German Racial Ideology Essay

Germany and Racial Ideology
In order to even comprehend why the holocaust happened one has to look deep into German Race Ideology. In other words, one has look at the ways this ideology portrayed race and why it mattered. The men behind this ideology believed "the idea of race was essentially and respectively scientific.”(Mosse, 88) They thought that they could classify any ethnic group into a specific race.
Hitler and Volkish thinkers believed that race was defined by purity of the bloodline and rootedness to the land that their ancestors settled. They believed race mattered because race is the creator and savor of humanity.
The bloodline of a race was extremely important to this ideology because it determined what characteristics it
had. These Volkish thinkers began to transition this racial science to a metaphysical level. In other words they believed that ones race could determine an individuals Physical and Mental attributes. Woltmann used the laws of Darwin because he thought that they directed the evolution of man as they did of plants and animals. He went one step closer and applied these laws to racial criteria for determining race. Woltmann used the proportions of the human body, facial geography and other physical characteristics. For example the Aryan body had a perfectly proportioned torso and head, but the legs to the buttocks duplicated the absolute proportions of physical beauty. In the eyes of Volkish thinkers this example was why Germans where the dominate race, because they exemplified physical Aryan qualities. (Mosse, 100)
This ideology was not limited to just physical structure, but also shaped internal mental life. In fact it was thought that because of ones race they could determine his way of thinking, organizational abilities, intelligence, and culture. For example in George Mosse book “The Crisis of German Ideology” states that the lightness of the skin and hair has a direct correlation with intelligence.(104)
Rootedness also played a big part in defining a race. In fact, Hitler and Volkish thinkers accepted as true that race was determined by the rootedness to the land that their ancestors settled. In Mosse he states “this concept (rootedness) of historicity gave the individual a further link with the landscape and with membership in the Volk.”(Mosse 16) In other words, Mosse is saying because ancestors of the Volk lived on this land they are rooted to it by blood, which makes them apart of the German race.
In Hitler’s and the Volkish thinkers eyes Race was the most important thing to humanity because it is the savior and creator of humanity.
Hitler believed that all of humanities culture stemmed from one, which was called the Aryan race. All the results of art, science, and technology are the products of the Aryans. Hitler saw the German people as the Aryan race because they are creators of culture. However he doesn’t want the same fate as previous Aryan cultures. So Hitler used a Darwinist approach to the problem, which stated that in order for a race to stay pure it should breed within the race. If they did not take action and let the higher race bred with the lower one, then their offspring would be on a lower level than the higher race. This would result in lower physical and intellect regression for future generations and eventually the death of the higher race.(mien Kampf, 90) For example the Jewish race was seen as the biggest threat to the Aryan culture because they were considered culture destroyers. The Jews were seen this way because they had no rootedness and leached on other cultures to survive. Hitler explained that if this parasite is left untreated it will eventually kill the Aryan race. Therefore Hitler wants to purify the population by eliminating the Jews
entirely.
The history of racial ideology in Germany is not one that is unique to just it but the whole world. Others went through similar types Volkish ideologies. However no one took it to the level that Adolf Hitler did, because he thought that race affected everything. Hitler believed that the Germans were the Aryans because race is defined by the purity of the bloodline and the rootedness to the land that their ancestors settled.
Bibliography
Hitler, Adolf. “11.” Mein Kampf. 1925. Print
Mosse, George L. The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the
Third Reich. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1964. Print.
"Race.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 8 May 2011.