Race and the Third Reich Linguistics, Racial Anthropology and Genetics in the Dialectic of Volk

by Hutton, Christopher M.

• ISBN13: 9780745631776
• ISBN10: 0745631770
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-02
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

This book aims to set out the key concepts, debates and controversies that marked the academic study of race in Nazi Germany. It looks in particular at the discipline of racial anthropology and its relationship to linguistics and human biology.Christopher Hutton identifies the central figures involved in the study of race during the Nazi regime, and traces continuities and discontinuities between Nazism and the study of human diversity in the Western tradition. Whilst Nazi race theory is commonly associated with the idea of a superior Aryan race and with the idealization of the Nordic ideal of blond hair, blue eyes and a long-skull, Nazi race theorists, in common with their colleagues outside Germany, without exception denied the existence of an Aryan race. After 1935 official publications were at pains to stress that the term Aryan belonged to linguistics and was not a racial category at all. Under the influence of Mendelian genetics, racial anthropologists concluded that there was no necessary link between ideal physical appearance and ideal racial character. In the course of the Third Reich, racial anthropology was marginalized in favour of the rising science of human genetics. However, racial anthropologists played a key role in the crimes of the Nazi state by defining Jews and others as racial outsiders to be excluded at all costs from the body of the German Volk.Anyone studying the Third Reich or who is interested in race theory will find this a fascinating, informative and accessible study.

Author Biography

Christopher M. Hutton is Associate Professor and Head of Department of English at the University of Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
1 Introduction	1	(4)
2 Nazi Ideology: An Attack on Difference?	5	(12)
Introduction	5	(2)
The völkisch idea	7	(6)
National Socialism: between racial nostalgia and modernity	13	(2)
Conclusion	15	(2)
3 Peoples, Races, Genes	17	(18)
Introduction	17	(1)
Volk	18	(3)
Race and racial anthropology	21	(4)
Darwin, genetics and eugenics	25	(7)
Conclusion	32	(3)
4 Hans Gunther and Racial Anthropology	35	(29)
Introduction	35	(1)
The Nordic (nordisch) race	36	(2)
The Mediterranean (westisch, mediterran, mittelländisch) race	38	(2)
The Dinaric (dinarisch) race	40	(2)
The Alpine (ostisch, alpin) race	42	(1)
The East Baltic (ostbaltisch) race	43	(3)
The Phalian (fälisch, dalisch) race	46	(2)
The Jews	48	(7)
Metaphors of race	55	(5)
Conclusion	60	(4)
5 Racial Mixing or 'Bastardization'	64	(16)
Introduction	64	(1)
Miscegenation and purity in European thought	65	(2)
The German debate about colonialism	67	(1)
Eugen Fischer and the 'Rehobother Bastards'	68	(6)
The evolution of Fischer's views	74	(2)
Wider implications of the study	76	(2)
Conclusion	78	(2)
6 The Myth of an Aryan Race	80	(21)
Introduction	80	(1)
The biblical paradigm	80	(2)
Japhetic affinities	82	(1)
The Aryan hypothesis	83	(4)
Aryan versus Semite	87	(2)
Nazism and the term 'Aryan'	89	(5)
Critics of Nazism and the Aryan hypothesis	94	(4)
Conclusion	98	(3)
7 Aryan, Nordic and Jew	101	(12)
The Nordic race	101	(5)
Nordic versus Aryan	106	(2)
The Nordic and the Jew	108	(3)
Conclusion	111	(2)
8 The Nordic Race and the German Volk	113	(17)
Introduction	113	(1)
Nordicism and nationalism	114	(5)
Critics of Nordicism	119	(9)
Conclusion	128	(2)
9 Germany as Nordic Colony? Confusion and Anxiety Post-1933	130	(10)
Introduction	130	(1)
The problem of hybridity	131	(6)
The view from psychology: Gerhard Pfahler	137	(1)
Conclusion	138	(2)
10 The Neutralization of Intellectual Diversity	140	(30)
Introduction	140	(1)
Georg Schmidt-Rohr and the worship of mother tongue	140	(3)
Eugen Fischer and the Nordic race	143	(6)
A German race?	149	(5)
Walter Gross and the idea of a German race	154	(3)
Hybridity and racial policy	157	(3)
Ideological stalemate	160	(6)
Conclusion	166	(4)
11 Dynamics of Nazi Science	170	(25)
Introduction	170	(1)
Science and ideology	171	(2)
Darwinism and the intellectual background to Nazism	173	(8)
Walter Gross: balancing the claims of science and ideology	181	(2)
Race theory on trial: the case of Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss	183	(3)
The scientific gaze	186	(4)
Neo-Lamarckianism and Nazism	190	(3)
Conclusion: the problem of telos	193	(2)
12 Nazism Beyond Race	195	(14)
Introduction	195	(3)
Determinism and free will	198	(3)
Biology and linguistics	201	(4)
Racial anthropology and the role of psychology	205	(1)
Dialectics of Volk	206	(3)
Conclusion	209	(4)
Appendix I: Bibliographic Notes	213	(5)
Appendix II: Biographical Sketches	218	(6)
Appendix III: Nazi Legislation (Selected Examples)	224	(4)
References	228	(34)
Archival references	228	(1)
Primary printed sources (all pre-1945)	228	(18)
Academic commentaries (including all post-1945)	246	(16)
Index	262