[QUOTE=Atomicktom]
and if Aryans are blond haired and blue eyed
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s where your error is: Aryans are not necessarily blond haired and blue eyed.
Hitler had medium brown hair and blue eyes.
[QUOTE=Mosier]
It’s easy to just call it shallow hypocrisy and not look any deeper into the question, but it doesn’t tell the whole truth.
Nazis weren’t hostile to all non-Aryans. They wanted to create a master race out of what they thought were the best human traits, not necessarily condemn anyone who didn’t have those traits already. Hardly anyone met the Nazi Aryan ideal. It was a goal that the Nazi eugenics program was working toward.
Nazi hostility to fringe groups like Jews and the mentally ill has almost nothing to do with their desire to create a eugenic master race. They hated Jews for being Jews, not because they weren’t blond.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed. This was a goal that was going to take a few generations to complete.
Reminds me of the scene where Hitler marries Eva Braun in the film “Downfall.” An apologetic official asks Hitler to declare himself to be of non-inferior stock before the ceremony.
Thanks for the insights. It always seemed ludicrous to me, as if a guy 5’1" was running around telling people that only tall people were worthy of being in charge. I guess it takes a lunatic to proffer lunacy, and he has to be really insane for anybody else to believe him.
What was the name of the Nazi leader who was assassinated in Hungary? Heydrich? Apparently he was held up as the shining example of pure Aryan ideals. Yes, he looked like a Ken Doll and yes, he was an evil bastard under his blond, blue eyed looks.
[QUOTE=panache45]
Would ***you ***want to be the guy to go up to Hitler and ask, “Excuse me, Führer, but you look more Jewish than Aryan.”?
[/QUOTE]
Not unless you wanted him to say “Really, well you’ll look nice in a coffin”
Hitler was 5’8".
There was a great wartime New Yorker cartoon. Hitler is on a huge dais, gilded eagles, banners, endless rows of faceless SS men in the audience stretch into the distance.
Hitler says, “So I think I can say without fear of contradiction …”
[QUOTE=David Simmons]
I don’t believe there are any physical markers that definitely identify race with any degree of certainty. In factthe whole concept of race is suspect.Human physical variation is a continuum with a lot of overlapping across the boundries of what used to be known as separate “races.”
I realize the cite is from one of those effete, eastern colleges, Bryn Mawr, but it seems to reflect the consensus of the biological scientists.
[/QUOTE]
Be that as it may, forensic scientists have a different consensus.
[QUOTE=Hypno-Toad]
What was the name of the Nazi leader who was assassinated in Hungary? Heydrich?
[/QUOTE]
Reinhard Heydrich, our history teacher mentioned him for that reason.
Because Hitler did look Aryan:
Blue eyes – check
Blond hair – check (at least, when he was younger – it darkened with age). His hair looks dark becaue black and white film tends to darken hair colors except for platinum blond.
Hitler’s self-image (formed when a youth) was that of blond hair and blue eyes.
[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
His hair looks dark becaue black and white film tends to darken hair colors except for platinum blond.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, good point. A lot of us have probably been deluded into thinking we know what Hitler looks like from having seen actors playing Hitler, cartoons of Hitler, etc., when we’ve never actually seen a color picture of Hitler himself.
[QUOTE=OttoDaFe]
Can’t find a good cite offhand, but I believe that they depended a good deal on the size and shape of the skull. They had five or six categories, of which three were “acceptable” and could join the Party and the SS, while the rest were not.
[/QUOTE]
As an aside to this (just to further debunk the whole “master race” idea), the movie Europa Europa is a true story of a young German Jewish man who passes as a non-jew, and infact winds up serving in the SS (or SA - I can’t remember which).
The movie details his good luck throughout the war and how he manages to evade detection (eg - they can’t find his records and he’s about to be found out but then the record office gets blown up by allied troops, the person discovers that he’s circumcised gets killed, he’s trying to escape but accidentally stumbles on an allied strong hold where all the soldiers have been killed and is believed to have killed them, etc)
At one point he’s attending a school for Hitler’s youth - the belief amongst the teachers/administration is that he is a war hero. The teacher of one class starts describing the “inferior jew” and how "jews have sloping forheads and big jaws, and blah de blah. The teacher then calls up our hero and holds him up as an example of a ideal aryan man with an ideal shaped head.
Anyhow - not exactly a site, but an interesting aside.
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
Oh, good point. A lot of us have probably been deluded into thinking we know what Hitler looks like from having seen actors playing Hitler, cartoons of Hitler, etc., when we’ve never actually seen a color picture of Hitler himself.
[/QUOTE]
In addition, photos were of Hitler as an adult, after his hair had darkened. As a child, his hair was a dirty blond. And observers of Hitler have mentioned his blue eyes – they made comment on how the blue stood out.
Here’s a color picture of Hitler, btw:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/germans/hitler_001
I also want to repeat, because I don’t think anyone paid attention, that Aryan isn’t the same thing as Nordic.
[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
In addition, photos were of Hitler as an adult, after his hair had darkened. As a child, his hair was a dirty blond.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, so I buy this, but only so far. In the picture Captain Amazing linked, it looks like Hitler has about the same color of hair as my husband does now - a darkish auburn-brown. And it’s true - my husband was a tow-headed little blonde boy growing up. But SpouseO certainly didn’t spend “his childhood” as a blonde - I first met him when he was 14 and he certainly had dark hair then. I’m guessing that his hair started to darken to brown starting when he was 10, tops. My brother’s the same way - bleach blonde little boy, medium brown haired 13-year-old. I can’t speak for them, or for Hitler either, but I’d feel fairly safe betting that both my husband and my brother don’t self-identify as blondes because they happened to have blonde hair as children.
No, but I assume your husband is more sane. 
But since Hitler had bought into the Aryan ideal, he was more likely to remember his blond hair. I’m sure he knew it wasn’t any more, but he could justify the blond hair thing on the basis that he was a former blond.
and one more time…Aryan doesn’t equal blond hair.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
Here’s a color picture of Hitler, btw:
http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/germans/hitler_001
[/QUOTE]
Well, ignoring his hair and eyes for a moment, there sure as hell is something wrong with the front of his pants! Is he wearing a diaper?!?!
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Be that as it may, forensic scientists have a different consensus.
[/QUOTE]
http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/osteo/forensics/race.html
The word is “context.” If you’re trying to describe a skeleton, certain physical classifications can be useful.
In the context of cultural anthropology, we deal with the concept of race.