Racial Thought and Mendelian Genetics in Germany and the United States, 1900–50

The rise of Mendelian genetics in the early twentieth century proved to be of fundamental impacts for racial anthropology. Concepts such as hybridity and purity were redefined in light of the new understanding of hereditary mechanisms; the biological meanings of race, racial identity and racial difference were transformed as well to correspond to the scientific teaching of the time. However, the relations between racial thinking and genetics were not one-sided: basic concepts in genetics were also impregnated with racial assumptions and certain genetic dynamics became associated with particular “racial” groups. My paper will look into the relations between Mendelian genetics and racial thought throughout the first half of the twentieth century. I will examine in particular the case of the German (and Nazi) racial science and its reliance upon genetic science. I will compare the German case with the American one and re-evaluate the differences between the two. The historical links between genetics and racism, I will show, go deeper than what we would like to believe.