the United States and Nazi-Germany. Unlike the two aforementioned countries, where sterilization was compulsory, in Sweden a 'democratic approach' is pursued, under the motto of 'opposition shall be overcome through persuasion'. The German and Swedish implementation of eugenics was bound by a common thread: a profound pride in their Nordic bloodline, and their belief that other ethnic groups were inherently inferior, and those groups should be prevented from interbreeding with the superior one. Hence, negative eugenics was the only logical outcome of Sweden's adoption of eugenics. In pursuit of establishing both positive and negative heritage, a comprehensive study was done on the Swedish population. Towns, parishes, prisons and correctional institutions were visited, and photographs and physical measurements of each person taken. In the Soviet Union The development of racial hygiene and eugenics was beset by problems from the very onset in the Soviet Union. The reason was that Mendel's theory on heredity was ideologically incompatible with the Soviet state, where human beings were regarded as being completely malleable through social engineering and education. After Lenin's death in 1924, German neurologist Oskar Vogt was requested to study Lenin's brain. He established the Brain Research Institute in Moscow. One of its tasks was to collect all the brains of deceased, highly talented/intellectual Soviet individuals, with Lenin as its first specimen. By safeguarding the brains of the best and brightest for research purposes, these scientists hoped to map out and gain a full understanding of the brain. In Germany/Nazi Germany Germany's first institute of race biology, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, opens in 1927 in Berlin. The Institute's chairman, Eugen Fischer, says its task is to 'investigate the connection between heredity, environment and crossbreeding, and to promote social measures which benefit racially sound individuals'. Though genetics research is gradually beginning to challenge some of the claims made by racial hygiene theories, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute reduces 'genetics' to just another 'auxiliary science' subordinate to eugenics. With the passing of forced sterilization laws, thousands of Germans with various disabilities are sterilized. Eventually, this is followed by extermination. References External links 1998 films Swedish documentary films 1998 documentary films Documentary films about the history of science Eugenics 1990s English-language films 1990s Swedish films