German scientists framed compulsory sterilization as a humane agricultural necessity

Evidence

Every farmer knows that should he slaughter the best specimens of his domestic animals without letting them procreate and should instead continue breeding inferior individuals, his breeds would degenerate hopelessly. This mistake, which no farmer would commit with his animals and cultivated plants, we permit to go on in our midst to a large extent. As a recompense for our humanness of today, we must see to it that these inferior people do not procreate. A simple operation to be executed in a few minutes makes this possible without farther delay… No one approves of the new sterilization laws more than I do, but I must repeat over and over that they constitute only a beginning. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 391

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to reading on how expert/bureaucratic language laundered Nazi eugenics policy — parallels the ‘gardening state’ theme that recurs in Bauman’s work and in Arendt on totalitarianism.
• QUESTION: How did the sterilization debate move from ‘agricultural analogy’ to legally enforced policy in under two years, and who were the key medical voices pushing beyond the 1933 law?