Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

modern medical discoveries. It must proclaim as unfit for procreation all those who are
inflicted with some visible hereditary disease or are the carriers of it; and practical measures
must be adopted to have such people rendered sterile. On the other hand, provision must be
made for the normally fertile woman so that she will not be restricted in child-bearing
through the financial and economic system operating in a political regime that looks upon
the blessing of having children as a curse to their parents. The State will have to abolish the
cowardly and even criminal indifference with which the problem of social amenities for large
families is treated, and it will have to be the supreme protector of this greatest blessing that a
people can boast of. Its attention and care must be directed towards the child rather than the
adult.
Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unfit must not perpetuate their own
suffering in the bodies of their children. From the educational point of view there is here a
huge task for the People's State to accomplish. But in a future era this work will appear
greater and more significant than the victorious wars of our present bourgeois epoch.
Through educational means the State must teach individuals that illness is not a disgrace
but an unfortunate accident which has to be pitied, yet that it is a crime and a disgrace to
make this affliction all the worse by passing on disease and defects to innocent creatures out
of mere egotism. And the State must also teach the people that it is an expression of a really
noble nature and that it is a humanitarian act worthy of admiration if a person who
innocently suffers from hereditary disease refrains from having a child of his own but gives
his love and affection to some unknown child who, through its health, promises to become a
robust member of a healthy community. In accomplishing such an educational task the State
integrates its function by this activity in the moral sphere. It must act on this principle
without paying any attention to the question of whether its conduct will be understood or
misconstrued, blamed or praised.
If for a period of only 600 years those individuals would be sterilized who are physically
degenerate or mentally diseased, humanity would not only be delivered from an immense
misfortune but also restored to a state of general health such as we at present can hardly
imagine. If the fecundity of the healthy portion of the nation should be made a practical
matter in a conscientious and methodical way, we should have at least the beginnings of a
race from which all those germs would be eliminated which are today the cause of our moral
and physical decadence. If a people and a State take this course to develop that nucleus of
the nation which is most valuable from the racial standpoint and thus increase its fecundity,
the people as a whole will subsequently enjoy that most precious of gifts which consists in a
racial quality fashioned on truly noble lines.
To achieve this the State should first of all not leave the colonization of newly acquired
territory to a haphazard policy but should have it carried out under the guidance of definite
principles. Specially competent committees ought to issue certificates to individuals entitling
them to engage in colonization work, and these certificates should guarantee the racial purity
of the individuals in question. In this way frontier colonies could gradually be founded whose
inhabitants would be of the purest racial stock, and hence would possess the best qualities
of the race. Such colonies would be a valuable asset to the whole nation. Their development
would be a source of joy and confidence and pride to each citizen of the nation, because they
would contain the pure germ which would ultimately bring about a great development of the
nation and indeed of mankind itself.
The folkish philosophy of life which bases the State on the racial idea must finally succeed in
bringing about a nobler era, in which men will no longer pay exclusive attention to breeding
and rearing pedigree dogs and horses and cats, but will endeavour to improve the breed of
the human race itself. That will be an era of silence and renunciation for one class of people,
while the others will give their gifts and make their sacrifices joyfully.
That such a mentality may be possible cannot be denied in a world where hundreds and
thousands accept the principle of celibacy from their own choice, without being obliged or