German eugenicists were funded by wealthy Americans to accumulate evidence that mental illness was speading genetically
In the U.S., The eugenics movement had established the paradigm that mental illness was genetically inherited, and much as U.S. geneticists had, German eugenicists sought to develop scientific evidence that mental illnesses were inherited and that such genetic disease was spreading through its population. American money helped fund this effort. In 1925, the Rockefeller Foundation gave $2.5 million to the Psychiatric Institute in Munich, which quickly became Germany’s leading center for eugenics research. In addition, it gave money to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics and Eugenics in Berlin, which was used to pay for a national survey of “degenerative traits” in the German population.
References
- Whitaker, Robert. (2002). Mad in America Chapter 3. UNFIT TO BREED (p. 100). New York, NY: Basic Books.