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11 - Race-Thinking, Völkisch-Nationalism, and Eugenics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2025

By
Eric Kurlander
Edited by
Mark Roseman  and
Dan Stone
Mark Roseman
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Dan Stone
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway, University of London
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Summary

This chapter explores the evolution of racial ideas before and after the First World War, comparing German-speaking central Europe with the rest of Europe, the USA, or Japan. It analyzes nuances and tensions in German racial discourse between conceptions of Volk and Rasse, both of which might connote “race” in the broader English sense of the term; between Germandom, which privileged the idea of a pure Nordic race native to northern Europe, and Aryanism, which emphasized the racial superiority of multiple “Aryan” nations and peoples; and competing notions of eugenics, including concepts such as “Systemrasse” and “Vitalrasse,” with the former highlighting the differential quality of nations and races and the latter focused on improving the quality of a given population. Finally, it highlights the porous boundaries between conceptions derived from science and eugenics and those emerging from humanist, religio-mythological, and esoteric conceptions of blood and soil. Nazism drew equally on “scientific” eugenic and more “humanist” traditions, which were not unique to Germany but together created the syncretic apotheosis of race-thinking that undergirded the Holocaust.

Keywords

Racismrace sciencerace-mysticismracial hygieneeugenicsantisemitismheredityvölkisch-nationalismtheosophyanthroposophysocial DarwinismAryan raceNordic raceoccultsterilizationeuthanasiawelfare policy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 220 - 247
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

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