Eugen Fischer
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{{for|the historian|Eugen Fischer (historian)}}
[[Image:Eugen Fischer.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Eugen Fischer, circa 1938.]]
'''Eugen Fischer''' ([[July 5]], [[1874]] – [[July 9]], [[1967]]) was a [[Germany|German]] professor of [[medicine]], [[anthropology]] and [[eugenics]] . He was one of those responsible for the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi German]] [[scientific racism|scientific theories]] of [[racial hygiene]] that legitimized the [[Holocaust|extermination of Jews]], sent an estimated half a million [[Roma (people)|Gypsies]] to their death in the [[Porajmos]], and led to the [[compulsory sterilization]] of hundreds of thousands of other individuals, deemed racially defective, such as the [[Rhineland Bastard]]s, the mentally ill, and the mentally retarded.
== Biography ==
Born in [[Karlsruhe]], [[Grand Duchy of Baden]], Fischer joined the [[Nazi Party]] soon after it was established. A book, ''Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene'', co-written by him and [[Erwin Baur]] and [[Fritz Lenz]], served as the "scientific" basis for [[Nazism]]'s attitude toward other races. He served as the head of the [[Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics]], until 1933, when [[Adolf Hitler]] appointed him rector of the [[University of Berlin]].
Under the Nazi regime, Fischer developed the physiological specifications used to determine racial origins. He and his team experimented on Gypsies and African-Germans, taking [[blood]] and measuring [[skull]]s to find scientific validation for his theories.
Fischer retired from the university in 1942. After the war, he completed his memoirs, which critics claim whitewash his role in the [[genocide|genocidal]] program of the [[Third Reich]]. He died in 1967.
==References==
*{{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}}
*{{cite journal|title= Das Standardwerk der Rassenhygiene von Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer und Fritz Lenz im Urteil der Psychiatrie und Neurologie 1921-1940|author=Fangerau H., Müller I.|journal= Der Nervenarzt |volume= 73|year= 2002|doi=10.1007/s00115-002-1421-1|pages=1039–1046}}
== See also ==
*[[Ex-Nazi]]
*[[Nazi eugenics]]
*[[Racial policies of the Third Reich]]
*[[Scientific racism]]
{{BD|1874|1967|Fischer, Eugen}}
[[Category:1874 births]]
[[Category:1967 deaths]]
[[Category:German eugenicists]]
[[Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Nazi physicians]]
[[Category:People from Karlsruhe]]
[[Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Baden]]
[[Category:University of Freiburg alumni]]
[[Category:University of Freiburg faculty]]
[[Category:University of Munich alumni]]
[[Category:University of Würzburg faculty]]
[[Category:Humboldt University of Berlin faculty]]
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