The Myth of the Twentieth Century is a book by
Alfred Rosenberg' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi party and editor of the Nazi paper
Völkischer BeobachterThe Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
. It was the most influential Nazi text after Hitler's
Mein KampfMein Kampf, in English: My Struggle, is a book by Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology...
. The titular "myth" is
the myth of blood, which under the sign of the swastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
unchains the racial world-revolution. It is the awakening of the race soul, which after long sleep victoriously ends the race chaos (quoted in Viereck, 2003, p.
The Myth of the Twentieth Century is a book by
Alfred Rosenberg' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...
, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi party and editor of the Nazi paper
Völkischer BeobachterThe Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
. It was the most influential Nazi text after Hitler's
Mein KampfMein Kampf, in English: My Struggle, is a book by Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology...
. The titular "myth" is
the myth of blood, which under the sign of the swastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
unchains the racial world-revolution. It is the awakening of the race soul, which after long sleep victoriously ends the race chaos (quoted in Viereck, 2003, p. 229).
Rosenberg's influences
Rosenberg was inspired by
Meister EckhartMeister Eckhart O.P. , is the most common formula used to refer to Eckhart von Hochheim, a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in Thuringia. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...
, the racist theories of
Houston Stewart ChamberlainHouston Stewart Chamberlain was a British-born author of books on political philosophy, natural science and his posthumous father-in-law Richard Wagner...
,
Richard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas...
's romanticism and also by
AryanismThe Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture 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...
. He believed that
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
created man as separate races, not as individuals or mankind as a whole, and that only the
Aryan raceThe Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture 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...
has a
soulThe soul, in many religions, spiritual traditions, and philosophies, is the spiritual and eternal part of a living being, commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; distinct from the physical part. It is typically thought to consist of ones consciousness and personality, and can be...
.
The Myth of the Twentieth Century was conceived as a sequel to Chamberlain's
The Foundations of the Nineteenth CenturyThe Foundations of the Nineteenth Century was the best-selling work by Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In it he advances various racist and especially antisemitic theories on how he saw the Aryan race as superior to others, and the Teutonic peoples as a positive force in European civilisation and...
(Yahil, 1991, p. 41).
Outline of contents of the book
Rosenberg's racial interpretation of history concentrates on the supposedly negative influence of the Jewish race in contrast to the
Aryan raceThe Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture 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...
. He equates the latter with the Nordic peoples of northern Europe and also includes the Berbers from
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
. According to Rosenberg, modern culture has been corrupted by
SemiticIn linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages....
influences, which have produced degenerate
modern artModern art refers to artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
, along with moral and social
degenerationThe 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...
. In contrast, Aryan culture is defined by innate moral sensibility and an energetic will to power. Rosenberg believed that the higher races must rule over the lower and not interbreed with them, because cross-breeding destroys the divine combination of physical heredity and spirit. He uses an organic metaphor of the race and the
StateA sovereign state is a political association with effective internal and external sovereignty over a geographic area and population which is not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state...
and argues that the Nazis must purify the race soul by eliminating non-Aryan elements in much the same ruthless and uncompromising way in which a surgeon would cut a cancer from a diseased body.
In Rosenberg's
pseudohistoryPseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to texts which are supposedly historical in nature but which depart from standard historiographical conventions in a way which undermines their conclusions....
migrating Aryans founded various ancient civilizations which declined and fell due to inter-marriage with lesser races. This included the Indo-Aryan civilization, ancient Persia, Greece and Rome. He saw the ancient Germanic invasions of the Roman empire as "saving" its civilization which had been corrupted both by intermixing and "Judaized-cosmopolitan" Christianity. Furthermore, he noted that the persecutions of Protestants in France and other areas as the wiping out of the last remnants of the Aryan element in those areas, a process completed by the French revolution. In contemporary Europe, he saw the northern areas that embraced Protestantism as the closest to the Aryan racial and spiritual ideal.
Following H.S. Chamberlain and other volkish theorists, he believed that Christ was an Aryan (specifically an
AmoriteAmorite refers to a Semitic people who occupied large parts of Mesopotamia from at least the second half of the third millennium BC...
) and that original Christianity was an "Aryan" religion, but had been corrupted by the followers of
Paul of TarsusPaul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, ...
. The "Mythus" is very anti-Catholic, seeing the Churches' cosmopolitanism and "Judaized" version of Christianity as one of the factors in Germany's spiritual bondage. Rosenberg mentions the anti-Judaic teachings of the heresies
MarcionismMarcionism is an Early Christian dualist belief system that originates in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144. Marcion believed Jesus Christ was the savior sent by God and Paul of Tarsus was his chief apostle, but he rejected the Hebrew Bible and Yahweh...
and "Aryo-Persian" Manicheanism as more representative of the true, "anti-Judaic" Jesus Christ and more suited to the Nordic world-view. Rosenberg saw Martin Luther and the Reformation as an important step forward toward reasserting the "Aryan spirit", but having not gone far enough in its founding of just another dogmatic church.
When he discussed the future of religion in the future Reich, he suggested that a multiplicity of forms be tolerated, including "
positive ChristianityPositive Christianity is a term adopted by Nazi leaders to refer to a model of Christianity consistent with Nazism.-Theological and doctrinal aspects:...
", neo-paganism, even a form of "purified" Aryan Hinduism. He saw all these religious systems as allegorical, and was skeptical that the Nordic gods could gain a foothold in modern times.
Another myth, to which he gave "allegorical" credence, was the idea of
AtlantisAtlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias.In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC...
, which he felt might preserve a memory of an ancient Aryan homeland. What he actually says in the first chapter is this:
And so today the long derived hypotheses becomes a probability, namely that from a northern centre of creation which, without postulating an actual submerged Atlantic continent, we may call Atlantis, swarms of warriors once fanned out in obedience to the ever renewed and incarnate Nordic longing for distance to conquer and space to shape.
This tendentious account of world history is used to support his dualistic model of human experience, as are ideas co-opted from Nietzsche and Social Darwinist writers of the era.
Influence of the book
Thanks to Nazi support the book sold more than one million copies by 1944. However, Adolf Hitler is said never to have read the book (Lukacs, 1998, p. xix).
Joseph GoebbelsPaul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reichsminister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945...
, who in his novel
Michael: A German Fate In Diary Notes expressed strong Christian beliefs, even called it a "philosophical burp" and
Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
said, "If Rosenberg was to decide, we would only have rite,
thingA thing or ting was the governing assembly in Germanic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead...
, myth and such kind of swindle."
See also
- Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
- Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture 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...
- Christianity and anti-Semitism
Antisemitism has been described as primarily hatred against Jews as a race with its modern expression rooted in 19th century racial theories, whilst anti-Judaism is described as hostility to Jewish religion but in Western Christianity it effectively merged into antisemitism during the 12th...
- Nazi Mysticism
Speculation about National Socialism and Occultism has become part of popular culture since 1960. Aside from several popular documentaries, there are numerous books on the topic, most notably Le Matin des Magiciens and The Spear of Destiny ; The first examples of this literary genre appeared in...
- Race
- Racism
Racism 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 case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
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