1904 - 1944. In 1904, the first publication of the German periodical, Archiv für Rassen - und Gesellerschaftsbiology (Journal of Racial and Social Biology) is released. The journal is edited and founded by the "father of racial hygiene," Alfred Ploetz, who was also responsible for coining the term "racial hygiene". The publication reached international audiences during its run (Turda & Weindling, 2007 ; War Against the Inferior, n.d.). Archiv fur Rassen was the first journal created focused primarily on eugenics, either in Germany or abroad (Hendrick, 2005). It was considered especially credible due to its association with Ploetz (Hendrick, 2005), and became the most important racial hygiene journal (Proctor, 1988).

Upon its foundation, Ploetz declared that Archiv had the goal of discovering "the principles of the optimal conditions for the maintenance and development of the race" (as cited in Proctor, 1988, p.17). The journal was used to help promote ideas of the Society for Racial Hygiene (Schreiber & Martindale, 2012), which was founded a year later in 1905 by Alfred Ploetz, Ernst Rüdin, Anastasius Nordenholz, and Richard Thurnwald (Proctor, 1988). Its first issue was dedicated to August Weismann and Ernst Haeckel (Proctor, 1988).

Fritz Lenz became an editor of Archiv für Rassen in 1913. Other editors included Eugen Fischer, and Julius Lehmann (Proctor, 1988). Lenz praised Adolf Hitler in Archiv, for taking racial hygiene seriously as a politician (Proctor, 1988). Under Lehmann's editorialship in 1918, Archiv für Rassen closely allied itself to the political Right of Germany, solidifying an alliance between politics and the racial hygiene movement (Proctor, 1988). The journal was influential in German and Soviet eugenics (Proctor, 1988), and was also used by the American Eugenics Records Office (Black, 2015).

Contributors to Archiv included Alfred Ploetz, Ernst Rüdin (also president of the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations), Roderick Plate, and Franz Boaz (Greco, n.d.). Articles focused on topics such as evolution, genetics, degenerative phenomena, the cost of "protecting the weak", population increase, neo-Malthusianism, and anthropology (Greco, n.d., Hendrick, 2005). Due to its long run, the journal provides much evidence in changes of scientific thought towards race (Hendrick, 2005).

-Colette Leung

• Turda, M., & Weindling, P. (Eds). (2007). "Blood and Homeland": Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940. Budapest: Central European University Press.

• Proctor, R. (1988). Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis. Boston: Harvard University Press.

• Weindling, P. (1993). Health, Race and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Schreiber, B., & Martindale, H. R. (2012). The Men Behind Hitler: A German warning to the world. Paris: Les Mureaux.

• The War Against the "Inferior": On the History of Nazi Medicine in Vienna. (n.d.). Chronology. Retrieved from: http://gedenkstaettesteinhof.at/en/chronology

• Black, E. (2015). Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create A Master Race: War against the Weak. Retrieved from: http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/index.php?page=50138

• Hendrick, R. L. (2005). From Social Improvement to Scientific Racism: The Effects of World War I on the Definition of Racial Hygiene in Germany (Master's Thesis). University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

• Greco, J. L. (n.d.). Pre-World War II German Eugenics. Retrieved from: http://wiki.dickinson.edu/index.php/Pre-World_War_II_German_Eugenics