Alfred Ploetz

Alfred Ploetz (1860 to 1940) was a German physician and biologist who became a leading figure of the German eugenics movement and is known for coining the term racial hygiene, in German Rassenhygiene, for a form of eugenics that he promoted in Germany. Born in Swinemünde and raised in Breslau, he first studied political economy and, after fleeing to Zürich in 1883 under the pressure of Bismarck's antisocialist laws, turned to medicine and qualified as a doctor in 1890. He first set out his theory of racial hygiene in 1895, founded the periodical Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie in 1904 and the German Society for Racial Hygiene in 1905. He later supported the Nazi Party. His ideas are now recorded as part of the history of discredited medical and biological doctrine.