So, since Hitler himself didn’t have blond hair or blue eyes, what did he plan to do once the “perfect” race was created? Since blond hair, blue eyed, Aryans were supposed to be superior, would he bow down to his new Aryan masters? Would he die his hair and…well, I don’t think that they had contacts lenses at the time…
Anyway, what did he think his role was supposed to be?
Let’s assume the plan had some logically basis ( :rolleyes: a stretch I know) - it surely had to be a long term plan. It was after all going to be a Thousand Year Reich…
I guess Hitler didn’t think he would still be around to bear (poor) comparison with the results of their master race breeding programme. BTW if you think he looked a doggy character you should have a look at photos of the rest of the gang - Goebbels (sp?) especially.
“The perfect Aryan is tall like Goebbels, thin like Goering, and blond like Hitler”-German anti-Nazi joke.
I think the Nazi racial theorist answer was, although the archetypal Nordic Aryan had blond hair and blue eyes, that didn’t neccesarily mean that all of them did. There had been, in the past, inferior bloodlines mixing themselves with the Nordic subrace, which manifested itself in dark hair and eyes. The “blood polution” might have been so long ago and so minor that it doesn’t impact on the person’s character or worth as a person. It just has caused them to have dark hair.
And, yeah, Hitler would be long dead by the time the blood was purified.
Being a 6’4" blond blue eyed Swede, I guess I fit the stereotype. However, it’s wrong.
The original nordic people (vikings and before that) were more ‘strawberry’ blond or outright redheads with very pale eyes. Something like Scottish or Picts, IIRC. The blond/blue eye got imported from Slavic countries, notably from Russia via Finland. And we all know what Hitler thought about the lavic people.
Me thinks it was mostly rethorics in combination with an international zeitgeist (sic!) about taking humans apart and trying to find out what makes them tick. Phrenology and weird medical experiments were going on around the world, not only in Germany. Of course, the Germans, with their industrious thoroughness took it to the extremes, leading up to genocide.
But anyone who thinks that the Nazi’s hands were dirty, while they were clean in most other parts of the world, need to study up on some history. That’s a subject for another post, though.
A good portion of the Nazis’ views on German racial purity were based on a book by the Roman historian Tacitus (I think), in which he discusses how the tribes living in what is now Germany seemed to be the least racially mixed (and thus purer) than most others. I don’t have any of the cites handy, but if you’re interested, and this thread is still alive tomorrow, I’ll dig them up. The Nazis went to great lengths to get a hold of as old a copy of this book as they could, hoping to give their views some authority.
Apparently, the Nazi racial theorists had an out in that within the so-called Aryans, there were said to be sub-types such as the Nordic (like Gaspode) and the Alpine (like perhaps Hitler and his associates).
To amplify further on Capt. Amazing, yes, it would have taken many centuries had they been allowed to continue it. It of course totally ignores genetics and the idea of recessive and dominant traits, etc. but there was little or nothing scientific about their “science”. Himmler for one apparently believed that once the “volk” was “purified”, the pure Aryans might well rediscover their allegedly numerous super-powers such as telekenisis.
What Nazis believed about their supposed Aryan race and so on seems to cover a wide spectrum and to judge from various Nazi writings appears to have been inconsistent.
Unfortunately, there are still those who subscribe to various versions of these beliefs, as can be seen from browsing the internet.
Interestingly, when Charlie Chaplin filmed The Great Dictator, he explicitly made fun of “Adenoid Hynkel” for his goal of being a short, dark-haired man ruling a world populated by tall blondes.
(Years later, Chaplin was quoted (autobiography? interview?) as saying that he had considered Hitler a buffoon, and that, had he known how truly evil the Nazis were, he’d have not made the film.)
I do not wish to start something but why was this moved? Doesn’t look much like a debate to me. Everybody was pretty much agreeing and was expanding on the answers of others.
Of course, that move may have been pre-emptive before the neo-Nazis showed up. :eek:
I always though my family got its red hair from the Irish. Now you say it has been there all along.
Having known how truly evil they were, why would Chaplin not have made the movie? Humour is a great weapon to use against fanatics. You can always know the extremists and fanatics (of any colour) by their complete lack of humour.
The Nazis already had functioning breeding programs. Brothels of a kind where SS soldiers could go and impregnate some blond women. Many children were begotten there. Also a few years back, it surfaced they had fairly detailed plans on large scale use of Danish women as breeding cows in such brothels once the war was won.
I don’t have a cite, but I remember Hitler got legislation passed that he (and Jesus Christ) could never be examined for racial traits (there is some speculation he thought he had a jewish grandfather, and some in the early Nazi party appearently called him on it if I remember correctly). So he took care of this little problem early.
Basically a LOT of Germans didn’t fit the stereotype, even those that came from ‘unquestionably Aryan’ bloodlines. That was what counted…your pedigry, again, if I’m remember correctly.