From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to "cleanse" German society of individuals viewed as biological threats to the nation's "health." Enlisting the help of physicians and medically trained geneticists, psychologist, and anthropologists, the Nazis developed racial health policies that began with the mass sterilization of "genetically diseased" persons and ended with the near annihilation of European Jewish population.
Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, ideas known as Racial Hygiene or Eugenics began to be part of German health education and government funded research.
Eugenic supporters believed that the German government had a duty to guard their “superior” citizens and sterilize the “inferior” citizens that were a negative impact on society.
Eugenics advocates in Germany included doctors, health officials and teachers in the medical fields. Many of these supporters worked on government committees and conducted research on family heredity. They warned that if German did not produce more “fit” children they may be headed towards extinction.
A growing group of people began to link Eugenics to race and stated that the “fair skin and hair” of the Nordic people of Europe were in fact a racially superior group of people.
Eugenic ideas were officially absorbed into the philosophy and platform of the Nazi Political Party during their beginnings in the early 1920’s in Germany.