In Search of “Aryan Blood”
Explores the course of development of German seroanthropology from its origins in World War I until the end of the Third Reich. Gives an all encompassing interpretation of how the discovery of blood groups in around 1900 galvanised not only old mythologies of blood and origin but also new developments in anthropology and eugenics in the 1920s and 1930s. Boaz portrays how the personal motivations of blood scientists influenced their professional research, ultimately demonstrating how conceptually indeterminate and politically volatile the science of race was under the Nazi regime.
Contrary to sustained efforts, the search for the “Aryan” blood did not materialize into the racial utopia that the Nazi officials had dreamed. Moreover, the monograph convincingly demonstrates how ambiguous the relationship between eugenics, seroanthropology and anti-Semitism was in Germany, not least because proeminent German eugenicists and race scientists were Jewish or of Jewish origin.
LIST OF FIGURES
Chapter I INTRODUCTION
Chapter II THE EMERGENCE OF BLOOD SCIENCE
“Contagious Blood” in German Fiction and Early Blood Science
Origins of Serology
The Völkisch Notion of “Blood Defilement
Seroanthropology
Jewish Physicians and Blood Science
Postwar Blood Science
Chapter III SEROANTHROPOLOGY IN THE EARLY 1920S. BLOOD, RACE, AND EUGENICS
Frigyes Verzár and Oszkár Weszeczky: Seroanthropological Research in Hungary
Surveying “Native Germans”
Blood Type and Genetic Inferiority
Völkisch Research
IV ORGANIZING SEROANTHROPOLOGY: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR BLOOD GROUP RESEARCH
Otto Reche and Racial Anthropology.
The German Institute for Blood Group Research
Chapter V SEROANTHROPOLOGY AT ITS HEIGHT: DISTINGUISHING THOSE WITH “PURE BLOOD”
Studies of “Native Germans”
Biased Research
Chapter VI THE JEW AS EXAMINER AND EXAMINED
Manoiloff’s “Serochemistry” and Jewish Blood
Seroanthropological Analysis of Jews
Völkisch Propaganda
Jews and Seroanthropology
Chapter VII BLOOD AS METAPHOR AND SCIENCE IN THE NUREMBERG RACE LAWS
Seroanthropology in 1933
Proponents of Seroanthropology
Racial “Reform” under Nazism
“Blood Defilement”
Diverse Means of “Blood Defilement”
Seroanthropological Research in the Third Reich
The German Institute for Blood Group Research
Chapter VIII THE PEDAGOGY AND PRACTICE OF SEROANTHROPOLOGY DURING WORLD WAR II
Seroanthropology and National Socialist Medicine
Seroanthropological Research
Seroanthropology and Nazi Racial Ideology
Clinical Serology
Chapter IX CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY