14 Facts About Alfred Ploetz

Alfred Ploetz was a German physician, biologist, Social Darwinist, and eugenicist known for coining the term racial hygiene, a form of eugenics, and for promoting the concept in Germany.

Alfred Ploetz grew up and attended school in Breslau.

Alfred Ploetz was a friend of Carl Hauptmann, brother of the famous author Gerhart Hauptmann.

Carl Hauptmann was a student of Haeckel, and Gerhart Hauptmann and Alfred Ploetz attended some of Haeckel's lectures.

Alfred Ploetz was seeing an American, Mary Sherwood, who was studying hypnotism.

In 1890, Alfred Ploetz became a medical doctor and married his former girlfriend Pauline, but they never had children.

Alfred Ploetz later married Anita Nordenholz, and they produced three children: Ulrich, Cordelia and Wilfrid.

Alfred Ploetz first proposed the theory of racial hygiene in his "Racial Hygiene Basics" in 1895.

In 1904, Alfred Ploetz founded the periodical Archiv fur Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie with Fritz Lenz as chief editor, which was the first journal in the world devoted to eugenic topics, and in 1905 founded the German Society for Racial Hygiene with 31 members.

Alfred Ploetz died in 1940 at the age of 79 and is buried at his home in Herrsching on the Ammersee in Bavaria.

Alfred Ploetz found the idea horrible and suggested a humane alternative of simply encouraging only "fit" people to reproduce, but he called that a weak proposal.

Alfred Ploetz's writings were a major influence on Nazi ideology.

Alfred Ploetz identified no substantial difference in "racial character" between Aryans and Jews and argued that the mental abilities of Jews and their role in the development of human culture made them indispensable to the "process of racial mix", which would enhance humanity:.

Alfred Ploetz stressed that the distinctiveness of Jews indicated that their mental characteristics would adversely affect Aryans by introducing individualism and lack of love for the military and the nation.