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Nazism developed several theories concerning races. They claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy among "human race"; at the top was the "Nordic race" or "Aryan race
Aryan race

The Aryan race is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 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 ....
", followed by lesser races. At the bottom of this hierarchy were "parasitic" races (of non-Aryan/white European origin) or "Untermensch
Untermensch

Untermensch is a term from Nazism racism ideology used to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Roma people, Slavs, Soviet Bolsheviks, and anyone else who was not an "Aryan race" according to the contemporary Nazi race terminology; including homosexual orientation....
en" ("sub-humans"), which were perceived to be dangerous to society. Lowest of all in the Nazi racial policy
Racial policy of Nazi Germany

The racial policy of Nazi Germany is the set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race," and based on a specific Nazism and race which claimed scientific racism....
 were Gypsies
Roma people

The Romani are an ethnic group of Europe tracing their Origins of the Romani people to middle kingdoms of India.The Romani are Romani diaspora with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, with more recent diaspora populations in the Americas and, to a lesser extent, in other par...
 and Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s.






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Nazism developed several theories concerning races. They claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy among "human race"; at the top was the "Nordic race" or "Aryan race
Aryan race

The Aryan race is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 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 ....
", followed by lesser races. At the bottom of this hierarchy were "parasitic" races (of non-Aryan/white European origin) or "Untermensch
Untermensch

Untermensch is a term from Nazism racism ideology used to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Roma people, Slavs, Soviet Bolsheviks, and anyone else who was not an "Aryan race" according to the contemporary Nazi race terminology; including homosexual orientation....
en" ("sub-humans"), which were perceived to be dangerous to society. Lowest of all in the Nazi racial policy
Racial policy of Nazi Germany

The racial policy of Nazi Germany is the set of policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the "Aryan race," and based on a specific Nazism and race which claimed scientific racism....
 were Gypsies
Roma people

The Romani are an ethnic group of Europe tracing their Origins of the Romani people to middle kingdoms of India.The Romani are Romani diaspora with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, with more recent diaspora populations in the Americas and, to a lesser extent, in other par...
 and Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s. Gypsies and Jews were eventually deemed to be "Lebensunwertes Leben
Life unworthy of life

The phrase "life unworthy of life" was a Nazi term for the segments of populace that, according to the racial policy of the Third Reich, had no right to live and thus, were to be "exterminated." This concept formed an important component of the ideology of Nazism and eventually led to the Holocaust....
" ("Life unworthy of life"). Jews, and later Gypsies, became second-class citizens, expelled from Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
 before being interned in concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps

Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazism concentration camps were greatly expanded in Germany after the Reichstag fire in 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime....
, then exterminated during the Holocaust (see Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg

Raul Hilberg was an Austrians-born American Political Science and historian. He was widely considered to be the wiktionary:doyen of the postwar generation of Holocaust scholars, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazism Final Solution....
's description of the various phases of the Holocaust). Richard Walther Darré, Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture from 1933 to 1942, popularized the expression "Blut und Boden" ("Blood and Soil"), one of the many terms of the Nazi glossary ideologically
Ideology

An ideology is a set of aims and ideas, especially in politics. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society....
 used to enforce popular racism
Racism

Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that Race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race....
 in the German population.

Racialist ideology


Philosophers and others theoreticians also participated to the elaboration of the Nazi ideology. The relationship between Heidegger and Nazism
Heidegger and Nazism

The relations between Martin Heidegger and Nazism are a controversial subject in philosophy, although no one denies his history engagement for the NSDAP, which he joined on May 1, 1933, nearly three weeks after being appointed Rector of the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg....
 has remained a controversial subject in the history of philosophy
History of philosophy

The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what degree can philosophical texts from prior historic...
, even today. According to the philosopher Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger said of Spinoza that he was "ein Fremdkörper in der Philosophie", a "foreign body in philosophy" Faye notes that Fremdkörper was a term which belonged to the Nazi glossary, and not to classical German. The jurist Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt was a Germany jurist, political theorist, and professor of law.Schmitt published several essays, influential in the 20th century and beyond, on the mentalities that surround the effective wielding of political power....
 elaborated a philosophy of law praising the Führerprinzip and the German people, while Alfred Baeumler
Alfred Baeumler

Alfred Baeumler , was a Germany philosopher and pedagogue. In 1924 he became Privatdozent, then in 1929 professor at the Technische Universit?t Dresden....
 instrumentalized Nietzsche's thought, in particular his concept of the "Will to Power
The Will to Power

The Will to Power is the title given to a book of selections from the notebooks of Friedrich Nietzsche by his sister Elisabeth F?rster-Nietzsche and Heinrich K?selitz ....
", in an attempt to justify Nazism.

Three books belonging to the scientific racism ideology, which claimed that perceived racial difference was hierarchical and central to social order, had a major influence on the trajectory of Nazi racial theories:

  • Count Arthur de Gobineau
    Arthur de Gobineau

    Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau was a France aristocrat, novelist and man of letters who became famous for developing the racialist theory of the Aryan race master race in his book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races ....
    ’s 1853 The Inequality of Human Races (Tucker 1994; Poliakov 1974; Biddiss 1970);
  • Madison Grant
    Madison Grant

    Madison Grant was an United States lawyer, historian, and anthropologist, known primarily for his work as a eugenics and conservationist. As a eugenicist, Grant was responsible for one of the most famous works of scientific racism, and played an active role in crafting strong Immigration Act of 1924 and anti-miscegenation laws in the Unite...
    ’s 1916/1924 The Passing of the Great Race
    The Passing of the Great Race

    The Passing of The Great Race; or, The racial basis of European history was an influential book of scientific racism written by the American eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist Madison Grant in 1916....
     (Tucker 1994; Mintz 1985);
  • Lothrop T. Stoddard’s 1920 The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy (Kühl 1994; Tucker 1994).


American eugenicists traded ideas with their counterparts in Nazi Germany (Lombardo 2002; Kühl 1994).

Propaganda and implementation of racial theories


Nazis developed an elaborate system of propaganda
Nazi propaganda

Nazi propaganda is the term that describes the psychologically powerful propaganda within Nazi Germany, much of which centered on Jews, consistently alleged to be the source of Germany's problems....
 to diffuse these theories. Nazi architecture
Nazi architecture

Nazi architecture was an architecture plan and integral part of the Nazi party's plans to create a cultural and spirituality rebirth in Germany as part of the Third Reich....
, for example, was used to create the "new order" and improve the "Aryan race." Sports were also seen by the Nazis as a way to "regenerate the race." The Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth

The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung ....
, founded in 1922, had among its basic motivations the training of future "Aryan supermen" and future soldiers who would faithfully fight for the Third Reich. Cinema was also used to propagandize racist theories, under the direction of Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German people politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers....
' Propagandaministerium. The Hygiene Museum
Culture in Dresden

Dresden is a cultural centre in Germany having influenced the development of European culture. It enhanced international styles and examples to an own identity and cityscape....
, in Dresden, diffused racial theories. A 1934 poster of the museum shows a man with distinctly African features and reads, "If this man had been sterilized there would not have been born ... 12 hereditarily diseased." According to the current director Klaus Voegel, "The Hygiene Museum was not a criminal institute in the sense that people were killed here," but "it helped to shape the idea of which lives were worthy and which were worthless."

Nazi racial theories soon translated into legislation, most notably with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws
Nuremberg Laws

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were laws passed in Nazi Germany. They used a pseudoscience basis to discriminate against Jewish people. The laws classified people as German if all four of their grandparents were of "German blood" , while people were classified as Jews if they descended from three or four Jewish grandparents ....
 and the July 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring

Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring or "Sterilization Law" was a statute in Nazi Germany enacted on July 14, 1933, which allowed the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who in the opinion of a "Genetic Health Court" suffered from a list of alleged genetic disorders....
. The Action T4
Action T4

Action T4 was a program, also called Euthanasia Program, in Nazi Germany spanning October 1939 until August 1941, during which physicians killed 70,273 people specified in Adolf Hitler secret memo of September 1, 1939 as suffering patients "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination," but described in a denunciation of th...
 euthanasia program, in which the Kraft durch Freude
Kraft durch Freude

Kraft durch Freude was a large state-controlled leisure organization in the Third Reich, a part of the German Labour Front , the national Germany labour organization at that time....
 (KdF, literally "Strength Through Joy") youth organization participated, targeted people accused of representing a danger of "degeneration
Degeneration

The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution....
" towards the "Deutsche Volk
Volksdeutsche

Volksdeutsche is a historical term which arose in the early 20th century to describe ethnic Germans living outside of the Reich. This is in contrast to Imperial Germans , German citizens living within Germany....
." The Nazi Regime also implemented a vast bureaucratic apparatus for making "racial determinations," the so-called ancestral proof (Abstammungsnachweis). Probably the vast majority of the population made such a proof during the course of the Third Reich.

Bibliography

  • Biddiss, Michael D. 1970. Father of Racist Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau. New York: Weybright and Talley.
  • Ehrenreich, Eric. 2007 The Nazi Ancestral Proof: Genealogy, Racial Science, and the Final Solution. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  • Kühl, Stefan. 1994. The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Lombardo, Paul A. 2002. "‘The American Breed’: Nazi Eugenics and the Origins of the Pioneer Fund." Albany Law Review 65:743–830.
  • Mintz, Frank P. 1985. The Liberty Lobby and the American Right: Race, Conspiracy, and Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
  • Poliakov, Leon. 1974. Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe. New York, NY: Basic Books.
  • Tucker, William. 2002. The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.


See also

  • Nazi eugenics
    Nazi eugenics

    Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's Nazism and race social policies that placed the improvement of the Race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" , including but not limited to the Crime, Degeneration, Gleichschaltung, feeble-minded, History of homosexual people in...
  • "Life unworthy of life
    Life unworthy of life

    The phrase "life unworthy of life" was a Nazi term for the segments of populace that, according to the racial policy of the Third Reich, had no right to live and thus, were to be "exterminated." This concept formed an important component of the ideology of Nazism and eventually led to the Holocaust....
    "
  • State racism
    State racism

    State racism is a concept used by France philosopher Michel Foucault to designate the reappropriation of the historical and political discourse of "race struggle", in the late 1600s....
  • Ubermensch