Hans Betzhold y el “superhombre” chileno: historia de una decepción, 1938-1943

Abstract

The Chilean physician Hans Betzhold published the book Eugenesia (Eugenics) in 1939, which was a work that received multiple awards and ran to a second edition in 1942. Both editions and the participation of Betzhold at the Second Peruvian Conference on Eugenics in 1943 attest to the fact that he was an important actor in the field of Chilean eugenics. This paper analyzes his transition from the publication of Eugenesia, in which he proposes a National Eugenics Department combining existing projects and laws to make the eugenic ideal a reality until its intervention, in the year 1943, when his optimism yields to disillusion regarding the task of creating a "Chilean superman."