Ahnenpass
Encyclopedia
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
lineage of citizens of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. It was one of the forms of the Aryan certificate
Aryan certificate
In Nazi Germany, the Aryan certificate was a document which certified that a person was a member of the Aryan race. Beginning in April 1933 it was required from all employees and officials in the public sector, including education, according to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional...
(Ariernachweis).
The term "Aryan" in this context was used in a sense widely accepted in scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
of the time, which assumed a Caucasian race
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
which was sub-divided into Semitic, Hamitic and Aryan (Japhetic)
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
subraces, the latter corresponding to the Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
ethno-linguistic phylum. Nevertheless, the de facto primary objective was to create extensive profiling based on racial data.
The investigation for lineage was not obligatory as it was a major undertaking to research the original documents for birth and marriage. Many Nazi followers had already begun to research their lineage even before law required it (soon after the NSDAP took power on January 30, 1933).
One important law which was issued on April 7, 1933 (after the Nazi assumption of power) was called the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-establish the Civil Service, was a law passed by the National Socialist regime on April 7, 1933, two months after Adolf...
, and it required all public servants to be of "Aryan" descent. The law, however, did not define the term "Aryan" and a subsequent regulation was issued on April 11 as the first legal attempt by the Third Reich to define who was, and who was not, a Jew. The implementing decree followed the pre-Nazi trend found in the Aryan Paragraph
Aryan paragraph
An Aryan paragraph is a clause in the statutes of an organization, corporation, or real estate deed that reserves membership and/or right of residence solely for members of the Aryan race and excludes from such rights any non-Aryans, particularly Jews or those of Jewish descent, as well as to those...
and read in pertinent part that:
The applicable fields were later enlarged under different laws to include lawyers, teachers, medical doctors and finally requiring a proven Aryan lineage even to attend high school or to get married. Usually, the lineage was investigated four generations back.
The Ahnenpass was not public record; the document was shown where required and returned to the bearer.
As a result, genealogical
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
research particularly flourished in Germany during the Third Reich.
See also
- Nuremberg lawsNuremberg LawsThe Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
- German Blood CertificateGerman Blood CertificateA German Blood Certificate was a document provided by Hitler to Mischlinge , declaring them deutschblütig . This practice was begun sometime after the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and allowed exemption from most of Germany's racial laws...
- Nazi eugenicsNazi eugenicsNazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns...
- Racial policy of Nazi GermanyRacial policy of Nazi GermanyThe racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race", and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy...
- MischlingMischlingMischling was the German term used during the Third Reich to denote persons deemed to have only partial Aryan ancestry. The word has essentially the same origin as mestee in English, mestizo in Spanish and métis in French...
- Mischling TestMischling TestMischling Test refers to the legal test under Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws that was applied to determine whether a person was considered a "Jew" or a "Mischling".-Background:...
Literature
- Der Ahnenpaß des Ehepaares. Verlag für Standesamtswesen, Berlin 1939.
- Eric Ehrenreich: The Nazi Ancestral Proof: Genealogy, Racial Science, and the Final Solution. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-253-34945-3
- Cornelia Essner: Die „Nürnberger Gesetze“ oder Die Verwaltung des Rassenwahns 1933–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2002, ISBN 3-506-72260-3.