Rassenkunde

Rassenkunde, literally “racial science,” is a historical field within anthropology and biology that sought to classify human populations into distinct races based on physical characteristics, ancestry, and heredity, and to explain differences in behavior, culture, and intellect. In practice, it combined physical anthropology, craniometry, and later eugenics, and often served as a justification for discriminatory policies.

Originating in the 18th and 19th centuries, racial classification was advanced by scholars such as Blumenbach and Buffon, and later by early 20th-century proponents of eugenics who argued that races differed in inherent worth and abilities. In German-speaking lands the term Rassenkunde was widely used and became linked with state and medical institutions that sought to map populations and justify political racism. During the Nazi era, Rassenkunde was integral to racial ideology, informing laws, anti-Semitic measures, forced sterilizations, and genocide, under the guise of scientific legitimacy. Following World War II, scholarly and public attitudes shifted toward critical examination of such claims and the rejection of racial hierarchies.

Contemporary genetics and anthropology reject the notion of discrete, hierarchically ranked human races, showing that genetic variation is continuous and populations intermix widely. The term Rassenkunde is now largely historical or used in critical discussions of the history of science. Modern analyses emphasize population history, migration, and adaptation rather than attempts to rank people or justify inequality.