Synopsis of War against the Weak - Essay Example

A Synopsis of War against the WeakEdwin Black, in his work War against the Weak espouses a sad but true reality that is American history in the way the existent American eugenics movement spawned 50 years of horrific and trying times on its most vulnerable social members/ citizens. Through portraying the existent class prejudice, racism and cruelties (resultant negative effects) associated with the practices and attitudes of eugenic ideal/ philosophy, Black is able to offer insight as to the early American practice of such ideals eventually culminating in the Nazi Germany’s extermination camps.

He is able to trace the history of the Eugenics Philosophy to its utility in the early 20th Century, best exemplified by American scientists, livestock breeders and politicians in their effort at creating a superior Nordic race. These results in a compulsory sterilization campaigned on over 60,000 men and women, most of them were of color and poor. This unfortunately was to later inform on Hitler’s cleansing campaign, which he maximized to the fullest in the resultant concentration camps.Thus, racist American pseudoscience based on the field (ideological inclination) of eugenics, as practiced in the first 3 decades of America’s 20th Century history, provided the foundation for Hitler’s quest towards the creation of a Master Race (Aryan) in Germany and then the rest of Europe.

This is furthered by the great influence that American Eugenicists had on their German counterparts further solidifying Hitler’s destructive course. What is appalling is the fact that American eugenicists were to contribute greatly to Hitler’s Nazi racial hygiene (eradication) policy. Through utility of gas chambers, x-ray machinery for human sterilization and euthanasia, Nazi Germany was able to implement the eradication of millions of populations, these methods/ avenues having been at one time or another been proposed by American eugenicists as necessary and effective means of cleansing.

Such cleansing was proposed for America’s unfit social strata based on racial discrimination1