he other day, I was looking for a book I did not want to read. I needed it for a class I was teaching, so I had a reason. But its title filled me with dread: Racial Science of the German People. This was a pre-Nazi publication from 1923. Its author, Hans Günther, began a career of writing about "racial nationalism" back in 1919. He cooked up a Nordic racial doctrine that impressed the Nazi party. Once in power, they made sure to secure Günther a professorship in Berlin, and they showered him with honors. His so-called science gave them cover for their hateful intentions.
Günther's Nordic Ideal: Gen. Ludendorff
From left to right: Racial Science of the German People by Hans Günther and We Europeans by Julian Huxley and A. C. Haddon.
Julian Huxley from the Rice University Campanile 1916
"Germanic racial types" from Günther's Racial Science of the German People
(Theme music)
Sources:Barkan, Elazar. The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. Chapter 6 in particular gives a detailed discussion of the importance of We Europeans.
Günther, Hans F. K. Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes. Third revised edition. Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1923.
Huxley, Julian and Haddon, A. C. We Europeans: A Survey of "Racial" Problems. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1936.
Huxley's own ideas on eugenics are complicated, but this site gives you a quick look at their range and development: http://julianhuxleyeugenics.blogspot.com/p/huxley-and-eugenics.html
For an example of the rather mystical conception of blood and race used by the Nazis, see the radio address by Walter Gross from 1935, "Blood is Holy." Gross was then head of the Nazi Party's Racial Policy Office. It is this kind of quasi-religious and pseudo-scientific racism that Huxley and Haddon were ridiculing in their book.
(Source: uh.edu)
Günther, Hans F. K. Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes. Third revised edition. Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1923.
Huxley, Julian and Haddon, A. C. We Europeans: A Survey of "Racial" Problems. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1936.
Huxley's own ideas on eugenics are complicated, but this site gives you a quick look at their range and development: http://julianhuxleyeugenics.blogspot.com/p/huxley-and-eugenics.html
For an example of the rather mystical conception of blood and race used by the Nazis, see the radio address by Walter Gross from 1935, "Blood is Holy." Gross was then head of the Nazi Party's Racial Policy Office. It is this kind of quasi-religious and pseudo-scientific racism that Huxley and Haddon were ridiculing in their book.
(Source: uh.edu)
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