German-blooded

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The term " German blood " - or according to " German blood " - was in the era of National Socialism as a legal term in the Nuremberg race laws used. In business dealings, the definition of a person "German or related blood " used in the Reich Citizenship Act was to be replaced by the word "German blooded" as early as 1935. In fact, however, the formula of German or related blood continued to be used, including in the Reichsgesetzblatt of 1939. It remained unclear until 1942 how the adjective "related" should be interpreted.

The concept of German blood is a metaphor for the fact that a person is descended from Germans (or from people to whom the attribute “German” was applied at the time the term was used) . In this sense, the term German blood has been used for centuries. As a metaphor, the term does not necessarily imply the idea that one can determine the quality of a person to be German on the basis of a blood analysis using scientific methods , even if seroanthropologists do not rule out this possibility from the outset. For example, Ludwik Hirszfeld , a pioneer in blood group research, recognized that blood group membership is hereditary and that blood groups are distributed differently in different ethnic groups . However, the assumption that an analysis of the composition of the blood of a person could prove that a person belonged to a “race” proved to be erroneous.

Dealing with the term “German blood” in a historical context

16th century: Dutch national anthem

Between 1568 and 1572 the hymn " Het Wilhelmus " was written, which has served as the official national anthem of the Netherlands since 1932 . The first stanza begins with the words Wilhelmus van Nassouwe / ben ik, van Duitsen bloed [...] (German: "Wilhelm von Nassau / am I, of German blood [...]"). This is not to emphasize that Wilhelm von Nassau-Dillenburg was not an ethnic Dutchman ; rather, in the Dutch language of that time, the word duits was understood in the sense of continental West Germanic . It was not until 1648 that the final departure of the Netherlands from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was legally binding in the Peace of Westphalia . The lyrical self in the song wants to express that it comes from Teutons and not from novels , although Wilhelm von Nassau also had possessions in France (at Orange ). The language change in the word field “German” over the centuries in German and in related Germanic languages can also be recognized by the English-speaking “ false friend ” Dutch : The Dutch king means in German: “the Dutch king”.

Dutch national anthem was Vienna Neêrlands bloed from 1817 to 1933 . It speaks of Dutch blood flowing through the veins of the lyric self.

20th century: National Socialist terminology

The terms German-blooded , related and Aryan were used by the National Socialists to denote the members of the so-called German " Herrenvolks " or the so-called "Herrenrace" to which they supposedly belong.

During the time of National Socialism, the group of people who should belong to the " master people " was designated with different terms. Expressions such as “Aryan”, “Aryans”, “ Aryan proof ” or “ Aryan paragraph ” were part of common language usage. At the same time, however, there is a noticeable tendency to replace the vague term “Aryan” with supposedly more precise terms such as “German-blooded” and “related”.

The term "Aryan"

The law for the restoration of the civil service of 1933 used the formula “non-Aryan descent” in order to be able to remove Jewish civil servants from the service in line with the National Socialist ideology.

“Not Aryan” in this sense was essentially synonymous with “ Jewish ”. National Socialist scholars pointed to a common equation of “ Aryan ” with “ Indo-European ” and recommended using “non-Jewish” or “German-blooded” instead. In 1935 an encyclopedia defined: “Occasionally they [the Aryans] have been equated with the Nordic race. In the folkish, racial sense, the term is used today [i. e. 1934/1935] as a collective name of the europ. Main races (Nordic, Western, Eastern, Eastern Baltic, Dinaric) used, mainly as a contrast to the not originally European. Races (especially the Near Eastern and Orient. Races, the main components of the Jewish people). "

In addition to the Jews, the “non-Aryan” “foreign races” also included “ Gypsies , mixed gypsies and people wandering around in the Gypsy manner” as well as “ Rhineland bastards ” and other people with dark skin . Persians , Afghans and Japanese were rated differently in the era of National Socialism (as individual decisions) .

High-ranking representatives of the Ministry of Justice , the Race and Settlement Main Office and Ernst Rudin from the Ministry of the Interior proposed in June 1935, a different name instead of "Aryans" in front: It should be made between German origin from Germany and the Germanic habitat, "kinsmen" from neighboring countries and " Foreign origin ”without any“ blood connection to the German people ”. In future regulations, members of friendly countries such as Japan should no longer be classified and discriminated against as “non-Aryans”, but should be exempted from discrimination as “tribal relatives ”.

In 1940, however, the attribute "Aryan" was added to an official ordinance as an explanation for "German-blooded".

The term "German-blooded"

In September 1935, the Nuremberg Race Laws were passed, in which the formula “Aryan descent” is no longer used as a counterpart to “ Jew ”, but instead of Reich citizens “as citizens of German or related blood”. A circular issued by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior on November 26, 1935 stipulated that "in business dealings, the term 'German-blooded' should be used for a person of German or related blood".

The 25-point program of the NSDAP from 1920 already contained the principle that citizens or national comrades should only be people of "German blood"; the term “Aryan” was not used there. People who descended from German ancestors were considered to be "German-blooded".

A person's status as a Jew was officially established, despite the racist basis of National Socialist legislation, primarily because of his or her religious affiliation. For "Jews" who were not registered as religious Jews, church records were the most important source. Anyone who had converted to Christianity themselves or who had ancestors for whom this could be proven (which was usually effortlessly possible with the help of German church records in the 19th and 20th centuries) was considered a "full Jew", "half Jew" , "Quarter Jew" etc. The practice of classifying according to a cultural characteristic was officially secured by Section 5 of the First Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Act .

The term "related"

The formula "German or related blood" was often used in official documents during the Second World War : In a Führer decree on the administration of the Eastern Territories of October 8, 1939, for example, residents of "German or related blood" were declared to be German citizens in accordance with more detailed regulations . For a long time the term "related blood" remained open to interpretation and imprecise.

In connection with the recruitment to the Waffen-SS , which accepted volunteers from Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Flanders , Heinrich Himmler issued a secret order on March 23, 1942, according to which "Germanic" peoples were to be regarded as "related blood", while "non-Germanic Peoples ”and especially Slavs should not belong to it. As a result, Eastern workers were treated particularly badly as forced laborers . A comment on “Race and Hereditary Care” elaborates on the distinction between foreign peoples: “The carriers of related blood include the members of those peoples who essentially descend from the same races as the German people.” These included the Nordic peoples, including the English , but also French, Italians, Balts and others, insofar as they would have been kept "species-specific". However, possession of the relevant nationality is not sufficient for the assessment of “related” or “foreign”; it depends on the personal racial-biological characteristics.

In this context, Isabel Heinemann speaks of “a new conceptual version”: “If Norwegians and Russians were previously referred to as 'related blood' in National Socialist racial theory, they are now divided into 'Germanic' ('same-tribe') and 'non-Germanic' ( 'Non-tribal') peoples as well as 'non-Germanic peoples capable of re-Germanization' with special status. "

Ultimately, the National Socialists' use of the term was always about justifying why people who were demonstrably not of German descent still wanted to certify that they were “worth” to be part of the “German master race” in the future but at least there is no reason to discriminate against them. In this way, constructs like that of the "related" Japanese came about.

Talking about "German blood" after 1945

Even after 1945, the notion that people “of German blood” had certain genetic characteristics were still alive. For example, Die Welt reported in 1999 about a man from Palatinate who “always knew” that “ rock 'n' roll star Elvis Presley [...] must have had German blood in his veins”. Reason: “He was like the people from Palatinate - nice, open and helpful. That can not be a coincidence."

See also

literature

  • Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019549-1 , word field "Blood ...": pp. 109–125.
  • Christina von Braun / Christoph Wulf (eds.): Myths of the Blood , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38349-1 .
  • Caspar Battegay: The other blood: Community in German-Jewish writing 1830–1930 , Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-412-20634-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism. 2., through and revised Ed., Berlin 2007, p. 57 .
  2. ↑ RGBl. 1939 I p. 2042, § 6.
  3. ↑ Veronika Liphardt: Biology of the Jews: Jewish Scientists on "Race" and Heredity 1900-1935 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, p. 150 ff.
  4. ↑ Luc DeGrauwe: Emerging Mother-Tongue Awareness: The special case of Dutch and German in the Middle Ages and the early Modern Period , in: Andrew Robert Linn, Nicola McLelland (Ed.): Standardization: studies from the Germanic languages , 2002, Pp. 99-116, especially p. 107.
  5. ↑ Der Große Brockhaus - Supplementary Volume A – Z , Leipzig 1935, keyword “Arier”.
  6. ^ Siegfried Maruhn: State servants in the unjust state. The German registrars and their association under National Socialism , Verlag für das Standesamtwesen, 2002, p. 125.
  7. ↑ Isabel Heinemann: "Race, settlement, German blood". The Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS and the racial reorganization of Europe. Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-623-7 , p. 81.
  8. ↑ See ordinance on proof of German blood descent from August 1, 1940.
  9. ↑ LeMO: 25-point program of the NSDAP, point 4 .
  10. ↑ Duden : The great dictionary of the German language. 3rd edition, Mannheim 1999, ISBN 3-411-04753-4 (new ISBN 3-411-70362-8 ), Vol. 2, p. 798.
  11. ↑ Christine Kükenshöner: German Blood in Church Records , Evangelische Zeitung , June 18, 2008.
  12. ↑ Diemut Majer: "Fremdvölkische" in the Third Reich . Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard 1993, p. 118.
  13. ^ Decree of the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor on the structure and administration of the Eastern Territories of October 8, 1939 (RGBl. I p. 2042, § 6 Paragraph 1)
  14. ^ Stuckart / Schiedermair: Races and inheritance in the legislation of the empire. 3rd, exp. Edition 1942; quoted from Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus , Berlin 2007, p. 71 .
  15. ↑ Isabel Heinemann: "Race, settlement, German blood" , Göttingen 2003, p. 476 .
  16. ↑ Mirjam Mohr: Researchers on the German footsteps of Elvis Presley. His ancestors are said to come from the Palatinate , in: Die Welt from April 19, 1999.