State Institute for Racial Biology

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The dean's house in Uppsala, in which the institute for racial biology was located.

The State Institute for Racial Biology ( Statens institut för rasbiologi , Rasbiologiska institutet , SIFR ) was a racial biology institute founded in 1922 at Uppsala University . The motion for the law to establish this world's first state-sponsored scientific racial biology institute had been submitted to the Swedish Reichstag by representatives of different party backgrounds .

Emergence

In 1909 a Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene ( Svenska sällskapet för rashygien ) was founded for the purpose of eugenic research. The idea of eugenics only became more popular in Sweden after the end of the First World War. A network of people was formed around the company who wanted to establish a state institute for racial biology and a law for " eugenic sterilization ", including Herman Nilsson-Ehle , Nils Wohlin , Nils von Hofsten , Herman Lundborg , Alfred Petrén and Elis Essen- Möller . In 1918 the Racial Hygiene Society held a traveling exhibition called “Svenska folktyper” (“Swedish folk types”) about different kinds of people. In the same year Frithiof Lennmalm , head of the Karolinska Institutet, suggested that the Nobel Foundation should fund an institute for racial biology. The Nobel Committee for Medicine unanimously agreed, while the employees of the Karolinska Institutet narrowly voted against it with 9 to 8 votes. Instead, it has now been suggested that the Swedish government should set up and finance such an institute.

The bill for the creation of a state institute, which was introduced in the first chamber of the Swedish Reichstag in 1921, was signed by the social democrat and racial theorist Alfred Petrén and, among others, by the later Minister of Commerce and Finance, Nils Wohlin. In the second chamber a legislative proposal was put forward on the same matter with reference to the matter brought by Petrén. This second application was signed by Hjalmar Branting and Arvid Lindman , among others . In his application, Petrén was able to refer to the statements of race theorists and biologists such as Carl Magnus Fürst , Torsten Thunberg , Herman Lundborg, Nils von Hofsten and Nils Heribert-Nilsson , who scientifically presented the required establishment of such an institute. The first director after the institute was founded was Herman Lundborg.

activity

The official aim of the institute was to examine the inhabitants of Sweden according to racial criteria. The institute examined the living and environmental conditions of different families. An attempt was made to explain the effect of biological heredity and environmental influences on humans. In addition, were mental illness , alcoholism and crime investigated.

In 1922 the institute published display boards describing a "purely Swedish breed". These tables were later used as a basis for assessing compulsory sterilizations , which became part of the Swedish eugenics program through the laws of 1934 and 1941 . The victims of the forced sterilization were people with intellectual disabilities, "multiracial, single mothers with an inconsistent lifestyle, the unemployed, gypsies and other different people."

The Swedish followers of eugenics exchanged lively with German colleagues. Many Swedes worked for the International Society for Racial Hygiene at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics , while numerous German speakers were guests at the Uppsala Institute.

End of the institute

In 1958 the institute was replaced by the Institutions för medicinisk genetik (Institute for Medical Genetics), which today forms a department of the University of Uppsala.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Forum for levande historia : Rasbiologist i Sverige . ( Memento of January 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 221 kB)
  2. ↑ a b E. Clees, 1997