Draft:Historians of the Third Reich on Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Periods

• Comment: This is an essay mostly based on primary sources and, to be blunt, uncritically repeating Nazi ideology. The "historians" being quoted like Fritz Schachermeyr were Nazis publishing their "theories" in the 1930s and 1940s. There is no secondary analysis, and this is, very clearly, not an encyclopedia article.
  I do not think this can be improved into an article without, like Germany in 1945, rebuilding the whole thing from scratch. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:45, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

---

Historians of the Third Reich have devoted particular attention to Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic periods, analyzing them according to a system of thought imbued with Nazi ideology.

History according to the Nazi ideology

The struggle of the races

Nazi ideology is "totalizing" in that it not only affects the present and future of Germany but also has a global reach, influencing the entire continent of Europe and beyond. Its historical impact is equally far-reaching, affecting the past of numerous countries. As early as 1925, in Mein Kampf and among his associates, Adolf Hitler consistently emphasized his unique "worldview." However, there was never a unified official Nazi history, as historians of the Third Reich tended to develop their research independently. According to Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg, Heinrich Himmler, the SS, and the Institute for the History of the New Germany, there was history. However, these disparate methodologies were deemed "anachronistic." However, these other approaches are all "anhistorical." Instead of following the chronological developments and unfolding of history, they substitute a mythical scheme determined by the "natural laws of blood" and the age-old struggle of the races, and more specifically, the struggle of the Aryan race against the Semitic race, which has been an antagonist in many forms throughout history. This ideological framework posits that there is no history in the progressive sense of the term, as all humanity is determined by structures that are invariable over time, namely the races. From that point onward, it is only necessary to assess historical events and characters according to their fidelity to this "natural law" of blood and race. In this context, history becomes a framework within which to deploy the archetypes of Nazi thought.

Indo-Germanic superiority

The Nazi approach to history can be traced back to the early 19th century when pangermanist doctrines first emerged. Based on linguistic data, German intellectuals proposed the existence of a "superior Germanic race," whose influence is evident in the history of significant civilizations. In the early 1820s, the Indo-Germanic race was thought to have originated on the borders of India, giving it the name of the Indo-Germanic race. This was later revised to locate it in northern Europe, in the Scandinavian countries. In the 1850s, Gustav Klemm outlined the development of civilizations in terms of the timeless confrontation between "active races" and "passive races." According to this scheme, the Aryans, or Indogermans, correspond to the strong, dominant race, the "race of lords" (Führerrasse), and the Semites, the Jews, to a "weak race." According to Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, racial composition is not solely determined by physical characteristics but also encompasses intellectual and political elements. The philosophical and political prowess of the Aryans can be traced back to the great civilizations (Rome, Greece, the Carolingian Empire, etc.), which originated through migratory movements. In the early 1860s, anthropologist Adolf Bastian also proposed that civilizations could only develop through isolation and creating an impenetrable barrier to external cultural influences.

The case of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic periods

An ambiguous approach

The application of this analytical framework provides contradictory models. The great migrations demonstrated the superiority of the Germans over the Celts and Latins but resulted in the depletion of the "mother country" of its elites. Charlemagne, the Indo-German "führer" par excellence, created an empire but allowed himself to be "softened by Semitic Christianity." Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period are excellent examples of this phenomenon. While historians of the Third Reich agree that Philip II was "a soldier-king of the purest kind, in every respect the authentic offspring of the Nordic people of the Macedonians", the figure of his son Alexander is more complex. Should we admire the charismatic leader? The figure of Alexander the Great, a charismatic leader and military strategist, is complex. He has been hailed as a visionary, but some have condemned him for the bloodshed and cultural loss caused by his conquests. Alexander's legacy is still debated, and whether he was a positive or destructive influence remains a contention.

Alexander: "Great Nordic Conqueror" or "traitor to the race"?

According to historian Fritz Schachermeyr, although Alexander was of Indo-German descent with predominantly Nordic blood, his ambitious plan for a universal empire posed a significant risk to the survival of his people. The fusion of cultures, and therefore of Greek and Oriental blood, sought by the conqueror constituted a "high betrayal" of the Indo-German race, which was relegated to the rank of the other Oriental races when it should be dominating them. This was seen as an unforgivable "denordification" by the Nazis. He is joined by historian Fritz Taeger, who views Alexander's conquests as "the intoxicating victory of the West" over the Semitic East. However, he objects to the proskynesis and other "orientalizing" practices he wants to introduce. "The conqueror has severed his ties with the soil that had nourished him and whose best forces had offered him his victories. He succeeded the Achaemenids as a Great Asian King, a master of the world who embraced the Medo-Persian royal costume and even attempted to introduce proskynesis". Alfred Rosenberg, for instance, viewed the Susa weddings—which were strongly condemned by his colleagues—as an attempt to merge the Greek and Persian elites, who originated from the same imagined Indo-German homeland.

The Hellenistic period: the dissolution of the Aryan race

The Hellenistic period, which followed Alexander's reign, was less ambiguous in its assimilation by Nazi historians, who were quick to depreciate it. For Ludwig Schemann, a racialist, the period is one of "racial destruction" of "epigones and half-breed bastards—bastards of blood as well as culture". The Greeks and their culture would have been no more than a "thin layer of varnish" covering the world and the Eastern cultures that would soon infiltrate and destroy it from within. This would be the first significant decline of the Indo-Germanic race, infiltrated and then eaten away from within by Semitic elements, just like contemporary Germany, according to Hitler. The Hellenistic period thus marked the dissolution of the "old Greek culture" in a significant admixture of Nordic blood. Nazi historians maintain that this intermixing and loss of the Nordic phenotype resulted in not only the physical disfigurement of the blue-eyed Indo-European, whose hair turned brown but also the political formation of a constellation of independent, unstable states instead of a unified Reich. Additionally, they assert that this process led to an intellectual shift, as evidenced by Alfred Rosenberg's theory, whereby the Greek was diverted from the tangible, sensible world towards an imaginary, fantastical realm. This, they argue, was driven by an uninhibited pursuit of intellectual and abstract concepts, which they view as contrary to the "practical, concrete power" of the Aryan.

Bibliography

• Ayçoberry, Pierre (1979). La question nazie, essai sur les interprétations du national-socialisme (in French). Paris: Éditions du Seuil. pp. 20–25.
• Chapoutot, Johann (2008). Le national-socialisme et l'Antiquité (in French). Presses Universitaires de France - PUF. ISBN 978-2130566458.
• Demoule, Jean-Paul (2014). Mais où sont passés les Indo-Européens ? : Aux origines du mythe de l'Occident (in French). Seuil.
• Olivier, Laurent (2012). Nos ancêtres les Germains, les archéologues français et allemands au service du nazisme (in French). Paris: Tallandier.
• Rosenberg, Alfred (1933). Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts [The Myth of the Twentieth Century].
• Schachermeyr, Fritz (1944). Indogermanen und Orient, Ihre kulturelle und machtpolitische Auseinandersetzung im Altertum (in German). Kohlhammer.
• Schemann, Ludwig (1938). Die Rasse in den Geisteswissenschaften, Band II : Menlischliche Auslese und Rassenhygiene (Eugenik) (in German). J. F. Lehmann.
• Taeger, Fritz (1936). Orient und Okzident in der Antike, Philosophie und Geschichte (in German). Mohr. ISSN 0340-6962.

Related articles

• Alexander the Great
• Alfred Rosenberg
• Denordification
• Fritz Schachermeyr
• Hellenistic period
• Nazi Germany