| abstract | To pursue its goal of racial perfection, Nazism waged a war of elimination against those whom they perceived to be genetically
inferior and biologically unfit. Through draconian legislation and the all-invasive power of the state, the Third Reich incessantly worked toward the creation of a
"national community" free from hereditary illness. Critical to the success of this biological policy was a massive propaganda campaign designed to galvanize public
support and to "re-awaken" Germans to their racial inheritance. The Office of Racial Policy (RPA), under the authority of Dr. Walter Groβ, created eugenic
propaganda intended to educate every German, man, woman and child about the perceived threat to the health of the German Volk. Utilizing the power of the
mass-media, the RPA developed and implemented a propaganda campaign against the disabled in the 1930s. This dissertation will examine this Nazi organization
and the man who guided the RPA in its work. As part of this propaganda war against the disabled, the Nazis relied heavily upon decades of eugenic thinking inside
and outside of Germany. Therefore, to fully understand the RPA's work, it is necessary to examine the evolution of eugenics as related to policies of the Third Reich.
This dissertation will demonstrate the adaptation of eugenic theories and racial studies into, not only legislation adopted by Hitler's Germany, but also the propaganda
crafted by Groβ and the RPA. Scholarly works which have examined Nazi eugenic policies and Nazi propaganda rarely detail Groβ' organization in detail. The
core mission of this dissertation is to provide scholarship into the intersection of Nazi eugenic policies and Nazi propaganda, demonstrated by the work of Walter
Groβ and the RPA. This dissertation will demonstrate the importance of Nazi eugenic propaganda and the critical importance of Groβ and the RPA to the Third
Reich's quest to create a genetically perfect Aryan race.
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