Master race 1

Master race
The master race (German: die Herrenrasse,
das Herrenvolk) was a concept adopted as
Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples,
one of the branches of what in the late-19th
and early-20th century was called the Aryan
race, represent an ideal and "pure race" that
was the purest representation of the original
racial stock of those who were then called
the Proto-Aryans[1] , themselves believed by
the Nazis to have prehistorically dwelt on
the North German Plain and ultimately to
have originated from Atlantis[2] . The Nazis
declared that the Nordics were the true
Arno Breker's 1939 neoclassical sculpture Die Partei (The Party), which flanked
Aryans because they were less mixed with
one of the entrances to the Albert Speer designed Reich Chancellery of the Third
other races than other people of what were Reich, encapsulated the National Socialist ideals of the Aryan master race, with
then called the Aryan peoples (now Die Partei as the physical embodiment of the spirit of the Nazi Party. By applying
generally called the Indo-European eugenics to the Nordic Aryan master race itself, the Nazis believed, it would be
possible to create a super race.
peoples), such as the Slavic peoples (only
the minority who mixed with the Mongols
and the Jewish Khazars), the Romance peoples (mixed with the Semites and the Moors), the Iranian peoples (mixed
with the Arabs and the Mongols), and the Indo-Aryans (mixed with the Dravidians)[3] . Because of their superior
leadership qualities, the Nazis declared, the Nordic Aryans were entitled to world domination. [4] This concept is
called Nordicism.

Historical Background
The Republic (c. 380 BCE), by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato, is a Socratic dialogue about the nature of justice
and the order and character of the just city-state and the just individual.[5] that advocates that the just society should
be ruled by philosopher kings. The philosopher kings (The Guardians), Plato proposed, would impersonally
assemble couples for reproduction, based solely on breeding criteria. [6] .
The Übermensch(German)(EnglishOverman or Superman) is a concept in the philosophy of German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche--he posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke
Zarathustra (German: Also Sprach Zarathustra).
Mendelian genetics was rediscovered in 1900, but this was simply the scientific formulation of the basic principles
of animal breeding and plant breeding which had been roughly known for thousands of years since the beginning of
the agricultural revolution.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many people of native Indo-European ancestry reasoned that their
own Aryan race must be genetically superior to other races because they seemed to have the most advanced and
sophisticated mathematics, science, technology, social organization, philosophy, music, and art [7] ; so the purest
Aryans, many native Indo-Europeans thought, would be the most genetically superior. The next logical step, many
believed, was to improve the Aryan race itself by a eugenics program. Eugenics was a concept adhered to by many
of the most modern and progressive thinkers in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, such as Margaret Sanger,[8] [9] Marie
Stopes, H. G. Wells, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard
Master race 2

Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Linus Pauling[10] and Sidney Webb.[11] [12] Aldous Huxley’s best-selling novel Brave
New World, about a future society based on eugenics, was published in 1932. Human “dog and pony show” type
events (organized by advocates of eugenics), where men and women appeared on stage in swimsuits in eugenic
competitions (only Nordic Aryans were allowed to enter) to be evaluated for their physical and mental qualities as
marriage partners were common throughout Europe and North America in the 1920s. The Nazis took this concept to
the limit by establishing a program to systematically genetically enhance the Nordic Aryans themselves through a
program of Nazi eugenics, based on the eugenics laws of the United States state of California[13] , to create a super
race. [14]
The Ancient Greeks were not racist, and anyone of any race could become a Greek if they adopted Ancient Greek
culture and the Ancient Greek language. The modern concept of the master race in general derives from
19th-century racial theory, which posited a hierarchy of races based on darkness of skin color. This modern concept
was largely initially developed by Count Joseph Arthur De Gobineau. This concept as further developed by the
Nazis places the black Aboriginal Australians and "African savages" at the bottom of the hierarchy while the white
Aryans (as conceived by the Nazis) (primarily Northern and Western Europeans consisting of Germans, Swedes,
Icelanders, Norwegians, Danish, Irish, French, English and Dutch) were at the top, and olive-skinned Southern
Europeans (Spanish, Italians, Greeks and Portuguese, i.e. those of what was then called the Mediterranean race,
which was regarded as another subrace of the Caucasian race) in the upper middle ranks, those of the olive-skinned
Semitic race (another subrace of the Caucasian race) in the middle ranks (it was because the Jews, being Semites,
were clever that they were so dangerous--they had their own plan for Jewish world domination, a conspiracy that had
to be opposed by all thoughtful Aryans, declared the Nazis [15] ), and those of the yellow Mongoloid race (including
the brown Malayan race and the red American Indian race), the Dravidian race, the Hamitic race (regarded as
another subrace of the Caucasian race), and mixed-race people such as Eurasians, Mestizos, Mulattos, Afro-Asians,
and Zambos in the lower middle ranks.

Nordicism
The origins of the Nazi version of the theory of the master race
were in 19th-century racial theories of Count Joseph Arthur De
Gobineau, who argued that cultures degenerated when distinct
races mixed. It was believed at this time that Southern European
and Eastern European peoples were racially mixed with
non-European Moors from across the Mediterranean Sea, while
Northern Europeans and Western Europeans remained pure.
Proponents of Nordic theory further argued that Nordic peoples
had developed innate toughness and determination due to the
harsh, challenging climate in which they evolved. The racial ideal
of these theorists was the tall, blond and blue or gray eyed Nordic
individual.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the earliest

proponents of a theory presenting a hierarchical racial model of
history, attributing civilisational primacy to the "white races" who
gained their sensitivity and intelligence by refinement in the
rigorous north. Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) shows a famous
German war hero (Karl von Müller) as an example of
The highest civilisation and culture, apart from the the Nordic type.
ancient Indians and Egyptians, are found exclusively
Master race 3

among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than
the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of
the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those
tribes that emigrated early to the north and there gradually became white, had to develop all their
intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which
in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the
parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilisation.[16]
Nevertheless, such theorists usually accepted that considerable variety of hair and eye colour existed even within the
racial categories they recognised. Contrary to popular myth, the Nazis themselves did not discriminate against
Germans who were not blonde or light-eyed, or had only one of these features. Adolf Hitler and most Nazi officials
had dark hair and were considered to be "Aryans."
The postulated superiority of these people was said to make them born leaders, or a "master race." Other authors
included Guido von List, and his associate Lanz von Liebenfels, and the British racial theorist Houston Stewart
Chamberlain, all of whom felt that the white race and Germanic peoples were superior to others, and that given the
purification of the white race and German people from the races who were "polluting" it, a new millennarian age of
Aryan god-men would arrive.

Germanization between 1939 and 1945

Nazi policy stressed the superiority of the Nordic race, a sub-section of the white European population defined by
anthropometric models of racial difference. The Nordic race was said to comprise of only the Germanic peoples
(Germans, Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Finland-Swedes [17] , Estonia-Swedes, Faroese, Icelanders, English and the
Dutch).
From 1940 the government in occupied Poland divided the population into different groups. Each group had
different rights, food rations, allowed places to live in the cities, separated residential areas, special schooling
systems, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Later adapted in all Nazi-occupied countries by 1942, the
Germanization program used the racial caste system of reserving certain rights to one group and barred privileges to
another. In addition with their predominant religion and ethnicity per individual of that ethnic group or nationality.

Aryanism
The term Aryan derives from the Sanskrit word (ā́rya) आर्य (meaning:Noble), which derived from arya, the original
Indo-Iranian autonym. Also, the word Iran is the Persian word for land/place of the Aryan[18] (see also Iranian
peoples). From the footsteps of the Pamir mountains and in areas in northern Afghanistan like Balkh (the main city
of Zoroastrianism) the Aryans moved to the other parts of Iran and Hindustan.(see also Balkh). It remained as a key
city for the spread of Aryan Civilization for several centuries (the name for the Sassanian Empire in Middle Persian
is Eran Shahr which means Aryan Empire [19] ).
Following the ideas of Gobineau and others, the Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg claimed that these were a dynamic
warrior people who originated in northern climates, from which they migrated south, eventually reaching India. They
were supposed to be the ancestors of the ancient Germanic tribes, who shared their warrior values. Rosenberg
claimed that Christianity was an alien Semitic slave-morality inappropriate to the warrior Aryan master race and thus
supported a melange of aspects of Hindu Vedic and Zoroastrian teachings (both of these religions having been
organized by Aryans), along with pre-Christian European paganism, which he also considered to be distinctively
Aryan in character.
In Nazi Germany, a so-called mixed marriage of an "Aryan" with an "Untermensch" was forbidden. To maintain the
purity of the Germanic master race, eugenics was practiced. In order to eliminate "defective" citizens, the T-4
Euthanasia Program was administered by Karl Brandt to rid the country of the mentally retarded or those born with
Master race 4

genetic deficiencies, as well as those deemed to be racially inferior. Additionally, a programme of compulsory
sterilisation was undertaken which resulted in the forced operations of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Many
of these policies are generally seen as being related to what eventually became known as the Holocaust.

Master race in fiction

Aryan master race ideology was common throughout the educated and literate strata of the Western world until after
World War II. Such theories were commonplace in early-20th century fantasy literature.[20] For example, the idea of
Aryan humanity as the "master race" underlies much of the work of writers such as H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E.
Howard.[20] Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, is supposed to have lived between the fall of
Atlantis and the "rise of the sons of Arya" (i.e. the Aryans). In his story Wings In The Night, Howard also wrote:
The ancient empires fall, the dark-skinned peoples fade and even the demons of antiquity gasp their last,
but over all stands the Aryan barbarian, white-skinned, cold-eyed, dominant, the supreme fighting man
of the earth. (Wings of the Night)
In other cases, while the phrase "master race" itself is seldom used, the inhumane and barbaric treatment of those not
belonging to the "master race" in the fictional fascisms seems to imply that such an ideology is present. S.M.
Stirling's Domination of the Draka is a fictional empire which is explicitly based on the "master race" concept. After
World War I in the Draka universe, the Draka citizens adopt an ideology which calls for all non-Drakan humanity to
be reduced to chattel slavery. The Chosen, from Stirling's previous General series portrays perhaps a more realistic
look at the "master race" concept, including the consequences of such a policy on a society. The Chosen, who treat
other peoples with contempt, calling them "animals," are eventually destroyed by their own slaves, the lowest of the
low, despite the Chosen's superior weapons, training, and centuries of eugenic breeding. The fictional fascist
"Freedom Party" that rules the Confederate States of America in Harry Turtledove's American Empire series of
novels also echoes the concept.
The James Bond film Moonraker is another fictionalised account of a master race in which the Adolf Hitler-like
megalomanic villain, Sir Hugo Drax(Michael Lonsdale), has pre-selected a diverse group of astronaut trainees to
become the progenitors of a master race that he intends to repopulate Earth after the planet has been nerve-gassed.
Similar ideas are explored in science fiction. An episode of The X-Files is titled "Paper Clip." It presents the story of
Nazi scientists saved by Americans after the war, during Operation Paperclip, and their connections with aliens,
which led them to successfully create a superior race of alien/human hybrids. Another episode is titled "Herrenvolk,"
and it presumably refers to the same hybridization program. Likewise, in "The Other Side," an episode of Stargate
SG-1, the Eurondans are portrayed as white supremacists who have created a purified Nordic-like population,
planning to annihilate other peoples, who they refer to as "Breeders" because of their indiscriminate breeding, in
rejection of eugenics.
In the original 1920s and 1930s Buck Rogers stories and newspaper cartoons, Buck Rogers, in the 25th century,
fights for Aryan-Americans from the liberated zone around Niagara, New York, against the Red Mongol Empire, a
Chinese empire of the future which rules most of North America.
In Doctor Who, the Doctor's frequent enemies, the Daleks, consider themselves a master race who must purge the
universe of all others; Terry Nation explicitly modeled them on the Nazis. In the recent Doctor Who story "The End
of Time," the main antagonist, The "Master," uses a device called the immortality gate to turn everyone on Earth
(apart from Donna Noble, her grandfather and The Doctor) into a carbon copy of himself, which he humorously calls
"The Master Race." This, and the fact that the Master's hair was currently blonde, may be intended to highlight his
Nazi-like racism towards non-Gallifreyans in general and humans in particular.
In the Resident Evil video game series the antagonist Ozwell E. Spencer became obsessed with the idea of creating a
race of superhumans from the Progenitor Virus. This influence eventually corrupted the mind of his pupil and
experimental super soldier Albert Wesker, leading him to murder Spencer in order to obtain his own ascension into
Master race 5

godhood by using a virus known as Ouroboros (An offspring of the progenitor virus) to create his own race of
superhumans.

See also
• Übermensch
• Lebensborn plan
• Madison Grant
• Martial Race
• Nazi eugenics
• New Order (political system)
• Nur für Deutsche
• Racial policy of Nazi Germany
• Superhuman
• Super race
• An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus

References
[1] Widney, Joseph P. Race Life of the Aryan Peoples (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=s9UKAAAAIAAJ& printsec=titlepage) New York:
Funk & Wagnalls. 1907 In Two Volumes: Volume One--The Old World Volume Two--The New World ISBN B000859S6O See Chapter
II—"Original Homeland of the Aryan Peoples" Pages 9-25—the term “Proto-Aryan” is used to describe the people today called
Proto-Indo-Europeans
[2] Rosenberg, Alfred Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, 1930 ("The Myth of the 20th Century")
[3] Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925
[4] Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925
[5] Brickhouse, Thomas and Smith, Nicholas D. Plato (c.427-347 BCE) (http:/ / www. iep. utm. edu/ p/ plato. htm), The Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, University of Tennessee, cf. Dating Plato's Dialogues.
[6] At Perseus Project: Plato Plato's Republic c. 380 BCE: (http:/ / www. perseus. tufts. edu/ cgi-bin/ ptext?lookup=Plat. + Rep. + toc):
Translated by Paul Shorey (1935) annotated and hyperlinked text (English and Greek)--Part II, no. 1, concerns marriage, the community of
people and goods for the Guardians, and the restraints on warfare among the Hellenes. It describes a partially communistic polis. Part II, no. 4,
and deals with the philosophical education of the rulers who will preserve the order and character of the proposed city-state
[7] For an environmental rather than genetic explanation for this (assuming one grants this to be the case), see the book Guns, Germs, and Steel
by Jared Diamond
[8] Margaret Sanger, quoted in Katz, Esther; Engelman, Peter (2002). The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger. Champaign, IL: University of
Illinois Press. p. 319. ISBN 9780252027376. "Our...campaign for Birth Control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in
ideal with the final aims of Eugenics"
[9] Franks, Angela (2005). Margaret Sanger's eugenic legacy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-7864-2011-7. "...her commitment to
eugenics was constant...until her death"
[10] Everett Mendelsohn, Ph.D. Pauling's Eugenics (http:/ / harvardmagazine. com/ 2000/ 03/ the-eugenic-temptation. html), The Eugenic
Temptation, Harvard Magazine, March-April 2000
[11] Gordon, Linda (2002). The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America. University of Illinois Press. p. 196.
ISBN 0252027647.
[12] Keynes, John Maynard (1946). "Opening remarks: The Galton Lecture, 1946. The Eugenics Review, vol 38, no. 1, pp. 39-40". The Eugenics
Review 38 (1): 39–40.
[13] Eugenics and the Nazis - the California connection (http:/ / www. sfgate. com/ cgi-bin/ article. cgi?file=/ chronicle/ archive/ 2003/ 11/ 09/
ING9C2QSKB1. DTL)
[14] Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925
[15] Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925
[16] Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume II, Section 92
[17] http:/ / www. feldgrau. com/ articles. php?ID=19 | Finns were not originally consider [sic] to be of Nordic race. Therefore the goal of the SS
recruiment [sic] office was to recruit Swedish-speaking Finns (preferably National Socialists), whom they regarded as Nordic.
[18] Wiesehofer, Joseph Ancient Persia New York:1996 I.B. Tauris
[19] Wiesehofer, Joseph Ancient Persia New York:1996 I.B. Tauris
[20] Don Herron, The Barbaric Triumph: A Critical Anthology On The Writings Of Robert E. Howard, Wildside Press LLC, 2004, pp.94-95.
Article Sources and Contributors 6

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