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Inventing the Criminal:

A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945
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Univ of North Carolina Press, 2000 - History - 348 pages
Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of biological research into the causes of crime, but the origins of this kind of research date back to the late nineteenth century. Here, Richard Wetzell presents the first history of German criminology from Imperial Germany through the Weimar Republic to the end of the Third Reich, a period that provided a unique test case for the perils associated with biological explanations of crime.

Drawing on a wealth of primary sources from criminological, legal, and psychiatric literature, Wetzell shows that German biomedical research on crime predominated over sociological research and thus contributed to the rise of the eugenics movement and the eventual targeting of criminals for eugenic measures by the Nazi regime. However, he also demonstrates that the development of German criminology was characterized by a constant tension between the criminologists' hereditarian biases and an increasing methodological sophistication that prevented many of them from endorsing the crude genetic determinism and racism that characterized so much of Hitler's regime. As a result, proposals for the sterilization of criminals remained highly controversial during the Nazi years, suggesting that Nazi biological politics left more room for contention than has often been assumed.

  

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Selected pages

Contents

INTRODUCTION
1
CHAPTER ONE THE ORIGINS OF MODERN CRIMINOLOGY
15
Medical Explanations of Crime
17
Moral Statistics
21
Studies of the Criminal CLASSES
25
Lombrosos Theory of the Born Criminal
28
The German Penal Reform Movement
31
FROM CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY TO CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY 18801914
39
From Mindarwertige to Psychopathic Personalities
144
The Search for Genetic Factor
153
The First Twin Study
161
Criminal Psychology
168
Assessing the Different Trends In Weimar Criminal Biology
174
CHAPTER SIX CRIMINOLOGY UNDER THE NAZI REGIME
179
AntiSemitism
186
The Search for Genetic Factors Continued
190

Psychiatrists Prison Doctors and the Reception of Lombroso
40
Degeneration Theory and Lombrosos German Critivs
46
The Born Criminal Redefined
52
Combining Biological and Social Explanations of Crime
60
Conclusion
68
CHAPTER THREE CRIMINOLOGY AND PENAL POLICY 18801914
73
The Question of Diminished Legal Responsibility
79
The IKV Debate over the Treatment of Minderwertigo
83
The Juristentag Debate over the Treatment of Minderwertige
90
Proposals for the Surveillance and Preventive Internment of Minderwertige
96
Proposals for Sterilization
100
CHAPTER FOUR CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY IN THE WEIMAR YEARS
107
A Giant Experiment
109
Franz Exners Criminal Sociology
116
Criminology and Criminal Justice In the Weimar Years
120
VARIETIES OF CRIMINAL BIOLOGY IN THE WEIMAR YEARS
125
The Creation of Bavarias CriminalBiological Service
128
Criticisms of the CriminalBiological Service
137
Psychoanalysis and Somatotyplng
142
The Search for Genetic Factors Criticized
202
Two Syntheses
209
Research on Asocials
219
Conclusion
230
CHAPTER SEVEN CRIMINOLOGY AND EUGENICS 19191945
233
Sterilization Debates among Weimar Psychiatrists 19231933
237
Weimar Bureaucrats and Politicians Respond 19231933
246
The Nazi Sterilization Law of July 1933
254
Expanding the Definition of Feeblemindedness
260
Feeblemindedness and Crime In the Sterilization Courts
265
The Treatment of Criminals under the Marriage Health Law
272
Debates about Expanding the Sterilization Law to Include Criminals
276
Radical Schemes and the Murder of Criminals in the Euthanasia Operation 19391945
280
Conclusion
289
CONCLUSION
295
BIBLIOGRAPHY
307
INDEX
345
Copyright

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Inventing the criminal: a history of German criminology, 1880-1945
Inventing the criminal: a history of German criminology, 1880-1945
Richard F. Wetzell
Snippet view - 2000

Common terms and phrases

abnormal argued Aschaffenburg asocial asylum Bavarian Berlin biological Birnbaum Bleuler born criminal causes of crime Cesare Lombroso characteristics corrigibility criminal behavior criminal biology criminal disposition criminal justice criminal psychology criminal-biological examinations criminal-biological research Criminal-Biological Service criminal's criminogenic criminological research criminology defects degeneration Deutsche Emil Kraepelin environment Eugenik euthanasia Exner explanations of crime feeblemindedness fiir genetic factors German Geset2 Giitt Gruhle Gutt habitual criminals hereditarian heredity Ibid iiber incorrigible individual jurists Karl Birnbaum Kraepelin Kran2 kriminalbiologische Kriminalitat Kurt Schneider Lange Lange's legal responsibility Liepmann Liszt Lombroso Luxenburger Me2ger mental illness Minderwertige Ministry moral insanity Munich Nacke nals Nazi regime notion offenders penal code penal policy penal reform percent prison doctors proposed psychiatrists psychological psychopathic punishment racial recidivists Reich result retributive justice Riidin role of heredity Schneider scientific sociological statistical sterili2ation law sterili2ation of criminals sterilized Strafrecht Stumpfl theory tion twin study University Press Verbrechen Verbrecher Viernstein Weimar Weimar Republic

References to this book

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References from web pages

Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880 ...
368 pp., 61/8 x 91/4, notes, bibl., index. Published: Spring 2000, Inventing the Criminal A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945 by Richard F. Wetzell ...
uncpress.unc.edu/ chapters/ wetzell_inventing.html

Eric A. (Eric Arthur) Johnson - Inventing the Criminal: A History ...
Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945. By Richard F. Wetzell (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. xiv plus ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ journal_of_social_history/ v035/ 35.4johnson.html

JSTOR: Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology ...
Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945, by Richard F. wetzell Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 348 pp. ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0094-3061(200201)31%3A1%3C89%3AITCAHO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945 ...
Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of biological research into the causes of crime, but the origins of this kind of research date back to the late ...
www.questia.com/ library/ book/ inventing-the-criminal-a-history-of-german-criminology-1880-1945-by-richard-f-wetzell.jsp

Inventing the criminal: a history of German criminology, 1880–1945 ...
Inventing the criminal: a history of German criminology, 1880–1945. By Richard F. Wetzell. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, ...
journals.cambridge.org/ abstract_S0018246X03232969

University of Chicago Press - Book Review - 10.1086/343270
All Journals > Isis > March 2002 > Book Review. Isis. Sponsored by the History of Science Society. Search Journal in. This issue, This journal, All journals ...
www.journals.uchicago.edu/ cgi-bin/ resolve?id=doi:10.1086/ 343270

@article {Zimmerman:2002:8756-6583:447, author = "Zimmerman A ...
@article {Zimmerman:2002:8756-6583:447, author = "Zimmerman A.", title = "Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945", ...
www.ingentaconnect.com/ content/ oup/ holgen/ 2002/ 00000016/ 00000003/ art00447;jsessionid=34duraeb0khcq.alexandra?format=bib

H-Net Review: Elun Gabriel on Kriminologie im deutschen ...
... 2002); Richard Wetzell, Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2000). ...
www.h-net.org/ reviews/ showrev.cgi?path=142791169494660

Keller-Lally Lesson Plan
Unit II: Biological Typing – The Criminal. Lesson Plan: Day 7. I. Materials. A. Reading: Gould, “The Politics of Evolution”, pp. 15-20 ...
www.utexas.edu/ courses/ arens/ austint/ lessonplan.pdf

History of Psychiatry
http://hpy.sagepub.com. History of Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1177/0957154X0101204607. 2001; 12; 237. History of Psychiatry. Ivan Crozier ...
hpy.sagepub.com/ cgi/ reprint/ 12/ 46/ 237.pdf

About the author (2000)

Wetzell is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Inventing the Criminal
TitleInventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945
Studies in Legal History
AuthorRichard F. Wetzell
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniv of North Carolina Press, 2000
ISBN0807861049, 9780807861042
Length348 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Europe / Germany
History / Modern / 20th Century
Social Science / Criminology
  
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