INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM’S HOSTILITY TO CHILDBIRTH, RESPONSIBLE CHILDBEARING, AND EUGENIC REPRODUCTIVE POLICIES IN THE FIRST THIRD OF THE 20TH CENTURY*

Synopsis — The political alliance of the repressive wing of the eugenics movement with antiliberal forces and national socialism does not on its own explain the political demise of the more liberal, sexual reformist-inspired eugenic strategies formed in the 1920s. Under the socioeconomic and political circumstances given at the time, the more repressive concepts promised, in practice, to be far more successful in implementing the objectives common to all eugenicists, namely the qualitative (and quantitative) regulation of the production of offspring. The eugenic policies proposed by liberals and sexual reformers were based on unrealistic and abstract-idealistic notions regarding the possibility of reforming motherhood and the voluntary personal identification of the mass of the population with the achievement philosophy and achievement orientation of society during the first third of the 20th century. Synopsis — Die politische Verbindung der repressiven Strömung der Eugenik mit anti-liberalen Kräften und dem Nationalsozialismus erklärt fur sich genommen noch nicht die politische Zurückdrängung von liberaleren, sexualreformerisch angehauchten eugenischen Strategien seit den 20er Jahren dieses Jahrhunderts. Vielmehr waren unter den gegebenen sozio-ökonomischen und politi-schen Verhältnissen dieser Zeit die repressiveren Konzeptionen in der Praxis erfolgversprechender in Bezug auf die Umsetzung der alien Eugeniker