Hitler and Germanentum

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Hitler and Germanentum Author(s): Bernard Mees Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 39, No. 2, Understanding Nazi Germany (Apr.,

2004), pp. 255-270Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3180724Accessed: 23-03-2015 21:26 UTC

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Journal of Contemporary History Copyright ? 2004 SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol 39(2), 255-270. ISSN 0022-0094. DOI: 10.1 177/0022009404042131

Bernard Mees Hitler and Germanentum

If anything is unfolkish, it is this tossing around of old Germanic expressions which neither fit into the present period nor represent anything definite.... I had to warn again and again against those deutschvolkisch wandering scholars . . . [who] rave about old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield.'

Late Wilhelmine Germany saw a surge of interest in old Germanic antiquity. In reflection of the rising nationalist tide, the old Germanic past became of increasing interest not just to the general book-reading public or to scholars and students in the universities, but especially to many members of the radical right. Under the influence of national antiquity-enthusing cultural figures such as Richard Wagner and Felix Dahn, the medieval Nordic and ancient German past became leading themes and motifs of journals of bodies such as Theodor Fritsch's Reich Hammer Federation,2 groups associated with the Pan-German League3 and Ludwig Woltmann's racialist Political-Anthropological Review.4 Symbols of Germanic antiquity such as the swastika and runes achieved an emblematic status among what by Hitler's day had already become the old radical right. In Munich during the Great War, the Thule Society was established to discuss old Germanic antiquity, race and how the nation had to be saved from socialism and the pernicious influence of the Jew.5 Taking its name from what appeared to be the classical designation for the old Germanic North, the Thule Society played a fundamental role in the foundation of the Nazi Party. Hess, Rosenberg, Feder, Eckhardt - all were associated with the Thule before they were called to the drum of the new movement. The glorifi-

1 Adolf Hitler, trans. Ralph Mannheim, Mein Kampf (Boston 1943), 326-7. 2 Hammer: Parteilose Zeitschrift fir nationales Leben/Blatter fur deutschen Sinn (Leipzig 1901-1940), 1-39; cf. Michael Bonisch, 'Die "Hammer"-Bewegung' in Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht (eds), Handbuch zur 'Volkischen Bewegung' 1871-1918 (Munich 1996), 341-65. 3 Heimdall: Zeitschrift fir reines Deutschtum und All-Deutschtum/Monatsschrift fir deutsche Art (Berlin, then Zeitz, Stade i. H, Einsiedel, Leonberg 1897-1932), 1-37; Odin: Ein Kampfblatt fur die alldeutsche Bewegung/Kampfblatt fir Alldeutschland (Munich 1899-1901), 1-3; cf. Uwe Puschner, Die volkische Bewegung im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich (Darmstadt 2001), 31ff. 4 Politisch-Anthropologische Revue (Eisenach, then Berlin-Steglitz 1902-14), 1-13; continued as Politisch-Anthropologische Monatsschrift fir praktische Politik, fir politische Bildung und Erziehung auf biologischer Grundlage (Hamburg 1914-23), 13-21. On Woltmann see Peter Emil Becker, Wege ins Dritte Reich (2 vols, Stuttgart 1988-90), II, 328ff. 5 Nicholas Goodrick-Clark, The Occult Roots of Nazism (Wellingborough 1985 [New York 1992]), 135ff.; Detlev Rose, Die Thule-Gesellschaft (Tiibingen 1994); Hermann Gilbhard, Die Thule-Gesellschaft (Munich 1994).

Journal of Contemporary History Copyright ? 2004 SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol 39(2), 255-270. ISSN 0022-0094. DOI: 10.1 177/0022009404042131

Bernard Mees Hitler and Germanentum

If anything is unfolkish, it is this tossing around of old Germanic expressions which neither fit into the present period nor represent anything definite.... I had to warn again and again against those deutschvolkisch wandering scholars . . . [who] rave about old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield.'

Late Wilhelmine Germany saw a surge of interest in old Germanic antiquity. In reflection of the rising nationalist tide, the old Germanic past became of increasing interest not just to the general book-reading public or to scholars and students in the universities, but especially to many members of the radical right. Under the influence of national antiquity-enthusing cultural figures such as Richard Wagner and Felix Dahn, the medieval Nordic and ancient German past became leading themes and motifs of journals of bodies such as Theodor Fritsch's Reich Hammer Federation,2 groups associated with the Pan-German League3 and Ludwig Woltmann's racialist Political-Anthropological Review.4 Symbols of Germanic antiquity such as the swastika and runes achieved an emblematic status among what by Hitler's day had already become the old radical right. In Munich during the Great War, the Thule Society was established to discuss old Germanic antiquity, race and how the nation had to be saved from socialism and the pernicious influence of the Jew.5 Taking its name from what appeared to be the classical designation for the old Germanic North, the Thule Society played a fundamental role in the foundation of the Nazi Party. Hess, Rosenberg, Feder, Eckhardt - all were associated with the Thule before they were called to the drum of the new movement. The glorifi-

1 Adolf Hitler, trans. Ralph Mannheim, Mein Kampf (Boston 1943), 326-7. 2 Hammer: Parteilose Zeitschrift fir nationales Leben/Blatter fur deutschen Sinn (Leipzig 1901-1940), 1-39; cf. Michael Bonisch, 'Die "Hammer"-Bewegung' in Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz and Justus H. Ulbricht (eds), Handbuch zur 'Volkischen Bewegung' 1871-1918 (Munich 1996), 341-65. 3 Heimdall: Zeitschrift fir reines Deutschtum und All-Deutschtum/Monatsschrift fir deutsche Art (Berlin, then Zeitz, Stade i. H, Einsiedel, Leonberg 1897-1932), 1-37; Odin: Ein Kampfblatt fur die alldeutsche Bewegung/Kampfblatt fir Alldeutschland (Munich 1899-1901), 1-3; cf. Uwe Puschner, Die volkische Bewegung im wilhelminischen Kaiserreich (Darmstadt 2001), 31ff. 4 Politisch-Anthropologische Revue (Eisenach, then Berlin-Steglitz 1902-14), 1-13; continued as Politisch-Anthropologische Monatsschrift fir praktische Politik, fir politische Bildung und Erziehung auf biologischer Grundlage (Hamburg 1914-23), 13-21. On Woltmann see Peter Emil Becker, Wege ins Dritte Reich (2 vols, Stuttgart 1988-90), II, 328ff. 5 Nicholas Goodrick-Clark, The Occult Roots of Nazism (Wellingborough 1985 [New York 1992]), 135ff.; Detlev Rose, Die Thule-Gesellschaft (Tiibingen 1994); Hermann Gilbhard, Die Thule-Gesellschaft (Munich 1994).


Journal of Contemporary History Vol 39 No 2 Journal of Contemporary History Vol 39 No 2

cation of the old Germanic past was a leading feature of volkisch groups in the giddy days, as the Thule Society's Rudolf von Sebottendorff was later to style them, 'before Hitler came'.6

Despite the favouring of Germanistic trappings by many in the old radical national movement, Hitler's disdain for the 'wandering scholars' who had become attached to this early manifestation of the volkisch enterprise seems clear in the passage quoted above from Mein Kampf. Yet a comparative perspective to fascism calls us to look again at the use and understanding of the old Germanic past in German fascism. Not only was romanita (Romanness) a leading feature of the imagery of Italian fascism,7 the contemporary rise in interest in Germanentum (Germanicness) in Germany was clearly supported by senior members of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg8 and Himmler9 both had a special and abiding interest in Germanic antiquity, as is most clearly symbol- ized in the support for antiquarian Germanistic study shown by their respec- tive educational institutions: Rosenberg's Amt, which had evolved out of the Kampfbund fur deutsche Kultur in 193410 and the SS-Ahnenerbe, founded by Himmler and Darre in 1935.11

Although the researchers accumulated by Rosenberg and Himmler in their Party research bodies are often treated with scorn today, many were leading university Germanists. This is especially true of Party-funded archaeology, and although several mystics and many more antiquarian enthusiasts beside found their way into the SS, respectable academics were equally amenable to the call that the respected Indo-Europeanist Hermann Guintert (Dean of the Philo- sophy Faculty at the University of Heidelberg and sometime editor of the Ahnenerbe's leading linguistics journal) described in 1938 as 'service to our people'. 12

Hitler, too, evidently had some sensibility of the old Germanic past. He uses the image of the Germanic on several occasions in Mein Kampf, most promi- nently in his emphatic call at the end of the eleventh chapter 'Volk and race' for 'a Germanic state of the German nation'.13 Previous discussions of Hitler's notion and use of the image of Germanic antiquity have often focused on his dismissal of the 'deutschvblkisch wandering scholars', but have ignored, over-

6 Rudolf von Sebottendorff, Bevor Hitler kam (Munich 1933); Reginald H. Phelps, "'Before Hitler Came": Thule Society and Germanen Orden', Journal of Modern History, 35 (1963), 245-61. 7 Romke Visser, 'Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of Romanita', Journal of Contemporary History, 27, 1 (January 1992), 5-22. 8 Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race (London 1972), 1 f. 9 Joseph Ackermann, Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe (Gottingen 1970), 32ff. 10 Properly the 'Beauftragen des Fiihrers fur die Uberwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP'; Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner (Stuttgart 1970). 11 Michael H. Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS 1935-1945 (Stuttgart 1974). 12 Hermann Gintert, 'Neue Zeit- neues Ziel', Worter und Sachen, 19 [= NF 1] (1938), 11. 13 Hitler, trans. Mannheim, Mein Kampf, op. cit., 299.

cation of the old Germanic past was a leading feature of volkisch groups in the giddy days, as the Thule Society's Rudolf von Sebottendorff was later to style them, 'before Hitler came'.6

Despite the favouring of Germanistic trappings by many in the old radical national movement, Hitler's disdain for the 'wandering scholars' who had become attached to this early manifestation of the volkisch enterprise seems clear in the passage quoted above from Mein Kampf. Yet a comparative perspective to fascism calls us to look again at the use and understanding of the old Germanic past in German fascism. Not only was romanita (Romanness) a leading feature of the imagery of Italian fascism,7 the contemporary rise in interest in Germanentum (Germanicness) in Germany was clearly supported by senior members of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg8 and Himmler9 both had a special and abiding interest in Germanic antiquity, as is most clearly symbol- ized in the support for antiquarian Germanistic study shown by their respec- tive educational institutions: Rosenberg's Amt, which had evolved out of the Kampfbund fur deutsche Kultur in 193410 and the SS-Ahnenerbe, founded by Himmler and Darre in 1935.11

Although the researchers accumulated by Rosenberg and Himmler in their Party research bodies are often treated with scorn today, many were leading university Germanists. This is especially true of Party-funded archaeology, and although several mystics and many more antiquarian enthusiasts beside found their way into the SS, respectable academics were equally amenable to the call that the respected Indo-Europeanist Hermann Guintert (Dean of the Philo- sophy Faculty at the University of Heidelberg and sometime editor of the Ahnenerbe's leading linguistics journal) described in 1938 as 'service to our people'. 12

Hitler, too, evidently had some sensibility of the old Germanic past. He uses the image of the Germanic on several occasions in Mein Kampf, most promi- nently in his emphatic call at the end of the eleventh chapter 'Volk and race' for 'a Germanic state of the German nation'.13 Previous discussions of Hitler's notion and use of the image of Germanic antiquity have often focused on his dismissal of the 'deutschvblkisch wandering scholars', but have ignored, over-

6 Rudolf von Sebottendorff, Bevor Hitler kam (Munich 1933); Reginald H. Phelps, "'Before Hitler Came": Thule Society and Germanen Orden', Journal of Modern History, 35 (1963), 245-61. 7 Romke Visser, 'Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of Romanita', Journal of Contemporary History, 27, 1 (January 1992), 5-22. 8 Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race (London 1972), 1 f. 9 Joseph Ackermann, Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe (Gottingen 1970), 32ff. 10 Properly the 'Beauftragen des Fiihrers fur die Uberwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP'; Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner (Stuttgart 1970). 11 Michael H. Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS 1935-1945 (Stuttgart 1974). 12 Hermann Gintert, 'Neue Zeit- neues Ziel', Worter und Sachen, 19 [= NF 1] (1938), 11. 13 Hitler, trans. Mannheim, Mein Kampf, op. cit., 299.

256 256


Mees: Hitler and Germanentum Mees: Hitler and Germanentum

simplified or even misrepresented his understanding of the importance of the old Germanic past.14

In German today, as in Hitler's time, there is a clear distinction between the terms Germanic (germanisch) and German (deutsch) that is obfuscated by near homonymy in contemporary English. Germanic and Germanicness are to German and Germanness what (classical) Roman and Romanness are to Italian and Italianness.1S The description germanisch is also used, however, in modern German sometimes as a Latinate (i.e. grandiose) form of 'German', e.g. the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, or more obviously in Germanistik, university-level German studies. The term Germanentum was a learned buzz word of the 1920s and 1930s; it is not found in Hitler's recorded speeches or writings.

In reflection of the general rise of interest in the old Germanic past in the twilight years of the Kaiserreich, in the early years of the twentieth century German academic understandings of antiquity had undergone a fundamental change. Fields such as indigenous archaeology had thrown off their deep dependence on Scandinavian antiquarian scholarship and ushered in a new age in old Germanic studies. The entire antiquarian endeavour in Germany - whether philological, archaeological, anthropological, folkloric or linguistic - was transformed in the wake of new paradigms developed in Germanic archaeology and philology at the time. The most outstanding figures in this new movement in Germanic studies were both professors at the University of Berlin, and both were overtly concerned with the study and promotion of Germanicness. One of these figures, Gustaf Kossinna (1858-1931), who held the inaugural Berlin chair in German archaeology, was a major producer of Germanen-Biicher - those popularizations of the Germanic past that inspired various radical right-wing groups.16 The other, Andreas Heusler (1865-1940), son of the like-named Swiss legal historian, held the corresponding inaugural chair in Nordic studies at Berlin. Heusler was the creator of the new concept of Germanicness, and is often celebrated by philologists today as if he were the third brother Grimm.17

14 Frank-Lothar Kroll, Utopie als Ideologie (Paderborn 1998), 72ff. 15 An older designation for Germanic in English is Teutonic (earlier still Gothonic), but under the influence of linguistics, and in cognizance of the cheapened use of the term (similar to Gallic for 'French'), it is usually avoided by Anglophonic antiquarians today: hence Malcolm Todd, The Early Germans (London 1992). 16 Rudolf Stampfuss, Gustaf Kossinna (Leipzig 1935); Hans-Jiirgen Eggers, Einfuhrung in die Vorgeschichte (2nd edn, Munich 1974), 199ff.; Suzanne L. Marchand, Down from Olympus (Princeton, NJ 1996), 180ff.; Ulrich Veit, 'Gustaf Kossinna and his Concept of a National Ideo- logy' in Heinrich Hirke (ed.), Archaeology, Ideology and Society (Frankfurt a. M. 2000), 40-64. 17 Heinrich Beck, 'Andreas Heuslers Begriff des "Altgermanischen"' in idem (ed.), Germanen- probleme in heutiger Sicht (Berlin 1986), 396-412; idem, 'Andreas Heusler (1865-1940)' in Helen Damico (ed.), Medieval Scholarship II (New York 1998), 283-96; idem, 'Heusler, Andreas' in Johannes Hoops, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde XIV (2nd edn, Berlin 1999), 533-43.

simplified or even misrepresented his understanding of the importance of the old Germanic past.14

In German today, as in Hitler's time, there is a clear distinction between the terms Germanic (germanisch) and German (deutsch) that is obfuscated by near homonymy in contemporary English. Germanic and Germanicness are to German and Germanness what (classical) Roman and Romanness are to Italian and Italianness.1S The description germanisch is also used, however, in modern German sometimes as a Latinate (i.e. grandiose) form of 'German', e.g. the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, or more obviously in Germanistik, university-level German studies. The term Germanentum was a learned buzz word of the 1920s and 1930s; it is not found in Hitler's recorded speeches or writings.

In reflection of the general rise of interest in the old Germanic past in the twilight years of the Kaiserreich, in the early years of the twentieth century German academic understandings of antiquity had undergone a fundamental change. Fields such as indigenous archaeology had thrown off their deep dependence on Scandinavian antiquarian scholarship and ushered in a new age in old Germanic studies. The entire antiquarian endeavour in Germany - whether philological, archaeological, anthropological, folkloric or linguistic - was transformed in the wake of new paradigms developed in Germanic archaeology and philology at the time. The most outstanding figures in this new movement in Germanic studies were both professors at the University of Berlin, and both were overtly concerned with the study and promotion of Germanicness. One of these figures, Gustaf Kossinna (1858-1931), who held the inaugural Berlin chair in German archaeology, was a major producer of Germanen-Biicher - those popularizations of the Germanic past that inspired various radical right-wing groups.16 The other, Andreas Heusler (1865-1940), son of the like-named Swiss legal historian, held the corresponding inaugural chair in Nordic studies at Berlin. Heusler was the creator of the new concept of Germanicness, and is often celebrated by philologists today as if he were the third brother Grimm.17

14 Frank-Lothar Kroll, Utopie als Ideologie (Paderborn 1998), 72ff. 15 An older designation for Germanic in English is Teutonic (earlier still Gothonic), but under the influence of linguistics, and in cognizance of the cheapened use of the term (similar to Gallic for 'French'), it is usually avoided by Anglophonic antiquarians today: hence Malcolm Todd, The Early Germans (London 1992). 16 Rudolf Stampfuss, Gustaf Kossinna (Leipzig 1935); Hans-Jiirgen Eggers, Einfuhrung in die Vorgeschichte (2nd edn, Munich 1974), 199ff.; Suzanne L. Marchand, Down from Olympus (Princeton, NJ 1996), 180ff.; Ulrich Veit, 'Gustaf Kossinna and his Concept of a National Ideo- logy' in Heinrich Hirke (ed.), Archaeology, Ideology and Society (Frankfurt a. M. 2000), 40-64. 17 Heinrich Beck, 'Andreas Heuslers Begriff des "Altgermanischen"' in idem (ed.), Germanen- probleme in heutiger Sicht (Berlin 1986), 396-412; idem, 'Andreas Heusler (1865-1940)' in Helen Damico (ed.), Medieval Scholarship II (New York 1998), 283-96; idem, 'Heusler, Andreas' in Johannes Hoops, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde XIV (2nd edn, Berlin 1999), 533-43.

257 257



In 1938, a collaborative academic work on Germanic antiquity was published that is held up by antiquarian Germanists today as a sober representa- tive of the best of the Germanistic scholarship of the dictatorship.'8 Its editor, the philologist Hermann Schneider (the postwar rector of the University of Tiibingen) reflected in De Gruyter's popularizing German academic journal, Research and Progress, at the beginning of 1939:

The year 1933 witnessed the victory of an attitude towards the history of the culture of Germany which gave the Germanic element of all that is German a significance previously unthought of. 'The best of what is German', it was declared, 'is Germanic and must be found in purer form in early Germanic times.'19

Yet Germanophonic academics seemed to have recognized that 'the best of what is German is Germanic' long before 1933. In 1926, for example, a similar survey was produced in Heidelberg under the editorship of Hermann Nollau. Its title was Germanic Resurgence, it was published by the local (Carl Winter's) university press and it was subtitled 'a work on the Germanic foundations of our culture'.20 Clearly, with Nollau's Resurgence the renewal- istic or 'palingenetic'21 aspect of v6lkisch thought had penetrated German academia well before 1933.

These Germanistic scholars unabashedly worked in the spirit of Heusler and Kossinna, and within the new concept of Germanicness. The term Germanen- tum existed before their time, but previously it had been an irregular description used mainly in contrastive expressions. Mirroring the distinction between Roman and Germanic elements stressed by German legal historians at the time, Germanentum was seen as the non-Roman element of medieval Germany for some nineteenth-century historians.22 Hence in 1870 the military analyst Johann Woldemar Streubel used Germanentum to describe the non- Hungarian forces in the Hapsburg empire.23 By the late 1870s the term was being used in opposition to Jewishness by populist bigots like Wilhelm Marr.24

18 Hermann Schneider (ed.), Germanische Altertumskunde (Munich 1938 [1951]); Heinrich Beck, 'Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde, V. Germanische Altertumskunde' in Johannes Hoops, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, XI (2nd edn, Berlin 1998), 429f. 19 Hermann Schneider, 'Die germanische Altertumskunde zwischen 1933 und 1938', Forschungen und Fortschritte, 15 (1939), 1 [= idem, 'The Study of Germanic Antiquity in the Years 1933-1938', Research and Progress, 5 (1939), 135]. 20 Hermann Nollau (ed.), Germanische Wiedererstehung: Ein Werk iiber die germanischen Grundlagen unserer Gesittung (Heidelberg 1926). 21 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London 1991), 26; cf. idem, 'The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or Manufacture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies', Journal of Con- temporary History, 37, 1 (January 2002), 21-43. 22 Heinz Gollwitzer, 'Zum politischen Germanismus des 19. Jahrhunderts' in Josef Flecken- stein, Sabine Kriuger and Rudolf Vierhaus (eds), Festschrift fur Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag (3 vols, Gottingen 1971-72), I, 282-356. 23 Arkolay [Johann Woldemar Streubel], Das Germanenthum und Osterreich (Darmstadt 1870). 24 Wilhelm Marr, Der Sieg des Judenthums iiuber das Germanenthum (Berlin 1879).

In 1938, a collaborative academic work on Germanic antiquity was published that is held up by antiquarian Germanists today as a sober representa- tive of the best of the Germanistic scholarship of the dictatorship.'8 Its editor, the philologist Hermann Schneider (the postwar rector of the University of Tiibingen) reflected in De Gruyter's popularizing German academic journal, Research and Progress, at the beginning of 1939:

The year 1933 witnessed the victory of an attitude towards the history of the culture of Germany which gave the Germanic element of all that is German a significance previously unthought of. 'The best of what is German', it was declared, 'is Germanic and must be found in purer form in early Germanic times.'19

Yet Germanophonic academics seemed to have recognized that 'the best of what is German is Germanic' long before 1933. In 1926, for example, a similar survey was produced in Heidelberg under the editorship of Hermann Nollau. Its title was Germanic Resurgence, it was published by the local (Carl Winter's) university press and it was subtitled 'a work on the Germanic foundations of our culture'.20 Clearly, with Nollau's Resurgence the renewal- istic or 'palingenetic'21 aspect of v6lkisch thought had penetrated German academia well before 1933.

These Germanistic scholars unabashedly worked in the spirit of Heusler and Kossinna, and within the new concept of Germanicness. The term Germanen- tum existed before their time, but previously it had been an irregular description used mainly in contrastive expressions. Mirroring the distinction between Roman and Germanic elements stressed by German legal historians at the time, Germanentum was seen as the non-Roman element of medieval Germany for some nineteenth-century historians.22 Hence in 1870 the military analyst Johann Woldemar Streubel used Germanentum to describe the non- Hungarian forces in the Hapsburg empire.23 By the late 1870s the term was being used in opposition to Jewishness by populist bigots like Wilhelm Marr.24

18 Hermann Schneider (ed.), Germanische Altertumskunde (Munich 1938 [1951]); Heinrich Beck, 'Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde, V. Germanische Altertumskunde' in Johannes Hoops, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, XI (2nd edn, Berlin 1998), 429f. 19 Hermann Schneider, 'Die germanische Altertumskunde zwischen 1933 und 1938', Forschungen und Fortschritte, 15 (1939), 1 [= idem, 'The Study of Germanic Antiquity in the Years 1933-1938', Research and Progress, 5 (1939), 135]. 20 Hermann Nollau (ed.), Germanische Wiedererstehung: Ein Werk iiber die germanischen Grundlagen unserer Gesittung (Heidelberg 1926). 21 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London 1991), 26; cf. idem, 'The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or Manufacture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies', Journal of Con- temporary History, 37, 1 (January 2002), 21-43. 22 Heinz Gollwitzer, 'Zum politischen Germanismus des 19. Jahrhunderts' in Josef Flecken- stein, Sabine Kriuger and Rudolf Vierhaus (eds), Festschrift fur Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag (3 vols, Gottingen 1971-72), I, 282-356. 23 Arkolay [Johann Woldemar Streubel], Das Germanenthum und Osterreich (Darmstadt 1870). 24 Wilhelm Marr, Der Sieg des Judenthums iiuber das Germanenthum (Berlin 1879).

258 258



But it was not until Heusler rescued the term in the new century that it began to feature more regularly in Germanistic or indeed general discourse.

In 1887 the literary Germanist Leo Berg had described the positive German reception of the works of the Norwegian playwright Ibsen as deriving from a shared spirit of Germanentum.2s Heusler, grappling for a term to describe the cultural genius he saw in the Old Norse sagas, subsequently adopted the term to apply to the heroic mentalite he saw exemplified in the Old Germanic past. In 1908 in an address occasioning his induction into the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Heusler spelled out precisely what he meant by Germanicness, and soon the word spread throughout the academic antiquarian community.26

The launch of Heusler's Germanicness signalled an explosion in publications on the old Germanic past. His own publications concentrated mainly on interpretations of medieval literature and he soon became a significant figure in popularizations of antiquarian Germanistic study, perhaps most promi- nently in the Thule series of translations of medieval Scandinavian literature, which by 1933 had sold some 98,000 copies.27 Kossinna and his students quickly took up the new expression as part of their Germanomaniacal 'settle- ment archaeology'. Heusler's wider influence did not end there, however. In 1934 a collection of his essays was published under the title Germanentum, and quickly went through several editions.28 Reviewed widely, Heusler's book popularized the term so thoroughly that by the late 1930s Germanentum had even come to feature as a category in nazi political literature. The concept of Germanicness is clearly enunciated in official German educational literature from the late 1930s and early 1940s, and its appearance was even remarked upon by foreign critics of the educational policies of the nazi regime. For example, Wilhelm Frick required that 15 basic points of German history were to be stressed under the nazis. Of these points, cited disparagingly in 1944 in an Allied survey of higher education in Germany, over half refer to the old Germanic past.29 The compiler of this work, the English science historian Abraham Wolf, also mentions an old Germanic chronicle, the Ura-Linda Book (properly the Dutch/Frisian Oera Linda Book, a Germanomaniacal

25 Leo Berg, Henrik Ibsen und das Germanenthum in den modernen Literatur (Berlin 1887). 26 Andreas Heusler, 'Antrittsrede in der PreuRischen Akademie der Wissenschaften', Sitzungs- berichte der Preuf/ischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse (1908), 712-14 [= Kleine Schriften, ed. Helga Reuschel and Stefan Sonderegger (2 vols, Berlin 1942-69), II, 14-15]. 27 Felix Niedner (ed.), Thule (24 vols, Jena 1911-30); Gary D. Stark, Entrepreneurs of Ideology (Chapel Hill, NC 1981), 94; cf. also Julia Zernack, Geschichten aus Thule (Berlin 1994); idem, 'Anschauungen vom Norden im deutschen Kaiserreich' in Puschner et al. (eds), Handbuch zur 'Volkischen Bewegung', op. cit., 504ff. 28 Andreas Heusler, Germanentum (Heidelberg 1934, 4th edn 1943). 29 Abraham Wolf, Higher Education in Nazi Germany (London 1944), 79-81. For a (pre- Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) Soviet perspective see Evgenii Georgievic Kagarov, 'Fal'sifikacja istorii rannegermanskogo obscestva fasistskimi lieucenymi' in Filipp Iosifovic Notovic et al. (eds), Protiv fagistskoj fal'sifikacii istorii (Moscow 1939), 83-103, a reference for which I am grateful to Neile A. Kirk.

But it was not until Heusler rescued the term in the new century that it began to feature more regularly in Germanistic or indeed general discourse.

In 1887 the literary Germanist Leo Berg had described the positive German reception of the works of the Norwegian playwright Ibsen as deriving from a shared spirit of Germanentum.2s Heusler, grappling for a term to describe the cultural genius he saw in the Old Norse sagas, subsequently adopted the term to apply to the heroic mentalite he saw exemplified in the Old Germanic past. In 1908 in an address occasioning his induction into the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Heusler spelled out precisely what he meant by Germanicness, and soon the word spread throughout the academic antiquarian community.26

The launch of Heusler's Germanicness signalled an explosion in publications on the old Germanic past. His own publications concentrated mainly on interpretations of medieval literature and he soon became a significant figure in popularizations of antiquarian Germanistic study, perhaps most promi- nently in the Thule series of translations of medieval Scandinavian literature, which by 1933 had sold some 98,000 copies.27 Kossinna and his students quickly took up the new expression as part of their Germanomaniacal 'settle- ment archaeology'. Heusler's wider influence did not end there, however. In 1934 a collection of his essays was published under the title Germanentum, and quickly went through several editions.28 Reviewed widely, Heusler's book popularized the term so thoroughly that by the late 1930s Germanentum had even come to feature as a category in nazi political literature. The concept of Germanicness is clearly enunciated in official German educational literature from the late 1930s and early 1940s, and its appearance was even remarked upon by foreign critics of the educational policies of the nazi regime. For example, Wilhelm Frick required that 15 basic points of German history were to be stressed under the nazis. Of these points, cited disparagingly in 1944 in an Allied survey of higher education in Germany, over half refer to the old Germanic past.29 The compiler of this work, the English science historian Abraham Wolf, also mentions an old Germanic chronicle, the Ura-Linda Book (properly the Dutch/Frisian Oera Linda Book, a Germanomaniacal

25 Leo Berg, Henrik Ibsen und das Germanenthum in den modernen Literatur (Berlin 1887). 26 Andreas Heusler, 'Antrittsrede in der PreuRischen Akademie der Wissenschaften', Sitzungs- berichte der Preuf/ischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse (1908), 712-14 [= Kleine Schriften, ed. Helga Reuschel and Stefan Sonderegger (2 vols, Berlin 1942-69), II, 14-15]. 27 Felix Niedner (ed.), Thule (24 vols, Jena 1911-30); Gary D. Stark, Entrepreneurs of Ideology (Chapel Hill, NC 1981), 94; cf. also Julia Zernack, Geschichten aus Thule (Berlin 1994); idem, 'Anschauungen vom Norden im deutschen Kaiserreich' in Puschner et al. (eds), Handbuch zur 'Volkischen Bewegung', op. cit., 504ff. 28 Andreas Heusler, Germanentum (Heidelberg 1934, 4th edn 1943). 29 Abraham Wolf, Higher Education in Nazi Germany (London 1944), 79-81. For a (pre- Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) Soviet perspective see Evgenii Georgievic Kagarov, 'Fal'sifikacja istorii rannegermanskogo obscestva fasistskimi lieucenymi' in Filipp Iosifovic Notovic et al. (eds), Protiv fagistskoj fal'sifikacii istorii (Moscow 1939), 83-103, a reference for which I am grateful to Neile A. Kirk.

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forgery from the nineteenth century)3?0 in the same breath as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous antisemitic 'warrant for genocide' as it was described by Norman Cohn.31 Indeed, 1937's history primer for the Hitler Youth (which was translated into English in 1938 by an American political scientist), contains maps of the empires of the glorious old Germanic past that are taken directly from the Germanen-Biicher of Kossinna and his students, and similar maps also appeared in contemporary educational literature for adults such as that published by the SS.32 The radical archaeology of Kossinna and his pupils called for a reassessment of all Germanic civilization based on a rejection of the classicism of the Kulturnation. In Kossinna's works all sorts of expressions linked in the past to Graeco-Roman influence or origin, from building and artistic styles and even to the invention of writing, were reinter- preted and recast in a Germanomaniacal mode. In 1944 the nazi political scientist Friedrich Alfred Beck summarized the Germanentum consciousness of his day in this manner: 'German Germanicness is a metaphysical form of character, derived from a Nordic racial essence, which reveals itself in a creative power based on a heroic attitude located in the personality as the unique representation of the volkisch organic existence.'33

Beck's 'Nordic racial essence' is plainly that of Hans (Rassen-) Giinther.34 Gunther's publisher, the Pan-Germanist entrepreneur Julius Lehmann, encouraged academic speculation on the role of racial questions in historical problems, and in the 1920s academics such as Kossinna became involved in many of the new radical racialist academic publications of the day.35 The notion of a Nordic racial type had been wedded to Heusler's Germanicness by young Nordicists influenced by this neo-conservative meeting of minds,

30 Jan Geraldus Ottema (ed.), Thet Oera Linda Bok (Leeuwarden 1872) [= trans. William R. Sandbach, The Oera Linda Book (London 1876)]; Herman F. Wirth (ed.), Die Ura Linda Chronik (Leipzig 1933); Murk de Jong Hendrikszoon, Het Oera-Lind-Boek in Duitschland en hier (Bolsward 1939); Wolf, Higher Education in Nazi Germany, op. cit., 81. 31 Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide (London 1967). 32 Anon., 'Germanisches Schicksal durch die Jahrtausende: Volk ohne Raum', Das schwarze Korps, 2, 34 (28 August 1936), 18; B. Patzke, 'Die deutsche Wiederbesiedlung des Ostens', SS- Leitheft, 3, 8 (1937), 55-6; Fritz Brennecke, Handbuch fur die Schulungsarbeit in der HJ: Vom deutschen Volk und seinem Lebensraum (Munich 1937) [= trans. Harwood L. Childs, The Nazi Primer (New York 1938)]. 33 Friedrich Alfred Beck, Der Aufgang des germanischen Weltalters (Bochum 1944), 44-5 [= trans. apud W.J. McCann, '"Volk und Germanentum": The Presentation of the Past in Nazi Germany' in Peter Gathercole and David Lowenthal (eds), The Politics of the Past (London 1990), 74]. On Beck see Leon Poliakov and Joseph Wulf (eds), Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker (Berlin 1959 [Frankfurt a. M. 1983]), 44. 34 Hans F.K. Gunther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Munich 1922, 16th edn 1933); Hans-Jiirgen Lutzhoft, Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920-1940 (Stuttgart 1971), 28ff. 35 E.g. Die Sonne: Volksdeutsche Monatsschrift (Monatsschrift fur nordische Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung/Monatsschrift fur Rasse, Glauben und Volkstum), 1, 1-16, 4-6 (Weimar, then Leipzig 1924-39); Volk und Rasse: Illustrierte Monatsschrift fiir Volkstum, Rassenkunde, Rassenplege, 1, 1-19, 4-6 (Munich 1926-44).

forgery from the nineteenth century)3?0 in the same breath as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous antisemitic 'warrant for genocide' as it was described by Norman Cohn.31 Indeed, 1937's history primer for the Hitler Youth (which was translated into English in 1938 by an American political scientist), contains maps of the empires of the glorious old Germanic past that are taken directly from the Germanen-Biicher of Kossinna and his students, and similar maps also appeared in contemporary educational literature for adults such as that published by the SS.32 The radical archaeology of Kossinna and his pupils called for a reassessment of all Germanic civilization based on a rejection of the classicism of the Kulturnation. In Kossinna's works all sorts of expressions linked in the past to Graeco-Roman influence or origin, from building and artistic styles and even to the invention of writing, were reinter- preted and recast in a Germanomaniacal mode. In 1944 the nazi political scientist Friedrich Alfred Beck summarized the Germanentum consciousness of his day in this manner: 'German Germanicness is a metaphysical form of character, derived from a Nordic racial essence, which reveals itself in a creative power based on a heroic attitude located in the personality as the unique representation of the volkisch organic existence.'33

Beck's 'Nordic racial essence' is plainly that of Hans (Rassen-) Giinther.34 Gunther's publisher, the Pan-Germanist entrepreneur Julius Lehmann, encouraged academic speculation on the role of racial questions in historical problems, and in the 1920s academics such as Kossinna became involved in many of the new radical racialist academic publications of the day.35 The notion of a Nordic racial type had been wedded to Heusler's Germanicness by young Nordicists influenced by this neo-conservative meeting of minds,

30 Jan Geraldus Ottema (ed.), Thet Oera Linda Bok (Leeuwarden 1872) [= trans. William R. Sandbach, The Oera Linda Book (London 1876)]; Herman F. Wirth (ed.), Die Ura Linda Chronik (Leipzig 1933); Murk de Jong Hendrikszoon, Het Oera-Lind-Boek in Duitschland en hier (Bolsward 1939); Wolf, Higher Education in Nazi Germany, op. cit., 81. 31 Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide (London 1967). 32 Anon., 'Germanisches Schicksal durch die Jahrtausende: Volk ohne Raum', Das schwarze Korps, 2, 34 (28 August 1936), 18; B. Patzke, 'Die deutsche Wiederbesiedlung des Ostens', SS- Leitheft, 3, 8 (1937), 55-6; Fritz Brennecke, Handbuch fur die Schulungsarbeit in der HJ: Vom deutschen Volk und seinem Lebensraum (Munich 1937) [= trans. Harwood L. Childs, The Nazi Primer (New York 1938)]. 33 Friedrich Alfred Beck, Der Aufgang des germanischen Weltalters (Bochum 1944), 44-5 [= trans. apud W.J. McCann, '"Volk und Germanentum": The Presentation of the Past in Nazi Germany' in Peter Gathercole and David Lowenthal (eds), The Politics of the Past (London 1990), 74]. On Beck see Leon Poliakov and Joseph Wulf (eds), Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker (Berlin 1959 [Frankfurt a. M. 1983]), 44. 34 Hans F.K. Gunther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Munich 1922, 16th edn 1933); Hans-Jiirgen Lutzhoft, Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920-1940 (Stuttgart 1971), 28ff. 35 E.g. Die Sonne: Volksdeutsche Monatsschrift (Monatsschrift fur nordische Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung/Monatsschrift fur Rasse, Glauben und Volkstum), 1, 1-16, 4-6 (Weimar, then Leipzig 1924-39); Volk und Rasse: Illustrierte Monatsschrift fiir Volkstum, Rassenkunde, Rassenplege, 1, 1-19, 4-6 (Munich 1926-44).

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probably most notably in the writings of the sometime Amt Rosenberg Nordic-studies specialist Bernhard Kummer (a member of the SA since 1928 and later a professor of Old Norse at Jena).36 The old notion of Germanicness as everything not Roman had been refashioned by a new heroic, Heuslerian, often blatantly Germanomaniacal Germanentum that was theorized and refined by nazi educationalists, antiquarian Germanists and even what now passed for political scientists too.37

Party organs such as the SS also became involved in the new antiquity enthusiasm. Himmler's Ahnenerbe was founded to support amateur notions of Germanicness, most obviously Detmold's Extern Stones theorists (the self-styled Freunde germanischer Vorgeschichte, led by the amateur 'astro- archaeologist' Wilhelm Teudt)38 and the wild Atlantid39 runomania of the Berlin- based folklorist and musicologist Herman Wirth.40 Himmler also encouraged some outright fantasists, of course, most notably the unbalanced Austrian obscurantist Karl Maria Wiligut/Weisthor.41 But serious scholars were as much involved in SS antiquarianism as were the patent fantasists. For every Wirth or Weisthor, there were two 'respectable' SS scholars, whether they be academic archaeologists such as Hans Schleif or Herbert Jankuhn, Romanists like Franz Altheim or Rudolf Till, or philologists and linguists such as Walter Wuist or Wolfgang Krause. Moreover, the SS were concerned with promoting Germanic antiquarianism, through their journals such as the Detmold Friends-founded Germanien,42 archaeology exhibitions (often in collaboration with Rosenberg's prehistorians),43 the creation of 'archaeology parks' (e.g. for the Extern Stones, or at Negova, Slovenia, where the earliest linguistically Germanic inscription

36 Bernhard Kummer, Midgards Untergang (Leipzig 1927); idem, Germanenkunde im Kultur- kampf (Leipzig 1935); Wolfgang Schumann, 'Die Universitat Jena in der Zeit des deutschen Faschismus (1933 bis 1945)' in Max Steinmetz (ed.), Geschichte der Universitat Jena 1548/58- 1958 (2 vols, Jena 1958), I, 615-70. 37 Johannes Biihler, 'Germanentum und Deutschtum', Geistige Arbeit, 1, 3 (1934), 7-8. 38 Wilhelm Teudt, Germanische Heiligtiimer (Jena 1929); Rudolf Biinte (ed.), Wilhelm Teudt im Kampf um Germanenehre: Auswahl von Teudts Schriften (Bielefeld 1940); John Michell, A Little History of Astro-Archaeology (London 1977), 58-65; Martin Schmidt and Uta Halle, 'On the Folklore of the Externsteine: Or a Centre for Germanomaniacs' in Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius Holtorf (eds), Archaeology and Folklore (London 1999), 158-74. 39 For the development of the genre of Atlantid thought in Germany see Georg Biedenkapp, Der Nordpol als Volkerheimat (Jena 1906); Karl Georg Zschaetzsch, Atlantis: Die Urheimat der Arier (Berlin 1922, 4th edn 1937); Franz Wegener, Das atlantidische Weltbild (Gladbeck 2000). 40 Herman Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (Jena 1928); Ingo Wiwjorra, 'Herman Wirth Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwischen "Ahnenerbe" und Atlantis' in Barbara Danckwott, Thorsten Querg and Claudia Schoningh (eds), Historische Rassismusforschung (Hamburg 1995), 91-112. 41 Hans-Jiirgen Lange, Weisthor (Engerd 1998). 42 Germanien: Bldtter fur Freunde germanischer Vorgeschichte, 1-4 (Bielefeld 1929-32); thereafter Germanien: Monatshefte fur Vorgeschichte zur Erkenntnis deutschen Wesens (zur Germanenkunde), 5-10 and 11-14 [= NF 1-4] (Leipzig 1933-43). 43 Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 80ff.; Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards (Cambridge 1988), 242; Allan A. Lund, Germanenideologie und Nationalsozialismus (Tiibingen 1995), 80f. (and fig. 9); Henning Hautemann, 'Archaeology in the "Third Reich"' in Harke (ed.), Archaeology, Ideology, and Society, op. cit., 101, 1 10f.

probably most notably in the writings of the sometime Amt Rosenberg Nordic-studies specialist Bernhard Kummer (a member of the SA since 1928 and later a professor of Old Norse at Jena).36 The old notion of Germanicness as everything not Roman had been refashioned by a new heroic, Heuslerian, often blatantly Germanomaniacal Germanentum that was theorized and refined by nazi educationalists, antiquarian Germanists and even what now passed for political scientists too.37

Party organs such as the SS also became involved in the new antiquity enthusiasm. Himmler's Ahnenerbe was founded to support amateur notions of Germanicness, most obviously Detmold's Extern Stones theorists (the self-styled Freunde germanischer Vorgeschichte, led by the amateur 'astro- archaeologist' Wilhelm Teudt)38 and the wild Atlantid39 runomania of the Berlin- based folklorist and musicologist Herman Wirth.40 Himmler also encouraged some outright fantasists, of course, most notably the unbalanced Austrian obscurantist Karl Maria Wiligut/Weisthor.41 But serious scholars were as much involved in SS antiquarianism as were the patent fantasists. For every Wirth or Weisthor, there were two 'respectable' SS scholars, whether they be academic archaeologists such as Hans Schleif or Herbert Jankuhn, Romanists like Franz Altheim or Rudolf Till, or philologists and linguists such as Walter Wuist or Wolfgang Krause. Moreover, the SS were concerned with promoting Germanic antiquarianism, through their journals such as the Detmold Friends-founded Germanien,42 archaeology exhibitions (often in collaboration with Rosenberg's prehistorians),43 the creation of 'archaeology parks' (e.g. for the Extern Stones, or at Negova, Slovenia, where the earliest linguistically Germanic inscription

36 Bernhard Kummer, Midgards Untergang (Leipzig 1927); idem, Germanenkunde im Kultur- kampf (Leipzig 1935); Wolfgang Schumann, 'Die Universitat Jena in der Zeit des deutschen Faschismus (1933 bis 1945)' in Max Steinmetz (ed.), Geschichte der Universitat Jena 1548/58- 1958 (2 vols, Jena 1958), I, 615-70. 37 Johannes Biihler, 'Germanentum und Deutschtum', Geistige Arbeit, 1, 3 (1934), 7-8. 38 Wilhelm Teudt, Germanische Heiligtiimer (Jena 1929); Rudolf Biinte (ed.), Wilhelm Teudt im Kampf um Germanenehre: Auswahl von Teudts Schriften (Bielefeld 1940); John Michell, A Little History of Astro-Archaeology (London 1977), 58-65; Martin Schmidt and Uta Halle, 'On the Folklore of the Externsteine: Or a Centre for Germanomaniacs' in Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius Holtorf (eds), Archaeology and Folklore (London 1999), 158-74. 39 For the development of the genre of Atlantid thought in Germany see Georg Biedenkapp, Der Nordpol als Volkerheimat (Jena 1906); Karl Georg Zschaetzsch, Atlantis: Die Urheimat der Arier (Berlin 1922, 4th edn 1937); Franz Wegener, Das atlantidische Weltbild (Gladbeck 2000). 40 Herman Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (Jena 1928); Ingo Wiwjorra, 'Herman Wirth Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwischen "Ahnenerbe" und Atlantis' in Barbara Danckwott, Thorsten Querg and Claudia Schoningh (eds), Historische Rassismusforschung (Hamburg 1995), 91-112. 41 Hans-Jiirgen Lange, Weisthor (Engerd 1998). 42 Germanien: Bldtter fur Freunde germanischer Vorgeschichte, 1-4 (Bielefeld 1929-32); thereafter Germanien: Monatshefte fur Vorgeschichte zur Erkenntnis deutschen Wesens (zur Germanenkunde), 5-10 and 11-14 [= NF 1-4] (Leipzig 1933-43). 43 Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 80ff.; Michael Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards (Cambridge 1988), 242; Allan A. Lund, Germanenideologie und Nationalsozialismus (Tiibingen 1995), 80f. (and fig. 9); Henning Hautemann, 'Archaeology in the "Third Reich"' in Harke (ed.), Archaeology, Ideology, and Society, op. cit., 101, 1 10f.

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was found)44 and ultimately the organized looting of Eastern European antiquarian collections by SS-Sonderkommando led by academic prehistorians with archaeological shopping lists.45 Some of Himmler's musings on archaeology, such as his 1937 attack on Slavic scholars who (apparently) misrepresented and covered over ancient Germanic remains, represent a sophisticated understanding of an archaeological controversy that had been inaugurated by Kossinna in 1912 and continued by his students.46 Similarly, Darre's wild theories on German agriculture were clearly informed by antiquarian scholarship and not just the obscurantistic, anti-Christian and racialized type which he encountered in groups such as the Nordischer Ring.47 He and his followers cite learned examinations of medieval Scandinavian law codes in their works, a link that is epitomized in Odal, Darre's politico-cultural journal which took its description from a type of ancient Scandinavian legal tenure that also happened to be the name of the runic letter o (R).48 Darre's focus on the Old Germanic past also fed straight into his conceptualization of Lebensraum - after all, Kossinna was not the only academic to consider that ancient Germanic settlements in Eastern Europe validated German claims for sovereignty over Slav-populated regions.49 Indeed, by the early 1940s ancient Germanic expansion in Eastern Europe was being used in nazi literature to justify Hitler's war aims of the (then) present day

44 T.L. Markey, 'A Tale of Two Helmets: The Negau A and B Inscriptions', Journal of Indo- European Studies. 29 (2001), 76. 45 Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 147ff.; Haugmann, 'Archaeology in the "Third Reich"', op. cit., 107; Anja Heuss, Kunst- und Kulturgutraub (Heidelberg 2000). The activities of Jankuhn, the archaeological looter of the Ukraine, are often still treated defensively by his former students; see Heiko Steuer, 'Herbert Jankuhn und seine Darstellung zur Germanen- und Wikingerzeit' in idem (ed.), Eine hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft (Berlin 2001), 417ff. 46 Gustaf Kossinna, 'Zur alteren Bronzezeit Mitteleuropas', Mannus, 4 (1912), 184; idem, Die deutsche Ostmark (Kattowitz 1919); J6zef Kostrzewski, Wielkopolska w czasach przedhisto- rycznych (Poznan 1914); Heinrich Himmler, Document 1992(A)-PS, from 'National Political Studies for the Armed Forces' (January 1937) in International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXIX (Nuremberg 1948), 225-6 [= trans. apud Benjamin C. Sax and Dieter Kuntz (eds), Inside Hitler's Germany (Lexington, MA 1992), 376]; Eggers, Einfiihrung in die Vorgeschichte, op. cit., 202ff.; Leo S. Klejn, 'Kossinna im Abstand von vierzig Jahren', Jahresschrift far mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte, 58 (1974), 29ff.; cf. Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards, op. cit., 23f., 52, 241ff. 47 Anne Bramwell, Blood and Soil (Bourne End 1985), 46ff. 48 Deutsche Agrarpolitik: Monatsschrift far deutsches Bauerntum, 1, 1-2, 3 (Berlin 1932-33); thereafter Odal: Monatsschrift far Blut und Boden 2, 4-11 (Berlin, then Goslar 1933-42); thereafter Deutsche Agrarpolitik, NF 1, 1-3, 12 (Berlin 1942-44); Knut Robberstad, Magnus Mar Larusson and Gerhard Hafstrom, 'Odelsrett' in Johannes Brondsted et al. (eds), Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, XII (Copenhagen 1967), 493-503; Gabriele von Olberg, 'Odal' in Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann (eds), Handw6rterbuch zur deutschen Rechts- geschichte, II (Berlin 1982), 1178-84; Andrea d'Onofrio, Ruralismo e storia nel Terzo Reich: II caso 'Odal' (Naples 1997). 49 Kossinna, Die deutsche Ostmark, op. cit. and cf. Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards, op. cit., 52, 242-3. This remarkable book, which was retitled Das Weichselland, ein uralter Heimat- boden der Germanen in later editions, was especially written to attempt to influence the outcome of the Versailles peace conference; see Eggers, Einfahrung in die Vorgeschichte, op. cit., 236; Veit, 'Gustaf Kossinna and his Concept of a National Ideology', op. cit., 47.

was found)44 and ultimately the organized looting of Eastern European antiquarian collections by SS-Sonderkommando led by academic prehistorians with archaeological shopping lists.45 Some of Himmler's musings on archaeology, such as his 1937 attack on Slavic scholars who (apparently) misrepresented and covered over ancient Germanic remains, represent a sophisticated understanding of an archaeological controversy that had been inaugurated by Kossinna in 1912 and continued by his students.46 Similarly, Darre's wild theories on German agriculture were clearly informed by antiquarian scholarship and not just the obscurantistic, anti-Christian and racialized type which he encountered in groups such as the Nordischer Ring.47 He and his followers cite learned examinations of medieval Scandinavian law codes in their works, a link that is epitomized in Odal, Darre's politico-cultural journal which took its description from a type of ancient Scandinavian legal tenure that also happened to be the name of the runic letter o (R).48 Darre's focus on the Old Germanic past also fed straight into his conceptualization of Lebensraum - after all, Kossinna was not the only academic to consider that ancient Germanic settlements in Eastern Europe validated German claims for sovereignty over Slav-populated regions.49 Indeed, by the early 1940s ancient Germanic expansion in Eastern Europe was being used in nazi literature to justify Hitler's war aims of the (then) present day

44 T.L. Markey, 'A Tale of Two Helmets: The Negau A and B Inscriptions', Journal of Indo- European Studies. 29 (2001), 76. 45 Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 147ff.; Haugmann, 'Archaeology in the "Third Reich"', op. cit., 107; Anja Heuss, Kunst- und Kulturgutraub (Heidelberg 2000). The activities of Jankuhn, the archaeological looter of the Ukraine, are often still treated defensively by his former students; see Heiko Steuer, 'Herbert Jankuhn und seine Darstellung zur Germanen- und Wikingerzeit' in idem (ed.), Eine hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft (Berlin 2001), 417ff. 46 Gustaf Kossinna, 'Zur alteren Bronzezeit Mitteleuropas', Mannus, 4 (1912), 184; idem, Die deutsche Ostmark (Kattowitz 1919); J6zef Kostrzewski, Wielkopolska w czasach przedhisto- rycznych (Poznan 1914); Heinrich Himmler, Document 1992(A)-PS, from 'National Political Studies for the Armed Forces' (January 1937) in International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXIX (Nuremberg 1948), 225-6 [= trans. apud Benjamin C. Sax and Dieter Kuntz (eds), Inside Hitler's Germany (Lexington, MA 1992), 376]; Eggers, Einfiihrung in die Vorgeschichte, op. cit., 202ff.; Leo S. Klejn, 'Kossinna im Abstand von vierzig Jahren', Jahresschrift far mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte, 58 (1974), 29ff.; cf. Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards, op. cit., 23f., 52, 241ff. 47 Anne Bramwell, Blood and Soil (Bourne End 1985), 46ff. 48 Deutsche Agrarpolitik: Monatsschrift far deutsches Bauerntum, 1, 1-2, 3 (Berlin 1932-33); thereafter Odal: Monatsschrift far Blut und Boden 2, 4-11 (Berlin, then Goslar 1933-42); thereafter Deutsche Agrarpolitik, NF 1, 1-3, 12 (Berlin 1942-44); Knut Robberstad, Magnus Mar Larusson and Gerhard Hafstrom, 'Odelsrett' in Johannes Brondsted et al. (eds), Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, XII (Copenhagen 1967), 493-503; Gabriele von Olberg, 'Odal' in Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann (eds), Handw6rterbuch zur deutschen Rechts- geschichte, II (Berlin 1982), 1178-84; Andrea d'Onofrio, Ruralismo e storia nel Terzo Reich: II caso 'Odal' (Naples 1997). 49 Kossinna, Die deutsche Ostmark, op. cit. and cf. Burleigh, Germany Turns Eastwards, op. cit., 52, 242-3. This remarkable book, which was retitled Das Weichselland, ein uralter Heimat- boden der Germanen in later editions, was especially written to attempt to influence the outcome of the Versailles peace conference; see Eggers, Einfahrung in die Vorgeschichte, op. cit., 236; Veit, 'Gustaf Kossinna and his Concept of a National Ideology', op. cit., 47.

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in a manner quite independent of contemporary German Ostforschung.s? It was this fascination with antiquity that, no doubt, also led Himmler to bring an SS-archaeologist (Alexander Langsdorff, then curator of the Berlin Museum fur Vor- und Friihgeschichte and 'Kulturpolitischer Referant' in Himmler's personal staff) with him to the Italian-German police-chiefs meeting in Rome in October 1936.51

The antiquarian activities of the SS were even mirrored in the promotion of folk culture by the Kraft durch Freude. The first leader of the KdF's folk- culture arm, the Reichsbund Volkstum und Heimat, was Werner Haverbeck, a young folklorist protege of Hess. The Reichsbund was a youth-oriented body that organized folk festivals and performances of traditional songs. Yet by 1934 members of the Reichsbund had come under suspicion of being Strasserites. After the Night of the Long Knives, the Reichsbund was purged and eventually subsumed by Rosenberg's folklore foundation; protected by Hess, Haverbeck, a disciple of Wirth's runomaniacal theories, instead found a home within the SS.52 But it was clear that Haverbeck and similar academic expressions such as the Wald und Baum project supported by G6ring's Reichs- forstamt, whose remit was to study all manner of 'Aryan-Germanic' traditions concerning woodlands, were inspired by the Germanicness consciousness that had come to pervade understandings of German ethnology and folklore since the 1920s.53

The promotion of Germanentum came to be seen as the creative, positive foil to the otherwise almost overwhelming negativity of National Socialist thought. The project of national rebirth had a negative and a positive facet. As Haverbeck's radical right-wing biographer has noted,54 the pessimism of a neo-conservative Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West)55 seemed partnered by an optimistic, neo-romantic Aufgang der Menschheit (Rise of Humanity).56 Virulent Party antisemites like Johann von Leers might take at least as much time focusing their energies on investigations of the old Germanic heritage as they did railing against Jewish perfidy.57 The demonizing

50 E.g. anon., 'Und wieder reiten die Goten . . . Unser Kampf im Osten - unsere Pflicht vor Geschichte und Reich', SS-Leitheft, 7, 9 (1941), 1-2. 51 Anon., 'Besuch in Rom', Das schwarze Korps, 2, 44 (29 October 1936), 3; Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein Reichsinstitut fir Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands (Stuttgart 1966), 246; Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg, op. cit., 167ff.; Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 20ff. 52 Hannjost Lixfeld, Folklore and Fascism (Bloomington, IN 1994), 78; Andreas Ferch, Viermal Deutschland in einem Menschenleben (Dresden 2000), 24ff. 53 Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 76ff. 54 Ferch, Viermal Deutschland in einem Menschenleben, op. cit., 21. 55 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Munich 1923). 56 Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit, op. cit.; cf. also Josef Strzygowski, Aufgang des Nordens (Leipzig 1936). 57 Cf. e.g. Johann von Leers, Juden sehen dich an (Berlin-Sch6neberg 1933, 6th edn 1936); idem, Das alte Wissen und der neue Glaube (Hamburg 1935); idem, Odal (Goslar 1935, 3rd edn 1939); idem, Wie kam der Jude zum Geld? (Berlin 1939); idem, Die Verbrechernatur der Juden (Berlin 1944).

in a manner quite independent of contemporary German Ostforschung.s? It was this fascination with antiquity that, no doubt, also led Himmler to bring an SS-archaeologist (Alexander Langsdorff, then curator of the Berlin Museum fur Vor- und Friihgeschichte and 'Kulturpolitischer Referant' in Himmler's personal staff) with him to the Italian-German police-chiefs meeting in Rome in October 1936.51

The antiquarian activities of the SS were even mirrored in the promotion of folk culture by the Kraft durch Freude. The first leader of the KdF's folk- culture arm, the Reichsbund Volkstum und Heimat, was Werner Haverbeck, a young folklorist protege of Hess. The Reichsbund was a youth-oriented body that organized folk festivals and performances of traditional songs. Yet by 1934 members of the Reichsbund had come under suspicion of being Strasserites. After the Night of the Long Knives, the Reichsbund was purged and eventually subsumed by Rosenberg's folklore foundation; protected by Hess, Haverbeck, a disciple of Wirth's runomaniacal theories, instead found a home within the SS.52 But it was clear that Haverbeck and similar academic expressions such as the Wald und Baum project supported by G6ring's Reichs- forstamt, whose remit was to study all manner of 'Aryan-Germanic' traditions concerning woodlands, were inspired by the Germanicness consciousness that had come to pervade understandings of German ethnology and folklore since the 1920s.53

The promotion of Germanentum came to be seen as the creative, positive foil to the otherwise almost overwhelming negativity of National Socialist thought. The project of national rebirth had a negative and a positive facet. As Haverbeck's radical right-wing biographer has noted,54 the pessimism of a neo-conservative Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West)55 seemed partnered by an optimistic, neo-romantic Aufgang der Menschheit (Rise of Humanity).56 Virulent Party antisemites like Johann von Leers might take at least as much time focusing their energies on investigations of the old Germanic heritage as they did railing against Jewish perfidy.57 The demonizing

50 E.g. anon., 'Und wieder reiten die Goten . . . Unser Kampf im Osten - unsere Pflicht vor Geschichte und Reich', SS-Leitheft, 7, 9 (1941), 1-2. 51 Anon., 'Besuch in Rom', Das schwarze Korps, 2, 44 (29 October 1936), 3; Helmut Heiber, Walter Frank und sein Reichsinstitut fir Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands (Stuttgart 1966), 246; Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg, op. cit., 167ff.; Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 20ff. 52 Hannjost Lixfeld, Folklore and Fascism (Bloomington, IN 1994), 78; Andreas Ferch, Viermal Deutschland in einem Menschenleben (Dresden 2000), 24ff. 53 Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, op. cit., 76ff. 54 Ferch, Viermal Deutschland in einem Menschenleben, op. cit., 21. 55 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Munich 1923). 56 Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit, op. cit.; cf. also Josef Strzygowski, Aufgang des Nordens (Leipzig 1936). 57 Cf. e.g. Johann von Leers, Juden sehen dich an (Berlin-Sch6neberg 1933, 6th edn 1936); idem, Das alte Wissen und der neue Glaube (Hamburg 1935); idem, Odal (Goslar 1935, 3rd edn 1939); idem, Wie kam der Jude zum Geld? (Berlin 1939); idem, Die Verbrechernatur der Juden (Berlin 1944).

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and extermination of Jewishness had almost come to be seen as concomitant with the glorifying and nurturing of the rediscovered spirit of Germanentum.

Yet at the same time as Germanicness was being actively supported by members of the Party 6lite, Hitler seemed to be working against them. When Rosenberg had moved to co-ordinate all German archaeology in his Reich Institute for German Prehistory (led by Hans Reinerth, a former student of Kossinna), Hitler had at first sided with the classicist establishment of the German Archaeological Institute whose crowning monument was Berlin's audacious Pergamon museum (Kossinna had dismissed the classicists as un- patriotic Romlinge).58 In 1938 the dictator had publicly attacked those who wanted to turn National Socialism into a (neo-pagan) cult, an admonishment that was taken up by the Propaganda Ministry which subsequently moved to suppress obscurantistic leanings in the press.59 Speer records Hitler criticizing Himmler for promoting mysticism in the SS, though the dictator evidently was not sufficiently concerned to move against his Reichsfiihrer-SS.60 On the other hand, Eugen Diederichs Verlag, the neo-romantic publishing house most obviously associated with the promotion of Germanentum consciousness, lost its publishing licence in 1939, in stark contrast to other volkisch publishing firms which generally continued operating unhampered - some were still publishing as late as 1944. Moreover, many Germanicist obscurantists came under attack in the late 1930s,61 including Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels and his Order of the New Templars (Ordo Novi Templi), seemingly using as a scapegoat the Viennese racial fantasist some have seen as 'the man who gave Hitler his ideas'.62

The Germanic past had been promoted by academic antiquarians as a golden age of Germanic heroism. Much of the racialism of German fascism was ultimately predicated, also, on the testimony of the chief antiquarian source for Germany, the Roman historian Tacitus who (Germania 2 and 4) had described the ancient Germans as racially 'uncontaminated' - unlike most other European peoples.63 This image of the ancient Germans as the racial saviours of Europe featured as a prominent theme in Chamberlain's Foundations. Hitler, however, did not grant such importance to the Jew-free Germanic golden age as did those such as Rosenberg and Himmler. There was clearly a continuum of identities in racialist thinking: from Germanness

58 Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg, op. cit., 162ff. 59 Rudolf Glunk, 'Erfolg und MiIgerfolg der nationalsozialistischen Sprachlenkung', Zeitschrift fur deutsche Sprache, 26 (1970), 90-1; cf. Cornelia Berning, 'Die Sprache des National- sozialismus', Zeitschrift fur deutsche Wortforschung, 18 (1962), 166-7; Rainer Zitelmann, trans. Helmut Bogler, Hitler (London 1999), 331ff. 60 Albert Speer, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, Inside the Third Reich (London 1971), 94. 61 Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, op. cit., 160-1; Stephen E. Flowers, 'Intro- duction' in Guido von List, trans. Stephen E. Flowers, The Secret of the Runes (Rochester, VT 1988), 33-4. 62 Wilfred Daim, Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab (3rd edn Vienna 1994). 63 Leon Poliakov, trans. Edmund Howard, The Aryan Myth (London 1974), 20, 54, 80.

and extermination of Jewishness had almost come to be seen as concomitant with the glorifying and nurturing of the rediscovered spirit of Germanentum.

Yet at the same time as Germanicness was being actively supported by members of the Party 6lite, Hitler seemed to be working against them. When Rosenberg had moved to co-ordinate all German archaeology in his Reich Institute for German Prehistory (led by Hans Reinerth, a former student of Kossinna), Hitler had at first sided with the classicist establishment of the German Archaeological Institute whose crowning monument was Berlin's audacious Pergamon museum (Kossinna had dismissed the classicists as un- patriotic Romlinge).58 In 1938 the dictator had publicly attacked those who wanted to turn National Socialism into a (neo-pagan) cult, an admonishment that was taken up by the Propaganda Ministry which subsequently moved to suppress obscurantistic leanings in the press.59 Speer records Hitler criticizing Himmler for promoting mysticism in the SS, though the dictator evidently was not sufficiently concerned to move against his Reichsfiihrer-SS.60 On the other hand, Eugen Diederichs Verlag, the neo-romantic publishing house most obviously associated with the promotion of Germanentum consciousness, lost its publishing licence in 1939, in stark contrast to other volkisch publishing firms which generally continued operating unhampered - some were still publishing as late as 1944. Moreover, many Germanicist obscurantists came under attack in the late 1930s,61 including Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels and his Order of the New Templars (Ordo Novi Templi), seemingly using as a scapegoat the Viennese racial fantasist some have seen as 'the man who gave Hitler his ideas'.62

The Germanic past had been promoted by academic antiquarians as a golden age of Germanic heroism. Much of the racialism of German fascism was ultimately predicated, also, on the testimony of the chief antiquarian source for Germany, the Roman historian Tacitus who (Germania 2 and 4) had described the ancient Germans as racially 'uncontaminated' - unlike most other European peoples.63 This image of the ancient Germans as the racial saviours of Europe featured as a prominent theme in Chamberlain's Foundations. Hitler, however, did not grant such importance to the Jew-free Germanic golden age as did those such as Rosenberg and Himmler. There was clearly a continuum of identities in racialist thinking: from Germanness

58 Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg, op. cit., 162ff. 59 Rudolf Glunk, 'Erfolg und MiIgerfolg der nationalsozialistischen Sprachlenkung', Zeitschrift fur deutsche Sprache, 26 (1970), 90-1; cf. Cornelia Berning, 'Die Sprache des National- sozialismus', Zeitschrift fur deutsche Wortforschung, 18 (1962), 166-7; Rainer Zitelmann, trans. Helmut Bogler, Hitler (London 1999), 331ff. 60 Albert Speer, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, Inside the Third Reich (London 1971), 94. 61 Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism, op. cit., 160-1; Stephen E. Flowers, 'Intro- duction' in Guido von List, trans. Stephen E. Flowers, The Secret of the Runes (Rochester, VT 1988), 33-4. 62 Wilfred Daim, Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab (3rd edn Vienna 1994). 63 Leon Poliakov, trans. Edmund Howard, The Aryan Myth (London 1974), 20, 54, 80.

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through Germanicness to Aryanness (or Indo-Germanicness). Yet Hitler focused mostly on the Aryans - a racialist reification of the timeless notion of European superiority, as much Graeco-Roman as it was Germanic - not the ancient Germans and Germany of Arminius (Hermann), Wotan and the runes. While Rassen-Giinther was preparing his glorification of the Nordic race in German, Germanic and Aryan times, and while these distinctions are clearly evident in nazi educational literature of the late 1930s, Hitler seemed mostly uninterested in the Germanic pedigree in Germanness.

There are some indications, however, that this was not always the case in Hitler's thinking, and that the absence of an explicit Germanentum consciousness in his writings had a definable origin. Apart from the 'Germanic nation of the German people', Hitler also wrote of 'Germanic democracy' - a 'true' German democratic ideal which is mentioned three times in most editions of Mein Kampf.64 Yet a fourth is preserved in Mannheim's translation from the first edition, one that most later editions omit; and it may be no accident that this ephemeral passage closely precedes Hitler's denunciation of the 'deutschvolkisch wandering scholars'.65 The passage was substantially altered after the reorganization of the Party in 1928 in order to emphasize the control of Munich's Brown House over other branches and it appears that, given this opportunity, the Germanic aspect to democracy on this occasion was 'im- proved' away at the same time too.66

Although his description 'Germanic state of the German nation' is obviously modelled on that of the Holy Roman Empire, Hitler had used the term germanisch before his stint in the Landsberg prison in what was clearly a racial formulation. Given that the chapter with which this quotation finishes deals with the question of Volk and race, the term Germanic would seem to refer to a racial identity. On New Year's Day 1921 Hitler contrasted Germanic and semitic in the same manner as he had contrasted German and Jewish in an article in the Volkischer Beobachter: '. . . the entire inner structure of our state is more semitic than Germanic . . . our entire commercial sector ... is more Jewish than it is German'.67 His notion of a Germanic state of the German nation thus seems to refer to the oppositional, pre-Heuslerian definition of Germanicness, one that had often been conceptualized as one of volkisch culture and racial essence in opposition to foreign influences: Roman, Hungarian or Jewish.

Hitler's notion of Germanic democracy, however, refers directly to an antiquarian practice: the old Germanic principle of election to kingship, one referred to in Tacitus (Germania 7) as well as sundry early medieval sources. It is also remarkable that Hitler uses the description Ger for 'spear' in the open-

64 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (44th edn, Munich 1933), 95, 99, 100. 65 Hitler, trans. Mannheim, Mein Kampf, op. cit., 312. 66 Werner Maser, trans. R.H. Barry, Hitler's Mein Kampf (London 1970), 50, 54, 56-7. 67 Adolf Hitler, 'Der volkische Gedanke und die Partei', Volkischer Beobachter, 35, 1 (1 January 1921), 1 [= idem, Sdmtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, ed. Eberhard Jackel with Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart 1980), 279].

through Germanicness to Aryanness (or Indo-Germanicness). Yet Hitler focused mostly on the Aryans - a racialist reification of the timeless notion of European superiority, as much Graeco-Roman as it was Germanic - not the ancient Germans and Germany of Arminius (Hermann), Wotan and the runes. While Rassen-Giinther was preparing his glorification of the Nordic race in German, Germanic and Aryan times, and while these distinctions are clearly evident in nazi educational literature of the late 1930s, Hitler seemed mostly uninterested in the Germanic pedigree in Germanness.

There are some indications, however, that this was not always the case in Hitler's thinking, and that the absence of an explicit Germanentum consciousness in his writings had a definable origin. Apart from the 'Germanic nation of the German people', Hitler also wrote of 'Germanic democracy' - a 'true' German democratic ideal which is mentioned three times in most editions of Mein Kampf.64 Yet a fourth is preserved in Mannheim's translation from the first edition, one that most later editions omit; and it may be no accident that this ephemeral passage closely precedes Hitler's denunciation of the 'deutschvolkisch wandering scholars'.65 The passage was substantially altered after the reorganization of the Party in 1928 in order to emphasize the control of Munich's Brown House over other branches and it appears that, given this opportunity, the Germanic aspect to democracy on this occasion was 'im- proved' away at the same time too.66

Although his description 'Germanic state of the German nation' is obviously modelled on that of the Holy Roman Empire, Hitler had used the term germanisch before his stint in the Landsberg prison in what was clearly a racial formulation. Given that the chapter with which this quotation finishes deals with the question of Volk and race, the term Germanic would seem to refer to a racial identity. On New Year's Day 1921 Hitler contrasted Germanic and semitic in the same manner as he had contrasted German and Jewish in an article in the Volkischer Beobachter: '. . . the entire inner structure of our state is more semitic than Germanic . . . our entire commercial sector ... is more Jewish than it is German'.67 His notion of a Germanic state of the German nation thus seems to refer to the oppositional, pre-Heuslerian definition of Germanicness, one that had often been conceptualized as one of volkisch culture and racial essence in opposition to foreign influences: Roman, Hungarian or Jewish.

Hitler's notion of Germanic democracy, however, refers directly to an antiquarian practice: the old Germanic principle of election to kingship, one referred to in Tacitus (Germania 7) as well as sundry early medieval sources. It is also remarkable that Hitler uses the description Ger for 'spear' in the open-

64 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (44th edn, Munich 1933), 95, 99, 100. 65 Hitler, trans. Mannheim, Mein Kampf, op. cit., 312. 66 Werner Maser, trans. R.H. Barry, Hitler's Mein Kampf (London 1970), 50, 54, 56-7. 67 Adolf Hitler, 'Der volkische Gedanke und die Partei', Volkischer Beobachter, 35, 1 (1 January 1921), 1 [= idem, Sdmtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, ed. Eberhard Jackel with Axel Kuhn (Stuttgart 1980), 279].

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ing passage quoted here from Mein Kampf, as Ger is a revived medieval German term: the usual word for 'spear' in German is Speer - Ger signifies the spear of the ancient Germanic tribes. Hence at the same time that he is ridiculing antiquity enthusiasts among the old right, he is using their very language. In contrast, when Hitler opined against Himmler and his enthusiasm for archaeology in his table-talk, the dictator, although understanding the essential Germanomania inherent in the new post-classicist archaeology, did not use technical terms similar to Ger: 'At a time when our forebears were producing the stone troughs and clay vessels about which our archaeologists have made such a to-do, the Greeks were building the Acropolis.'68 In fact, his young friend Kubizek notes that Hitler had a fascination for Germanic antiquity in his youth and his love for Wagner is well known.69 In a speech in 1934, Hitler is recorded saying that 'a thousand years before Rome was founded, the Germanic tribes had already reached a high cultural level' - a statement reminiscent of the Kossinna school-inspired deliberations of Himmler70 - and like Himmler, Hitler visited archaeological digs such as those at the Kyffhiiuser.71 Indeed, by 1942 the dictator is recorded as having formed an opinion on Detmold's Extern Stones: he was willing to believe that they were important to the ancient Germanic tribes, but despite the wild astro- archaeological theories of Teudt and the similarly Germanomaniacal musings of Himmler's academic prehistorians, they were 'clearly not a cultic site, but rather a place of refuge'.72 Hitler certainly had a sensibility for antiquarian concerns beyond his pronounced Graecophilia - he even seems to have react- ed positively toward Wirth and his Germanomaniacal gnostic 'Sinnbild- forschung'.73 The dictator's negative comments about those who wallowed in a Germanomania more abject than his own require contextualization, given his informed understanding of the old Germanic past.

Hitler's attitude to Germanicness is explained by his dislike of Wotanists or their latter-day racialist equivalents who styled themselves 'Ariosophists'. Hitler was such a myth-maker in matters such as antisemitism and equally

68 Hitler, 7 July 1942, apud Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespriiche im Fiihrer Hauptquartier (3rd edn, Stuttgart 1976), 426 [= trans. apud Werner Maser, trans. Peter and Betty Ross, Hitler (London 1973), 138-9]. Cf. also, Speer, Inside the Third Reich, op. cit., 94f. 69 Birgitte Hamann, trans. Thomas Thornton, Hitler's Vienna (New York 1999), 210. 70 Hitler, 5 December 1934, apud Lund, Germanenideologie, op. cit., 103-4; cf. Himmler, Document 1992(A)-PS, op. cit. 71 Haugmann, 'Archaeology in the "Third Reich"', op. cit., 70 (with a photograph from Hitler's visit). 72 Hitler, 4 February 1942, apud Picker, Hitlers Tischgespriiche, op. cit., 101. 73 Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks (London 1939), 225; Rauschning is a controversial source, but his recollection here appears to be independently supported by Wirth's own state- ments: see Poliakov and Wulf (eds), Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker, op. cit., 243 and Martin Broszat, 'Enthiillung? Die Rauschning Kontroverse', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 Sept- ember 1985 [= idem, Nach Hitler, ed. Hermann Graml and Klaus-Dieter Henke (2nd edn, Munich 1987), 249-511. In fact an inscribed copy of one of Wirth's books (Was hei/ft deutsch? [Jena 1931]) is to be found in the remains of Hitler's library in the Library of Congress, Washington (LC CB213).

ing passage quoted here from Mein Kampf, as Ger is a revived medieval German term: the usual word for 'spear' in German is Speer - Ger signifies the spear of the ancient Germanic tribes. Hence at the same time that he is ridiculing antiquity enthusiasts among the old right, he is using their very language. In contrast, when Hitler opined against Himmler and his enthusiasm for archaeology in his table-talk, the dictator, although understanding the essential Germanomania inherent in the new post-classicist archaeology, did not use technical terms similar to Ger: 'At a time when our forebears were producing the stone troughs and clay vessels about which our archaeologists have made such a to-do, the Greeks were building the Acropolis.'68 In fact, his young friend Kubizek notes that Hitler had a fascination for Germanic antiquity in his youth and his love for Wagner is well known.69 In a speech in 1934, Hitler is recorded saying that 'a thousand years before Rome was founded, the Germanic tribes had already reached a high cultural level' - a statement reminiscent of the Kossinna school-inspired deliberations of Himmler70 - and like Himmler, Hitler visited archaeological digs such as those at the Kyffhiiuser.71 Indeed, by 1942 the dictator is recorded as having formed an opinion on Detmold's Extern Stones: he was willing to believe that they were important to the ancient Germanic tribes, but despite the wild astro- archaeological theories of Teudt and the similarly Germanomaniacal musings of Himmler's academic prehistorians, they were 'clearly not a cultic site, but rather a place of refuge'.72 Hitler certainly had a sensibility for antiquarian concerns beyond his pronounced Graecophilia - he even seems to have react- ed positively toward Wirth and his Germanomaniacal gnostic 'Sinnbild- forschung'.73 The dictator's negative comments about those who wallowed in a Germanomania more abject than his own require contextualization, given his informed understanding of the old Germanic past.

Hitler's attitude to Germanicness is explained by his dislike of Wotanists or their latter-day racialist equivalents who styled themselves 'Ariosophists'. Hitler was such a myth-maker in matters such as antisemitism and equally

68 Hitler, 7 July 1942, apud Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespriiche im Fiihrer Hauptquartier (3rd edn, Stuttgart 1976), 426 [= trans. apud Werner Maser, trans. Peter and Betty Ross, Hitler (London 1973), 138-9]. Cf. also, Speer, Inside the Third Reich, op. cit., 94f. 69 Birgitte Hamann, trans. Thomas Thornton, Hitler's Vienna (New York 1999), 210. 70 Hitler, 5 December 1934, apud Lund, Germanenideologie, op. cit., 103-4; cf. Himmler, Document 1992(A)-PS, op. cit. 71 Haugmann, 'Archaeology in the "Third Reich"', op. cit., 70 (with a photograph from Hitler's visit). 72 Hitler, 4 February 1942, apud Picker, Hitlers Tischgespriiche, op. cit., 101. 73 Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks (London 1939), 225; Rauschning is a controversial source, but his recollection here appears to be independently supported by Wirth's own state- ments: see Poliakov and Wulf (eds), Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker, op. cit., 243 and Martin Broszat, 'Enthiillung? Die Rauschning Kontroverse', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 Sept- ember 1985 [= idem, Nach Hitler, ed. Hermann Graml and Klaus-Dieter Henke (2nd edn, Munich 1987), 249-511. In fact an inscribed copy of one of Wirth's books (Was hei/ft deutsch? [Jena 1931]) is to be found in the remains of Hitler's library in the Library of Congress, Washington (LC CB213).

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such an avid consumer of Wagner, that it would otherwise seem strange that he did not make the idealizing of Germanic antiquity one of his concerns. But he had little time for patent Germanomaniacal fantasies. Rauchning has Hitler say in 1933: 'These professors and mystery-men who want to found Nordic religions merely get in my way.'74 So, similarly, in Mein Kampf Hitler attacks 'so-called religious reformers' who wanted to return German religiosity to 'an old Germanic basis'.75 This passage seems to be a reference directly aimed not at the German Christianity of Lagarde, the Deutsche Christen and J. Wilhelm Hauer's Deutsche Glaubensbewegung, however, but at Ariosophists like Lanz von Liebenfels and his German counterparts. The old Austrian radical-right enjoyed a strong obscurantistic connection: Schonerer, for example, had been a Wotanist and an associate of the Ariosophical founder Guido (von) List.76 The Thule Society, too, was dominated by Ariosophical concerns; its very symbol - a burning swastika imposed on a Bronze Age dagger - fairly reeks of the mystical. Brigitte Hamann's linkage of Hitler with the writings of List seems misinformed, however: her connection of List's Secret of the Runes to an illustrated book seen carried by Hitler in his youth seems a bad guess, as List's work has only one page of illustration.77 Hitler's vegetarianism also appears to be a reflection of his relationship to the gnostic far-right - like Wagner, many of the old Viennese right had promoted this radical aspect of life reform, as did several of the German obscurantists who had been drawn to National Socialism.78 Mysticists in the 1920s certainly counted Hitler as one of their number.79 But it is evident that the one-time drummer had little time for the more extreme Germanicist religionists.

The only mention of Wotanists and Ariosophists in Mein Kampf is this brief dismissal found immediately after Hitler's similar attack on the 'deutschvolkisch wandering scholars'. His ambivalence to Germanic antiquity seems to stem from a rejection of the mystical nationalism of these groups as well as a desire to mark out the 'young movement' from the failed, impotent, often Germanomaniacal, antiquarian-enthusing old right. Where a member of the pre-war radical-right might have stressed Germanicness, in Mein Kampf instead we find Aryans.

Hitler's repeated stress on the Aryan (and even the 'German-Aryan') seems

74 Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, op. cit., 59. 75 Hitler, trans. Mannheim, Mein Kampf, op. cit., 328. 76 Andrew G. Whiteside, The Socialism of Fools (Berkeley, CA 1975), 8ff. 77 Guido von List, Das Geheimnis der Runen (Gross Lichterfelde [1907]); Hamann, Hitler's Vienna, op. cit. 78 Hitler cited Wagner's dietary ideal to justify his vegetarianism, but his doctors report that he ascribed his herbivorous diet to positive effects on his bodily functions, ones which seem quite unlike those typi

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Hitler and Germanentum

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