Eugen Fischer

2025-09-01T11:59:42Z

2001:8003:3E20:8901:2807:CAB1:B444:624D:

{{Short description|German physician and racial hygienist (1874–1967)}}
{{for|the historian|Eugen Fischer (historian)}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Eugen Fischer
|image = Eugen Fischer box crop.png
|caption = Fischer in 1934
|birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1874|6|5}}
|birth_place = [[Karlsruhe]], [[Grand Duchy of Baden]], [[German Empire]]
|death_date = {{Death date and age|df=y|1967|7|9|1874|7|5}}
|death_place = [[Freiburg im Breisgau]], [[West Germany]]
|nationality = [[Germans|German]]
|party = [[Nazi Party]]
|known_for = [[Nazi eugenics]]
|education = [[University of Freiburg]]
|occupation = Professor
}}

'''Eugen Fischer''' (5 June 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and [[eugenics]], and a member of the [[Nazi Party]]. He served as director of the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]], and also served as rector of the [[Frederick William University of Berlin]].

Fischer's ideas informed the [[Nuremberg Laws]] of 1935 which served to justify the Nazi Party's belief in German racial superiority to other "races", and especially the Jews.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zgo9DAAAQBAJ&q=eugen+fischer+holocaust&pg=PT24|title=Ethics and Suffering since the Holocaust: Making Ethics "First Philosophy" in Levinas, Wiesel and Rubenstein|last=Anderson|first=Ingrid L.|date=2016-05-26|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317298359|language=en}}</ref> [[Adolf Hitler]] read Fischer's work while he was imprisoned in 1923 and he used Fischer's eugenic notions to support his vision of a pure [[Aryan race|Aryan society]] in his manifesto ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' (''My Struggle'').<ref name=":0" />

After the war, Fischer completed his memoirs. It is believed that in them he lessened his role in the [[genocide|genocidal]] programme of [[Nazi Germany]]. He died in 1967.

==Life==
Fischer was born in [[Karlsruhe]], [[Grand Duchy of Baden]], in 1874. He studied medicine, [[folkloristics]], history, anatomy, and anthropology in Berlin, Freiburg and Munich.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.archiv-berlin.mpg.de/tektonik/deutsch.php/AbteilungVa/Rep49|title=Fischer, Eugen|author=Max-Planck-Gesellschaft - Archive|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819082528/http://www.archiv-berlin.mpg.de/tektonik/deutsch.php/AbteilungVa/Rep49|archive-date=2014-08-19}}</ref> In 1918, he joined the Anatomical Institute in Freiburg,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/Adelhauser-Duerrenberger3.htm|title=Eugen Fischer}}</ref> part of the [[University of Freiburg]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.freiburg-postkolonial.de/Seiten/DKZ1921-Nr01-S9.htm|title=Bitte des anatomischen Instituts Freiburg i.B.|author=Eugen Fischer|year=1921}}</ref>

==Early work==
[[File:Shark Island - Death Camp - BBC.jpg|alt=A black and white photo depicting the severed head of a [[Shark Island concentration camp|Shark Island]] prisoner, which was used for medical experimentation|thumb|Head of [[Herero people|Herero]] prisoner at [[Shark Island concentration camp|Shark Island]] used for medical experimentation]]

In 1906, Fischer conducted experiments and medical “research” in [[German South West Africa]] (now Namibia). He studied the [[Basters]], offspring of German or [[Boer]] men and Black African ([[Khoekhoe]]) women in that area. His study concluded with a call to prevent the production of a [[mixed race]] by the prohibition of [[Interracial marriage|mixed marriages]] such as those which he had studied. It included [[human experimentation]] on the [[Herero people|Herero]] and [[Nama people]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20Herero%20and%20Namaqua%20Genocide.htm |title=Herero and Namaqua Genocide - Herero Genocide Nama Genocide |access-date=2014-01-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111209033514/http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20Herero%20and%20Namaqua%20Genocide.htm |archive-date=2011-12-09 }}</ref> He argued that while the existing "[[Mischling]]" descendants of the mixed marriages might be useful for Germany, he recommended that they should not continue to reproduce. His recommendations were followed and by 1912 interracial marriage was prohibited throughout the German colonies.<ref>''Holocaust Encyclopedia'', p. 420</ref><ref name="Friedlander 1997, p. 11">Friedlander 1997, p. 11</ref> As a precursor to his experiments on Jews in Nazi Germany, he collected bones and skulls for his studies, in part from [[Medical Experimentation in Africa|medical experimentation on African]] prisoners of war in Namibia during the [[Herero and Nama genocide]]. Fischer also sterilized Herero women.<ref>http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20Herero%20and%20Namaqua%20Genocide.htmMedical{{dead link|date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} experimentation in Africa</ref><ref>{{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/details/hitlersblackvict00clar | url-access = registration | page = [https://archive.org/details/hitlersblackvict00clar/page/44 44] | quote = sterilization of herero women. | title = Hitler's black victims: The historical experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi era | publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 9780415932950 | last1 = Lusane | first1 = Clarence | author-link = Clarence Lusane | date = 2002-12-13}}</ref>

His ideas which were related to the maintenance of the apparent purity of races, influenced future German Nazi legislation on race, including the [[Nuremberg laws]].<ref name="Friedlander 1997, p. 11" />

In 1927, Fischer was a speaker at the [[World Population Conference]] which was held in Geneva, Switzerland.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ross|first=Edward Alsworth|date=October 1927|title=Birth Control Review|url=https://lifedynamics.com/app/uploads/2015/09/1927-10-October.pdf|journal=World Population Conference|access-date=2019-09-02|archive-date=2020-05-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200514234021/https://lifedynamics.com/app/uploads/2015/09/1927-10-October.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> In the same year, Fischer became the director of the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]] ([[KWI-A]]), a role for which he'd been recommended the prior year by [[Erwin Baur]].<ref>Schmul 2003, p. 25.</ref>

==Nazi Germany==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-15664, Farbiger Junge.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Young Rhinelander who was classified as a [[Rhineland bastard]] and hereditarily unfit under the Nazi regime as a result of his [[Multiracial people|mixed race heritage]]]]

In the years from 1937–1938 Fischer and his colleagues analysed 600 children in [[Nazi Germany]] who were descended from French-African soldiers who occupied western areas of Germany after the [[World War I|First World War]] and were known as the [[Rhineland bastard]]s; the children were subsequently subjected to [[Compulsory sterilization#Germany|sterilization]].<ref>Bioethics: an anthology Helga Kuhse, Peter Singer page 232 Wiley-Blackwell 2006</ref>

[[File:WP Josef Mengele 1956.jpg|thumb|left|Photograph from [[Josef Mengele]]'s Argentine identification document (1956)]]
Fischer did not officially join the [[Nazi Party]] until 1940.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_WSs5_SqBxAC&dq=Erwin+Baur%2C+nazi+party&pg=PA88 "Human biodiversity: genes, race, and history"], Jonathan M. Marks. Transaction Publishers, 1995. p. 88. {{ISBN|0202020339}}, 9780202020334.</ref> However, he was influential with National Socialists early on. Adolf Hitler read his two-volume work, ''Principles of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene'' (first published in 1921 and co-written by [[Erwin Baur]] and [[Fritz Lenz]]) while incarcerated in 1923 and used its ideas in ''Mein Kampf''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JkXJZtI9DQoC&q=Foundations+of+Human+Hereditary+Teaching+and+Racial+Hygiene&pg=PA539|title=From a Race of Masters to a Master Race: 1948 To 1848|page=539|author=A. E. Samaan|publisher=A.E. Samaan|isbn=978-1626600003|year=2013|author-link=A. E. Samaan}}</ref> He also wrote ''The [[Rehoboth (homeland)|Rehoboth]] Bastards and the Problem of [[Miscegenation]] among Humans'' (1913) ({{langx|de|Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen}}), a field study which provided context for later racial debates, influenced German colonial legislation. [[Nuremberg laws]].<ref name="HE">''Holocaust Encyclopedia'' p. 420.</ref>

Under the Nazi regime, Fischer developed the physiological specifications such as skull dimensions which were used to determine racial origins, and he developed the [[Fischer–Saller scale]] for hair colour. He and the members of his team experimented on [[Romani people|Gypsies]] and [[Afro-Germans|African-Germans]], drawing their blood and measuring their skulls. After directing the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]], he was succeeded by [[Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer]], who tutored [[Josef Mengele]] when he was active at [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]].

In 1933, Fischer signed the ''[[Vow of allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State]]''. In the same year, [[Adolf Hitler]] appointed him rector of the [[Frederick William University of Berlin]], now Humboldt University.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historische-kommission-muenchen-editionen.de/rektoratsreden/anzeige/index.php?type=universitaet&id=104|title=Rektoratsreden im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert – Online-Bibliographie - Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin|first=Ferdinand|last=Lasalle|website=www.historische-kommission-muenchen-editionen.de|access-date=19 April 2018}}</ref> Fischer retired from the university in 1942.
[[Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer]] was a student of Fischer.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich|author=Michael H. Kater|year=2011|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|doi=10.1353/bhm.2011.0067|volume=85|pages=515–516|s2cid=72443192}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IjUUAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |title=Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth-Century|author1=Randall Hansen |author2=Desmond King |year=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=328|isbn=978-1107434592}}</ref>

Efforts to return the Namibian skulls which were taken by Fischer were started with an investigation which was conducted by the University of Freiburg in 2011 and they were completed with the return of the skulls in March 2014.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pr.uni-freiburg.de/pm/2014/pm.2014-03-04.18-en|title=Repatriation of Skulls from Namibia University of Freiburg hands over human remains in ceremony|year=2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403122718/http://www.pr.uni-freiburg.de/pm/2014/pm.2014-03-04.18-en|archive-date=2014-04-03}}</ref><ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/5c-wJDUW89A Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20150719011942/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c-wJDUW89A Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c-wJDUW89A|title=NAMPA: WHK skulls repatriated to Namibia 07 March 2014|last=Namibia Press Agency|date=7 March 2014|access-date=19 April 2018|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newera.com.na/2014/02/28/germany-send-35-skulls/|title=Germany to send back 35 skulls|date=28 February 2014|website=newera.com.na|access-date=19 April 2018|archive-date=9 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140409232105/http://www.newera.com.na/2014/02/28/germany-send-35-skulls/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1944, Fischer intervened in an attempt to get his friend [[Martin Heidegger]], the Nazi philosopher, released from service in the ''[[Volkssturm]]'' militia. However, Heidegger had already been released from service when Fischer's letter arrived.<ref name="RS">{{cite book|last1=Safranski|first1=Rüdiger|author1-link=Rüdiger Safranski|title=[[Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil]]|date=1999|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge (MAss)}}</ref>{{rp|332-3}}

==Works==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1998-0817-502, Berlin, Kundgebung an der Universität.jpg|thumb|Eugen Fischer during a ceremony at the University of Berlin 1934]]

===1909 to 1949===
*Fischer, Eugen. 1899. "Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Nasenhöhle und des Thränennasenganges der Amphisbaeniden", ''Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie''. 55:1, pp. 441–478.
*Fischer, Eugen. 1901. "Zur Kenntniss der Fontanella metopica und ihrer Bildungen". ''Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie''.4:1. pp. 17–30.
*Fischer, Eugen, Professor an der Universität Freiburg i. Br. 1906. "Die Variationen an Radius und Ulna des Menschen". ''Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie''. Vol. 9. No. 2.
*Fischer, Eugen. 1908. ''Der Patriziat Heinrichs III und Heinrichs IV.'' Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Fischer's PhD thesis.
*Maass, Alfred. ''Durch Zentral-Sumatra''. Berlin: Behr. 1910. Additional contributing authors: J.P. Kleiweg de Zwaan and E. Fischer.
*Fischer, Eugen. 1913.''Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen: anthropologische und ethnographiesche Studien am Rehobother Bastardvolk in Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika'', ausgeführt mit Unterstützung der Kgl. preuss, Akademie der Wissenschaften. Jena: G. Fischer.
*Gaupp, Ernst Wilhelm Theodor. Eugen Fischer (ed.) 1917. ''[[August Weismann]]: sein Leben und sein Werk''. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer.
*Schwalbe, G. and Eugen Fischer (eds.). ''Anthropologie''. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1923.
*Fischer, E. and H.F.K. Günther. ''Deutsche Köpfe nordischer Rasse: 50 Abbildungen mit Geleitwarten''. Munich: J.F. Lehmann. 1927.
*Fischer, Eugen and [[Gerhard Kittel]]. ''Das antike Weltjudentum : Tatsachen, Texte, Bilder''. Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1943.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/Fischer-Eugen-Das-antike-Weltjudentum|title=Das Antike Weltjudentum - Forschungen zur Judenfrage|year=1944}}</ref>

===1950 to 1959===
*Sarkar, Sasanka Sekher; Eugen Fischer and Keith Arthur, ''The Aboriginal Races of India'', Calcutta: Bookland. 1954.
*Fischer, Eugen. ''Begegnungen mit Toten: aus den Erinnerungen eines Anatomen''. Freiburg: H.F. Schulz. 1959.

== See also ==
*[[Karl Binding]]
*[[Josef Mengele]]
*[[Nazi eugenics]]
*[[Nazi human experimentation]]
*[[Nazi racial theories]]
*[[Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer]]
*[[Racial policy of Nazi Germany]]
*[[Racism in Germany]]
*[[Scientific racism]]
*[[Subsequent Nuremberg trials]]
*[[Doctors' Trial]]
*[[Anthropometry]]
*[[Fischer-Saller scale]]
*[[Shark Island Concentration Camp]]
*[[Rhineland Bastards]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
*{{cite book| title =The Holocaust Encyclopedia | first=Judith Tydor |last=Baumel |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-300-08432-3 }}
*{{cite book | title = War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race | first = Edwin | last = Black | author-link=Edwin Black| publisher = Thunder's Mouth Press | year = 2004 | isbn= 1-56858-321-4 }}
*{{cite journal|title= Das Standardwerk der Rassenhygiene von Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer und Fritz Lenz im Urteil der Psychiatrie und Neurologie 1921-1940|author1=Fangerau H. |author2=Müller I. |journal= Der Nervenarzt |volume= 73|year= 2002|doi=10.1007/s00115-002-1421-1|pages=1039–1046|pmid= 12430045|issue= 11|s2cid=42189711 }}
*{{cite book| last = Mendes-Flohr | first = Paul R. |author-link=Paul R. Mendes-Flohr| title = The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History| publisher = Oxford University Press US | year = 1995 | isbn = 0-19-507453-X }}
*Schmuhl, Hans-Walter. "The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human heredity and Eugenics, 1927-1945", Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science vol. 259, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen, 2003
*{{cite journal|title=Weimar eugenics: The kaiser wilhelm institute for anthropology, human heredity and eugenics in social context| author= Weindling P.|volume= 42|year= 1985| pages= 303–318| doi=10.1080/00033798500200221|journal=Annals of Science|pmid=11620696|issue=3}}
*Friedlander, Henry. 1997. ''The origins of Nazi genocide: from euthanasia to the Final Solution''. University of North Carolina Press. {{ISBN|0-8078-2208-6}} {{ISBN|0807846759}}.

==External links==
*[http://www.clarku.edu/~PILTDOWN/map_receptionfav/antiqandevolution.html Book Review] of ''The Rehoboth Bastards'' in ''Nature'' (1913)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20081120072616/http://www.westmanmusic.com/Namibia/indexEngelsk.htm 2004 Newspaper Article regarding ''The Rehoboth Bastards'']
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140304041620/http://velesova-sloboda.vho.org/album/fischer-rehobother-bastards.html ''The Rehoboth Bastards'' (Photo Album)]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20111209033514/http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20Herero%20and%20Namaqua%20Genocide.htm#Medical%20experimentation%20in%20Africa Herero and Namaqua Genocide - Galerie Ezakwantu]

* {{Gutenberg author|id=45536}}
* {{Cite book | url = https://archive.org/details/hitlersblackvict00clar | url-access = registration | page = [https://archive.org/details/hitlersblackvict00clar/page/44 44] | quote = sterilization of herero women. | title = Hitler's black victims: The historical experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi era | publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 978-0-415-93295-0 | last1 = Lusane | first1 = Clarence | date = 2002-12-13}}

*[http://www.estherlederberg.com/Eugenics%20(CSHL_List)/Eugen%20Fischer.html Detailed overview of Eugen Fischer with references]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/005209}}

{{Historical definitions of race}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Eugen}}
[[Category:1874 births]]
[[Category:1967 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century German anthropologists]]
[[Category:Physicians from Karlsruhe]]
[[Category:German eugenicists]]
[[Category:Herero and Nama genocide perpetrators]]
[[Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Physicians in the Nazi Party]]
[[Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Baden]]
[[Category:University of Freiburg alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Freiburg]]
[[Category:Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Würzburg]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin]]
[[Category:Nazi eugenics]]
[[Category:People associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]]
[[Category:Max Planck Institute directors]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Cothenius Medal]]

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Eugen Fischer