Alfred Ploetz (August 22, 1860 – March 20,
1940) was a German physician, biologist, eugenicist
known for coining the term racial hygiene
(Rassenhygiene) and promoting the concept
in Germany.
Rassenhygiene is a form of eugenics.
== Life and career ==
Alfred Ploetz was born in Swinemünde, Germany
(now Świnoujście, Poland) and he grew up
and attended school in Breslau (now Wrocław).
At this time he began his friendship with
Carl Hauptmann, brother of the famous author
Gerhart Hauptmann.
In 1879 he founded a secret racist youth society.
In Gerhart Hauptmann's Drama "Vor Sonnenaufgang"
(Before Sunrise) which was first performed
on October 20, 1889 in Berlin, the key figure
of the journalist Loth is based on Ploetz.
After school Ploetz at first studied political
economy in Breslau.
There he joined the "Freie wissenschaftliche
Vereinigung" (free scientific union).
Among his friends were – besides his brother
– his former school friend Ferdinand Simon
(later son-in-law of August Bebel), the brothers
Carl and Gerhart Hauptmann, Heinrich Laux,
and Charles Proteus Steinmetz.
This circle enthusiastically read the works
of Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin.
Carl Hauptmann was a student of Ernst Haeckel,
and Gerhart Hauptmann and Ploetz attended
some of his lectures.
The group expanded and developed a plan of
founding a colony in one of the pacific states
and established itself as the "Pacific association".
They planned a "community on friendly, socialist
and maybe also pan-Germanic basis".
In consequence of the prosecution of socialistically
minded persons in application of Otto von
Bismarck's anti-socialist laws (1878–1890),
in 1883 Ploetz fled to Zurich, where he continued
to study political economy with Julius Platter
(1844–1923).
In his memoirs Ploetz states as an important
reason for his choice of Zurich that in his
studies in Breslau socialist theories were
only incidentally mentioned.
After living for a half a year in the United
States, Ploetz returned to Zurich and began
to study medicine.
In 1886, he fell in love with a fellow student
Agnes Bluhm despite being involved with Pauline
Rüdin.
They decided to get married early in 1887.
Ploetz was also seeing an American named Mary
Sherwood who was studying hypnotism.
In 1890 Ploetz became medical doctor and married
his former girlfriend Pauline, though the
two never had children.
Bluhm however kept Ploetz as a close friend
throughout her life and they both shared similar
views on racial purity and the benefits of
eugenics.
Ploetz and his wife lived in the US for four
years, and divorced in 1898.
Ploetz later married Anita Nordenholz.
This marriage produced three children: Ulrich
(called Uli), Cordelia (called Deda) and Wilfrid
(called Fridl, 1912–2013).Ploetz first proposed
the theory of racial hygiene (race-based eugenics)
in his "Racial Hygiene Basics" (Grundlinien
einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895.
In 1904 Ploetz founded the periodical "Archiv
für Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie" with
Fritz Lenz as chief editor, and in 1905 the
German Society for Racial Hygiene (De Berliner
Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene) with 31 members.
page In 1907 the society became the "International
Society for Racial Hygiene".
In 1930 he became an honorary doctor of the
University of Munich.
Ploetz was a supporter of the Nazi Party,
which took power in 1933.
Ploetz wrote in April 1933 that he believed
Hitler would bring racial hygiene from its
previous marginality into the mainstream.
In 1933 Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick
established an "expert advisory committee
for population and racial policy," which included
Ploetz, Fritz Lenz, Ernst Rüdin and Hans
F.K.
Günther.
This expert advisory committee had the task
of advising the Nazis on the implementation
and enforcement of legislation regarding racial
and eugenic issues.
In 1936, Hitler appointed Ploetz to a professorship.
In 1937 he joined the Nazi party.He died at
the age of 79 and is buried at his home in
Herrsching on the Ammersee in Bavaria.
After his death, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer
praised his "inner sympathy and enthusiasm
[with] the National Socialist Movement".
Ernst Rüdin, also a committed National Socialist,
praised Ploetz two years before as a man "by
his meritorious services has helped to set
up our Nazi ideology."
== 
Theories ==
In his book The efficiency of our race and
the protection of the weak (1895) he described
a society in which eugenic ideas were applied.
Society would examine the moral and intellectual
capacity of citizens to decide on marriage
and the permitted number of children.
It may also include a prohibition on reproduction.
Disabled children are aborted, the sick and
weak, twins and children whose parents Ploetz
considers too old or young, are "eliminated".
Along with many other eugenicists in Europe
and America, Ploetz believed in the superiority
of the Nordic race.
His writings were a major influence on Nazi
ideology.
His opinion of the Jewish Question changed
during the course of his life, but his view
and the doctrine of the NSDAP were in accord
by the time the party came to power in 1933.
In his early writings Ploetz credited Jews
as the second highest cultural race after
Europeans.
He identified no substantial difference in
"racial character" between Aryans and Jews,
arguing that the mental abilities of Jews
and their role in the development of human
culture made them indispensable to the "process
of racial mix" which would enhance humanity.
The high aptitude of the Jews and their outstanding
role in the progress of mankind considering
men like Jesus, Spinoza, Marx has to be kindly
acknowledged without hesitation...
All this Antisemitism is a flop which will
vanish slowly in the light of scientific knowledge
and a humane democracy".
Later he revised this view.
He stressed that the distinctiveness of Jews
indicated that their mental characteristics
would adversely affect Aryans by introducing
individualism and lack of love for the military
and the nation.
He favored the global dominance of the Aryan
race.
== Bibliography ==
(Alfred Hoche, Alfred Ploetz, Alfred Vierkandt,
Carl Hans Heinze Sennhenn) German Eugenicists:
ISBN 9781230541914
(Alfred J Ploetz) Die Tüchtigkeit unsrer
Rasse und der Schutz der Schwachen ISBN 1103490796
(Alfred J Ploetz) Archiv für Rassen- und
Gesellschafts-Biologie, einschliesslich Rassen-
und Gesellschafts-Hygiene 1908, Fuenfter Jahrgang
ISBN 117441166X
== See also ==
Ernst Rudin
Eugen Fischer
Eugenics
Karl Binding
Racial hygiene
Wilhelm Schallmayer
