ttest or superior individuals. This requires differences among a species, which in time become great enough so that those individuals that posses advantageous features — the fittest — are more apt to survive. Darwin’s theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. The Nazis believed that instead of permitting natural forces and chance to control evolution, they must direct the process to advance the human race. The first step to achieve this goal was to isolate the ‘inferior races’ in order to prevent them from further contaminating the ‘Aryan’ gene pool. Aryans believed that their evolutionary superiority gave them not only the right, but also the duty to subjugate all other peoples. The ultimate aim was to breed a new race of healthy and strong Aryan "supermen" and "superwomen" and to provide a vast living space for this new "master race," derived from the actual Germans of 1933-45, in Central and Eastern Europe. Race was a major plank of the Nazi philosophy. Hitler argued that governments must aid in the elimination, or at least quarantine, of the inferior races. Eugenicist theories promoting sterilization and euthanasia were widely propagated in German society through education and other means. Among the most prominent means used was film. In his 1936 novel Mission and Conscience (and subsequent film entitled, "I Accuse"), Helmut Unger told a story of a young woman suffering from multiple sclerosis who believes that her life is no longer worth living and asks her physician husband to relieve her of her misery. Later, the key role of such images in leading to the acceptance of medical killing became apparent. Therefore, the T-4 doctors who participated in the 'euthanasia' project, did not consider themselves to be killers, but ministers of medical treatment. The perpetrators believed in the notion of "life unworthy of living" before, during, and after their horrendous...
