By 1932, only approximately one-third of the population of Germany was working (Weindling 1989; Weiss 2010). Eugenicists asserted that only eugenics-based elimination of the unfit, or “rational selection,” could remedy the growing crisis. A eugenics ideal in Germany also made it possible for “science” to keep “a large and militant working class true to the state—and boost national efficiency” (Weiss 2010, 25–26).
