens über einen Link bei tagesschau.de
http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/sarrazin154.html

"Rassenlehre" und moderner Rechtsextremismus (Neue Rechte),
siehe z.B. (mit Bezug auf Sarrazin-Referenzpersonen Volkmar Weiss und Heiner Rindermann)

http://knol.google.com/k/manipulationen-in-wikipedia#

und auf diesem Blog
http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2011/03/erstaunliches-aus-dem-reich-artam.html

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NACHTRÄGE

Julian Huxley war ein Enkel von Thomas Henry Huxley, der sich selbst als „Darwins Bulldogge“ bezeichnete, und Bruder von Aldous Huxley, Autor des legendären anti-utopischen Romans, „Schöne Neue Welt“. Er wurde 1945 der erste Generaldirektor der UNESCO und bereitete den Weg für die Allgemeine Erklärung der Menschenrechte maßgeblich mit.

Interessanterweise wird auch Julian Huxley (wie etliche andere, die sich darob im Grabe umdrehen würden, siehe z.B. Wilhelm Stern), bei Sarrazin für seine Argumentation von den genetisch dümmeren und damit untüchtigeren Volksgruppen instrumentalisiert. Denn Julian Huxley hat auch ein Werk geschrieben, in dem er den damals neuesten Stand des Wissens zur Verbindung der Darwin’schen Lehre und der Mendel’schen Gesetze zusammenführt.

Das reicht bei Sarrazin schon aus, um ihn ganz nebenbei als einen Wegbereiter Sarrazin‘scher Theorien zu vereinnahmen. Er beruft sich dabei allerdings auf eine Publikation von Richard Lynn, einem seiner Haupt-Ideengeber neben Volkmar Weiss. Ob er Texte von Julian Huxley selbst gelesen hat, muss bezweifelt werden.  

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Auszug aus einem Eintrag zum Thema „Rassismus“ vom 23.04.2011 auf

http://www.wohnungstausch.biz/article/Rassismus

„ Rassismus, im strengen Sinne des Wortes, erklärt soziale Phänomene anhand pseudowissenschaftlicher Analogieschlüsse aus der Biologie.
Als Reaktion auf die egalitären Universalitätsansprüche der Aufklärung versucht er eine scheinbar unantastbare Rechtfertigung sozialer Ungleichheit durch den Bezug auf naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse. Kultur, sozialer Status, Begabung und Charakter, Verhalten, etc. gelten als durch die erbbiologische Ausstattung determiniert.
Eine vermeintlich natur- oder gottgegebene, hierarchisch-autoritäre Herrschaftsordnung und die daraus gefolgerten Handlungszwänge dienen der Rechtfertigung von Diskriminierung, Ausgrenzung, Unterdrückung, Verfolgung oder Vernichtung von Individuen und Gruppen – sowohl auf individueller als auch auf institutioneller Ebene. Hautfarbe, Blut und Gene, aber auch Sprache, Religion oder Kultur stabilisieren die Abgrenzung zwischen den verschiedenen Gruppen und sollen die Vorrangstellung des Eigenen vor dem Fremden sichern.

Der zivilisatorische Fortschritt der Moderne wird als dekadente, einer natürlichen Ungleichheit der Menschen widersprechende, Verfallsgeschichte interpretiert. Lexikon der Politik, Hrsg. Dieter Nohlen, München 1995, ISBN 3-406-36904-9: Band 1. Politische Theorien, S. 497 …
.
1935 kritisierten Julian Huxley und Alfred C. Haddon in ihrem Buch „We Europeans: A survey of Racial problems“, dass es für die Idee verschiedener, voneinander abgegrenzter Menschenrassen keinerlei wissenschaftliche Beweise gebe. Klassifikationen anhand phänotypischer oder somatischer Merkmale und darauf basierende Bewertungen sowie jede Form von «Rassenbiologie» lehnten sie als pseudowissenschaftlich ab. …

Jacques Barzun klassifizierte in seinem richtungsweisenden Werk „Race: a Study in Superstition“ von 1937 den «Rassengedanken» (racialism) Im Deutschen lässt sich die Differenz zwischen racialism und racism nur schwer wiedergeben. Im angloamerikanischen Sprachgebrauch werden beide Ausdrücke mitunter koextensiv gebraucht. Frank Hamilton Hankins verwendet den Ausdruck racialists zuerst 1926 in seinem Buch: The Racial Basis of Civilization: A Critique of the Nordic Doctrine. Darin befasst er sich mit der Idee der "nordischen Überlegenheit" [nordicism], bzw. deren Vertretern [nordicists]. Er differenziert in der Umwelt-Anlage-Diskussion egalitarians (wie Franz Boas) von den racialists, die von einem Primat der Rasse und der Rassenungleichheit ausgehen und Verfechter der Rassentrennung sind, zu denen er unter anderem Gobineau, Stoddard und auch den Ku-Klux-Klan zählt. Der Begriff racism wurde später geprägt und bezeichnet «Rassismus». “
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Siehe auch den am 23.4.2011 aktualisierten Eintrag zu „Rassismus“ in Wikipedia:http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rassismus

Auszug:

„Im 20. Jahrhundert haben sich in vielen Ländern ausgeprägte Formen des Rassismus herausgebildet, die zum Teil zu offiziellen Ideologien der jeweiligen Staaten wurden – Beispiele sind:

• Die Jim Crow-Ära, die Zeit der Rassendiskriminierung in den USA, die zwischen 1890 und 1960 ihren Höhepunkt erreichte
• der rassistisch motivierte Völkermord an den Armeniern im Osmanischen Reich
• die Rassengesetze der Nationalsozialisten in Deutschland und in anderen europäischen Staaten zwischen 1933 und 1945
• das Apartheids-Regime in Südafrika, das nach 1948 seine extremste Entwicklung nahm
• die Politik der australischen Regierung gegenüber den Aborigines

Seit 1995, der UNESCO-Deklaration gegen den "Rasse"-Begriff ^[20], zur UNESCO-Konferenz »Gegen Rassismus, Gewalt und Diskriminierung« in Stadtschlaining, wird nicht nur jede biologische, sondern auch jede soziologische Ableitung rasseähnlicher Kategorien geächtet…“

Anmerkung:
Mit dem Einfügen des Wikipedia-Auszugs, der die Rassengesetze der Nationalsozialisten mit denen anderer europäischer Staaten und mit anderen Beispielen in eine Reihe stellt, soll das unvorstellbare Ausmaß der Nazi-Verbrechen nicht verharmlost werden. Den "Wikipedianern" ist eine Bearbeitung dieser unkommentierten chronologischen Reihung zu empfehlen, um die Singularität des nationalsozialistischen Rassenstaats und seiner Verbrechen deutlich zu machen, ohne auf eine Darstellung der Bezüge zum Rassismus in anderen Ländern zu verzichen. Die ideengeschichtlichen und faktischen Zusammenhänge des Nazi-Rassenwahns mit anderen Auswüchsen der rassenbiologischen Ideen des 20. Jahrhunderts unberücksichtigt zu lassen, wäre ebenfalls eine Verharmlosung.
Ideengeschichtliche Zusammenhänge zeigen sich z.B. an dem lebhaften Interesse Adolf Hitlers am rassistischen Terror des Ku-Klux Klan in den USA. Dieser Terror ist mit dem Nazi-Terror, der unvergleich größere Dimensionen hatte und Teil einer staatlichen Vernichtungsmaschinerie war, nicht zu vergleichen. Aber auch er darf nicht verharmlost werden - in seiner Bedeutung für die Betroffenen und als eine von Beobachtern empfundene "Rechtfertigung" für den Abbau moralischer Hemmschwellen.

Hitler interessierte sich leidenschaftlich für die Rassentrennung in den USA und die Rolle der rassistischen Terror-Organisation Ku-Klux Klan (KKK). Über Hitlers Interesse am KKK berichtete später der Deutsch-Amerikaner Ernst Hanfstaengl, ein wichtiger Unterstützer, Berater und Wegbegleiter Hitlers in den Jahren des Aufstiegs der Nationalsozialisten (mit dem Tenor, dass er, Hanfstaengl, ihn in dieser Begeisterung vergeblich zu bremsen versucht habe).

Ernst Hanfstaengl: Hitler: The Missing Years, London, 1957, Nachdruck 1994

http://books.google.de/books?id=GW8VEnNjqCAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Zu Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts wurden in den USA zuweilen Postkarten verschickt, auf denen zu sehen war, wie grinsende Weiße Schwarze aufhängten (denen z.B. Beziehungen mit weißen Frauen vorgeworfen wurden) und ganze Familien dabei zusahen, als handele es sich um ein Picknick. Auch nachdem 1908 das Verschicken von Ansichtskarten mit Lynchmotiven verboten wurde, genoss der Ku-Klux Klan, eine treibende Kraft für Aktionen der Einschüchterung und Gewalt gegen schwarze Amerikaner, noch beträchtlichen Rückhalt in Teilen der Bevölkerung. – Der Autor Hermann Ploppa schließt daraus und aus anderen Zusammenhängen (wie der antisemitistischen Propaganda Henry Fords und Einflüssen amerikanischer Eugeniker), dass „Hitlers amerikanische Lehrer“ Geburtshelfer der Nazi-Bewegung gewesen seien. Seine Schlussfolgerungen sind aus meiner Sicht zu pauschal und polemisch, aber das Buch enthält wichtige und wenig bekannte Informationen mit nachprüfbaren Quellennachweisen.

Hermann Ploppa: Hitlers amerikanische Lehrer, 2008

http://books.google.de/books?id=IG55kbmOq68C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Dokumentiert ist auch ein anti-semitischer Lynchmord im KKK-Stil, der fotografiert und als Ansichtskarten-Motiv vermarktet wurde (1913 in Atlanta an Leo Frank, einem Juden, der zu Unrecht des Mordes an einem 13-jährigen christlichen Mädchen beschuldigt wurde). - Rabbi Ken Spiro, History Crash Course #59, The Face of Antisemitism, 2011;
http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48959126.html
Der Fall Frank führte in den USA zur Gründung der "Anti-Defamation League" durch die jüdische Organisation B'nai B'rith.

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Die nationalsozialistische "Rassenpolitik" nahm Impulse aus der "Rassentrennung" in den USA und aus der Eugenik auf und hatte in den USA, England und anderen "westlichen" Ländern nicht nur Kritiker, sondern auch Bewunderer. Einer von nicht wenigen war Theodor G. Bilbo.

Aus Wikipedia:

"„White supremacy“ („Überlegenheit der weißen Rasse“) [Bearbeiten]
Aus Bilbos Perspektive, auf der ihm eigenen Werte-Skala, war seine, die weiße Rasse, eindeutig höherstehend, die „Neger-Rasse“ minderwertig – und zwar unabänderlich:
“It is the height of folly, to assume that environment, discipline, education, and all other external devices can affect the blood, smooth down inequalities between individuals of the same breed, much less between different breeds, or transmute racial qualities.”
(„Es ist der Gipfel der Dummheit zu behaupten, das [soziale] Umfeld, Disziplin, Erziehung und all die anderen von außen kommenden Maßnahmen könnten das Blut beeinflussen und die Ungleichheiten mildern zwischen den Individuen derselben Rasse. [Das funktioniert natürlich] noch weniger zwischen den unterschiedlichen Rassen, oder abgewandelten rassischen Qualitäten.“) (Rede am 24. Mai 1938 / Cong. Rec., 75 Cong., 3 Sess., 7363)
Naheliegend erkannte er in den deutschen Nationalsozialisten geistige Verwandte und sah in dem von den Nazis propagierten Leitbild des reinrassigen arischen Herrenmenschen ein erstrebenswertes Vorbild:
“The Germans appreciate the importance of race values. They understand that racial improvement is the greatest asset that any country can have. […] They know, as few other nations have realized, that the impoverishment of race values contributes more to the impairment and destruction of a civilization than any other agency.”
(„Die Deutschen schätzen die Bedeutung der Rassenmerkmale richtig ein. Sie verstehen, dass die rassische Verbesserung das größte Vermögen eines Landes ist. […] Sie, als auch einige andere Nationen haben erkannt, dass die Minderung der Rasse Werte ausschlaggebender für die Schädigung und Zerstörung der Zivilisation ist als alles andere.“) (Rede am 24. Mai 1938 / Cong. Rec., 75 Cong., 3 Sess. 7361)"
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_G._Bilbo


Bilbo setzte sich für die Aussiedlung von US-Bürgern mit afrikanischen Vorfahren nach Afrika ein, in diesem Zusammenhang u.a. auch für die Gründung des Staates Liberia. Sein 1947 erschienenes Buch “Take your choice: Segregation or Mongrelization” gilt als ein typisches Produkt der von Rassenhass gepraegten “Jim Crow Ära” in den USA, nur eine Generation vor dem Beginn der Bürgerrechts-Bewegung. Bilbo warnte darin vor drohender Verdummung der Bevölkerung (“mongrelization”), wenn nicht eine strikte Rassentrennung durchgesetzt würde.
Eher als die Thesen von Julian Huxley liegen die von Theodore Bilbo auf der Linie von Sarrazins Argumentation. - Aus der Buchbeschreibung eines Antiquariats-Buchhändlers zu Bilbos “Take your Choice”:
“Despite his abhorrent supremacist philosophy, Bilbo was an extremely adept politician and a legendary stump speaker commanding a presence that belied his diminutive stature. Bilbo's populist policies greatly aided Mississippi and influenced other Southern demagogue politicians including, most notably, Huey Long. Albeit intellectually indefensible and morally repugnant, TAKE YOUR CHOICE remains a significant relic of the Jim Crow-era Deep South for it reflects the depth of the cruel hatred that predominated the mind of more than just the author a generation before the Civil Rights era began to correct the multitude of moral, legal, and physical injustices of prior centuries.”
David Hallinan, Bookseller (Columbus, MS, U.S.A.)
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=6411586098&searchurl=kn%3Dbilbo%2Bmongrelization%26sts%3Dt%26x%3D73%26y%3D11

Als die Vernichtungsmaschinerie in den von Hitler-Deutschland besetzten Gebieten ihren Höhepunkt erreichte, wurde immer deutlicher, was die Umsetzung einer "evolutionären Doktrin", die zwischen überlebenswürdigen Tauglichen und nicht überlebenswürdigen Untauglichen unterscheidet, als staatliche Politik bedeuten kann. Der Anthropologe Sir Arthur Keith über Hitler (1942): "Ein Evolutionist nicht nur in der Theorie, sondern, wie Millionen auf ihre Kosten erfahren haben, in der Härte der Praxis." - Unter der Überschrift "The Behavior of Germany Considered from an Evolutionary Point of View in 1942" schrieb Keith:

 "The leader of Germany is an evolutionist not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice. For him the national "front" of Europe is also the evolutionary "front"; he regards himself, and is regarded, as the incarnation of the will of Germany, the purpose of that will being to guide the evolutionary destiny of its people. ... As a source of information concerning Hitler's evolutionary and ethical doctrines I have before me Mein Kampf, extracts from The Times covering German affairs during the last twenty years, and the monthly journal R.F.C. (Racial Political Foreign Correspondence), published by the German Bureau for Human Betterment and Eugenics and circulated by that bureau for the enlightenment of anthropologists living abroad. In the number of that journal for July 1937, there appears in English the text of a speech given by the German Fuhrer on January 30, 1937, in reply to a statement made by Mr. Anthony Eden that "the German race theory" stood in the way of a common discussion of European problems. Hitler maintained his theory would have an opposite effect; "it will bring about a real understanding for the first time." "It is not for men," said the Fuhrer, "to discuss the question of why Providence created different races, but rather to recognize that it punishes those who disregard its work of creation." I may remark incidentally that in this passage, as in many others, the German Fuhrer, like Bishop Barnes and many of our more intellectual clergy, regards evolution as God's mode of creation. God having created races, it is therefore "the noblest and most sacred duty for each racial species of mankind to preserve the purity of the blood which God has given it." Here we have expounded the perfectly sound doctrine of evolutionary isolation; even as an ethical doctrine it should not be condemned. No German must be guilty of the "greatest racial sin" that of bringing the fruits of hybridity into the world. The reproductive "genes" which circulate within the frontiers of Germany must be kept uncontaminated, so that they may work out the racial destiny of the German people without impediment. Hitler is also a eugenist. Germans who suffer from hereditable imperfections of mind or of body must be rendered infertile, so that "the strong may not be plagued by the weak." Sir Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics, taught a somewhat similar evolutionary doctrine ..."
Aus: EVOLUTION AND ETHICS by Sir Arthur Keith WITH A PREFACE BY Earnest A. Hooton, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, Copyright, 1946, 1947, http://www.bearfabrique.org/Evolution08/evolution-and-ethics.html