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{{Short description|Nazi concept of Aryan superiority}}
{{redirect-multi|2|Herrenvolk|Superior race|other concepts of racial supremacy|Racial superiority|other uses|Herrenvolk (disambiguation)|and|Master race (disambiguation)}}
{{use British English|date=April 2021}}
[[File:ArnoBrekerDiePartei.jpg|thumb|[[Arno Breker]]'s 1939 neoclassical sculpture ''Die Partei'' (''The Party''), which flanked one of the entrances to the [[Albert Speer]]-designed [[Reich Chancellery#Reich Chancellery (1938)|Reich Chancellery]] in Berlin. The sculpture emphasizes what the Nazis considered to be desirable [[Nordic race|Nordic racial characteristics]].]]
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The '''master race''' ({{langx|de|Herrenrasse}} {{IPA|de|ˈhɛʁənˌʁasə|}}) is a [[Pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] concept in [[Nazism|Nazi ideology]], in which the putative [[Aryan race]] is deemed the pinnacle of [[Race (classification of human beings)|human racial]] hierarchy.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Bryant|first1=Edwin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Grpz1tmcSMC|title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate|last2=Bryant|first2=Edwin Francis|last3=Bryant|first3=Professor of Hinduism Edwin|date=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press, US|isbn=978-0-19-513777-4|language=en}}</ref> Members were referred to as '''''master humans''''' ({{lang|de|Herrenmenschen}} {{IPA|de|ˈhɛʁənˌmɛnʃn̩|}}).<ref>{{cite journal|journal=[[The Historical Journal]]|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2638127|volume=15|number=2|date=June 1972|pages=331–360|title=World Power Status or World Dominion? A Survey of the Literature on Hitler's 'Plan of World Dominion' (1937–1970)|first=Meir|last=Michaelis|doi=10.1017/S0018246X00002624 |jstor=2638127 |s2cid=162629479 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The Nazi theorist [[Alfred Rosenberg]] believed that the "[[Nordic race]]" was descended from [[Proto-Indo-Europeans]], who he thought had [[Prehistory|pre-historically]] dwelt on the [[North German Plain]] and it was not impossible that the Nordic race ultimately originated on the [[Lost lands|lost island]] of [[Atlantis]].<ref>[[Alfred Rosenberg|Rosenberg, Alfred]], ''[[The Myth of the 20th Century]]''. The term ''Atlantis'' is mentioned two times in the whole book; the term ''Atlantis-hypothesis'' is mentioned just once. Rosenberg (p. 24): "It seems to be not completely impossible, that at parts where today the waves of the Atlantic ocean murmur and icebergs move along, once a blossoming land towered in the water, on which a creative race founded a great culture and sent its children as seafarers and warriors into the world; but if this Atlantis-hypothesis proves untenable, we still have to presume a prehistoric Nordic cultural center." Rosenberg (p. 26): "The ridiculed hypothesis about a Nordic creative center, which we can call Atlantis – without meaning a sunken island – from where once waves of warriors migrated to all directions as first witnesses of Nordic longing for distant lands to conquer and create, today becomes probable." Original: "''Es erscheint als nicht ganz ausgeschlossen, dass an Stellen, über die heute die Wellen des Atlantischen Ozeans rauschen und riesige Eisgebirge herziehen, einst ein blühendes Festland aus den Fluten ragte, auf dem eine schöpferische Rasse große, weitausgreifende Kultur erzeugte und ihre Kinder als Seefahrer und Krieger hinaussandte in die Welt; aber selbst wenn sich diese Atlantishypothese als nicht haltbar erweisen sollte, wird ein nordisches vorgeschichtliches Kulturzentrum angenommen werden müssen. ... Und deshalb wird die alte verlachte Hypothese heute Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass von einem nordischen Mittelpunkt der Schöpfung, nennen wir ihn, ohne uns auf die Annahme eines versunkenen atlantischen Erdteils festzulegen, die Atlantis, einst Kriegerschwärme strahlenförmig ausgewandert sind als erste Zeugen des immer wieder sich erneut verkörpernden nordischen Fernwehs, um zu erobern, zu gestalten.''"</ref> The [[Nazis]] declared that the [[Aryan race|Aryan]]s were superior to all other races, and believed they were entitled to expand territorially.<ref name="hitler1925">[[Adolf Hitler|Hitler, Adolf]] ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' 1925</ref> The actual policy that was implemented by the Nazis resulted in the [[Aryan certificate]]. This document, which was required by law for all citizens of the Reich, was the "Lesser Aryan certificate" (''Kleiner Ariernachweis'') and could be obtained through an ''[[Ahnenpass]]'', which required the owner to trace their lineage through [[baptism]], birth certificates, or certified proof thereof that all grandparents were of "Aryan descent".

The [[Slavs]], [[Romani people|Roma]], and Jews were defined as being racially inferior and non-Aryan "''[[Untermenschen]]''", and were thus considered a danger to the Aryan or [[Germanic peoples|Germanic]] master race.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=241}} According to the Nazi secret [[Hunger Plan]] and ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'', the Slavic population was to be removed from Central Europe through expulsion, enslavement, starvation, and extermination,{{sfn|Snyder|2010|pp=162–63, 416}} except for a small percentage who were deemed to be non-Slavic descendants of Germanic settlers, and thus suitable for [[Germanisation]].<ref name = THE>
{{cite web
| author = Janusz Gumkowski and Kazimierz Leszczynski
| title = Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe
| publisher = Polonia Publishing House
| url = http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm
| pages = 7–33, 164–78
| location = Warsaw
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111106061712/http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm
| archive-date = 6 November 2011}}</ref>

==Historical background==
The 18th century saw the first scientific attempts to establish a racial divide between "masters" and "slaves", or the belief that a nation's ruling class is [[biology|biologically]] superior to its ruled subjects. In his book ''History of the Ancient Government of France'', published posthumously in 1727, [[Henri de Boulainvilliers]] attempted to prove that in France, the nobility represented the descendants of the old [[Franks|Frankish]] ruling class. In contrast, the majority of the population descended from the subject [[Gauls]]. As a result, two qualitatively different races faced off, and the only way to abolish the Franks' superiority was to destroy their civilization.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4179816/mod_resource/content/1/THE%20DESTRUCTION%20OF%20REASON.pdf |title=Lukács, György (1952), ''The Destruction of Reason'', p. 668}}</ref> [[Classical liberal]] theorists such as [[Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney|Volney]] and [[Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès|Sieyès]] refuted this theory by demonstrating that the French nobility was primarily composed of [[Nouveau riche|nouveaux riches]] from all over the country. Thus, the concept of a racially pure Frankish lineage was false.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4179816/mod_resource/content/1/THE%20DESTRUCTION%20OF%20REASON.pdf | title=Lukács, György (1952), ''The Destruction of Reason'', p. 669}}</ref>

In 1855, French count [[Arthur de Gobineau]] published his infamous work ''[[An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races]]''. Expanding upon Boulainvilliers' use of [[ethnography]] to defend the [[Ancien Régime]] against the [[Third Estate]]'s claims, Gobineau divides the human species into three major groups: white, yellow and black, claiming that "history springs only from contact with the white races". He considers the [[Aryan]] race to be the pinnacle of human development, serving as the basis of all European aristocracies. However, inevitable [[miscegenation]] led to the "downfall of civilizations".

Gobineau's influence was minimal at first. In his letters to [[Alexis de Tocqueville]], he complained that his book was getting little attention in France and was only having an impact in the United States. Despite his friendship with Gobineau Tocqueville who rejected the book, explaining that it was in accordance with the interests of [[Slavery in the United States|slave owners]] in the Southern states.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/4179816/mod_resource/content/1/THE%20DESTRUCTION%20OF%20REASON.pdf |title=Lukács, György (1952), ''The Destruction of Reason'', pp. 670–71}}</ref> However, in the 1880s, the book gained popularity in Germany thanks to [[Cosima Wagner]]'s efforts. In 1899, [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]], a [[Germanophile]] Englishman and Cosima Wagner's son-in-law, published ''[[The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century]]''. Expanding on Gobineau's earlier theories, he argued that the [[Teutons|Teutonic]] peoples had a profound influence on [[Western culture|Western civilization]]. Chamberlain classified all European peoples, including Germans, [[Celts]], [[Slavs]], [[Greeks]], and [[Latins (Italic tribe)|Latins]], as the "[[Aryan race]]", which was built on ancient [[Proto-Indo-European]] culture. He saw the [[Nordic race|Nordic]] or Teutonic peoples as the leaders of the Aryan race, and essentially all races.

The German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] introduced the concept of ''[[Übermensch]]'', which translates to "Overman" or "Superman". In his 1883 book [[Thus Spoke Zarathustra|Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen]] (''Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None''), he proposed the idea of the ''Übermensch'' as a goal for humanity. However, Nietzsche never developed the concept based on race. Instead, the ''Übermensch'' "seems to be the ideal aim of spiritual development more than a biological goal".<ref>{{cite book|last=Solomon|first=Robert C.|author-link=Robert C. Solomon|author2=Higgins, Kathleen M.|author2-link=Kathleen Higgins|title=What Nietzsche Really Said|publisher=Schocken Books, a division of Random House, Inc.|year=2000|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780805241570/page/47 47]|isbn=0-8052-4157-4|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780805241570/page/47}}</ref> Nazism distorted the concept's real meaning to suit its "master race" ideology.

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was believed that Indo-Europeans (generally referred to as [[Aryan]]s) were the highest branch of humanity due to their technological advancement. This reasoning was simultaneously linked with [[Nordicism]], which claimed that the "[[Nordic race]]" was the "purest" form of the Aryan race. Today, this view is regarded as a form of [[scientific racism]]. It contradicts the belief in [[racial equality]] by advocating the view that one race is superior to all other races.

===Eugenics===
[[Eugenics]] came to play a prominent role in this racial thought as a way to improve and maintain the [[Racial purity|purity]] of the Aryan master race. Many thinkers in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s adhered to Eugenics, such as [[Margaret Sanger]],<ref>Margaret Sanger, quoted in {{cite book|last=Katz|first=Esther|author2=Engelman, Peter|title=The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Champaign|year=2002|page=319|isbn=978-0-252-02737-6|quote=Our ... campaign for Birth Control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal with the final aims of Eugenics}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Franks|first=Angela|title=Margaret Sanger's eugenic legacy|publisher=McFarland|location=Jefferson, NC|year=2005|page=30|isbn=978-0-7864-2011-7|quote=...&nbsp;her commitment to eugenics was constant ... until her death}}</ref> [[Marie Stopes]], [[H. G. Wells]], [[Woodrow Wilson]], [[Theodore Roosevelt]], [[Madison Grant]],<ref>Grant, Madison. ''The Passing of the Great Race'', Scribner's Sons, 1922.</ref> [[Émile Zola]], [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[John Maynard Keynes]],<ref>{{cite journal|title=Opening remarks: The Galton Lecture|journal=[[The Eugenics Review]]|author=Keynes, John Maynard|volume=38|number=1|year=1946|pages=39–40}}</ref> [[John Harvey Kellogg]], [[Linus Pauling]],<ref>Everett Mendelsohn (March–April 2000).[http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/03/the-eugenic-temptation.html "Pauling's Eugenics]: The Eugenic Temptation", ''Harvard Magazine''.</ref> and [[Sidney Webb]].<ref>{{cite book
  | last =Gordon
  | first =Linda
  | author-link =Linda Gordon
  | title =The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America
  | publisher =University of Illinois Press
  | year =2002
  | page =196
  | isbn =0-252-02764-7 }}</ref>

In 1908, the Louisiana State Fair hosted the first "Better Babies" competition. Babies were judged based on livestock standards such as height, weight, unblemished skin, well-formed fingers, lack of excess fat, and cooperative behavior. The intent was to establish child-breeding health standards. Beginning in 1920, at the [[Kansas State Fair]], a "Fitter Family" contest, sponsored by the [[American Eugenics Society]]'s Committee on Popular Education, required family members to submit an "Abridged Records of Family Traits" and then undergo physical and psychological examinations to determine their "fitness", or eugenic health. Contests received letter grades, and the winners—almost always white and of Western and Northern European descent—were awarded trophies. Some years later, beginning in 1935, contestants in the Miss America contest were required to be "of the white race" and to submit a detailed account of their ancestry; those with backgrounds connected to the [[Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)|Pilgrims']] arrival on the [[Mayflower]] or the [[American Revolutionary War]] had an advantage.<ref>Speier, Susanna (June 29, 2011) [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/beauty-pageants-and-the-misunderstanding-of-evolution-meet-again/ "Beauty Pageants and the Misunderstanding of Evolution Meet....Again"] ''[[Scientific American]]''</ref>

The Nazis took this concept to an extreme by establishing a [[Lebensborn|program to systematically genetically enhance]] the Nordic Aryans themselves through a program of [[Nazi eugenics]], based on the [[Eugenics in California|eugenics laws]] of the US state of California,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php|title=Eugenics and the Nazis – the California connection|newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle|date=November 9, 2003|first= Edwin|last= Black|department=Opinion-editoral}}</ref> to create a [[super race]].<ref name="hitler1925"/>

===Hierarchy===
The modern concept of the ''master race'' is generally derived from a 19th-century [[racial theory]], which posited a [[hierarchy]] of races that was based on darkness of [[Human skin colour|skin colour]]. This 19th-century concept was initially developed by Count [[Arthur de Gobineau|Joseph Arthur De Gobineau]]. Gobineau's basic concept, as further refined and developed in [[Nazism]], placed black [[Indigenous Australians]] and [[Black people|Equatorial Africans]] at the bottom of the hierarchy, while white Northern and Western Europeans (which consisted of [[Germans]], [[Swedes]], [[Icelanders]], [[Norwegians]], [[Danes]], British, [[Irish people|Irish]], [[Dutch people|Dutch]], [[Belgians|Belgian]] and Northern French) were placed at its top; [[olive skin]]ned white Southern Europeans (who consisted of Southern French, [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]], [[Spaniards]], Italians, [[Romanians]], and [[Greeks]], i.e., those who were called the [[Mediterranean race]], were regarded as another sub-race of the [[Caucasian race]]) and placed in its upper middle ranks; and the [[Semitic race|Semitic]] and [[Hamitic race]]s (supposed sub-races of the Caucasian race) were placed in its lower-middle ranks (because the Jews were [[Semitic people|Semites]], the Nazis believed their cleverness made them extremely dangerous{{snd}}they had their own plan for [[Jewish world domination]], a [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy]] which needed to be opposed by all thoughtful Aryans).<ref name="hitler1925"/> [[Slavs]] such as [[Polish people|Poles]] and [[Russians]] were not considered Aryans;{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=241}} and neither were the members of the [[Mongoloid race]] (including its offshoots such as [[Malayan race|Malayans]], [[American Indian race|American Indians]]) and [[Multiracial|mixed-race]] people such as [[wikt:Eurasian#Adjective|Eurasian]]s, the [[Bronze race|bronze]] [[Mestizos]], [[Mulatto]]s, [[Afro-Asian]]s, and [[Zambo]]s were placed in its lower middle ranks. However, the Japanese were considered [[honorary Aryan]]s.<ref>Snyder (1976). ''Encyclopedia of the Third Reich'', p. 170.</ref>

[[File:No entrance for poles1.jpeg|thumb|German warning in Nazi-occupied Poland 1939 – "[[Nur für Deutsche|No entrance for Poles]]!"]]
In their attempt to scientifically prove the racial inferiority of [[Slavs]], German (and Austrian) racial scientists were forced to gloss over their findings which consistently proved that Early Slavs were [[Cephalic index|dolicocephalic]] and fair haired, i.e., "Nordic", while the South Slavic "Dinaric" sub-race was often viewed favourable.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wingfield|first=Nancy Meriwether |title=Creating the Other: Ethnic Conflict and Nationalism in Habsburg Central Europe|year=2003|publisher=Berghahn Books|location=New York|isbn=978-1-57181-385-5|page=203}}</ref> Nazis used the term "Slavic race", and considered Slavs to be non-Aryan.<ref>{{cite book|author = Mark Mazower|title = Hitler's Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe|date =  2013|publisher = Penguin Books Ltd.|isbn = 978-0-14-191750-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Fischel|first=Jack R.|title=Historical Dictionary of the Holocaust|year=2010|publisher=Scarecrow Press|location=Lanham, MD|isbn=978-0-8108-7485-5|page=175|quote=The policy of Lebensraum was also the product of Nazi racial ideology, which held the view that the Slavic peoples of the east were inferior to the Aryan race.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Stephenson|first=Jill|title=Hitler's Home Front: Wurttemberg Under the Nazis|year=2006|publisher=Hambledon Continuum|location=London; New York|isbn=978-1-85285-442-3|page=135|quote=Other non-'Aryans' included Slavs, Blacks and Roma.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Levine|first=Alan J.|title=Race Relations Within Western Expansion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DN5w7wPHi6kC|date=1996|publisher=Greenwood|location=Westport, CT|isbn=978-0-275-95037-8|page=98|quote=Preposterously, Central European Aryan theorists, and later the Nazis, would insist that the Slavic-speaking peoples were not really Aryans}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Timm|first=Annette F.|title=The Politics of Fertility in Twentieth-Century Berlin|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge; New York|isbn=978-0-521-19539-3|page=118|quote=The Nazis' singleminded desire to "purify" the German race through the elimination of non-Aryans (particularly Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs)}}</ref> The concept of a Slavic "[[Untermensch]]" accompanied their political goals, and it was particularly aimed at [[Polish people|Poles]] and [[Russians]]. Germany's immediate goal was ''[[Drang nach Osten]]'' or expansion into the East, which was the first phase in its ultimate plan to conquer Europe, and [[Ukraine]]'s "[[chernozem]]" (black earth) soil was regarded as a particularly desirable zone for colonization by the "'''''Herrenvolk'''''" ({{Audio|De-herrenvolk.ogg|listen}}) ("master people").

In relation to the Nazis' belief in [[Racial hygiene|racial purity]], author and historian [[Lucy Dawidowicz]] wrote:

{{blockquote|In the hierarchy of Nazi racism, the "Aryans" were the superior race, destined to rule the world after the destruction of their racial arch-foe, the Jews. The lesser races over whom the Germans would rule included the Slavs – Poles, Russians, Ukrainians.&nbsp;... Hitler's racial policy with regard to the Slavs, to the extent that it was formulated, was "depopulation." The Slavs were to be prevented from procreating, except to provide the necessary continuing supply of slave laborers."<ref>[[Lucy Dawidowicz]], ''The Holocaust and the Historians'', p. 10.</ref>}}

=="Master race" in the United States==
=== Origins and context ===
In the United States, the concept of 'master race' arose within the context of master–slave race relations in the slavery-based society of historical America – particularly in the [[Southern United States|South]] in the mid-19th century. It was based upon both the experience of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] and the [[Scientific racism#Justification of slavery in the United States|pseudo-scientific justifications for racial slavery]], but also on the relations between whites in the South and [[Northern United States|North]], particularly during the [[American Civil War]].

=== First occurrences ===
[[Benjamin W. Leigh]], representing [[Virginia]] in the [[United States Senate]], said in a speech of January 19, 1836:
<blockquote>There has been in Virginia as earnest a desire to abolish slavery as exists any where at this day. It commenced with the Revolution, and many of our ablest and most influential men were active in recommending it, and in devising plans for the accomplishment of it. The Legislature encouraged and facilitated emancipation by the owners, and many slaves were so emancipated. The leaning of the courts of justice was always ''in favorem libertatis''. This disposition continued until the impracticability of effecting a general emancipation, without incalculable mischief to the master race, and danger of utter destruction to the other, and the evils consequent on partial emancipations, became too obvious to the Legislature, and to the great majority of the people, to be longer disregarded.<ref>[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ll/llrd/022/0100/01000191.tif Gales &amp; Seaton's Register, 1836, p. 191]</ref></blockquote>

The [[Oxford English Dictionary]] records that [[William J. Grayson]] used the phrase "master race" in his poem ''The Hireling and the Slave'' (1855):
<blockquote><poem>
For these great ends hath Heaven’s supreme command
Brought the black savage from his native land,
Trains for each purpose his barbarian mind,
By slavery tamed, enlightened, and refined;
Instructs him, from a master-race, to draw
Wise modes of polity and forms of law,
Imbues his soul with faith, his heart with love,
Shapes all his life by dictates from above
</poem></blockquote>

where the phrase denotes the relation between the white masters and negro slaves.

By 1860 Virginian author [[George Fitzhugh]] was using the "challenging phrase 'master race', which soon came to mean considerably more than the ordinary master-slave relationship".<ref>Wish, Harvey ''George Fitzhugh: propagandist of the Old South'' Louisiana State University Press (1943) p. 270</ref> Fitzhugh, along with a number of southern writers, used the term to differentiate Southerners from Northerners, based on the [[dichotomy]] that Southerners were supposedly descendants of [[Normans]] / [[Cavaliers]] whereas Northerners were descendants of [[Anglo-Saxons]] / [[Puritans]].<ref>see Watson jr, Ritchie Devon ''Normans and Saxons: Southern Race Mythology and the Intellectual History of the American Civil War'' Louisiana State University Press (2008)</ref>

=== Uses of the concept ===
In 1861, the Southern press bragged that Northern soldiers would "encounter a master race" and knowledge of this fact would cause Northern soldiers' "knees to tremble".<ref>quoted in Grant and Lee: victorious American and vanquished Virginian Praeger (2008) p. 15</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Daniel |first=John Moncure |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DTRcAAAAcAAJ&dq=%22The+consciousness+of+this+fact+will+cause+their+knees+to+tremble%22&pg=PA24 |title=The Richmond Examiner During the War; Or the Writings of John M. Daniel. With a Memoir of His Life, by His Brother, Frederick S. Daniel |date=1868 |publisher=C.A. Alvord |isbn=978-0-608-42800-0 |page=24 |language=en |quote=The [[First Battle of Bull Run|battle of Manassas]] demonstrated, at once and forever, the superiority of the Southern soldiers, and there is not a man in the army, from the humblest private to the highest officer, who does not feel it. Now, this piece of information is extensivelt diffused in the camp of the enemy. They know now that when they go forth to the field they will encounter a master race. The consciousness of this fact will cause their knees to tremble beneath them on the day of battle. It will demoralize them. It has already done so.}}</ref> The ''[[Richmond Whig]]'' in 1862 proclaimed that "the master race of this continent is found in the southern states",<ref>quoted in Conkling, Henry ''An Inside View of the Rebellion: An American Citizen's Textbook'' (1864) p. 7</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Abbott |first=John Stevens Cabot |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z8ALAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22the+master+race+of+this+continent+is+found+in+the+southern+states%22&pg=PA420 |title=The History of the Civil War in America: Comprising a Full and Impartial Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rebellion ... |date=1863 |publisher=G. Bill |pages=419–420 |language=en |quote=The whole experience of the war is an attestation of the truth long since discovered by impartial observers, that the master race of this continent is found in the Southern States. Of a better stock, originally, and habituated to manlier pursuits and exercises, they have ruled in affairs of State by force of the stronger will and larger wisdom that pertain to and distinguish superior races of men, while on the field of battle they have in every contest held a priority of place, conceded to them by their present adversaries.}}</ref> and in 1863 the ''[[Richmond Examiner]]'' stated that "there are slave races born to serve, master races born to govern".<ref>quoted in Senate documents, otherwise publ. as Public documents and Executive documents: 14th Congress, 1st session, 48th congress, 2nd session and special session (1869) p. 670</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1863-06-03 |title=The Apostles of Slavery. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1863/06/03/archives/the-apostles-of-slavery.html |access-date=2023-05-05 |issn=0362-4331 |quote=The Richmond Examiner evidently means to prepare the world for the new gospel of slaveholding which the Confederacy is to preach and practice to the conversion of nations, in the article in question, one paragraph of which we reprint as a specimen of the whole: "The establishment of the Confederacy is verily a distinct reaction against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. For ' Liberty Equality, Fraternity,' we have deliberately substituted Slavery, Subordination and Government. Those social and political problems which rack and torture modern society we have undertaken to solve for ourselves, in our own way, and upon our own principles. That among equals equality is right;' among those who arc naturally unequal, equality is chaos; that there are slave races born to serve, master races born to govern. Such are the fundamental principles which we inherit from the ancient world, which we lifted up in the face of a perverse generation that has forgotten the wisdom of its fathers; by those principles we live and in their defence we have shown ourselves ready to die. Reverently we feel that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to the nations, with great truths to breach. We must speak them boldly; and whose hath ears to hear let him hear."}}</ref>

In the works of [[John H. Van Evrie]], a Northern supporter of the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], the term was interchangeable with [[white supremacy]], notably in ''White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, Or, Negroes a Subordinate Race and (so-called) slavery its normal condition'' (1861). In ''Subgeneation: the theory of the normal relations of the races; an answer to miscegenation'' (1864) Van Evrie created the words "subgen" to describe what he considered to be the "inferior races" and "subgeneation" to describe the ‘normal’ relation of such inferior races to whites, something which he considered to be the "very [[Cornerstone Speech|corner-stone]] of democracy";<ref>''Subgeneation'' p.42</ref> but these words never entered the dictionary.

The racial term ''[[Untermensch]]'' originates from the title of [[Klansman]] [[Lothrop Stoddard]]'s 1922 book ''The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under-man''.<ref>{{cite book| author = Stoddard, Lothrop| author-link = Lothrop Stoddard| year = 1922| title = The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under Man| publisher = [[Charles Scribner's Sons]]| location = New York| url = https://archive.org/details/revoltagainstciv00stoduoft}}</ref> It was later adopted by the Nazis from that book's German version ''Der Kulturumsturz: Die Drohung des Untermenschen'' (1925).<ref>
{{cite journal| author = Losurdo, Domenico| author-link = Domenico Losurdo| others = Translated by Marella & Jon Morris| year = 2004| title = Toward a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism| journal = [[Historical Materialism (journal)|Historical Materialism]]| publisher = [[Brill Publishers|Brill]]| volume = 12| issue = 2| pages = 25–55 [50]| issn = 1465-4466| doi = 10.1163/1569206041551663| url = http://www.pssp.org/bbs/data/document/1/Losurdo___Critique_of_Totalitarianism_%282004%29.pdf| format = PDF, 0.2 MB}}</ref> An advocate of the U.S. immigration laws that favored Northern Europeans, Stoddard wrote primarily on the alleged dangers posed by "[[coloured]]" peoples to white civilization, with his most famous book ''[[The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy]]'' in 1920. [[Alfred Rosenberg]] was the leading Nazi who attributed the concept of the East-European "under man" to Stoddard. As the Nazi Party's chief racial theorist, Rosenberg oversaw the construction of a human racial "ladder" that justified Hitler's racial and ethnic policies. Referring to Russian communists, Rosenbeg wrote in his ''[[Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts]]'' (1930) that "this is the kind of human being that [[Lothrop Stoddard]] has called the 'under man.'" ["...den Lothrop Stoddard als 'Untermenschen' bezeichnete."]<ref>
{{cite book| author = Rosenberg, Alfred| author-link = Alfred Rosenberg| year = 1930| title = Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelischgeistigen Gestaltungskämpfe unserer Zeit| trans-title = The Myth of the Twentieth Century| publisher = Hoheneichen-Verlag| location = Munich| page = 214| url = https://www.scribd.com/doc/2628285/Der-Mythus-des-20-Jahrhunderts-Alfred-Rosenberg| language = de| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121104014921/http://www.scribd.com/doc/2628285/Der-Mythus-des-20-Jahrhunderts-Alfred-Rosenberg| archive-date = 2012-11-04}}</ref>

==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.

==Aryanism and Nazism==
{{Main|Aryanism|Aryan race|Nazi racial theories|Racial policy of Nazi Germany}}
{{see also|Aryanization|The Myth of the Twentieth Century}}
The term [[Aryan]] is derived from the [[Sanskrit]] word (ā́rya), which is derived from ''arya'', the original [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]] [[endonym|autonym]]. Also, [[Name of Iran|the word ''Iran'']] (from [[Middle Persian]] ''Ērān'', "[[Iranian peoples|the ''Ēr''s]]") is the [[Farsi language|Persian]] word for [the land/place of] the ''Aryans''.<ref name="autogenerated1996">Wiesehofer, Joseph ''Ancient Persia''. New York: 1996 I.B. Tauris</ref>

Following the ideas of Gobineau and others, the Nazi theorist [[Alfred Rosenberg]] determined that these people, who, he claimed, were originally from [[Atlantis]], were a dynamic [[warrior people]] who dwelt in northern climates on the [[North German Plain]] in [[Prehistory|prehistoric times]], from which they migrated southeast by riding their [[chariots]], eventually reaching [[Ukraine]], [[Iran]], and then India. They were supposed to be the ancestors of the ancient [[Germanic tribes]], who shared their warrior values. Rosenberg opposed Christianity because to him, it was an alien [[Semitic people|Semitic]] [[master-slave morality|slave-morality]] which was inappropriate for the warrior Aryan master race and in its place, he supported a melange of aspects of [[Hindu]] [[Historical Vedic religion|Vedic]] and [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] teachings (both of these religions were organised by Aryans), along with pre-Christian European [[Odinism|Odinistic paganism]], which he also considered distinctively Aryan in character.<ref name="ReferenceA">[[Alfred Rosenberg|Rosenberg, Alfred]] ''[[The Myth of the Twentieth Century|Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts]]'', 1930 ("The Myth of the 20th Century")</ref>

In [[Nazi Germany]], the [[Nuremberg Laws|Nuremberg Race Laws]] of 1935 forbade [[Anti-miscegenation laws#Nazi Germany|sexual relations and marriage]] between an "Aryan" and a "non-Aryan" in order to maintain the purity of the Aryan race. Such relations became a punishable crime which was known as ''[[Rassenschande]]'' or "racial shame".<ref name="Burleigh1991">{{cite book | author = Michael Burleigh | title = The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 | url = https://archive.org/details/racialstate00mich | url-access = registration | date =  1991 | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn = 978-0-521-39802-2 | page = [https://archive.org/details/racialstate00mich/page/49 49]}}</ref> The [[League of German Girls]] was particularly required to instruct girls to avoid ''[[Rassenschande]]'' because according to Nazism, maintaining racial purity was particularly important for young females.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/fink.htm|title=The Jewish Question in Education|first=Randall|last=Bytwerk}}</ref> Aryans found guilty of this crime could face incarceration in a concentration camp, while non-Aryans could even face the death penalty.<ref name="rupp125">[[Leila J. Rupp]], ''Mobilizing Women for War'', p. 125, {{ISBN|0-691-04649-2}}</ref> The Nazis recognized the Germanic people as the master race, and several policies were implemented in order to improve and maintain the Germanic-Nordic ubermenschen Aryan "master race," including the practice of [[eugenics]]. In order to eliminate "defective" citizens and rid the country of the [[intellectual disability|intellectually disabled]] or those who were born with [[genetic deficiencies]], as well as those who were deemed racially inferior, the [[T-4 Euthanasia Program]] was administered by [[Karl Brandt (Nazi physician)|Karl Brandt]], one of Hitler's personal physicians. Additionally, a program of [[compulsory sterilisation]] was also implemented and as a result of it, forced operations were performed on hundreds of thousands of individuals. Many of these [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|policies]] are generally seen as being related to what eventually became known as [[the Holocaust]].<ref name="THE"/>

The Nazis also undertook measures to increase the number of Nordics in Germany. The [[Lebensborn]] program was only open to German women who fit the Nordic profile. During the Nazi [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|occupation of Poland]], the Nazis took young Nordic-looking Polish children who were classified as being descended from ethnic German settlers in order to determine whether or not they were "racially valuable". If that were the case, the young children were taken back to these [[Lebensborn]] houses so they could be raised as Germans.<ref name="Bendersky2013">{{cite book | author = Joseph W. Bendersky|title = A Concise History of Nazi Germany | date =  2013 | publisher = Rowman & Littlefield Publishers | isbn = 978-1-4422-2270-0 | page = 180}}</ref>

In Nazi Germany, the [[Aryan certificate]] was an official document which certified that its owner was an Aryan. Aryan certificates could also be obtained by citizens of other countries. In its section which is titled ''Racial Tenet'' (''Rassegrundsatz''), the Aryan certificate states:

{{blockquote|In line with national socialist thinking which does full justice to all other peoples, there is never the expression of superior or inferior, but alien racial admixtures.<ref>German: "Dem Denken des Nationalsozialismus entsprechend, jedem anderen Volke volle Gerechtigkeit widerfahren zu lassen, ist dabei niemals von höher- oder minderwertigen, sondern stets nur von fremden Rasseneinschlägen die Rede."</ref>}}

For the "Greater Aryan certificate" Germans had to prove that as far back as January 1, 1800 "none of their paternal nor their maternal ancestors had Jewish or coloured blood".<ref>Quotation in German: "''wer unter seinen Vorfahren väterlicherseits oder mütterlicherseits kein jüdisches oder farbiges Blut hat"''; in: Isabel Heinemann. "Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut", Wallstein Verlag, 1999, {{ISBN|3-89244-623-7}}, p. 54</ref> [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] officers had to prove this reaching back to 1750.

During a speech he made in 1936, Nazi Propaganda Minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] said:

{{blockquote|Today arises in young and old, high and low, poor and rich, the will that the German nation must again be a world people. All of us are convinced of it: we must participate in the ruling of the world. We must become a master race, and therefore we must educate our people to be a master race. This must begin with the smallest child, who must be educated in this master-ethic.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Eberhard Aleff|author2=Walter Tormin|author3=Friedrich Zipfel|title=Das Dritte Reich|year=1970|publisher=Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen|page=129|language=de|quote=Heute steckt in jung und alt, in hoch und niedrig, in arm und reich der besessene Wille, die deutsche Nation wieder zu einem Weltvolk emporzuführen. Jedermann bei uns ist davon überzeugt: Wir müssen an der Beherrschung der Welt teilnehmen. Wir müssen deshalb ein Herrenvolk werden, und deshalb müssen wir unser Volk zum Herrenvolk erziehen. Das muß schon beim kleinsten Pimpf anfangen, der schon in dieser Herrenmoral erzogen werden muß.}}</ref>}}

In 1943, ''Reichskommissar'' for Ukraine [[Erich Koch]] reminded Germans:

{{blockquote|We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here.<ref>{{cite book|author=Horst Von Maltitz|title=The Evolution of Hitler's Germany: The Ideology, the Personality, the Moment|year=1973|publisher=McGraw-Hill|isbn=978-0-07-067608-4|page=53}}</ref>}}

==Yamato and Japan==
{{Main|An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus}}
During the [[Meiji era]], a sense of superiority over other Asians existed in the Japanese society, with discrimination being enacted against racial minorities such as the [[Ryūkyū people|Ryūkyū]] and [[Ainu people|Ainu]] peoples.<ref name=ryukyuandainu>{{cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278729134|title=Language Conflict and Language Rights: The Ainu, Ryūkyūans, and Koreans in Japan.|first1=Stanley|last1=Dubinsky|first2=William D.|last2=Davies|date=January 2013|accessdate=November 12, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://apjjf.org/2020/20/Zohar.html|title=
Introduction: Race and Empire in Meiji Japan|first=Ayelet|last=Zohar|publisher=The Asia-Pacific Journal|date=October 15, 2020|accessdate=November 12, 2023}}</ref> In July 1943, promotion of Yamato racial superiority was further affirmed by the Japanese government with the publishing of ''[[An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus]]''.<ref>{{citation| title= Ethnic Engineering: Scientific Racism and Public Opinion Surveys in Midcentury Japan| last=Morris-Suzuki| first= Tessa | publisher=Duke University Press| volume=8 |number=2 | date= Fall 2000| pages=499–529}}</ref>

==Mediterranean race==
{{Main|Mediterranean race}}
{{See also|Culture of Italy|Culture of Greece|Culture of Portugal|Culture of Spain|Mediterraneanism}}
The claim that the [[Mediterranean race]] was responsible for the most important of ancient Western civilisations was a problem for the promoters of Nordic superiority. According to [[Giuseppe Sergi]], the Mediterranean race was the "greatest race of the world" and was singularly responsible for the most accomplished civilisations of ancient times, including those of [[Mesopotamia]], [[Ancient Persia|Persia]], [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]], [[Ancient Greece|Greece]], [[Phoenicia]], [[Carthage]], and [[Ancient Rome|Rome]]. The Mediterranean race was also a major influence to the outside world in the modern era: during the 16th century, Spain and [[Portugal]] established the first [[Colonial empires|global empire]]s in Western history, placing both nations on the highest level of political and economic powers in Europe.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

[[Charles Gabriel Seligman]] also stated that "it must, I think, be recognised that the Mediterranean race has actually more achievements to its credit than any other race, since it is responsible for by far the greater part of Mediterranean civilisation, certainly before 1000 BC (and probably much later), and so shaped not only the [[Aegean civilization|Aegean cultures]], but those of Western as well as the greater part of [[Eastern Mediterranean]] lands, while the culture of their near relatives, the [[Hamites|Hamitic]] pre-dynastic [[Egyptians]], formed the basis of that of [[Egypt]]."<ref>''The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'', Vol. 54. (January – June, 1924), p. 30.</ref>

The Nazis explained this by claiming that the original [[Latins (Italic tribe)|Latins]] and [[Greeks]] were [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] Nordic tribes which had migrated into Italy and [[Greece]], during the Iron Age era. The Nazis also claimed that the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] and [[Portuguese Empire]]s were examples of Nordic power since, at the time, their governments were run by the descendants of the Germanic [[Visigoths]] who invaded Spain and [[Portugal]] fifteen centuries earlier.
However, they did admit that the masses of people who lived during the flowering of these four civilizations were Mediterranean. This led to Germans of all European races to be classified as Aryans.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

==Cultural influences==
Aryan master race ideology was common throughout the educated intellectual community and literate strata of the Western world until the post-[[World War II]] era. Such theories were commonplace in early-20th century fantasy literature.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the original ''[[Buck Rogers]]'' stories and [[Comic strip|newspaper cartoons]], Buck Rogers, in his adventures in the 25th century that takes place on Earth, depicts him fighting for ''[[European Americans|Aryan-Americans]]'' from the liberated zone around [[Niagara, New York]], against the ''Red Mongol Empire,'' a Chinese empire of the future which rules most of North America.<ref>''The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'' 1969 Chelsea House{{snd}}Introduction by [[Ray Bradbury]]{{snd}}Reprints of the original [[Buck Rogers]] comic strips</ref>

In the 1930s, both educational and storybooks for children in Germany taught their readers about the master race. In the ''Sun Koh'' science fiction series, the protagonist Koh says things like "My forefathers were Aryan", and in a story about [[Atlantis]], he says, "If our Atlantis once again rises out of the sea, then we will get from there the blond, steel-hard [[Man (word)|men]] with the pure blood and will create with them the master race, which will finally rule the earth."<ref name="voss">Julia Voss, [https://www.faz.net/s/Rub71E8665493FD4CB29D4E0759DF21C32C/Doc~E63B66F19501A41828F6A22377304DC05~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html "Jim Knopf rettet die Evolutionstheorie"] ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (December 16, 2008). Retrieved July 31, 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref> The German writer [[Michael Ende]], who was born in 1929 and grew up reading such books, wrote his classic novel ''[[Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver]]'' in the 1950s, as a way of opposing the Nazi propaganda he was taught as a child. ''[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]]'' writer [[Julia Voss]] wrote a book<ref group=note>Voss' book was written as a doctoral [[dissertation]].</ref> on Jim Button, uncovering Ende's many references to Nazi symbols in that book.<ref>[http://www.kultiversum.de/Literatur-Literaturen/Evolutionstheorie-Julia-Voss-Darwins-Jim-Knopf-Im-Zickzack-durch-Lummerland.html Book review of ''Darwins Jim Knopf'' by Julia Voss] Kultiversum.de "Im Zickzack durch Lummerland" (2009). Retrieved August 4, 2011 {{in lang|de}}</ref> Voss shows how Ende upends the Nazi belief that Atlantis was the original home of the Aryan race by creating his own submerged city and making it rise, but not to restore Aryan master-race rule over the Earth, rather it becomes a multi-racial paradise with Jim Button, who is black and a descendant of the Magi Caspar, as its king.<ref name="voss" />

In the 1948 film [[Rope (film)|''Rope'']] by [[Alfred Hitchcock]], one of the central characters, Brandon Shaw, is a firm believer in the master race ideology.{{Citation needed|date=October 2018}}

In the ''[[Doctor Who]] series,'' the Doctor's frequent enemies, the [[Daleks]], consider themselves a master race which must purge the universe of all other life forms; [[Terry Nation]] explicitly modeled them on the Nazis.<ref>http://nzdwfc.tetrap.com/archive/tsv51/terrynation.html | Terry Nation – Writing For The Screen, By Paul Scoones</ref> In the 2009 special "[[The End of Time (Doctor Who)|The End of Time]]", when [[Master (Doctor Who)|the Master]] transforms the entire human race into copies of himself, he claims that there is no human race, but only "the Master race".

In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series, while the parallels were not originally intentional, there is much similarity between [[Lord Voldemort]]'s "pureblood" ideology and the master race ideology of the Nazis, with wizards being "pure" and anyone with Muggle (non-wizard) blood being considered "half-blood" or "mudblood", a word used and treated the same way a racial slur would be in the real world ([[Neo-Nazism|Neo-Nazis]] call non-white people ''mud people'').<ref>{{cite web|last=Johnston|first=Ian|title=Author 'chilled' to learn Harry's half-blood status has Nazi parallels|date=29 July 2004|url=http://www.religionnewsblog.com/8042/author-chilled-to-learn-harrys-half-blood-status-has-nazi-parallels|access-date=June 30, 2011}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Chosen people]]
*[[Han chauvinism]]
*[[Herrenvolk democracy]]
*[[Ketuanan Melayu]]
*[[Master–slave morality]]
*[[Model minority]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book | last = Longerich | first = Peter | author-link = Peter Longerich | title = Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-0-19-280436-5 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford; New York }}
* {{cite book | last = Snyder | first = Timothy | author-link = Timothy D. Snyder | title = [[Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin]] | year= 2010 | publisher = Basic Books | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-465-00239-9 }}
*{{cite book | last = Yenne | first = Bill | title = Hitler's Master of the Dark Arts: Himmler's Black Knights and the Occult Origins of the SS | year = 2010 | publisher = Zenith | location = Minneapolis | isbn = 978-0-7603-3778-3 }}

{{Racism topics|state=collapsed}}
{{Nazism}}
{{Fascism}}
{{Historical definitions of race}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Master Race}}
[[Category:Race in Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Nazi terminology]]
[[Category:White supremacy]]
[[Category:Aryanism]]
[[Category:Atlantis]]