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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aryan race | 4/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:17:00.861442+00:00 | kb-cron |
A definition of Aryan that included all non-Jewish Europeans was deemed unacceptable, and the Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy of 1933 brought together important Nazi intellectuals Alfred Ploetz, Fritz Thyssen, and Ernst Rüdin to plan the course of Nazi racial policy, defining an Aryan as one who was "tribally related to the German blood and descendant of a Volk". The term "Volksdeutsche" was used by Nazis to indicate "ethnic Germans" who did not hold German Reich citizenship; Volksdeutsche further consist of "racial groups"—minorities within a state—who are descendants of a Volk domiciled in Europe in a closed tribal settlement and are closely related to German racial community. The Nazi concept of "Volksgemeinschaft" racially unified ethnic Germans, including those living outside the German Reich, propounding only the members of the racial community be considered Aryan. Members of the SS deemed Aryans not to be of a single ethnic group, and did not have to be exclusively German, but could be selected from populations across Europe to create "master race". Nazi Party established the organization NSDAP/AO to disseminate Nazi propaganda among the ethnic German minorities considered Volksdeutsche in central and eastern Europe. Nazi racial theories considered the "purest stock of Aryans" the Nordic people, identified by physical anthropological features such as tallness, white skin, blue eyes, narrow and straight noses, dolichocephalic skulls, prominent chins, and blond hair, including Scandinavians, Germans, English and French, with Nordic and Germanic people being the "master race" (German: Herrenrasse). Recent archaeogenetic studies contradict these ideas, and instead suggest that Proto-Indo-European speaking peoples probably had brown eyes and hair, and intermediate skin complexion.
=== Historical revisionism === After the death of Kossinna, Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi figures such as Alfred Rosenberg, adopted his nationalistic theories of Germanic peoples and methodologies, including settlement archaeology, and founded the SS organization Ahnenerbe (German: Deutsches Ahnenerbe) for conducting archaeological investigations of a presumed "Germanic expansion in pre-history". Nazi scholars endorsed the now-discredited North European hypothesis in an effort to prove PIE was originally spoken by an "Aryan master race", and associated the Semitic languages with "inferior races". Historical revisionism around race was disseminated through the Nazi think tank Ahnenerbe. Hitler regularly invoked Social Darwinist concepts of Ernst Haeckel such as higher evolution (German: Höherentwicklung), struggle for existence (German: Existenzkampf), selection (German: Auslese), struggle for life (German: Lebenskampf), in his Nazi racial ideology, which is the central theme in the chapter "Nation and Race" of Mein Kampf. Haeckel's Social Darwinism was also praised by Alfred Ploetz, founder of the German Society for Racial Hygiene, who made him an honorary member of the eugenic organization.
=== Nazi eugenics and Nordic supremacy ===
In 1938, the Reich Ministry of Education released the German biology curriculum which reflected the curriculum developed by the National Socialist Teachers League and emphasized the Social Darwinst interpretation of the evolution of human races. Hans Weinert, who had joined the SS and worked for the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology publishing theories of Nazi eugenics and racial evolution, claimed the Nordic race as a highly evolved race, and Aboriginal Australians as being the lowest rank in the racial hierarchy. Hans F. K. Günther was considered to be the most influential Nazi anthropologist, although he was not professionally trained. Günther's racist writings on Nordicism was suffused with the ideas of Gobineau, who believed the Nordic race had originated in northern Europe and spread through conquest; this had expressed approval of the Nazi eugenics policies and had critical influence on scientific racism. Günther's theories gained acclamation from Hitler, who later included his books as a recommended reading material for the Nazi Party members. After the Nazis came to power, selective breeding for supposed Aryan traits such as athleticism, blond hair and blue eyes was encouraged, while the "inferior races" and people with physical or mental illness were deemed "life unworthy of life" (German: lebensunwertes Leben, lit. 'lives unworthy of life') and many were interned in concentration camps.
=== Ethnic cleansing and the Holocaust ===
The culmination of Nazi eugenicist and racial hygiene programs of sterilization and extermination aimed at creating an "Aryan master race" and eliminating "inferior non-Aryan types" such as Jews, Slavs, Poles, Roma, homosexuals, and the disabled. Nazi Germany introduced the Anti-Jewish legislation that systemically discriminated against Jews by requiring Aryan certification for a German Reich citizen. After Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, the public policies of Nazi Germany became increasingly hostile towards supposed "inferior types", particularly Jews, who were considered to be the highest manifestation of the Semitic race, and segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. The state-sponsored persecution systematically murdered over 6 million Jews, 5.7 million Slavs, 1.8–3 million Poles, 270,000 disabled people, among other victims, including children through mass shooting, gas chamber, gas van, and concentration camps, in the process known as the Holocaust. The ethnic Germans considered Volksdeutsche joined the local SS organizations under NSDAP/AO and participated in Nazi-sponsored pogroms in eastern and central Europe during the Holocaust, including seizures of Jewish property. The Aryan race belief was used by the Nazis to justify the persecution, depicting the victims as the "antipode and eternal enemy of the Aryans".
== White supremacy ==
Following Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II, various neo-Nazi and racial nationalist movements developed a more inclusive definition of Aryan claiming to Western European peoples, with Nordic and Germanic peoples being the most "racially pure". However, in the United States, most white nationalists define whiteness broadly as people of European ancestry, and some consider Jews to be white although this is controversial within white nationalist circles. Many white supremacist neo-Nazi groups and prison gangs, notably in the United States, view themselves as part of an Aryan race, including the Aryan Brotherhood, Aryan Nations, Aryan Guard, Aryan Republican Army, White Aryan Resistance, Aryan Circle, Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, and others.
== Neo-pagan movements ==