Hitler echoed Plato in his defense of eugenics in Nazi Germany. “Defective people” may not reproduce, and all who are defective are to be “mercilessly isolated.” Hitler’s utopian vision also led to the genocide of millions of Jews, saying that if Jews do not leave Europe, “I see no other solution but extermination.”
http://dartreview.com/issues/11.12.01/utopias.html
PLATONIC EUGENICS
The Lebensborn Project cannot be understood without placing it into the greater context of the international eugenics movement that began in the 1880s. The eugenics movement was driven by the emerging disciplines of psychology and sociology; that is, the question of why human beings behave as they do pursuant to national, racial, religious, economic, and class status. It was also driven by the belief that physical characteristics such as head size, facial features, size and configuration of genitalia, and eye and hair color determined a person’s value.
Superimposed over these factors was the belief that the people of Atlantis as described by Plato were the prototype of the perfected human being and that through the practice of eugenics it was possible to bring humanity back to that state of perfection. Plato’s thoughts on eugenics and the breeding of philosopher kings and guardians for the Republic are found in Republic, Book IV. (For a detailed description see: Republic, Book IV, Re: Philosopher Kings and Guardians; Henri Estienne, 1578 [Stephanus] translation and numbers 460, 467, 467, 537, 541)
Plato cites five criteria for children who are to become philosopher kings and guardians of the Republic:
The race of the guardians is to be “pure.”
Children will be put into the rearing pen and turned over to nurses. Mothers will nurse babies but will not know which one is theirs.
Children of inferior parents and defective children will be put out of sight in secrecy as is befitting.
Male and female guardian children will be educated as both philosophers and warriors.
Children will be taken on horse back to witness battles and have their taste of blood like puppies.
In the Republic it was a matter of eugenic policy that parents should bear children for the state for a defined number of years. Children were not for fulfillment or for “family,” but were for the health of the body politic. After the proscribed child bearing years were completed, Plato held that abortion should be compelled for any woman who became pregnant at forty or who had a husband over fifty. It was expected that parents would make every effort to abort the fetus or dispose of the newborn child of ensuing pregnancies if abortion was not successful.
http://www.socialjusticespeaks.org/id29.html
Eugenics, in its original sense, like other forms of selective breeding was conceptualized as a means of “improving “the stock, in this case the human race. Eugenics is a very old idea, dating back to Plato and even earlier. It has been embraced by a gamut a different individuals throughout history. These individuals range from sensitive artists like George Bernard Shaw to the man whose name has become synonymous with evil, Adolf Hitler.
http://www.geneticengineering.org/eugenics/jack-a-palmer.html
Eugenics is a scheme for improving the human race by controlling reproduction. The practice of eugenics reached its height in the period between the latenineteenth century and World War II, when German Nazis carried eugenic principles to the extremes of mass sterilization and genocide. Different forms of eugenics have been practiced around the world and are currently in effect in the People’s Republic of China, where reproduction is strictly limited. With the advent of medical research such as the Human Genome Project, society is still trying to resolve the ethical issues raised by eugenic theories.
The general concept of eugenics is first mentioned in Greek records dating back to 368 BC. Plato and Aristotle both refer to the city state’s need for healthy citizens to form an elite ruling class and army. In this earliest blueprint for eugenics, men and women were encouraged to reproduce when they were at the peak of their physical and mental powers, in order to conceive the healthiest and most intelligent children. This underlying principle of striving for an ideal society through selective breeding is one that has motivated eugenicists throughout history.
http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/45/Eugenics.html
Breeding of human beings was suggested at least as far back as Plato, but the modern field and term was first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1865, drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including Alexander Graham Bell, George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler.
http://www.jewishmag.com/114mag/leprosy/leprosy.htm