I've tried to do a lot of studying on it for legitimately academic purposes to get behind what exactly Nazi race doctrine propaganda was at its core, but it's been a very hard task for a few years now, looking through books from back then and now. Naturally I ignore essentially every stormfront-esque website because they're all just radical fanatic outcast idiots, and because I don't care for racial supremacy - but I'm intrigued by the German usage of it as propaganda during WW2.
As far as I can tell, "Aryan" is the word the Nazis introduced to replace European. Why, you may ask, is because naturally Slavic peoples too are of vastly Indo-European stock (obviously, linguistically) and the Nazi race theory was that Western Europeans were highly superior to these Easterners, and since the Nazis wanted to expand and make their own empire on Eastern European land by eliminating the people there (really scary thought considering that they wanted this all less than a lifetime ago).
But I've had a very hard time telling what was really an "Aryan" for the Nazis - the definition seems flimsy, as so it can attach itself to whatever needs be for the Nazi political agenda. Kind of clever of them, but also pokes quite a few contradictory holes. Naturally they saw the Germans as the most superior, but they also extended this to Norwegians, the Dutch, English - there was even a French SS Legion, and Hitler's half Irish nephew too lived in the country for quite some time. The Nazis (especially Hitler) longed for an alliance with the British, and took great admiration of their empire.
Am I right in what I've found? Is an Aryan just a theoretical pseudo-science term for Western European that would be fitting of the Nazi agenda?
This map by an American eugenicist apparently was of great influence to the Nazis in determining their Nordic/Aryan/Germanic master race.
>>796734
Aryan referred specifically to Germanic people.
Thing is, you should not take the nazi racial theory at face value because it was filled with inconsistencies and honestly, in reality it was seldom more than a justification for massive population removal and transfers and a justification for the German interest of pursuing their age old "Drang nach Osten"
When the Nazis invaded Ukraine and started measuring the local populace like cattle, they were surprised that the majority of them didn't actually ascribe to the untermensch propaganda that they were told.
>>796763
>they were surprised that the majority of them didn't actually ascribe to the untermensch propaganda that they were told.
What do you mean by that exactly?
>>796734
>legitimately academic purposes
>they're all just radical fanatic outcast idiots
>>796785
Yeah, I'm a university student with an interest in the Second World War, not some racist keyboard warrior edgelord.
>>796771
They were told that slavs were basically half-asiatic mongrels rules by jews.
That wasn't the case.
Labeling what was Aryan/Nordid and what wasn't was incredibly inconsistent.
Hitler believed that Poles were complete vermin and had to be exterminated to the last man, while nazis still abducted Polish children deemed in possesion of Nordid features and were sent for Germanization.
Let's not forget how they pronounced a lot of Indian peoples, some Berbers and some Persian tribes as Aryan while slavs were seen as non-aryan.
Or the honorary aryan status of Japanese.
Their racial policy had no consistency. They even had jews posing as model aryans in their propaganda posters.
>>796763
>Aryan referred specifically to Germanic people
What is this then according to the map?
>>796785
I, too, am a student interested in fascist ideas from an academic perspective. I also shitpost on /pol/, but that's mostly because I like to discuss politics on the proper board when I'm on 4chan. In a couple weeks I'm going to be writing a paper about revolutions in Germany for a history class. I don't think I'm as dismissive of them as OP is but it certainly is more generally acceptable to completely dismiss the ideas than it is to actually contemplate them.
The fact of the matter is that fascism is as valid an ideology as Marxism or liberalism. Ideological truth is a product of power relations. The veracity of an ideological account of a topic is ultimately irrelevant to whether or not the ideology succeeds or if its ideas are implemented. The account is produced and/or implemented by people vying for or exercising power. When they have the power to implement the ideas, they do so; when they lack the power, they can't implement them. Those who say they are false are silenced. Those who can prove that they are false are sometimes welcomed as fellow conspirators among the powerful. Those who know that the truth is a lie and that lies are the truth often have the last bitter laugh when an ideology turns out to have been incorrect.
>>796734
>claims to have studied the Nazis for several years
>can't even come up with a coherent explanation of what aryan is
lolwut
anyway, heres books for you:
Rosenberg, Alfred. Race and Race History and Other Essays. Edited by Robert Pois. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.
>Includes an introduction and running commentary by the editor. Excerpts from several of Rosenberg’s works, including his best known, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Hoheneichenverlag, 1937), are organized thematically. Makes clear Rosenberg’s notion that race is the key to history, but also his sense of the historically specific challenge to be tackled by Nazi Germany.
Kühl, Stefan. The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
>Shows the interpenetration of German and American ideas about race and eugenics during the 1920s and 1930s. Argues that such American measures as racial segregation, antimiscegenation laws, restrictions on non-European immigration, and compulsory sterilization seemed to offer significant precedents, even if the Nazis concluded that a still more radical, consistent, and activist approach was required.
http://bookzz.org/book/1218547/7a313e
Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wippermann. The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
>Influential, systematic treatment of Nazi racial policy, including the persecution of an array of groups on broadly construed racialist grounds. Also considers the place of masculinity, femininity, and youth in the effort to forge a racial community. Finds the whole effort primitive and atavistic, anything but, as has been claimed by some, the negative revelation of modernity.
>>796915
Oh no I'm not totally dismissive of fascism. It happened for its reasons of the soldiers returning from war and demanding what they did from the government which promised them so much. I'm dismissive of skinhead neonazi reactionary stupidity, which I find truthfully to just be uneducated impoverished alignment with finding self-gratification.
Best course I've taken so far in university was one which focused on the origins and philosophies of fascism in Europe, focused mainly in Germany of course. Brilliant professor who asked very thought-provoking questions, like "is fascism a religion" - and we had a great debate on that.
>>796974
>>can't even come up with a coherent explanation of what aryan is
Like I stated, it's a rather flexible and contradictory term which can hardly be answered with one definitive explanation.
>>797005
>I'm dismissive of skinhead neonazi reactionary stupidity
Do you support the elimination of national borders and the facilitation of free movement of anyone between any two places? Mostly, looking at these ideas has made me slightly more critical of mass immigration; beyond that, I don't put any stock in oldscool racial science.
>>797022
I'm thinking with the mention of mass immigration that you're either European or American. I am neither, and thus I have no comment towards current border and movement issues.
>>796867
I fail to see what a map released before the 20th century hold as relevance.
The idea of an Aryan race was not new in Europe. All kinds of racial "sciences" appeared in the 19th century but we are talking specifically about the nazi brand of it.
>>797061
>but we are talking specifically about the nazi brand of it.
The Nazi racial policy was influenced by 19th century studies on race.
>>797083
I never denied it.
You are trying to force a narrative that this particular map was used for nazi racial science.
>>797093
what I'm trying to say is that this anon >>796763 is implying that Hitler didn't thought of non Germanics as being Aryan. We both agree that the Nazi racial policy is mostly based off of the thoughts made from the 19th century. the map I posted indicated that 19th century Europeans thought that everyone in Europe except Finns and Hungarians were Aryan.
Was there anything wrong with German ethnic nationalism?
