You miss my point here, Stultis. The fundamental claim of the Nazi ideologists was that man could decide, respecting his fellow men, who was "fit" and who was not. And therefore, what living beings were privileged to continue in a living state, and which were not. Whatever "excuse" the Fascist makes to support his claim -- the recovery of a "lost" Eden, the construction of a perfect utopia in spacetime reality, whatever -- is almost entirely beside the point. That's the PR angle designed to smokescreen the reality that is actually taking place, to give it an ersatz "justification." At this level of description of the problem, you are looking at pure B.S....
The only way to justify such a scheme of things is on the basis of power: We might say "species" power. For Hitler's theory of racial superiority rested on the consensus of a "favored species," determining the fate of the lesser-favored species effectively at its whim. The notion of "survival of the fittest" excuse was paramount, even if shall we say not evident from first principles.
If I might make a suggestion: You depend too much on the surface appearance of things. Maybe you need to be looking a little deeper? FWIW.
Stultis: The point of Nazi race policy was to restore the original created order: to restore the purity of the blood and thereby the purity of the racial soul. This had nothing to do with evolution, but to the extent you can put it in those terms the purpose of the Nazis was not to advance evolution, but to reverse it.
Indeed, I challenge anyone to show where any of Hitler, Rosenberg, Himmler et al ever advanced the thought that Jews and Aryans shared a common ancestor. I don't think it's useful to call someone an "evolutionist" if they don't accept the common ancesry of all people.
betty boop: You miss my point here, Stultis. The fundamental claim of the Nazi ideologists was that man could decide, respecting his fellow men, who was "fit" and who was not. And therefore, what living beings were privileged to continue in a living state, and which were not. Whatever "excuse" the Fascist makes to support his claim -- the recovery of a "lost" Eden, the construction of a perfect utopia in spacetime reality, whatever -- is almost entirely beside the point. That's the PR angle designed to smokescreen the reality that is actually taking place, to give it an ersatz "justification." At this level of description of the problem, you are looking at pure B.S....
The only way to justify such a scheme of things is on the basis of power: We might say "species" power. For Hitler's theory of racial superiority rested on the consensus of a "favored species," determining the fate of the lesser-favored species effectively at its whim. The notion of "survival of the fittest" excuse was paramount, even if shall we say not evident from first principles.
Hitler thought his destiny was, among other things, to free Germany of the Jews. This, he thought, would be good for public morals (ridding the Reich of syphilis and porn), the economy, and the purity of Aryan blood. Why did this platform win elections in Germany? I claim it had a lot more to do with Martin Luther than Darwin. In fact, I bet you can't find a single snti-Semitic statement from Darwin, but there are plenty from Luther.
No. It simply wasn't. It was always an incidental rhetorical gloss at best.