death in 1919, Haeckel contributed to that special variety of German thought which served as the seed-bed for National Socialism. He became one of Germany’s main ideologists for racism, nationalism, and imperialism."—*Daniel Gasman, Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League (1971), p. xvi.
"German Darwinism was shaped by Ernst Haeckel, who combined it with anticlericalism, militaristic patriotism and visions of German racial purity. He encouraged the destruction of the established church in Germany, with its sermons about ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’ and compassion for unfortunates. Such a ‘superstitious’ doctrine would lead to ‘racial suicide.’ "—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 119. ("Monism" is the theory that all reality consists only of matter. This teaching is an important basis of atheism).
"Of all the forerunners of Hitler in Germany—Hegel, Comte, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, and others—the most significant was certainly Ernst Haeckel, the atheistic founder of the Monist League and the most vigorous promoter of both biological Darwinism and social Darwinism in continental Europe in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."—H.M. Morris, Long War Against God (1989), pp. 77-78.
"Only the fittest should survive."
"He [Haeckel] convinced masses of his countrymen they must accept their evolutionary destiny as a ‘master race’ and ‘outcompete’ inferior peoples, since it was right and natural that only the ‘fittest’ should survive. His version of Darwinism was incorporated in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf (1925), which means ‘My Struggle,’ taken from Haeckel’s German translation of Darwin’s phrase, ‘the struggle for existence.’ "—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 207 [also 312-313].
"In 1918, Darwin’s apostle Ernst Haeckel became a member of the Thule Gesellschaft, a secret, radically right-wing organization that played a key role in the establishment of the Nazi movement. Rudolf Hess and Hitler attended the meeting as guests (Phelps, 1963)."—Ian Taylor, In the Minds of Men (1987), p. 488.
"The great German exponent of Militarism, Nietzsche, extended the Darwinian principle of the survival of the fittest in order to inspire his countrymen to fight. According to him, ‘The supreme standard of life is purely materialistic vitality and power to survive.’ The 1914-1918 war was thus the calculated climax of a policy nourished on the diabolical ideas of Nietzsche for the subjugation of the world. General von Bernhardi in his book, The Next War, shows the connection between war and biology. According to him, ‘War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind that cannot be dispensed with. War increases vitality and promotes human progress.’ The summuim bonum [highest good] of life according to Nietzsche’s own words is ‘Man shall be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior; all else is folly’ " (Oscar Levy, Complete Works of Nietzsche, 1930, Vol. 2, p. 75).
"Adolph Hitler reiterated the same philosophy of life derived from the theory of evolution when he said, ‘The whole of nature is a continuous struggle between strength and weakness, and eternal victory of the strong over the weak."—H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1966) pp. 147-148.
"In defending two young men, Loeb and Leopold, for cruelly murdering a fourteen year old boy, by name of Bobby Franks, the celebrated criminal lawyer of the day, Clarence Darrow, traced their crime back to what they had learned in the university. He argued, ‘Is there any blame attached because somebody took Nietzsche’s philosophy seriously?’ His appeal to the judge was, ‘Your honour, it is hardly fair to hang a nineteen year old boy for the philosophy that was taught him at the university."—*W. Brigans (ed.), Classified Speeches, quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 146.
"The greatest authority of all the advocates of war is Darwin. Since the theory of evolution has been promulgated, they can cover their natural barbari