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Nature 407, 823-824 (19 October 2000) | doi:10.1038/35038223

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Deep roots of Nazi science revealed

Alison Abbott & Quirin Schiermeier

A Berlin-based group of science historians has found that the ties between the top German scientists whose research was used to justify Nazi policies and the regime itself were much closer than was once thought.In 1939, for example, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, praised two leading researchers at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) for Anthropology in Berlin for their work "that has contributed significantly to the scientific recognition of the racial parts of the national socialist view of the world".