Imagined Communities Reflection History Essay Paper

Deadly Medicine
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Deadly Medicine: Creating The Master Race
Susan Bachrach's article gives more in-depth insights into the Nazi Germany regime. I was taken through how Adolf Hitler's Nazi socialist party attempted to create an "Aryan Master race." So-called racial hygiene programs were initiated. The aim was to rid Germany of peoples considered threats to the national body. The article documents the use of human genetics to justify the mass murders of millions of Jews and ethnic minorities. This article helped me understand how medical experts got involved. Psychiatrists, anthropologists, and geneticists used science to promote Nazi racial ideology. This act persuaded the German public of the legitimacy of the racial doctrine. I disagree with how the medical expert made Germans view ethnic minorities as alien. I think this made many Germans feel selfish and superior (Bachrach, 2007). The article made me find out that racial hygiene began way before the rise of Adolf Hitler. According to Bachrach, the late 1800s and early 1900s marked the revolution of genetics. She states that there was an increased understanding of heredity. This knowledge caused many scientists to fantasize about a perfect race. Scientists supported getting rid of unproductive people, such as mentally ill and criminals in society. They said this action would clean the Germanic race. It also ensures they don't pass those traits to anyone else.
I learned that for Germany to achieve European dominance politicians advocated for eugenic solutions. Proponents of this movement preferred the term eugenics rather than racial hygiene. They reasoned that the Germanic people were undergoing racial degeneration. One method was euthanasia which eliminated people considered unworthy. It gained prominence after World War 1 when Germany suffered massive fatalities. Men deemed unproductive underwent vasectomy while women's fallopian tubes were sterilized (Bachrach, 2007). It was believed this prevented the reproduction of inferior people. 
I am not surprised that Hitler's regime gained many supporters. Because before coming to power, there existed significant advocates of racial superiority. The Nazi enacting Blood protection laws set the tone for marginalizing racial minorities. Prominent Jewish scholars were removed, and anti-Semitic rhetoric thrived. The Nazi preyed on the radical racial policies to use euthanasia. This racial hygiene program culminated in the Holocaust. More than six million Jews were annihilated. Hitler used gas chambers spread across Germany and Austria to eliminate Jews on an industrial scale. I find it shocking, seeing how the desire for racial superiority leads to mass murder. The title of the article fits well with the content as it shows how medical research was used to promote the belief of a superior and inferior race.
Deadly medicine: The science of race
From the article, I can see how scientists played an integral role in enacting the Nazi's racial policies. I didn't think science could be used as a weapon to justify racism. Massin's article shows me how human geneticists, psychiatrists, and anthropologists perpetuated racism. These scientists legitimized the Third Reich's racial and medical ...