EUGENE ICKS

Eugene Icks was born in Hungary in 1910 and educated at The Royal Palatine Joseph University of Technology and Economics in Budapest (now known as Corvinus).
Having been brought up as a Catholic Eugene, when an undergraduate was seduced into the more modernist teachings of social philosophy.......

..... actually, to be more correct, Eugene was seduced by Marga Batori ..... an older student who took the young and naive Eugene under her wing (and other places). Marga was a shadowy character and there have been rumours that she was connected to the Abwehr, Germany's intelligence service. In bed Marga spoke softly to Eugene about her beliefs and her fears of modern societies advancements being undermined by people and peoples 'who were holding back progress'.

Eugene was conflicted. His parents, the priests  and his teachers had taught him that all life was sacred and that we must take care of those who are infirm and weaker than ourselves but ......Marga had breasts!

Having become immersed in social philosophy  - and Marga - Eugene realised that he liked the modern ideas which made a lot more sense to him than the arcane and archaic teachings from Catholicism. He could never get his mind around the concept of the so-called 'holy trinity' and the idea of an immaculate conception, even given that he was a virgin at the time of being taught -  that was clearly ridiculous. No, genetics was the new god to him and he pursued his studies passionately.

By the time that he received his doctorate at age 24 Eugene had developed his ideas into a code which was being noticed by others both within and without Hungary. His thesis (with the not very catchy title of 'Eugene Icks - A study of the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits.') aroused great debate  and triggered angry responses from religious organisations and political parties alike.

Marga, by this time had left Eugene for a music teacher, a once healthy and rotund man who was reduced, under Marga's ministrations to a skinny and frail wreck last believed to be living in Lazio near Rome.

Eugene's thesis and his follow up papers, now shortened in name to Eugene Icks' Findings found their way to the new Social Welfare Department of the new NSDAP Greater German Reich and soon Eugene was summoned to Berlin to present his findings to the new Reichminister Himmler.

Eugene and Himmler got on very well and, under Himmler's patronage Eugene's social philosophy writings were endorsed and embraced by the Nazi Party and the Third Reich with printings, book launches and public meetings at which Eugene was asked to speak. This was all in the public arena.

To Eugene's discomfort however, behind the scenes at a darker level, Himmler and others including Heydrich and Speer were more interested in the negative side of his findings - those concerned with marriage prohibition and  sterilisation of people deemed unfit for reproduction. The measures discussed went beyond Eugene's initial recommendations and included people with mental or physical disabilities, people who scored low in IQ tests, criminals and deviants and members of politically undesirable minority groups. To make things worse Eugene overheard a discussion between Heydrich and Himmler that went beyond marriage prohibition and sterilisation and talked about a 'Final Solution'.

Fretting away in his monk-like study (Marga had exhausted Eugene's sexual energy) Eugene began to revise his findings and began a new treatise that basically reversed his original proposition. This of course did not go unnoticed and the 'assistant' who had been provided for him would take all his daily writings to Himmler instead of having them typed and printed. Himmler was naturally incensed and commissioned an investigation into Icks' background. What was discovered was that Icks' grandmother on his mother's side was associated with the Judaic faith and his great uncle on his father's side had been committed to a sanitarium - what for was uncertain but it was enough for Himmler. In 1937 Eugene Icks was quietly taken into custody and later ensconced in one of the new 're-education' camps at Dachau where he remained until 1942 when Heydrich who was both jealous and suspicious of Icks had him spirited away to the 'Special Treatment' camp of Auschwitz in Poland where it is believed he died soon afterwards.

The Nazis went on to fully embrace Icks philosophy (or at least the parts of it that suited their agenda) and compulsory sterilisation and mass murder was carried out until the end of World War Two.

The Americans liked what Icks had written and what the Nazis had done (even though they pretended not to) and forced sterilisation was carried out for decades afterwards and Icks' teachings still have a place in modern American social philosophy thinking.