This weekend as we remembered the horrific human cost suffered under the Nazi Holocaust, the hashtags #NeverAgain and #HolocaustMemorialDay were trending on Twitter. It is estimated that at least six million Jews (and millions of others) were slaughtered during the Holocaust. One post from Planned Parenthood drew some interesting comments, including this one, pictured below:
Image via Twitter
Hitler’s ‘bible’ and Margaret Sanger’s connection
Planned Parenthood may claim to remember the Holocaust and mourn bigotry, but the organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a member of the American Eugenics Society (AES) — headed by Madison Grant, whose book, The Passing of the Great Race, was revered by Adolf Hitler himself. According to the eugenics archive, Grant’s book “argued for the preservation of America as a ‘civilization preserve’ for the Nordic race, advocating for immigration only from the founding stock of Anglo-Saxons and other Nordics from north-western Europe…. After becoming Führer, Hitler wrote to Grant; thanking him for his momentous work, stating that the book was ‘his Bible.'” (emphasis added)
The AES was founded in 1926 by Harry Crampton, Harry H. Laughlin, Madison Grant, and Henry Fairfield Osborn “with the express purpose of spearheading the eugenical movement,” according to the American Philosophical Society. The Nazi means of procuring the “perfect race” included eugenic sterilization, which many believe were inspired by American eugenicists. Historian Stefan Kuhl details in his book, The Nazi Connection, that “Hitler’s personal correspondence with American eugenicists reveals both the influence that American eugenicists had on the highest figures of the Nazi regime and the crucial importance that National Socialists placed on garnering support for their policies on foreign scientists.”
The documentary film Maafa21 even notes the possibility that Hitler got the idea for concentration camps while studying the American eugenics movement:
In 1919, the state of Indiana had allocated $300,000 to create a work colony in the city of Butlerville where those who were labeled feebleminded would be incarcerated. Then, in 1932, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger called for the U.S. government to set aside farms and “open spaces” where certain groups of people would be segregated from the rest of society.
Margaret Sanger associated with men who praised (and inspired) Hitler
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger herself spoke to members of the Ku Klux Klan and promoted eugenics and forced sterilizations. Although there is no indication that Sanger directly supported Hitler, she did not discriminate against those who did.
Leon Whitney – published by Sanger, praised by Hitler for his book on sterilization
Sanger published writings by Leon F. Whitney, former executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, in her Birth Control Review. In 1934, Adolf Hitler sent a letter to Whitney complimenting him for a book he authored on sterilization — and Whitney praised Hitler as “one of the greatest statesmen and social planners in the world.”
Eugen Fischer – worked with Sanger at World Population Conference
And in 1927, Nazi sympathizer Eugen Fischer worked with Sanger on her World Population Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. According to a library of eugenics records at Cold Spring Harbor, Hitler read Eugen Fischer’s textbook Principles of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene, and used “eugenical notions to support the ideal of a pure Aryan society in his manifesto, Mein Kampf.” Fischer served on committees that planned the sterilization of Afro-German Blacks and was in charge of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute where racist Nazi programs were developed. In an August 28,1935 New York Times article, Fischer praised Hitler, asking the World Population Congress at that time to “Hail Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.”
Eugen Fischer
According to the DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor, the Rockefeller Foundation, which has long been funding eugenics and abortion organizations including the Population Council, provided funds to construct the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Author Edwin Black noted, “The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.”
Harry Laughlin – published in Sanger’s Birth Control Review
AES founder Harry Laughlin was published by Sanger’s Birth Control Review and signed the Citizen’s Committee on Planned Parenthood. In 1936, according to researcher Paul A. Lombardo, “Laughlin received an honorary degree from the Nazi-controlled University of Heidelberg as “a pioneer in the science of race cleansing.”
Lothrop Stoddard – sat on Sanger’s Birth Control League Board of Directors
Another Sanger cohort, Lothrop Stoddard, traveled to Germany to observe a Nazi eugenics court. Stoddard, a journalist and author, served on Sanger’s National Council, her ABCL Board of Directors, and the conference committee of the First American Birth Control Conference. Stoddard described this meeting in his book: Into the Darkness: A Sympathetic Report from Hitler’s Wartime Reich.
Image: American Eugenics Society document
Ernst Rudin – called for racial purity in Sanger’s Birth Control Review, wrote Germany’s eugenic laws
In 1933, Sanger associate Ernst Rudin of Germany published a call for racial purity in Sanger’s Birth Control Review. Later, according to the documentary film, Maafa21, “Rudin would be chosen by Hitler to write Germany’s eugenics laws and, at one point, he personally helped the Gestapo round-up and sterilize several hundred Blacks who they referred to as ‘Rhineland bastards.’ After the war, Rudin would be identified as one of the architects of the barbaric medical experiments that the Nazis carried out in their concentration camps.”
It is documented that Planned Parenthood’s ties to eugenics ran deep and extended into the late 1960’s. Sanger’s American Birth Control League, and later Planned Parenthood, stacked their boards and events with eugenics leaders. Planned Parenthood’s first physician president, Alan F. Guttmacher, was vice president of the American Eugenics Society. Guttmacher, credited with leading Planned Parenthood to commit abortions, went on to found Planned Parenthood’s former “special affiliate,” the well-known Guttmacher Institute.
Tragically, eugenics philosophy paved the way for genocide under Nazi control of Germany. Today, that same philosophy has led to millions of preborn humans being massacred in the womb through abortion. As we remember what took place in Germany, the words of Rabbi Benjamin Blech ring true today: “We had no idea what was happening needs to be clearly identified as the great lie of the years of Nazi power. The harsh truth is that almost everyone had to know. The numbers negate the possibility for collective ignorance. And still the killings did not stop, the torture did not cease, the concentration camps were not closed, the crematoria continued their barbaric task. The decent people were somehow able to rationalize their silence.”
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