Alfred Ploetz
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Alfred Ploetz (August 22, 1860 – March 20, 1940) was a German physician, biologist, eugenicist known for introducing together with Wilhelm Schallmayer the concept of racial hygiene (Rassenhygiene) in Germany. "Rassenhygiene" ist another name for eugenics.
[edit] Life
Alfred Ploetz was born in Swinemünde, Germany (now Świnoujście, Poland) grew up and attended school in Breslau (now Wrocław). Already then he began his friendship with Carl Hauptmann, brother of the famous author Gerhart Hauptmann. In 1879 he founded a secret schoolboy society for the improvement of the race. In Gerhart Hauptmanns Drama "Vor Sonnenaufgang" (before sunrise) which was first performed on October 20, 1889 in Berlin, the key figure of the journalist Loth bears the features of Ploetz.
After his school time Ploetz at first studied political economy in Breslau. There he joined the "Freie wissenschaftliche Vereinigung" (free scientific union). Among his friends were - besides his brother - among others: his former school friend Ferdinand Simon (later son-in-law of August Bebel), the brothers Carl and Gerhart Hauptmann, Heinrich Laux, and Charles Proteus Steinmetz.
This circle enthusastically read the works of Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin. Carl Hauptmann was a student of Ernst Haeckel, and Gerhart Hauptmann and Ploetz attended some of his lectures. This circle extended itself, developed a plan of founding a colony in one of the pacific states and established itself as the association "Pacific". They planned a "community on friendly, socialist and maybe also pan-Germanic basis". In consequence of the prosecution of socialistic minded persons in application of Bismarck's "socialist laws" (187-1890), in 1883 Ploetz flew to Zurich, where he continued to study political economy with Julius Platter (1844-1923). In his memoirs Ploetz states as an important reason for his choice of Zurich that in his studies in Breslau socialist theories were only incidentally mentioned. In Zurich he could occupy himself more intensively with them and make acquaintance with some socialist and social democrats. In the 1880s the free Switzerland, with its liberal asylum laws, was the destination of various persons who suffered political persecution.
For more of the association "Pacific" see the German article. After half a year in the USA Ploetz returned to Zurich and began to study medicine. In 1890 he became medical doctor and married Ernst Rüdin's sister Pauline. The next four years both lived in the USA. The marriage remained childless. In 1898 they were divorced. Later Ploetz married Anita Nordenholz. This marriage led to three children Ulrich (called Uli), Cordelia (called Deda) and Wilfrid (called Fridl, born 1912, in 2007 still alive).
In 1904 Ploetz founded the periodical "Archiv für Rassen-und Gesellschaftsbiologie" with Fritz Lenz as chief editor, and in 1905 the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene" (German association of eugenics). He remained the Great Old Man of the German eugenics until his death in 1940. In 1930 he became honorary doctor of the university of Munich.
Ploetz first proposed the theory of racial hygiene (eugenics) in his "Racial Hygiene Basics" (Grundlinien einer Rassenhygiene) in 1895.
He died at the age of 79 and is buried at his home in Herrsching on the Ammersee in Bavaria.
