Subhuman
Untermensch is a term used by the National Socialists and the eugenicists . In the ideology of National Socialism , the " Aryans ", especially the Germanic peoples , were considered superior to the rest. Representatives of other attitudes also used this term, although not necessarily in racist contexts. In 1932, for example, the SPD MP in the Reichstag, Kurt Schumacher, named two members of the NSDAP Untermenschen who had insulted him and had been convicted in court.
The Jews in particular were considered to be the Nazis' worst enemies. Already in Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf they were branded as “spoilers of the people” or “ enemies of the Reich ” and were harassed and persecuted shortly after the National Socialists came to power. The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 stipulated who was considered a Jew or a “ mixed race ” and who was an “Aryan”. But also other “foreign races”, “ blacks ” or “ gypsies ”, as well as “inferior” minorities of the German majority population such as “ anti-social ” were viewed as “subhuman”, persecuted and threatened with annihilation.
The National Socialists were able to rely in part on popular attitudes such as anti-Semitism and anti- Gypsyism.
history
The philologist Victor Klemperer made the following observation in his diaries from the time of National Socialism (entry from December 26, 1940):
“I find in Stechlin , Chapter 33 (page 342): 'Now, instead of the real human being, the so-called superman has been established; but actually there are only subhumans ... 'You will find most of the new words long before they are new. (I assume that Fontane did not invent the 'subhuman' either, the counterpart to the superman was in the air.) But that doesn't detract from their novelty. They are new the moment they emerge as an expression of a new attitude or new thing and come into fashion. In this respect, Untermensch is a specific and new word in the language of the Third Reich . "
In the sense closest to their use of the term, the National Socialists had the term "Untermensch" from the title of the German translation of the book The Revolt against Civilization: The Menace of the Under Man (German: Der Kulturumsturz - Die Threat durch den Untermenschen 1925) by the American anthropologist, racial theorist and eugenicist Lothrop Stoddard . Since even the most English historians do not know that the word originated by an American, the term is usually different retranslated into English as subhuman or subhuman . A leading National Socialist who identifies Stoddard as the creator of the formula of the Slavic “subhuman” is Alfred Rosenberg , who in his book The Myth of the 20th Century (1930) writes that the typical Russian Bolshevik is a representative of that kind of person, “ whom Lothrop Stoddard described as 'sub-humans' ”(p. 214). Although he does not explicitly derive this himself and the term “sub-man” does not appear in Nietzsche himself, Stoddard may also have been influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the super-man when he created his word . In any case, Stoddard demonstrates in a passage in his book (p. 261) that he is familiar with the term.
The conservative journalist Paul Rohrbach repeatedly used the term Untermensch . In the magazine Conscience , he said:
"What is that, the sub-human? No concept, no mere idea, no symbol or simile, but something terribly alive. When we say that our people's future is threatened by subhumans, this means: the number of people among us is decreasing, whose hereditary mass is rich enough in efficiency! [...] Where does the subhuman come from? It does not come from anywhere, it is there, from the beginning and in every people. "
Rohrbach understood the rise of the subhuman to be an increasing mass, the excessive proliferation of the lower class and the loss of supposedly higher quality genetic material within the people. Towards the end of Rohrbach's novel Der Tag des Untermenschen (1929) the protagonist says:
“I do not want to claim that the blood is simply chosen by grace. But the subhuman is there from the beginning and in every people; only he wasn't the people. It is not yet - but it is preparing to become one. "
Himmler's brochure Der Untermensch from 1942
When the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 , the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler published a brochure entitled Der Untermensch . The booklet was intended to incite the German population to hate the peoples of the Soviet Union (not, as is often assumed, against the “ Slavic peoples ”, because this expression does not appear in the brochure) and strengthen the fighting morale of the troops. The font was hugely popular both in Western Europe and among Germany's Slavic and Slavic-speaking allies such as Croatia, Slovakia and Bulgaria, with the respective edition being printed in the national language.
The booklet contained less information about the Soviet Union and communism, but primarily reinforced primitive racist prejudices. The majority consisted of photos that were distorted and showed Soviet - and not, as is often assumed, only Russian - prisoners of war with grimaceous faces.
movie theater
The blacksmith Mime is already portrayed as a sub-human in the movie Die Nibelungen by Fritz Lang . The newsreel also regularly showed propaganda films about the " Russian campaign ". Simply built Russian wooden houses, poorly dressed peasants and bad roads were intended to convince the Germans of how "primitive" the "Russians" lived. At the same time, the German invasion should be justified to the general public.
In some German post-war films, but also in the German versions of foreign films (including with Louis de Funès ), the term “Untermensch” is used, but not in connection with a disparagement of members of foreign peoples, but as a term for members of one's own people who are of low character .
Creeping withdrawal of the brochure Der Untermensch
Already at the end of 1941 there were first differences between Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and the Wehrmacht over the publication of that brochure. Some commanders of the Wehrmacht were of the opinion that the Soviet people could be won over by a liberal policy and made an ally in the fight against Bolshevism. Himmler strongly contradicted this because, in his opinion, the peoples of the Soviet Union were inferior. Nevertheless, in the course of 1942 the brochure was no longer sold.
meaning
The National Socialists needed clear, popular images of the enemy. Such were the " Eternal Jew " and the "Bolshevik subhuman". Everything that the National Socialists, but also other right-wing extremist forces such as the German Nationalists, fought against ( Judaism , pacifism , democracy, communism, freemasonry ) was included in these enemy images (see also: Holocaust , Church Struggle ).
“Subhuman Propaganda” in other countries
In the course of the Japanese expansion in China and Southeast Asia during the Second World War , human experiments were forcibly carried out on prisoners of war and civilians . The unit 731 was later for biological and chemical experiments on humans with pathogens known and warfare agents, such as Pest exciters , smallpox pathogens and war gases . The subjects in these prison camps were referred to by the Japanese as maruta (Japanese for “wood”, “material”, “raw material”), which expresses a disdain similar to that of “subhuman”.
Despecification of the enemy
For Domenico Losurdo , in modern times, namely in total war and colonialism , there are two ways in which the neighbor is to be excluded from the community of people and made inaccessible to pity so that brutal violence can unfold:
- “Naturalistic despecification”, which establishes the prerequisites for exclusion from human society on an ethnic or racist level and aims to deny the opponent as a whole being human;
- Despecification on a political and moral basis, so that the enemy can be excluded from the political and social community of values and fought.
In the discussions on a political and moral basis, such as are characteristic of revolutions and civil wars, it is easy to transgress into naturalistic despecification before returning to the idea of the unity of the human race.
literature
- Domenico Losurdo: Battle for History. Historical revisionism and its myths. Nolte , Furet and the others. Papyrossa, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-89438-365-7 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Kurt Schumacher's speech in the Reichstag on February 23, 1932 as a reply to attacks by Joseph Goebbels on his party as the “party of deserters”.
- ↑ On Stoddard and Rosenberg cf. Domenico Losurdo : Battle for History. Historical revisionism and its myths. Nolte, Furet and the others. PapyRossa, Cologne 2007, pp. 21, 29 (Rosenberg), 191.
- ^ Paul Rohrbach: Rise and sub-human. In: Conscience. Volume 9 (1927), No. 12, March 21, 1927 The Political Week ( Memento of April 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Paul Rohrbach: The day of the subhuman. Berlin 1929.
- ^ Anton Kaes: Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War. Princeton University Press, 2011, p. 138 [1]
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2007), pp. 74-82.