Constructing Jewish bodies in Germany through physical culture and racial pseudo-science

Abstract

As industrialization heightened in Europe, so did science and technological innovation. The expanded focus on human biology, evolution and genetics coincided with the growth of racism in Europe. In Germany, one group of people who were subjugated, was the Jewish population. Since, Jewish racism was a phenomenon in Europe during the physical culture movement, scientific “findings” were used in Germany to suggest that the intellectual abilities and physical beauty of Jews were inferior to the Nordic race. As a result of social, political, economic, religious, and cultural factors, Jewish bodies were projected as being abnormal. Thus, pseudoscience was used as a tool for reinventing/protecting the German nation by preserving the blood of the glorious bodily conception of the German people.