Konrad Lorenz’s research in wolf behaviour was used by the Nazi Party to justify their belief of Aryan superiority over what they termed Untermensch (subhuman people). Lorenz joined the Nazi Party in 1938 and was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1941. He was given the title Military Psychologist and assigned to conduct ‘racial studies’ on eastern Europeans. His published papers purported to demonstrate interbreeding between different races would lead to serious dysgenic effects that would impact on later generations through the inheritance of undesirable traits. Referencing his publications, he provided the scientific justifications the Nazis needed to support their policies against miscegenation. He later studied what he described as German-Polish half-breeds. He argued their offspring would be psychologically and physically unfit, and that they shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce. In 1944 he was captured on the eastern front and remained a Russian prisoner of war until 1948. Based on his work with animals and his popular publications, he became the joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973. He died in Vienna in 1989.
Konrad Lorenz & the Nazi Party
