Editing Master race (section)

==Nordicism==
{{Main|Nordic race}}
The origins of the Nazi version of the master race theory were in the 19th-century racial theories of Count [[Arthur de Gobineau|Joseph Arthur De Gobineau]], who argued that cultures degenerated when distinct races mixed. It was believed at this time that the peoples of Southern Europe were racially mixed with the non-European [[Moors]] from across the [[Mediterranean Sea]], while the peoples of Northern Europe and Western Europe remained pure. Proponents of the [[Nordicism]] further argued that Nordic peoples had developed an innate toughness and determination due to the harsh, challenging climate in which they evolved.

The philosopher [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] was one of the earliest proponents of a theory presenting a hierarchical racial model of history, attributing civilisational primacy to the "white races" who gained their sensitivity and intelligence by refinement in the rigorous north.

<blockquote>The highest civilisation and culture, apart from the Ancient Indians and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmins, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is because necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilisation.<ref>Arthur Schopenhauer, ''[[Parerga and Paralipomena]]'', Volume II, Section 92</ref></blockquote>

Despite this, he was adamantly against differing treatment of races, was fervently anti-slavery, supporting the [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] movement in the United States. He describes the treatment of "[our] innocent black brothers whom force and injustice have delivered into [the slave master's] devilish clutches" as "belonging to the blackest pages of mankind's criminal record".<ref>''Parerga and Paralipomena'', "On Ethics," Sec. 5</ref>

[[Hans Frank]], Hitler's personal lawyer, stated that Hitler carried a copy of Schopenhauer's book ''[[The World as Will and Representation]]'' with him wherever he went throughout [[World War I]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler-myths.htm|title=Hitler Myths}}</ref>

[[File:WernerGoldberg.jpg|thumb|175px|[[Werner Goldberg]], who was part Jewish but blond and blue-eyed, was used in Nazi recruitment posters as "The Ideal German Soldier."]]
The postulated [[Supremacism|superiority]] of these people was said to make them born leaders, or a "master race".{{sfn|Yenne|2010|p=88}} Other authors included [[Guido von List]], his associate [[Lanz von Liebenfels]], and the British-born German racial theorist [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], all of whom felt that the white race in general, and [[Germanic peoples]] in particular, were superior to others, given the [[Racial purity|purification]] of both the white race and the German people from the other races which were "polluting" them, a new [[Millenarianism|millenarian]] age of Aryan god-men would arrive.{{sfn|Yenne|2010|pp=22–25, 88}}

Nazi policy stressed the superiority of the Germanic "''Übermenschen''" ("superhuman") [[Nordic race]], a sub-race of the [[White people#Nineteenth and twentieth century: the "Caucasian race"|white Caucasian race]] European population defined by [[anthropometric]] models of racial difference. The Nordic race was said to comprise only of the [[Germanic people]]s: Scandinavians and the rest of the Nordic countries (Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, and Faroese), [[ethnic Germans]] (including [[Austrians]], [[Banat Swabians]], as well as [[Sudeten Germans|Sudeten]], [[Baltic Germans|Baltic]] and [[Volga Germans]]), Alemannic Swiss, Liechtensteiners, Luxembourgers, the Dutch, Flemings, Afrikaners, Frisians and the English.

The Nazi racial theorist [[Hans F. K. Günther]] first defined "Nordic thought" in his programmatic book ''Der Nordische Gedanke unter den Deutschen''. The fact that Germans were not purely Nordic was acknowledged by Günther in his book ''[[Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes]]'' ("Racial Science of the German People") from 1922, in which he described the German people as being made up of all five of his European racial categories: Nordic, Mediterranean, [[Dinaric race|Dinaric]], [[Alpine race|Alpine]], and [[East Baltic race|East Baltic]].<ref name=Maxwell150 >Anne Maxwell. Picture Imperfect: Photography and Eugenics, 1870–1940. Eastbourne, England; Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2008, 2010. p. 150.</ref> Most official Nazi comments on the Nordic race were based on Günther's works, and Alfred Rosenberg presented Günther with a medal for his work in anthropology.

Although the physical ideal of these racial theorists was typically the tall, [[blond|fair-haired]], and [[Eye colour|light-eyed]] Nordic individual, such theorists accepted the fact that a considerable variety of hair and eye colour existed within the racial categories they recognised. For example, [[Adolf Hitler]] and many Nazi officials had dark hair and were still considered members of the [[Aryan race]] under Nazi racial doctrine, because the determination of an individual's racial type depended on a preponderance of many characteristics in an individual rather than on just one defining feature.<ref>"The range of blond hair colour in pure Nordic peoples runs from flaxen and red to shades of chestnut and brown ... It must be clearly understood that blondness of hair and of eye is not a final test of Nordic race. The Nordics include all the blonds, and also those of darker hair or eye when possessed of a preponderance of other Nordic characters. In this sense the word "blond" means those lighter shades of hair or eye colour in contrast to the very dark or black shades which are termed brunet. The meaning of 'blond' as now used is therefore not limited to the lighter or flaxen shades as in colloquial speech. In England among Nordic populations there are large numbers of individuals with hazel brown eyes joined with the light brown or chestnut hair which is the typical hair shade of the English and Americans. This combination is also common in Holland and Westphalia and is frequently associated with a very fair skin. These men are all of 'blond' aspect and constitution and consequently are to be classed as members of the Nordic race." Quoted in Grant, 1922, p. 26.</ref><!-- please do not add information about the (disputed) colour of Hitler's eyes. It is irrelevant to the issue, and has led to repeated pointless changes and reversions -->

Hitler and [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] planned to use the [[SS]] as the basis for the racial "regeneration" of Europe following the final victory of Nazism. The SS was to be a racial elite chosen on the basis of "pure" Nordic qualities.<ref>{{cite book| last = Hale| first = Christopher| title = Himmler's Crusade | publisher = [[Bantam Press]]| year = 2003| pages = 74–87 | isbn = 0-593-04952-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Russell| first = Stuart| title = Heinrich Himmler's Camelot| publisher = Kressman-Backmayer| year = 1999}}</ref><ref>Geoffrey G. Field, "Nordic Racism", ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977, p. 523</ref>

[[Giuseppe Sergi]] (1841–1936) was an Italian anthropologist of the early twentieth century, best known for his opposition to Nordicism in his books on the racial identity of ancient Mediterranean peoples. His concept of the [[Mediterranean race]] became important to the modelling of racial difference in the early twentieth century.