Lothrop Stoddard

Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American historian, journalist, political scientist and white supremacist. Stoddard wrote several books which advocated eugenics, white supremacy, Nordicism, and scientific racism, including The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy. He advocated a racial hierarchy which he believed needed to be preserved through anti-miscegenation laws. Stoddard's books were once widely read both inside and outside the United States.

He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, where his books were recommended reading. He was also a member of the American Eugenics Society as well as a founding member and board member of the American Birth Control League, which would later become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Stoddard's work influenced the Nazi government of Germany. His book The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man (1922) may have introduced the term Untermensch (the German translation of "Under-man") into Nazi discussions of race. He traveled as a journalist in Germany during the first months of World War II, during which he received preferential treatment for interviews with Nazi officials and met briefly with Adolf Hitler. In 1900 he enlisted in the United States Army to fight in the Philippine–American War and was commissioned to the signal corps. Following his military stint, Stoddard attended Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude in 1905, and studied law at Boston University until 1908. Stoddard received a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1914.

Career Stoddard was a member of the American Historical Association, the American Political Science Association, and the Academy of Political Science.

In 1923, an exposé by Hearst's International revealed that Stoddard was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and had been acting as a consultant to the organization. A letter from the KKK to members had praised The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy in explicitly racial terms. Stoddard privately dismissed the Hearst magazine as a "radical-Jew outfit". with an introduction by Madison Grant. Stoddard's racist beliefs were especially hostile to black people. He claimed that they were fundamentally different from other groups, they had no civilizations of their own, and had contributed nothing to the world. Stoddard opposed miscegenation, and said that "crossings with the negro are uniformly fatal". Stoddard advocated immigration restriction and birth control legislation to reduce the numbers of the underclass and promoted the reproduction of members of the middle and upper classes. Stoddard was one of several eugenicists who sat on the board of the American Birth Control League.

The Nazi Party's chief racial theorist Alfred Rosenberg appropriated the racial term Untermensch from the German version of Stoddard's 1922 book The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man. The German title was Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen (1925).

Debate with W.E.B. Du Bois In 1929, Stoddard debated African American historian W.E.B. Du Bois on white supremacy and its assertion of the natural inferiority of colored races. The debate, organized by the Chicago Forum Council, was billed as "One of the greatest debates ever held". Du Bois argued in the affirmative to the question "Shall the Negro be encouraged to seek cultural equality? Has the Negro the same intellectual possibilities as other races?". Du Bois knew the racism would be unintentionally funny onstage; as he wrote to Fred Atkins Moore, the event's organizer, Senator J. Thomas Heflin "would be a scream" in a debate.

Stoddard wrote a memoir, Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today (1940), about his experiences in Germany. Among other events, the book describes interviews with such figures as Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley and Fritz Sauckel, as well as a brief meeting with Adolf Hitler.

Postwar After World War II, Stoddard's theories were deemed too closely aligned with those of the Nazis and therefore he suffered a large drop in popularity. His death from cancer in 1950 went almost entirely unreported despite his previously broad readership and influence.

Personal life Stoddard married Elizabeth Guilford Bates (1892–1940) in 1925. They had two children, Theodore Lothrop Stoddard Jr. and Mary Alice Stoddard. In 1944, he married Zoya Klementyknowska (1897–1973).