Master race and master race

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The master race and master race have been key concepts in colonialism , racism and anti-Semitism since the last third of the 19th century . Coined as an ideological justification for colonial expansion, Herrenvolk became a leitmotif of the pan-German movement . Following Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain , the idea of ​​the existence of a Germanic master race developed within the national movement . Without adding anything essential to these ethnic and anti-Semitic ideas, he saidNational Socialism the " Aryan " for the highest quality and only culturally creative " race ".

The term "Herrenvolk"

The term Herrenvolk came up in the 19th century in the course of the colonial expansion of European states. By transferring the organic struggle for survival to the realm of nations and peoples, colonialism was legitimized as quasi “natural law”. Social Darwinian axioms of the survival of the fittest, of the division of the world into “living” and “dying”, declining and emerging nations and views of the alleged alternatives “world power or decline” dominated the mind. In addition, there were older, evolutionary ideas from cultural anthropology , according to which low-ranking " primitive peoples " developed into higher-ranking "cultured peoples". From this the ideological justification for the rule of the “white race” was derived and the preferred position of one's own people as the master people was legitimized.

The term Herrenvolk can be traced back to the colonial pioneer Carl Peters, for example . He named as an egoistic motive of his colonial political motivation, "that I was tired of being counted among the pariah and that I wanted to belong to a master race." The colonial movement shared such ideas with the radical nationalist spectrum in the German Empire as in Germany Pan-German movement . Among the Pan-Germans, the idea that the German people were a master people developed into a leitmotif with which a German claim to a part of the world was established, for whose enforcement one did not depend on the cooperation of other nations. In the publications of the Pan-German Association, the alleged German " urge to the east " was linked with it and the Germanization of large parts of Southeast and Eastern Europe was propagated in the sense of a greater Germanism .

Compared to the Pan-Germans, Max Weber claimed the concept of the master people as a domestic political one and linked it to the demand for democratization . In a speech for a mutual agreement in November 1917, he demanded: “We want to pursue world politics, but only a master race is capable of this, not a master race in the sense of the Pan-German parvenup, but quite simply a people that has control of its administration firmly in hand lasts. ”In this sense, the term also appears in Weber's criticism of the racial philosophy of history and in Friedrich Naumann . The historian Wolfgang J. Mommsen points out that the term “rightly” appears to be questionable today due to its connection with the idea of ​​exercising political power externally.

The term "master race"

In contrast, the concept of the master race (usually as a Germanic master race or Aryan master race ) can be traced back to the French racial theorist Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and has been a key concept of modern anti-Semitism in Germany since the last third of the 19th century . In his four-volume “ Essay on the Inequality of Human Races ” (1853–1855) Gobineau took the view that the course of world history was racially determined. While all high cultures can be assigned to the Aryans , the other " races " have to be seen as "inferior". If the “Aryan master race” mixes with one of the “inferior races”, it comes to decay and extinction.

Within the völkisch ideology, the doctrine of the Nordic origin of the Aryans developed conclusiveness for the assumption that the Germanic master race was the only cultural, technically gifted and state-building force in history. This construct took shape from the negative image of the “Jewish counter-race”. The most important contribution to this Manichaean worldview of the alleged Germanic-Jewish racial antagonism was made by Houston Stewart Chamberlain with The Foundations of the XIX. Century (1899). Chamberlain amalgamated anti-Semitism with the myth of Aryan superiority, messianic and mystical notions of "race", social Darwinism and eugenics . In contrast to Gobineau, for Chamberlain race, nation and people were almost identical.

Even Friedrich Nietzsche used the vocabulary of racism of his time and used in his work On the Genealogy of Morals the term master race . For this reason, among other things, he is seen as a racist, anti-Semite and thought leader and spiritual pioneer of National Socialism. On the other hand, the political scientist Jürgen R. Winkler points out that Nietzsche did not see the Germans as a master race , but rather praised the “racial mixture”, through which the Germans only gained in quality. Because he classified people according to race and propagated a master race , Nietzsche was still a racist.

"Herrenvolk" and "Herrenrace" under National Socialism

The National Socialists linked the racist and anti-Semitic idea of ​​the existence of a Germanic master race with ethnic occultism and demands for racial hygiene . Adolf Hitler formulated in Mein Kampf that the National Socialist movement had the “mission” of creating “a Germanic state”, which had been assigned to it “by the creator of the universe”. The task of creating a new humanity is addressed to the German people. Hitler considered the Aryan man to be the new type of man, whose breeding must become the main task of the state. From the idealization of the humanity to be created, according to the Germanist Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann, both the National Socialist salvation utopia and the national-chauvinist claim to superiority arose. Hitler believed that in the future only "a highest race" could be called to rule the world as a master race . He referred the expression directly to the Germans, whom he called the master people several times . In his last surviving utterances , Hitler affirmed that the German people are masters and that divine Providence has called them to rule the world.

The Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg oriented himself primarily to Houston Stewart Chamberlain and adopted his racial anti- Semitic conception of the Teutons as creators of culture and the Jews as destroyers of culture. During the Nuremberg trial of major war criminals , the American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson referred to Rosenberg as the “spiritual priest of the 'master race'” in his plea on July 26, 1946, without the court record indicating any contradiction by the defendant. In cross-examination by US prosecutor Thomas J. Dodd in April 1946, Rosenberg took the tactic of criticizing the translation from German into English, pointing out, among other things, that he always heard the translation of the word "master race" in the one presented to him The document does not speak of “ master race ” but of “ master humanity ”.

The National Socialist racial hygiene , the forced sterilization and murder of sick and handicapped people regarded as “inferior” , the disenfranchisement, persecution and murder of the Jews and the plans to reorganize the conquered Polish and Soviet areas ( General Plan East ) served the goal of the rule of the Aryan-Germanic To maintain “race” and to establish a “Germanic state of German nation”.

The historian Jürgen Zimmerer refers to the parallels between the German colonial policy in German South West Africa , through which a racially privileged state was to be established, and the National Socialist plans and visions for their "Eastern Empire". Whether in the motives of their living space policy or in their ideas of the future coexistence of the new German “ruling class” and the Slavic lower class - colonial echoes could be found everywhere . Hitler in particular had the parallel to colonial history clearly in mind.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst founder: "Educating Negroes, Kanaks and Chinese to be useful people". Ideology and Practice of German Colonialism. In: Thomas Beck et al. (Ed.). Overseas history. F. Steiner, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 9783515074902 ( contributions to colonial and overseas history . 75), p. 254f.
  2. ^ Horst founder: History of the German colonies. 5th edition. Schöningh, Paderborn; Munich [u. a.] 2004, ISBN 9783825213329 , p. 31.
  3. ↑ Stefanie Michels: Imagined power contested. Germans and Africans in the Upper Cross River Area of ​​Cameroon: 1887-1915 . Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3825868249 , p. 96.
  4. ^ Oskar Krejčí: Geopolitics of the Central European region. The view from Prague and Bratislava. 1st edition. VEDA, pub. House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava 2005, ISBN 9788022408523 , pp. 130f.
  5. ↑ Quotation from Wolfgang J. Mommsen: Max Weber and German politics. 1890-1920. 3. Edition. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 9783161484803 , p. 291.
  6. ↑ Max Weber: The race-theoretical philosophy of history. About the nation and the love of the country. In: Johannes Weiß (Hrsg.): Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe . tape I , no. 12 . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, p. 322-328 .
  7. ^ Mommsen: Max Weber and German politics. 1890-1920. P. 186.
  8. ↑ a b c Mario Wenzel: Germanic master race. In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.). Handbook of Anti-Semitism. Hostility to Jews in the past and present. Vol. 3, Saur, Munich 2010, ISBN 9783598240744 , p. 107.
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Wippermann: Racism and belief in the devil. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2005, ISBN 9783865960078 , p. 43.
  10. ^ Geoffrey G. Field: Evangelist of race. The Germanic vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Columbia University Press, New York 1981, ISBN 0231048602 , p. 223.
  11. ↑ Jürgen R. Winkler: Anti-Semitism and National Socialism. Friedrich Nietzsche's attitude to Jews and political anti-Semitism. In: Hanna Kaspar et al. (Ed.). Politics - Science - Media. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften / GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 9783531912196 , pp. 88–90, 96f., 99.
  12. ^ Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann: Houston Stewart Chamberlain. For the textual construction of a worldview. An analysis of the history of language, discourse and ideology. De Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-173532-0 , pp. 644-651, cit. 644, 650, 651.
  13. ^ Anton Grabner-Haider and Peter Strasser: Hitler's mythical religion. Theological lines of thought and Nazi ideology. Böhlau, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77703-8 , pp. 159f. The authors follow the misleading title of the German edition of this source by considering the text to be Hitler's political will . Since the originals are not accessible, the authenticity of the Bormann dicates is to be viewed with a certain skepticism. Peter Longerich: Hitler's deputy. Leadership of the party and control of the state apparatus by the Hess staff and the Bormann party office. A publication by the Institute for Contemporary History. KG Saur, Munich 1992, ISBN 978-3-598-11081-8 , p. 6.
  14. ^ Ernst Piper : Alfred Rosenberg. Hitler's chief ideologist. 1st edition. Pantheon Verl., Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-89667-148-6 , pp. 189-190.
  15. ↑ Piper, Rosenberg , pp. 151, 633.
  16. ↑ Theodoros Radisoglou: Annotated photographic documentation. Interpreters and translators, their work and working conditions at the Nuremberg Trial (Nov. 20, 1945 - Oct. 1, 1946). In: Hartwig Kalverkämper and Larisa Schippel (eds.). Simultaneous interpreting in first practice. The Nuremberg Trial 1945. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86596-161-7 ( TransÜD . 17), p. 110.
  17. ↑ Wenzel, Germanische Herrenrasse , p. 108f.
  18. ↑ Jürgen Zimmerer: From Windhoek to Auschwitz? Contributions to the relationship between colonialism and the Holocaust. 1st edition. Lit, Münster, Westf 2011, ISBN 978-3-8258-9055-1 , p. 136.