
On a visit to Hartheim Castle, a 400-year-old Renaissance fortress not far from Mauthausen concentration camp, I found myself examining a skull-measuring device from 1940. The sinister metal calipers and two measuring scales are on loan from Vienna’s Museum of Natural History; across from the glass display case is a 1930 poster from the UK Eugenics Society featuring a strong, tall man scattering seeds in a field. It reads: “Only Healthy Seed Must Be Sown: Check the Seeds of Hereditary Disease and Fitness by Eugenics.”
Nearby is a 1927 American movie poster: “Youth has its fling—and then comes the burning question—Are you fit to marry?”
h/t Sweetpea
