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Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race

Exhibition
As the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s Department for Human Heredity, Dr. Otmar von Verschuer, a physician and geneticist, examined hundreds of pairs of twins to study whether criminality, feeble-mindedness, tuberculosis, and cancer were inheritable. Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck--Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem

As the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute’s Department for Human Heredity, Dr. Otmar von Verschuer, a physician and geneticist, examined hundreds of pairs of twins to study whether criminality, feeble-mindedness, tuberculosis, and cancer were inheritable. Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck--Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem

Explore the history of the early 20th-century international eugenics movement and the complicity of physicians and scientists in Nazi racial policies. This exhibition challenges us to reflect on the present-day interest in genetic manipulation that promotes the possibility of human perfection.

This exhibition has been made possible by The Lerner Foundation and Eric F. and Lore Ross, with additional support from the Lester Robbins and Sheila Johnson Robbins Traveling and Special Exhibitions Fund established in 1990.