德意志民族的優生學──德國種族衛生的起步與初期發展

Abstract

優生學是19世紀中期以後歐洲自然科學界的新興學科，科學家們期許藉由科學技術的精進，得以培育優良的人種。德國於1890年代在普羅茲(Alfred Ploetz)的努力推展之下出現此學科。從發展之初，有關研究課題、研究目的，甚至學科名稱的使用都產生很大的爭議。但是將「優生」(Eugenik)德語化為「種族衛生」(Rassenhygiene)，即已顯示此學科獨特的德意志民族特色。面對19、20世紀之交的歐洲時代變局，德意志帝國正力爭上游，急於證明自身的強權地位，種族衛生提倡者也難以擺脫周遭強勢意識型態的影響，這也使得新興的種族衛生成為與民族主義親近、沾染社會達爾文主義的學科。而且相較於英國優生學，以純粹科學研究與理論建構為主的特質，德國的種族衛生則明顯重視有效解決國內社會問題，以及國家民族問題的應用與實踐。德國種族衛生發展初期已呈現的「負面優生學」(negative Eugenik)特質，也為納粹時期具體實踐種族淨化行動揭開序幕。

In the middle 19th century eugenics was a new science in Europe. Through the improvement of the scientific technology many eugenists hoped to create or to breed the best human race. In the 1890s Alfred Ploetz, who was the first scientist in Germany enthusiastic called for this new science. Ploetz created a new term Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene) to replace Eugenik. It showed his great ambitions, Germanization of eugenics. This was the beginning of the German racial hygiene. Until the 1920s Ploetz and many other founders of racial hygiene were obviously influenced by German nationalism and social Darwinism. With great anxiety about the “degeneration of Germans”, the declining birthrate in Germany and many other social problems they tried to find the ways to improve qualities and quantities of the German race. A distinct affinity between the eugenics ideology of racial hygienists and the racial ideology of the Nazis was emerged. In Nazi Germany the racial hygiene was not only a scientific ideology but also a real political policy, which attempted to ‘cleaning’ all human races.