Media Within a Movement: the Vossische Zeitung's Coverage of the Eugenics Movement in Weimar Germany, 1919-1933
Open Access
- Author:
- Marcucci, Keirstyn Nicole
- Area of Honors:
- History
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Greg Eghigian, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Michael James Milligan, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Eugenics
Germany
Weimar Germany
Race-Hygiene
Eugenics Movement
Vossische Zeitung - Abstract:
- During the Weimar Republic era (1919-1933), the German eugenics movement began as the damages of World War One grew increasingly worse. The German government feared the aftermath of the war, especially quantitative and qualitative population decline. Many members of the middle-class believed that the population of the hereditarily unfit continued to grow, while the population of the healthy steadily declined, creating a weak country that lacked political or economic power. For many Germans, the solution to this increasingly desperate problem became the eugenics movement, which hoped to eliminate the unfit society. But, before this exploitation occurred, popular support for the movement first needed to exist; thus creating gradual eugenics movement, unlike what existed abroad. The growing movement was well presented by the Vossische Zeitung, a German newspaper that helped popularize the movement in many ways. From 1919 until 1923, the paper first presented the movement from the viewpoint of different professionals, resulting in a movement that remained rather limited in its appeal since the articles were written in technical language. After this, the newspaper moved into an era of education from 1924 until 1929, where it focused on presenting the movement in laymen’s terms, a method that allowed eugenics to expand its popularity. By 1930, the movement grew into a confident, tempered movement, which resulted in the implementation of the country’s first eugenic measure. The passage of a eugenic law demonstrates how far the eugenics movement grew throughout the Weimar Republic, from a movement supported by only the middle-class to one that gained enough traction to pass a sweeping sterilization bill, yet one that remained gradual and incremental in its implementation, a part of the eugenics movement that is often overlooked.