Editing Ernst Haeckel (section)

== Assessments of potential influence on Nazism ==
Some historians have seen Haeckel's social Darwinism as a forerunner to [[Nazism|Nazi]] ideology.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gould |first1=Stephen Jay |title=Ontogeny and Phylogeny |url=https://archive.org/details/ontogenyphylogen00goul |url-access=registration |date=1977 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. |page=[https://archive.org/details/ontogenyphylogen00goul/page/77 77-78]|isbn=9780674639409 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gasman |first1=Daniel |title=The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League |date=1971 |publisher=MacDonald & co. |location=New Brunswick |page=xiv}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Weikart |first1=Richard |title=From Darwin to Hitler |date=2004 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan |location=New York|isbn=1403965021}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=May 2021}} Others have denied the relationship altogether.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Alfred |title=The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914 |url=https://archive.org/details/descentofdarwinp0000kell |url-access=registration |date=1981 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |page=[https://archive.org/details/descentofdarwinp0000kell/page/121 121]|isbn=9780807814604 }}</ref>{{sfn|Richards|2008|pages=448–453}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Di Gregorio |first1=Mario A. |title=From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith |date=2005 |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |page=569}}</ref>

The evidence is in some respects ambiguous. On one hand, Haeckel was an advocate of [[scientific racism]]. He held that evolutionary biology had definitively proven that races were unequal in intelligence and ability, and that their lives were also of unequal value, e.g., "These lower races (such as the Veddahs or Australian negroes) are psychologically nearer to the mammals (apes or dogs) than to civilised Europeans; we must therefore, assign a totally different value to their lives."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Haeckel |first1=Ernst |title=The Wonders of Life |date=1904 |publisher=Watts & Co. |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22567/page/n422 82, 406]–407 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22567 |access-date=15 May 2019}}</ref> As a result of the "struggle for existence", it followed that the "lower" races would eventually be exterminated.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hawkins |first1=Mike |title=Social Darwinism in European and American Thought |url=https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk |url-access=limited |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=[https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk/page/n149 140]}}</ref> He was also a social Darwinist who believed that "survival of the fittest" was a natural law, and that struggle led to improvement of the race.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hawkins |first1=Mike |title=Social Darwinism in European and American Thought |url=https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk |url-access=limited |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=[https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk/page/n146 137]}}</ref> As an advocate of eugenics, he also believed that about 200,000 [[Mental illness|mentally]] and [[Genetic disorder|congenitally ill]] should be killed by a medical control board.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Haeckel |first1=Ernst |title=The Wonders of Life |date=1904 |publisher=Watts & Co. |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22567/page/n138 122]–124 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22567 |access-date=15 May 2019}}</ref> This idea was later put into practice by [[Nazi Germany]], as part of the [[Aktion T4]] program.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregorio |first1=Mario A Di |title=From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith |date=2005 |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |page=571}}</ref> [[Alfred Ploetz]], founder of the [[German Society for Racial Hygiene]], praised Haeckel repeatedly, and invited him to become an honorary member. Haeckel accepted the invitation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weikart |first1=Richard |title=From Darwin to Hitler |date=2004 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan |location=New York |isbn=1403965021|page=15}}</ref> Haeckel also believed that Germany should be governed by an authoritarian political system, and that inequalities both within and between societies were an inevitable product of evolutionary law.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hawkins |first1=Mike |title=Social Darwinism in European and American Thought |url=https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk |url-access=limited |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=[https://archive.org/details/socialdarwinisme00hawk/page/n148 139]}}</ref> Haeckel was also an extreme German nationalist who believed strongly in the superiority of German culture.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregorio |first1=Mario A Di |title=From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith |date=2005 |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |page=568}}</ref>

On the other hand, Haeckel was not an anti-Semite. In the racial hierarchies he constructed Jews tended to appear closer to the top, rather than closer to the bottom as in [[Nazism and race|Nazi racial thought]].{{sfn|Richards|2008|pages=273–275}} He was also a pacifist until the First World War, when he wrote propaganda in favor of the war.{{sfn|Richards|2008|pages=432–433}} The principal arguments of historians who deny a meaningful connection between Haeckel and Nazism are that Haeckel's ideas were very common at the time, that Nazis were much more strongly influenced by other thinkers, and that Haeckel is properly classified as a 19th-century German liberal, rather than a forerunner to Nazism.{{sfn|Richards|2008|pages=270–271}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gregorio |first1=Mario A Di |title=From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith |date=2005 |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |page=506}}</ref> They also point to incompatibilities between evolutionary biology and Nazi ideology.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Alfred |title=The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914 |url=https://archive.org/details/descentofdarwinp0000kell |url-access=registration |date=1981 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |page=[https://archive.org/details/descentofdarwinp0000kell/page/121 121]|isbn=9780807814604 }}</ref>

Nazis themselves divided on the question of whether Haeckel should be counted as a pioneer of their ideology. [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] captain and biologist [[Heinz Brücher]] wrote a biography of Haeckel in 1936, in which he praised Haeckel as a "pioneer in biological state thinking".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deichmann |first1=Ute |title=Biologists Under Hitler |date=1996 |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=259–260}}</ref> This opinion was also shared by the scholarly journal, ''Der Biologe'', which celebrated Haeckel's 100th birthday, in 1934, with several essays acclaiming him as a pioneering thinker of Nazism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deichmann |first1=Ute |title=Biologists Under Hitler |date=1996 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=269–270}}</ref> Other Nazis kept their distance from Haeckel. Nazi propaganda guidelines issued in 1935 listed books which popularized Darwin and evolution on an "expunged list". Haeckel was included by name as a forbidden author.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Alfred |title=The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914 |url=https://archive.org/details/descentofdarwinp0000kell |url-access=registration |date=1981 |publisher=University of North Carolina |location=Chapel Hill |page=[https://archive.org/details/descentofdarwinp0000kell/page/121 121–122]|isbn=9780807814604 }}</ref> Gunther Hecht, a member of the Nazi Department of Race Politics, also issued a memorandum rejecting Haeckel as a forerunner of Nazism.{{sfn|Richards|2008|page=446}} Kurt Hildebrandt, a Nazi political philosopher, also rejected Haeckel.{{sfn|Richards|2008|page=446}} Eventually Haeckel was rejected by Nazi bureaucrats.{{sfn|Richards|2008|page=445}}