Master race

The master race (German: die Herrenrasse, ) was a concept adopted as Nazi ideology in which the Nordic peoples, one of the branches of what in the late-19th and early-20th century was called the Aryan race, represent an ideal and "pure race" that was the purest representation of the original racial stock of those who were then called the Proto-Aryans Widney, Joseph P. Race Life of the Aryan Peoples New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1907 In Two Volumes: Volume One--The Old World Volume Two--The New World ISBN B000859S6O See Chapter II—"Original Homeland of the Aryan Peoples" Pages 9-25—the term “Proto-Aryan” is used to describe the people today called Proto-Indo-Europeans . The Nazis declared that the Nordics were the true Aryans because they were less mixed with other races than other people of what were then called the Aryan peoples (now generally called the Indo-European peoples), such as the Slavic peoples (mixed with the Mongols and the Jewish Khazars), the Romance peoples (mixed with the Semites and the Moors), the Iranian peoples (mixed with the Arabs and the Mongols), and the Indo-Aryans (mixed with the Dravidians) Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925 . Because of their leadership qualities, the Nazis declared, the Nordic Aryans were entitled to world domination. Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925 (In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many people of native Indo-European ancestry assumed their own Aryan race was genetically superior to other races because they seemed to have the most advanced and sophisticated mathematics, science, technology, social organization, philosophy, music, and art For an environmental rather than genetic explanation for this (assuming one grants this to be the case), see the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond ; so the purest Aryans, many native Indo-Europeans thought [especially if enhanced by a eugenics program], would be the most genetically superior.) This concept is called Nordicism. The Nazis took this concept to the limit by proposing to develop a program to systematically genetically enhance the Nordic Aryans through eugenics to create a super race. Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925 
This concept derives from 19th-century racial theory, which posited a hierarchy of races placing Aboriginal Australians and "African savages" at the bottom of the hierarchy while Aryans (as conceived by the Nazis) (primarily Northern and Western Europeans consisting of Germans, Swedes, Icelanders, Norwegians, Danish, Irish, French, English and Dutch) were at the top, and Southern Europeans (Spanish, Italians, Greeks and Portuguese) (those of what was then called the Mediterranean race, which was regarded as another subrace of the Caucasian race) in the upper middle ranks, those of the Semitic race (another subrace of the Caucasian race) in the middle ranks (it was because the Jews, being Semites, were clever that they were so dangerous--they had their own plan for Jewish world domination, a conspiracy that had to be opposed by all thoughtful Aryans, declared the Nazis Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf 1925 ), and those of the Mongoloid race and the Dravidian race in the lower middle ranks.
==Nordicism==
thumb|200px|Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) shows a famous German war hero (Karl von Müller) as an example of the Nordic type.
The origins of the Nazi version of the theory of the master race were in 19th-century racial theories of Count Arthur de Gobineau, who argued that cultures degenerate when distinct races mix. It was believed at this time that Southern European and Eastern European peoples were racially mixed with non-European Moors from across the Mediterranean Sea, while Northern Europeans and Western Europeans remained pure. Proponents of Nordic theory further argued that Nordic peoples had developed innate toughness and determination due to the harsh, challenging climate in which they evolved. The racial ideal of these theorists was the tall, blond and blue or gray eyed Nordic individual.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the earliest proponents of a theory presenting a hierarchical racial model of history, attributing civilisational primacy to the "white races" who gained their sensitivity and intelligence by refinement in the rigorous north.
The highest civilisation and culture, apart from the ancient Indians and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilisation.Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume II, Section 92
Nevertheless, such theorists usually accepted that considerable variety of hair and eye colour existed even within the racial categories they recognised. Contrary to popular myth, the Nazis themselves did not discriminate against Germans who were not blonde or light-eyed, or had only one of these features. Adolf Hitler and most Nazi officials had dark hair and were considered to be "Aryans".
The postulated superiority of these people was said to make them born leaders, or a "master race". Other authors included Guido von List, and his associate Lanz von Liebenfels, and the British racial theorist Houston Stewart Chamberlain, all of whom felt that the white race and Germanic peoples were superior to others, and that given the purification of the white race and German people from the races who were "polluting" it, a new millenarian age of Aryan god-men would arrive.
==Germanization between 1939 and 1945==
Nazi policy stressed the superiority of the Nordic race, a sub-section of the white European population defined by anthropometric models of racial difference. The Nordic race was said to comprise of only the Germanic peoples (Germans, Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Finland-Swedes http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=19 | Finns were not originally consider [sic] to be of Nordic race. Therefore the goal of the SS recruiment [sic] office was to recruit Swedish-speaking Finns (preferably National Socialists), whom they regarded as Nordic., Estonia-Swedes, Faroese, Icelanders, English and the Dutch). 
From 1940 the government in occupied Poland divided the population into different groups. Each group had different rights, food rations, allowed strips in the cities, separated residential areas, special schooling systems, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Later adapted in all Nazi-occupied countries by 1942, the Germanization program used the racial caste system of reserving certain rights to one group and barred privileges to another. In addition with their predominant religion and ethnicity per individual of that ethnic group or nationality. Listed from the most privileged to the least:
*Germans from Germany (Reichdeutsche) - Nordic Germans are said most favorable, but all German citizens are in the top category.
*Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, honorary "Aryans" from axis European countries in Volksliste category 1 (see Volksdeutsche).
*Other Germanic peoples closely related to Germans (Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Finland-Swedes, Estonia-Swedes, Faroese, Icelanders, English, and the Dutch) but treated as categories 1 and 2 in most privileges, especially pro-Nazi sympathizers.
*Italians (particularly from regions north of Rome, e.g. Tuscany, Lombardy, etc.), Spaniards (particularly Basques), Occitans, Greeks and Portuguese were treated as category 2 and 3, especially pro-Nazi sympathizers (e.g. Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain diplomats). Some southern Italians were treated as least (Suspicion of miscegenation with African and Semitic peoples), but within the same category. 
*Celtic/Gaelic peoples of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
*Highlanders (Goralenvolk): an attempt to split the Polish nation by using local collaborators. 
*Hungarians, Estonians, and Finns (despite their non Indo-European origins), Baltic peoples (Lithuanians and Latvians) and Romanians, Bulgarians and Croats.
* Ukrainians: Many were part of Waffen SS divisions (Galicia), while others were exterminated as partisans suspected in supporting
==Aryanism==
The term Aryan derives from the Sanskrit word (ā́rya) आर्य (meaning:Noble), which derived from arya, the original Indo-Iranian autonym. Also, the word Iran is the Persian word for land/place of the AryanWiesehofer, Joseph Ancient Persia New York:1996 I.B. Tauris(see also Iranian peoples). From the footsteps of the Pamir mountains and in areas in northern Afghanistan like Balkh (the main city of Zoroastrianism) the Aryans moved to the other parts of Iran and Hindustan.(see also Balkh). It remained as a key city for the spread of Aryan Civilization for several centuries (the name for the Sassanian Empire in Middle Persian is Eran Shahr which means Aryan Empire Wiesehofer, Joseph Ancient Persia New York:1996 I.B. Tauris). 
Following the ideas of Gobineau and others, the Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg claimed that these were a dynamic warrior people who originated in northern climates, from which they migrated south, eventually reaching India. They were supposed to be the ancestors of the ancient Germanic tribes, who shared their warrior values. Rosenberg claimed that Christianity was an alien Semitic slave-morality inappropriate to the warrior Aryan master race and thus supported a melange of aspects of Hindu Vedic and Zoroastrian teachings (both of these religions having been organized by Aryans), along with pre-Christian European paganism, which he also considered to be distinctively Aryan in character. 
In Nazi Germany, a so-called mixed marriage of an "Aryan" with an "Untermensch" was forbidden. To maintain the purity of the Germanic master race, eugenics was practiced. In order to eliminate "defective" citizens, the T-4 Euthanasia Program was administered by Karl Brandt to rid the country of the mentally retarded or those born with genetic deficiencies, as well as those deemed to be racially inferior. Additionally, a programme of compulsory sterilisation was undertaken which resulted in the forced operations of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Many of these policies are generally seen as being related to what eventually became known as the Holocaust.
==Master race in fiction==
Aryan master race ideology was common throughout the educated and literate strata of the Western world until after World War II. Such theories were commonplace in early-20th century fantasy literature.Don Herron, The Barbaric Triumph: A Critical Anthology On The Writings Of Robert E. Howard, Wildside Press LLC, 2004, pp.94-95. For example, the idea of Aryan humanity as the "master race" underlies much of the work of writers such as H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, is supposed to have lived between the fall of Atlantis and the "rise of the sons of Arya" (i.e. the Aryans). In his story Wings In The Night, Howard also wrote,
The ancient empires fall, the dark-skinned peoples fade and even the demons of antiquity gasp their last, but over all stands the Aryan barbarian, white-skinned, cold-eyed, dominant, the supreme fighting man of the earth. (Wings of the Night)
In other cases, while the phrase "master race" itself is seldom used, the inhumane and barbaric treatment of those not belonging to the "master race" in the fictional fascisms seems to imply that such an ideology is present. S.M. Stirling's Domination of the Draka is a fictional empire which is explicitly based on the "master race" concept. After World War I in the Draka universe, the Draka citizens adopt an ideology which calls for all non-Drakan humanity to be reduced to chattel slavery. The Chosen, from Stirling's previous General series portrays perhaps a more realistic look at the "master race" concept, including the consequences of such a policy on a society. The Chosen, who treat other peoples with contempt, calling them "animals", are eventually destroyed by their own slaves, the lowest of the low, despite the Chosen's superior weapons, training, and centuries of eugenic breeding. The fictional fascist "Freedom Party" that rules the Confederate States of America in Harry Turtledove's American Empire series of novels also echoes the concept.
The James Bond film Moonraker is another fictionalised account of a master race, the Adolf Hitler-like megalomanic villain Sir Hugo Drax, pre-selected a diverse group of astronaut trainees to become the progenitors of a master race that will repopulate Earth after the planet has been nerve-gassed.
Similar ideas are explored in science fiction. An episode of The X-Files is entitled Paper Clip. It presents the story of Nazi scientists saved by Americans after the war, during Operation Paperclip, and their connections with aliens, which led them to successfully create a superior race of alien/human hybrids. Another episode is titled "Herrenvolk", presumably referring to the same hybridization program. Likewise, in The Other Side, an episode of Stargate SG-1, the Eurondans are portrayed as white supremacists who have created a purified Nordic-like population, planning to annihilate other peoples, who they refer to as "Breeders" because of their indiscriminate breeding, in rejection of eugenics. 
In the original 1920s and 1930s Buck Rogers stories and newspaper cartoons, Buck Rogers in the 25th century fights for Aryan-Americans from the liberated zone around Niagara, New York, against the Red Mongol Empire, a Chinese empire of the future which rules most of North America.
In Doctor Who, the Doctor's frequent enemies, the Daleks, consider themselves a master race who must purge the universe of all others; Terry Nation explicitly modeled them on the Nazis. In the recent Doctor Who story "The End of Time", the main antagonist The Master uses a device called the immortality gate to turn everyone on Earth (apart from Donna Noble, her grandfather and The Doctor) into a carbon copy of himself which he humorously calls "The Master Race".
==See also==
* Lebensborn plan
* Madison Grant
* Martial Race
* Nazi eugenics
* Nur für Deutsche
* Racial policy of Nazi Germany
*An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus
==References==
 
Category:Antisemitism
Category:Nazi eugenics
Category:Nazi Germany
Category:Nazi terminology
Category:Neo-Nazi movements and concepts
Category:Racism
de:Herrenrasse
fr:Race supérieure
it:Razza superiore
he:תורת הגזע
pl:Rasa panów
pt:Raça superior
ru:Раса господ
simple:Master race
sv:Härskarras