The Scientific Origins of National Socialism

Many studies of the origin of National Socialism claim that the vlkisch and proto-Nazi movement arose largely as a reaction to the materialistic ideas of nineteenth-century science and especially to the naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. Using hitherto unexplored material, Daniel Gasman calls this generalization into question. Arguing that the importance of science has been relatively neglected in accounts of the intellectual origins of Nazism, he attempts to show that Haeckels scientific? Darwinism, and his movement, the German Monist League, were proto-Nazi in character.