Fritz Lenz

The pupil of Alfred Ploetz, Lenz took over the publication of the magazine "Archives for Racial and Social Biology" from 1913 to 1933 and received in 1923 the first chair in eugenics in Munich.

The results of his research were published in 1921 and 1932 in collaboration with Erwin Baur and Eugen Fischer in two volumes that were later combined under the title Human Heredity Theory and Racial Hygiene (1936).

This work and his theory of "race as a value principle" placed Lenz and his two colleagues in the position of Germany's leading racial theorists.

He joined the Nazi party in 1937 while serving as the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics.

He stated that "The German nation is the last refuge of the Nordic race … before us lies the greatest task of world history".

This poster (from around 1938) reads: "60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read ' [A] New People ', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP ."