Effects of Heredity and Environment on Race Formation

From the Handbook for Schooling the Hitler Youth

Chapter Three: Race Formation (Handbook online is here)

Now we ask ourselves, what really constitutes a race and how does nature produce such races. We say that groups of individuals with the same heredity will continually produce their kind. We can also say that  individuals without the same heredity will produce descendants unlike the parents. What laws govern here?

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The study of heredity is based on the laws which Johann Mendel established after his experiments with species of sweet peas, beans, and hawkweed, which he published in 1865 and 1869. Mendel was an Austrian German whose parents were too poor to send him to university but, because of his recognized mental gifts, were able to enter him into an Augustinian cloister from where he was sent to the University of Vienna. He studied natural science, becoming a teacher, which gave him the opportunity for carrying out his experiments in cross-breeding. Mendel is sometimes called the Father of Genetics.

The first Mendelian law states:

The law of uniformity: The members of the first succeeding generation (F1) of the two species differing in a single characteristic (red or white flowers) are all alike. The flowers of the offspring will all be uniformly rose colored.

The second Mendelian law states:

The law of segregation: The second succeeding generation (F2) of two species differing in only one respect (in this case red or white flowers) is not uniform as in the case of the first succeeding generation, but segregates itself into different forms according to a definite numerical proportion. Half the offspring will have rose-colored flowers, while one fourth will be red and one fourth white (reverting to the original parents).

Continuing to breed, the rose-colored offspring will continue to produce one quarter red, one half rose, and one quarter white, while the all red and all white flowered plants will produce more of their red and white kind only. These laws hold good for animals and human beings also. If we cross two difference species of hens, a dark and a light-feathered, the first generation is uniformly colored between light and dark. The succeeding generation, however will by law follow the 1:2:1 sequence: one quarter dark, one half between light & dark, one quarter light. The pure dark and pure light hens will continue to breed true, while the mixed hens will continue to breed according to the 1:2:1 sequence.

Dominant - Recessive

A seeming exception to the above can occur when breeding black and brown dogs. The first generation are all black, rather than black-brown mix. But the first Mendelian law still holds because the dogs are a uniform color. Black dominates over subordinate or recessive brown (Dominari - Recedere in Latin).

The second Mendelian law also remains valid when the second generation undergoes a splitting up, even though it is one quarter black, one half black again because “mixed” remains dominant black, and one quarter is brown. The very important discovery made here is that the inherited characteristic need not always be visibly apparent while the hereditary law remains in force.

The third Mendelian law states:

The law of independence: All characteristics are transmitted independently from one another, so that new characteristics can appear. For example, crossing long-haired black with short-haired brown dogs, we can obtain short-haired black and long-haired brown dogs, too.

With men, there are many races in the German people which have intermixed, as we saw in Chapter Two. Since characteristics can be transmitted independently of each other, we can have a man who is an Easterner externally but does not necessarily possess an Eastern character, and the same with an external Westerner. A Nordic nature can belong to a man who is bodily of another “racial" group. Thus we will appraise our comrades in the last analysis according to their character and their performance (not according to their looks -cy). When so many characteristics are present, it can become perplexing to the point that some people refuse to believe in the laws of heredity. We, however, shape the life of our people and our legislation according to the verdicts of the teachings of genetics.

Now we turn to the question of the formation of races.

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Formerly it was assumed that there were only as many species on the earth as God had created in the beginning. And yet today one finds petrifactions of living beings that died out centuries ago. In the strata of the earth, they form a series from the oldest to the most recent that ever more closely approaches the living types of today. This and experiments undertaken demonstrate that race and consequently species transformations occur on the earth. This is called the study of evolution, associated with the Englishman Charles Darwin (pictured left) (1809-1882).

Causes for species and race changes

The environment can influence bodily size, form, coloring. Variations in nurture, in temperature, in light intensity can effect changes. For example, two sister pigs were nourished differently – one received little to eat, the other was fattened. After 199 days the former weighed only about one-seventh as much as her sister. In the case of two sister calves the weight of the underfed calf after two years was only one-fourth that of the other.

The tail of the house mouse is on average 68 millimetres, but with lower temperatures it grows to only 60 milllimetres. Changes in temperature can also cause color changes. Experiments in botany show that many plants put out longer sprouts in darkness than in lighter surroundings. There are very many examples of such transformations in the case of living beings as a result of external influences.

We need only determine whether the new characteristics are inheritable by seeing what happens to their descendants. We find that the offspring of the badly nourished animals are exactly the same as those of the well nourished, provided conditions remain constant. No new species has been produced as a result of environmental influences. The weakened animals can regain their former colors, size and form when returned to a normal environment.

The objection has been made that if the environmental influences would operate for a longer period of time, they may become hereditary. Experiments in which the tails of mice have been cut off for 22 successive generations did not cause them to lose their tails, or shorten them even a little bit. What we learn from this: In no instance up to this time have environmental influences brought about the formation of a new race.

This is one more reason for our belief that a Jew both in Germany and in all other countries remains only a Jew. He can never change his race by centuries of residence with another people.

Other possibility of race formation

New races and even species are determined by transformations or mutations within the germ cell. All living being, plants, animals, men consist of many little cells. Most important for heredity are sex cells – that make up the female egg and the male sperm. Chromosomes (tiny threads) within the cells are the carriers of the biological inheritance, which we prefer to call hereditary carriers. After the union of egg and sperm the hereditary carriers separate length-wise. Half from the egg, half from the sperm form the new cell from which the new living being develops. While not as simple as this description indicates, nevertheless this is in the main the process that takes place.

Under some circumstances these hereditary carriers (in the chromosomes) can undergo changes – enormously important changes because they are inheritable. These changes are called mutations (after the Latin Mutatio = change) and are not always a good thing. They often lead to damaging transformations for the living beings. Loss of sexual power and stunted forms are frequent. Some damage to the germ plasm have come because of X-rays, the misuse of alcohol, and sexual diseases. Thus the race is tied together biologically by the hereditary carriers in the sex cells. New biological characteristics (new or changed races -cy) can arise only through material changes in these hereditary carriers. Ordinary environmental influences cannot bring about such changes.

All arguments and political demands founded on the belief in the power of environment are therefore false and weak.

It is important for us to remove those injuries we know about from the heritage of our people.

My Comment: Is this good material for youth or what?