Page 627 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

strength and nourishment from Darwinism and using allegedly scientific arguments, Hitler and the oth-
er Nazi leaders sought to justify all their own psychopathic cruelty. In fact, the cultural environment that
encouraged such an ideology also bore traces of Darwinism. As we shall see in the following pages, the
Social Darwinism that entered Germany in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to fanatical

Darwinists like Ernst Haeckel, profoundly influenced German society and constituted a most important
philosophical foundation for Nazism's success.

War in Nazi Germany and Evolution

According to Social Darwinism's perverted thinking, war allows societies to advance, selects the
fittest and eliminates the weak. War is regarded as a positive force because it eradicates not only weak
races, but also the weaker within the "superior race." That's why Social Darwinism approves of war. The

Nazism adopted militarism with the same Social Darwinist logic. Robert Clark, in Darwin: Before and
After, cites Mein Kampf as a reference and provides the following information about Hitler:

Hitler's attitude to the League of Nations and to peace and war were based upon the same principles. "A
world court … would be a joke … the whole world of Nature is a mighty struggle between strength and
weakness - an eternal victory of the strong over the weak. There would be nothing but decay in the whole of

nature if this were not so. States which [violate] … this elementary law would fall into decay. … He who
would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this world where permanent struggle is the law of
life, has not the right to exist." To think otherwise is to "insult" nature. "Distress, misery and disease are her

rejoinders." 99
With Social Darwinism, the ideology of conflict and warlike hysteria grew stronger. Darwinist con-

cepts were a very influential catalyst that encouraged these trends and led to them being adopted by an
entire society. For the first time, racism and a longing for conflict thus found an alleged scientific foun-
dation and were presented to society as an irrefutable fact. The writings of Dr. Albert Edward Wiggam,
an evolutionary theoretician during the Nazi era, published in 1922, reflect one of "deceptions" most fre-

quently encountered in the world of German ideas of the time:

... at one time man had scarcely more brains than his [so-called] anthropoid cousins, the apes. But, by kick-
ing, biting, fighting … and outwitting his enemies and by the fact that the ones who had not sense and
strength enough to do this were killed off, man's brain became enormous and he waxed both in wisdom and

agility if not in size … 100
The conclusion the Nazis drew from this imaginary "evolutionary history," the product of a sick
mentality, is this: According to the Nazis' false perspective, war was constructive in long term, because

evolutionists maintained that human beings advanced only by means of lethal conflict. Like Hitler and
Rosenberg, other Nazi ideologues also claimed that contemporary civilizations had come into being
chiefly through constant war. Various so-called scientists of the time also defended this twisted view-

point.
University of Berlin's Professor Haeckel, for instance, a known proponent of Darwinism, praised the
ancient Greek militaristic state of Sparta, claiming that the Spartans being a chosen people explained
why they were so successful and superior to others. He said that by killing all but the "perfectly healthy
and strong children" the Spartans were "continually in excellent strength and vigor." 101 Haeckel regard-

ed these savage practices as justified. According to him, Germany should have followed this Spartan
custom too, because infanticide of the deformed and sickly children was "a practice of advantage to both
the infants destroyed and to the community." These unconscionable recommendations of Haeckel's are

important in revealing the logical framework represented by the unscientific claims of Darwinism, ac-
cording to which the idea that all lives have equal value and need to be protected was merely a "tradi-
tional dogma" and allegedly a violation of scientific truth. 102 No rational person of good conscience
could ever accept these claims, but eminent Germans strongly adopted them at one time.

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