in sacramento, during goethe's life, the advocacy of eugenics -the social philosophy of attempting to 'improve' the human population by artificial selection - was considered a progressive issue. though it was opposed by many scientists who thought the understanding of human heredity was too shallow to create solid policy, and by religious leaders who opposed birth control of any form, in the years after the holocaust it was not considered to be as radical as it is today. around 20,000 patients in california state psychiatric hospital were sterilized with minimal or non-existent consent given between 1909 and 1950, when the law went into general disuse before its repeal in the 1960s. a favorable report by human betterment foundation workers e.s. gosney and paul b. popenoe, touting the results of the sterilizations in california, was published in the late 1920s, which in turn was often cited by the nazi government as evidence wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. when nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in nuremberg after world war ii, they justified their mass-sterilizations by pointing at the united states as their inspiration.