Citation

Broemsel S. Zeitschrift fur Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 2013; 65(3): 252-277.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013)

DOI

10.1163/15700739-90000067

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The essay analyses the social-Darwinist context around the year 1900. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the popular philosopher who lived in Vienna, dedicated his racial-theoretical magnum opus, "Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts", to the Jewish botanist Julius Wiesner. The Viennese scholar recommended the book about Darwin to Max Steiner, who was living in Berlin. Chamberlain contacted the young author, who, although he was also Jewish, wrote himself with radical accents into the pre-Nazi eugenic. Steiner, in his case at the age of 26, like Otto Weininger, committed suicide. The constellation of Chamberlain, Wiesner and Steiner provides information about historical developments at a time when Darwin's theses of separation were filled with racial thinking and the variations were there by confronted with a species with racist values. © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.

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