ARYAN BREED: HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The Aryan race is a concept that has its origin in linguistic aspects, which later spread as a pseudo theory of the origin of man and that, already entered the 20th century, was used by German National Socialism to support and justify its actions in the persecution and elimination of the Jews.

Originally, scholars from the 18th century and earlier found that many of the inhabitants of the European continent had similar features and consequently deduced that they had a common origin.

They then came to the conclusion that languages ​​such as Sanskrit and Persian, in addition to Armenian, Hittite, and Phrygian, were the root from which most European languages ​​emerged, including Latin, Greek, and Germanic languages. and Celts.

It occurred as a fact then, that there was a first ancestral language from which the others emerged. This original language was called "Aryan" and this hypothesis resulted in the theory of the Indo-European language family.

According to the Nazis and other advocates, the characteristics of the Aryan race were: blue eyes, fair skin, blond hair, height, and physical strength. However, Hitler did not give as much importance to the color of eyes or hair as to the shape of the face, which can be seen in the following Nazi propaganda.

"Like that? or like that? the new year (after the elections) determines the future ”

Translation:“ Like this? or this way? the new year (after the elections) determines the future »

The Aryan race: origin of the term

It was Sir William Jones, an English researcher and linguist, who called this mother tongue "Aryan", understood as pure and primal, and also as noble.

In Sanskrit -language used in the Indus Valley- and in Avestan -language of ancient Persia-, "arya" means "noble". In fact, ancient Persia is the territory currently occupied by Iran, and the name “Iran” is a variant of the word “Aryan”, which would come to mean “Country of the Aryans”.

After the establishment of Aryan as the mother tongue, other 19th century scholars and linguists began to investigate and establish "Aryan" connections between the language and other sociological elements such as archeology, religion, and customs.

In this way, the term "Aryan" began to be used more widely, not only related to the language, and the studies focused more on discovering the origin of the Aryans and their racial characteristics, than on how it could be possible that the Aryans were the originals of the human species.

It was creating, perhaps without knowing it, a dangerous breeding ground for what happened later, when in the 20th century, the German National Socialists appropriated the term to denominate the "Aryan race" as superior to all.

The concept of the Aryan race from the 19th century

The 19th century was marked by the French Revolution and the blow that it meant for the aristocracy and the European bourgeoisie. Due to this fact, any premise that any scholar launched and that served to preserve the supremacy of the upper classes, so beaten and threatened with disappearance, would be well received and embraced by the upper sectors of society.

It was thus that Count Arthur de Gobineau, a French historian and journalist, developed in 1850 an elitist theory that spoke of three unique races in the world, located in a pyramidal shape.

The base consisted of the blacks, the yellows in the middle and at the top of the pyramid, the whites, who were the best, who had their origin in Central Asia and who were characterized by being tall, robust, blond, honest and smart.

Gobineau also argued that the mixture of these three races was the cause of the deterioration of humanity and pointed out that the only ones who remained "pure" and did not mix, were the Germans.

This idea spread throughout Europe and also in North America, although it is true that it also had its detractors, who intelligently exposed that the origin of races and the origin of languages ​​were not related to each other.

But the seed of a superior white race was already sown and there would be those who would water it at their convenience to benefit from their harvest.

Truly scientific research on the linguistic or ethnic origin of Europeans was increasingly neglected, giving way to the adoption of "Aryan supremacy" as the only truth, no matter how well founded or ill-founded.

German National Socialism and Aryan Supremacy

The opinions (sentenced as scientific truths) of Gobineau and other interested parties, penetrated deeply into European society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Little by little the belief was accepted that the Aryans (the whites, the pure) were the good and authentically European, while the Semites (the Arabs and the Jews, mainly) were the strange and impure.

Adolf hitler

All these ideas germinated in the mind of a man as powerful as he was wicked: Adolf Hitler, a German military and politician, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, who had very little of a socialist and a worker, which is why it is more commonly known as the Nazi Party.

Hitler and the people he surrounded himself with during his leadership (such as Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS) were convinced that people's abilities and behaviors were inherent to their race, that they were unsurpassed and that they were passed down from generation to generation..

These specific characteristics of each race, according to the Nazis, were not only physical, but also mental, so they also interfered with intellectual and creative abilities and in the way of thinking.

Darwinian theory

The Darwinian theory of the "survival of the fittest" was extrapolated to human beings, so Hitler paid special attention to the survival of the "Aryan race" and for this he had to not only guarantee reproduction, but it would have to be done between totally pure members.

What were the characteristics of the Aryans?

Over the years, after several generations of 100% pure Aryans bearing offspring, it was the only way to ensure that the race maintained its characteristics as a white, blond, light-eyed man, but also tall, strong, warrior and honorable..

To ensure that this happened, the Nazis implemented two main procedures:

1- The selection of the best to reproduce. The members of the SS - the Nazi elite combat corps - were the best soldiers of the Third Reich, the strongest and also the most loyal. These were allowed to marry only German women who could demonstrate the purity of their lineage and were forced to have many children.

2- The anti-Semitic policy. To eliminate the probability of race mixing, Hitler forbade the marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, decimated their rights and finally installed a systematic mass extermination, for the simple fact of being Jewish and therefore, considered impure and imperfect. This abominable practice killed more than five million Jews in just over 10 years.

After more than 70 years of the fall of the Third Reich, and despite the falsity of the theory of the Aryan race as superior, original and pure, it remains latent in the collective conscience, taking unfortunate forms of racism and intolerance.

References

1. Victims of the Nazi Era: Racial Ideology of the Nazis. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Recovered from ushmm.org
2. Federico Javaloy (1994). The new face of racism. Annals of Psychology. Recovered from search.proquest.com
3. Enrique Moradiellos. The seed of barbarism. Recovered from academia.edu
4. Enrique Asín Fernández. Politics in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Recovered from ddd.uab.cat
5. The creation of the pseudoscientific Aryan race (1880-1900). Recovered from historiavera.com
6. Richard Milner (2008). The myth of the Aryan "race". Theory of racial supremacy. Recovered from losdeabajoalaizquierda.blogspot.com.ar.