Welcome The Master Race

In yesterday's Blog I mentioned Christopher Hale - Writer and producer for the BBC and Discovery channel, among others. His Himmler's Crusade is a brilliantly written resource for understanding SS Fuehrer Heinrich Himmler's passion to discover the roots of the Aryan race in Tibet, of all places.

The New Master Race

For a century before the rise of the Nazis, German intellectuals had been hard at work to undermine the authority of the Bible and the status of its original language, Hebrew. This movement is know today as Higher Criticism. Those scholars put great emphasis on explaining events and history by reference to natural causes and events. Armed with such presuppositions, they led the charge to discredit biblical teachings about Adam and Eve being the first humans and the different races being descended from the three sons of Noah. Jewish genealogy of mankind was toppled from its pedestal.

The Germans in particular, but also the British, guided by scholars like Immanuel Kant, William Jones and Max Mueller, looked to India and then to Tibet as the real place where human civilization began. The culture of the Indians, they claimed, came from Tibet, just as agriculture, numbers, the game of chess, etc. seem to have come from India.

As to language, Sanskrit was spoken by those cultured warriors of northern India. These masterful northerners conquered the world. They founded colonies from Egypt to Scandinavia. The proof was in their words. All Indian and European tongues, they insisted, sprang from the same common source. Frederich Schlegel of Jena University gave these great northern masters a name, based on the Sanskrit: Aryans. Because of their association with the north of India and Europe, they came to be called Nordics. The word Aryan meant in Sanskrit 'aristocrat' or 'nobleman.' Schlegel and his camp connected Aryan with the German word Ehre, meaning honor.

To quote Christopher Hale, "The Aryan version of history blitzkrieged through German culture. In philosophy, folklore, geography and philology the Aryans made a triumphant entry, stomping down from the Himalayas and civilizing the world. They were the common ancestor of Indians, Persians, Greeks, Italians, Slavs, Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, and especially Germans! Especially Germans! Aryans were soon being called Indo-Germans and given the status of Wagnerian heroes; they were youthful, tall, blond, generous, brave and creative" (p.28).

Give a big welcome to the Master Race!