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Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938-1945 . Edited by Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans . Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press , 2013. Pp. 416. Paper $50.00. ISBN 978-0803245075 .
Book Reviews
This collection of essays is the result of a conference held in Oslo in 2009. The conferees compared case studies focusing on the development of racial science in occupied, allied, and puppet states in the Nazi sphere of influence during World War II. The volume aims to tie these studies together thematically, with each contributing author exploring in greater depth issues specific to his or her case study. The editors situate the volume in contrast to the dearth of "comparative analysis of Nazi racial policies in the occupied territories, especially in East Central Europe" (15). They identify five themes that, they claim, challenge interpretations of the existing scholarship: the prominence of racial science in interwar population policies; the significant impact of Nazi "divide-and-rule policy" on science research; the complexity of reasons for, as well as aspects of local support for, eugenics; the self-interested use of Nazi support by local radical regimes, which was sometimes at odds with Nazi ideology; and, finally, the inability of proponents of racial science to develop specific schools and a mass following.
Many scholars, including contributors to this volume, have, in fact, explored these issues over the past two decades. It is also the...