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The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust
A groundbreaking history of the Nazi research institute whose work helped lead to the extermination of millions
In 1935, Heinrich Himmler established a Nazi research institute called The Ahnenerbe, whose mission was to send teams of scholars around the world to search for proof of Ancient Aryan conquests. But history was not their most important focus. Rather, the Ahnenerbe was an essential part of Himmler's master plan for the Final Solution. The findings of the institute were used to convince armies of SS men that they were entitled to slaughter Jews and other groups. And Himmler also hoped to use the research as a blueprint for the breeding of a new Europe in a racially purer mold.
The Master Plan is a groundbreaking expose of the work of German scientists and scholars who allowed their research to be warped to justify extermination, and who directly participated in the slaughter -- many of whom resumed their academic positions at war's end. It is based on Heather Pringle's extensive original research, including previously ignored archival material and unpublished photographs, and interviews with living members of the institute and their survivors.
A sweeping history told with the drama of fiction, The Master Plan is at once horrifying, transfixing, and monumentally important to our comprehension of how something as unimaginable as the Holocaust could have progressed from fantasy to reality.
In 1935, Heinrich Himmler established a Nazi research institute called The Ahnenerbe, whose mission was to send teams of scholars around the world to search for proof of Ancient Aryan conquests. But history was not their most important focus. Rather, the Ahnenerbe was an essential part of Himmler's master plan for the Final Solution. The findings of the institute were used to convince armies of SS men that they were entitled to slaughter Jews and other groups. And Himmler also hoped to use the research as a blueprint for the breeding of a new Europe in a racially purer mold.
The Master Plan is a groundbreaking expose of the work of German scientists and scholars who allowed their research to be warped to justify extermination, and who directly participated in the slaughter -- many of whom resumed their academic positions at war's end. It is based on Heather Pringle's extensive original research, including previously ignored archival material and unpublished photographs, and interviews with living members of the institute and their survivors.
A sweeping history told with the drama of fiction, The Master Plan is at once horrifying, transfixing, and monumentally important to our comprehension of how something as unimaginable as the Holocaust could have progressed from fantasy to reality.
480 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
April 23, 2014
It's oddly fascinating to read the litany of bizarre things Himmler and like-minded Nazi scientists were willing to believe. Anything was plausible, so long as meant Germans were the best at everything in history. Roman civilization? Jump started by Aryan invaders. India? Aryans. Atlantis? Aryans. Thor's hammer? Aryan electrical weapon. It would almost be funny, if the same lines of reasoning weren't used as justification for murder on a mind-numbing scale. It made me wonder what it must have been like to be a German high school student in 1945 and discover, practically overnight, that nearly everything I'd ever been taught, about history and science, was little more than fantasy.
It's when the "science" moves from archeology to medicine that this book gets so much more difficult to read, as Holocaust-related books tend to do. It must be so hard to write on this subject, and Pringle does an excellent job. She's clear, direct, and plain in the facts without reveling in gory details. It makes wrenching chapters bearable to read.
I also have to give Pringle respect for how thoroughly she cited her sources. One chapter of roughly ten pages had more than fifty end notes. How great is that? I've read entire history books that didn't have that many citations! I know most readers don't care, but it makes me very happy, and it gives me confidence in what the author is presenting.
It's when the "science" moves from archeology to medicine that this book gets so much more difficult to read, as Holocaust-related books tend to do. It must be so hard to write on this subject, and Pringle does an excellent job. She's clear, direct, and plain in the facts without reveling in gory details. It makes wrenching chapters bearable to read.
I also have to give Pringle respect for how thoroughly she cited her sources. One chapter of roughly ten pages had more than fifty end notes. How great is that? I've read entire history books that didn't have that many citations! I know most readers don't care, but it makes me very happy, and it gives me confidence in what the author is presenting.
March 28, 2017
While many historians have spent a great deal of time on the various aspects of the Third Reich, few have taken the time to see how the terrible power of science and its manipulation in order to set the foundations for and to justify some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust. Heather Pringle's easy to read and fascinating look at the shadowy organization that propagated the various racial theories that formed the basis of Nazi science.
On July 1, 1935, in a spacious, sunlit office in SS Headquarters in Berlin, Himmler convened a meeting to discuss a new organization- Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte‚ Deutsches Ahnenerbe. Or the Study Society for Primordial Intellectual history, German Ancestral Heritage. It is also known by it's 1937 name- Forschungs- und Lehrgemeinschaft des Ahnenerbe. Or Research and Teaching Community of the Ancestral Heritage, better known by its shortened version- the Ahnenerbe. The formally stated goal of the Ahnenerbe was "to promote the science of ancient intellectual history". Reality would be rather different.
The book studies the various programs run by the Ahnenerbe from the expeditions sent out to Tibet, to racial studies carried out in Concentration camps on "Jewishness", to searching for clues on the original Aryans and using that history to support the Nazi racial theories.
It is a fascinating and chilling look into how some scientists and academics, by no means were all of these people kooks-some were brilliant in their fields, worked closely with the Nazi government. To be fair, many of these scientists and academics were Nazi's themselves- by choice. Others were morally deficient and ignored whom they were working for in order to forward their scientific research. I won't spend this review talking about the various theories and atrocities. This is a book worth reading.
The Master Plan does a very good job of presenting the history of the Ahnenerbe in an easily read format. The writing is smooth and keeps your interest. Pringle does an excellent job of prefacing the entire story with a look into Heinrich Himmler, his upbringing and beliefs. It also shows the history of the Aryan argument, the actual historical basis of these historical facts and how the Nazi's perverted them to their own use. The book never bogs down into deeply technical jargon, rather the reader is kept fascinated by the series of events, fanciful imaginings and some downright scary scientific realities that represent the legacy of the Ahnenerbe.
At the end of the day, setting aside the kooks-and there were plenty of those, there were some seriously brilliant and talented scholars who worked in the Ahnenerbe. The final chapter of the book traces the final outcomes of these luminaries and it is rather interesting. In the months following the German surrender, Allied forces had attempted arresting all leading Nazi party and government officials. Not surprisingly- schools were left without teachers, telephone exchanges without operators, post offices without postal workers, well you get the drift- life ground to a halt. So the Allies quickly changed the policy and established local denazification tribunals. These tribunals handed down one of five categories of complicity- from "exonerated" and "fellow traveller", to "lesser activist," "activist," and "major offender". Not surprisingly the system had its flaws and Nazi's manged to filter through the holes. It had become such a running joke amongst Germans about Nazi's who "had a Jewish friend that they saved" that a new term- Persilscheine (White Washing Certificates) was coined for the tribunal's paperwork. In fact the tribunals themselves were called Mitläuferfabriken or factories for mass producing "fellow travellers". To be fair to the Germans with the onset of the Cold War, the Allies lost much of their fervor for finding and prosecuting Nazi war criminals since the Soviets were busy snatching up ex-GESTAPO and SS men to recreate the STASI. As a result many important Nazis escaped virtually unscathed from denazification. They assumed their former jobs and picked up the pieces of their lives again, as if nothing had ever happened. This seems to be the case for the senior Ahnenerbe's researchers.
Dr. Herman Wirth, who helped Himmler create the Ahnenerbe, was arrested by the Americans. But they were unaware of who he really was (he was calling himself Wirth-Roeper Bosch) until he was denounced by a neighbor. But his Nazi disavowal was masterful and he was deemed a "political victim of the Third Reich" and released. Strangely, visitors to his home in Lund mention above the fireplace a large oil painting of Wirth dressed in his SS uniform (he was a SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer in the RuSHA) hung in his private library. Hmm. Nothing to see here. Perfectly normal. Move along. Dr. Wirth nearly did- he rehabilitated his image to the point where officials in Rhineland-Palatinate drew up plans in the late 1970s for a new museum to be installed in the small castle of the town of Thallichtenberg at a cost of 1.1 million marks. But a Spiegel reporter dug up his Nazi past and dashed any hopes of a comeback. Stubbornly his admirers have refused to let his ideas die. German publishers continue to publish pseudo-science books on ancient symbol research and some kooky German filmakers have floated the idea of a primeval high civilization in Northern Europe. Today in the small Austiran town of Spital am Pyhrn one can see in their museum, in a bright, well-lit room an exhibit of Dr. Wirth's fourteen plasts of rock art he took for the Ahnenerbe.
Yrjo von Gronhagen, the scholar who recorded the magical spells of Finnish shamans for Himmler, was deemed to have worked as an "extraordinary representative of the Finnish government furthering German-Finnish cultural exchange". Ok then. Gronghagen went on to live in Lapland. He bought a tourist hotel, became the general secretary for the Order of St. Constantine the Great-a Christian ecumenical organization dedicated to keeping alive the intellectual heritage of the ancient Greek and Byzantine civilizations. For more than 30 years he spent his summers in Lapland and winters in Greece. Finally returning to Helsinki in 2000, he dies at the age of 92 in 2003.
Dr. Franz Altheim, close friend of Goring, and former SD agent stuck to the "I'm just a historian" line. He manged to find two instances of him using his former Ahnenerbe contacts to help save two former colleagues at the University of Oslo as enough an excuse to have the Soviet authorities release him. Dr. Altheim escaped to the west in 1949 and started a professorship at the Free University in Berlin. Altheim went on to a brilliant academic career at the Free University and an equally brilliant retirement in Munster.
I could go on but I have no desire to write a book. You get the point. It is a bit creepy. This is a very interesting book. I also enjoy the final post script chapter where the author was finally allowed to interview with former Nazi racial expert Bruno Berger in Konigstein in 2002. His strident beliefs in the Jews as a "mongrel race" and his "amnesia" regarding the Ahnenerbe work at Natzweiler Concentration Camp, not to mention his bizarre collection of "historical artifacts", is downright Kafkaesque.
Good book. Well written. Interesting and easy to read. It's about a really interesting organization and some really out there theories were the foundation and impetus for the Holocaust. During the Holocaust the Ahnenerbe actively participated in many of the medical experimentation on Jewish prisoners. It founded expeditions into areas as diverse as Finland to Tibet. A very interesting read. If you are interested in World War II-then you will like this.
On July 1, 1935, in a spacious, sunlit office in SS Headquarters in Berlin, Himmler convened a meeting to discuss a new organization- Studiengesellschaft für Geistesurgeschichte‚ Deutsches Ahnenerbe. Or the Study Society for Primordial Intellectual history, German Ancestral Heritage. It is also known by it's 1937 name- Forschungs- und Lehrgemeinschaft des Ahnenerbe. Or Research and Teaching Community of the Ancestral Heritage, better known by its shortened version- the Ahnenerbe. The formally stated goal of the Ahnenerbe was "to promote the science of ancient intellectual history". Reality would be rather different.
The book studies the various programs run by the Ahnenerbe from the expeditions sent out to Tibet, to racial studies carried out in Concentration camps on "Jewishness", to searching for clues on the original Aryans and using that history to support the Nazi racial theories.
It is a fascinating and chilling look into how some scientists and academics, by no means were all of these people kooks-some were brilliant in their fields, worked closely with the Nazi government. To be fair, many of these scientists and academics were Nazi's themselves- by choice. Others were morally deficient and ignored whom they were working for in order to forward their scientific research. I won't spend this review talking about the various theories and atrocities. This is a book worth reading.
The Master Plan does a very good job of presenting the history of the Ahnenerbe in an easily read format. The writing is smooth and keeps your interest. Pringle does an excellent job of prefacing the entire story with a look into Heinrich Himmler, his upbringing and beliefs. It also shows the history of the Aryan argument, the actual historical basis of these historical facts and how the Nazi's perverted them to their own use. The book never bogs down into deeply technical jargon, rather the reader is kept fascinated by the series of events, fanciful imaginings and some downright scary scientific realities that represent the legacy of the Ahnenerbe.
At the end of the day, setting aside the kooks-and there were plenty of those, there were some seriously brilliant and talented scholars who worked in the Ahnenerbe. The final chapter of the book traces the final outcomes of these luminaries and it is rather interesting. In the months following the German surrender, Allied forces had attempted arresting all leading Nazi party and government officials. Not surprisingly- schools were left without teachers, telephone exchanges without operators, post offices without postal workers, well you get the drift- life ground to a halt. So the Allies quickly changed the policy and established local denazification tribunals. These tribunals handed down one of five categories of complicity- from "exonerated" and "fellow traveller", to "lesser activist," "activist," and "major offender". Not surprisingly the system had its flaws and Nazi's manged to filter through the holes. It had become such a running joke amongst Germans about Nazi's who "had a Jewish friend that they saved" that a new term- Persilscheine (White Washing Certificates) was coined for the tribunal's paperwork. In fact the tribunals themselves were called Mitläuferfabriken or factories for mass producing "fellow travellers". To be fair to the Germans with the onset of the Cold War, the Allies lost much of their fervor for finding and prosecuting Nazi war criminals since the Soviets were busy snatching up ex-GESTAPO and SS men to recreate the STASI. As a result many important Nazis escaped virtually unscathed from denazification. They assumed their former jobs and picked up the pieces of their lives again, as if nothing had ever happened. This seems to be the case for the senior Ahnenerbe's researchers.
Dr. Herman Wirth, who helped Himmler create the Ahnenerbe, was arrested by the Americans. But they were unaware of who he really was (he was calling himself Wirth-Roeper Bosch) until he was denounced by a neighbor. But his Nazi disavowal was masterful and he was deemed a "political victim of the Third Reich" and released. Strangely, visitors to his home in Lund mention above the fireplace a large oil painting of Wirth dressed in his SS uniform (he was a SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer in the RuSHA) hung in his private library. Hmm. Nothing to see here. Perfectly normal. Move along. Dr. Wirth nearly did- he rehabilitated his image to the point where officials in Rhineland-Palatinate drew up plans in the late 1970s for a new museum to be installed in the small castle of the town of Thallichtenberg at a cost of 1.1 million marks. But a Spiegel reporter dug up his Nazi past and dashed any hopes of a comeback. Stubbornly his admirers have refused to let his ideas die. German publishers continue to publish pseudo-science books on ancient symbol research and some kooky German filmakers have floated the idea of a primeval high civilization in Northern Europe. Today in the small Austiran town of Spital am Pyhrn one can see in their museum, in a bright, well-lit room an exhibit of Dr. Wirth's fourteen plasts of rock art he took for the Ahnenerbe.
Yrjo von Gronhagen, the scholar who recorded the magical spells of Finnish shamans for Himmler, was deemed to have worked as an "extraordinary representative of the Finnish government furthering German-Finnish cultural exchange". Ok then. Gronghagen went on to live in Lapland. He bought a tourist hotel, became the general secretary for the Order of St. Constantine the Great-a Christian ecumenical organization dedicated to keeping alive the intellectual heritage of the ancient Greek and Byzantine civilizations. For more than 30 years he spent his summers in Lapland and winters in Greece. Finally returning to Helsinki in 2000, he dies at the age of 92 in 2003.
Dr. Franz Altheim, close friend of Goring, and former SD agent stuck to the "I'm just a historian" line. He manged to find two instances of him using his former Ahnenerbe contacts to help save two former colleagues at the University of Oslo as enough an excuse to have the Soviet authorities release him. Dr. Altheim escaped to the west in 1949 and started a professorship at the Free University in Berlin. Altheim went on to a brilliant academic career at the Free University and an equally brilliant retirement in Munster.
I could go on but I have no desire to write a book. You get the point. It is a bit creepy. This is a very interesting book. I also enjoy the final post script chapter where the author was finally allowed to interview with former Nazi racial expert Bruno Berger in Konigstein in 2002. His strident beliefs in the Jews as a "mongrel race" and his "amnesia" regarding the Ahnenerbe work at Natzweiler Concentration Camp, not to mention his bizarre collection of "historical artifacts", is downright Kafkaesque.
Good book. Well written. Interesting and easy to read. It's about a really interesting organization and some really out there theories were the foundation and impetus for the Holocaust. During the Holocaust the Ahnenerbe actively participated in many of the medical experimentation on Jewish prisoners. It founded expeditions into areas as diverse as Finland to Tibet. A very interesting read. If you are interested in World War II-then you will like this.
June 13, 2016
A highly important subject that doesn’t always gets enough of focus. When people think about the holocaust they usually think about the network of concentration and death camps. But another hideous crime the Nazis have committed during those dark days was done in the name of so called science. Here Pringle describes the two main objects of these scientists (if you actually can call them that) - the first was proving the superiority of the Aryan race over other races (especially Jews), while the second was helping the war effort by preforming horrible experiments on human beings.
Another aspect the book deals with is that some Nazis, including Himmler himself had a strong interest in mysticism and the occult. It’s an interesting subject for itself but here the book lacked in strength with not so much information and description on this subject. Another downside (especially at the beginning) was that Pringle described too much biographical details about the main people involved with the Ahnenerbe (a Nazi research institute), details that are not that important in order to describe this history.
Overall, an important report that shows that evil has no boundaries and that even scientists who are trained to search for the truth and to help mankind can be corrupted to the extant of losing their humanity.
Another aspect the book deals with is that some Nazis, including Himmler himself had a strong interest in mysticism and the occult. It’s an interesting subject for itself but here the book lacked in strength with not so much information and description on this subject. Another downside (especially at the beginning) was that Pringle described too much biographical details about the main people involved with the Ahnenerbe (a Nazi research institute), details that are not that important in order to describe this history.
Overall, an important report that shows that evil has no boundaries and that even scientists who are trained to search for the truth and to help mankind can be corrupted to the extant of losing their humanity.
February 1, 2020
Using a Christmas gift card from Erik Badger, I picked this up at Armadillo Books on Sheridan Road, besides Heirloom Books on Clark, the other used bookstore on Chicago's north side.
As noted as regards similar books about the Nazis and WWII, my interest in those topics is at once more and less personal, Dad having fought them, Mom, and most of my family, having grown up under German occupation in Norway. More impersonally, however, I am intrigued by what I regard as human craziness, not only as regards Nazi ideology but also as regards religion and politics.
You don't get much crazier that Himmler's Ahnenerbe, a research organization designed to justify some main points of Nazi ideology, including such things as their race theory, their Aryan origins theory, the religious beliefs and practices they intended to replace Judeo-Christianity, their cosmology et cetera. Even Hitler thought a lot of it was nutty, but gave his devoted Himmler the space to follow some of his own peculiar conceits. On the race business, however, they were in practical agreement and that was what most counted in Hitler's mind.
This is not a complete review of the Ahnenerbe, the emphasis being on colorful personnel, on some of their most notable expeditions and, finally, on their direct involvement with the extermination of undesireable populations for the sake of 'medical' and ethnographical research. Not mentioned was the considerable amount of research done on the history of witchcraft or the occult beliefs of some of their members in reference to the earlier Thule Society and the German volkish movement in general. Nor is their any mention of the hollow earth theory to which some Nazi bigwigs subscribed.
Clearly written, easily read, this is not an academic study. Nor, as indicated, is it exhaustive.
As noted as regards similar books about the Nazis and WWII, my interest in those topics is at once more and less personal, Dad having fought them, Mom, and most of my family, having grown up under German occupation in Norway. More impersonally, however, I am intrigued by what I regard as human craziness, not only as regards Nazi ideology but also as regards religion and politics.
You don't get much crazier that Himmler's Ahnenerbe, a research organization designed to justify some main points of Nazi ideology, including such things as their race theory, their Aryan origins theory, the religious beliefs and practices they intended to replace Judeo-Christianity, their cosmology et cetera. Even Hitler thought a lot of it was nutty, but gave his devoted Himmler the space to follow some of his own peculiar conceits. On the race business, however, they were in practical agreement and that was what most counted in Hitler's mind.
This is not a complete review of the Ahnenerbe, the emphasis being on colorful personnel, on some of their most notable expeditions and, finally, on their direct involvement with the extermination of undesireable populations for the sake of 'medical' and ethnographical research. Not mentioned was the considerable amount of research done on the history of witchcraft or the occult beliefs of some of their members in reference to the earlier Thule Society and the German volkish movement in general. Nor is their any mention of the hollow earth theory to which some Nazi bigwigs subscribed.
Clearly written, easily read, this is not an academic study. Nor, as indicated, is it exhaustive.
November 10, 2009
A brilliant history of the "Ahnenerbe", a "research" wing of the SS, created by Heinrich Himmler in 1935 to search for lost Nordic artifacts and influences throughout the world. Himmler was convinced, (as well as alot of other crackpot German nationalists) that civilization started not in the Middle East, but in Northern Europe since the "Aryans" were the superior, master race. This basic theory led to the thinking that great civilizations throughout history--the Persians, the Romans and even Tibetans--must have some sort of "Nordic blood". Himmler assembled a team of academics from fields as diverse as anthropology and geology to travel Europe and the seven continents looking for lost Germanic ancestors. Crazy, crackpot stuff and bunk history, but relatively harmless--that is until the war started. The Ahnenerbe was given the task of looting museums and private homes throughout the occupied countries looking for "Germanic artifacts" which they stole and were also employed in "Jew identification" among the varied peoples of the Soviet Union. Ahnenerbe researchers measured Jewish faces, made plaster casts of them and attempted to find the exact physical qualifications for a Jew; (they never were able to). The Ahnenerbe's medical division branched out into terrible experiments on living people and the collection of skulls, bones and skin for museums. Most of the Ahnenerbe's staff--all academics and doctors--went onto academic careers in German universities after the war. A fascinating book about a mostly unknown subject.
January 22, 2014
-Tratando de inventar la Historia con supercherías.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Exposición de los hechos que rodearon la intención de Himmler de una búsqueda de evidencias "irrefutables" que soportasen las ideas relacionadas con la “herencia ancestral aria” y la consiguiente creación de la Ahnenerbe, instituto de investigación, localización, estudio, transmisión y publicitación de dichos hallazgos, relatando varias de sus expediciones y explicando las personalidades, trasfondos y destinos de varios de sus miembros y colaboradores más destacados dentro y fuera del instituto.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Exposición de los hechos que rodearon la intención de Himmler de una búsqueda de evidencias "irrefutables" que soportasen las ideas relacionadas con la “herencia ancestral aria” y la consiguiente creación de la Ahnenerbe, instituto de investigación, localización, estudio, transmisión y publicitación de dichos hallazgos, relatando varias de sus expediciones y explicando las personalidades, trasfondos y destinos de varios de sus miembros y colaboradores más destacados dentro y fuera del instituto.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
January 22, 2014
-Tratando de inventar la Historia con supercherías.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Exposición de los hechos que rodearon la intención de Himmler de una búsqueda de evidencias "irrefutables" que soportasen las ideas relacionadas con la “herencia ancestral aria” y la consiguiente creación de la Ahnenerbe, instituto de investigación, localización, estudio, transmisión y publicitación de dichos hallazgos, relatando varias de sus expediciones y explicando las personalidades, trasfondos y destinos de varios de sus miembros y colaboradores más destacados dentro y fuera del instituto.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Exposición de los hechos que rodearon la intención de Himmler de una búsqueda de evidencias "irrefutables" que soportasen las ideas relacionadas con la “herencia ancestral aria” y la consiguiente creación de la Ahnenerbe, instituto de investigación, localización, estudio, transmisión y publicitación de dichos hallazgos, relatando varias de sus expediciones y explicando las personalidades, trasfondos y destinos de varios de sus miembros y colaboradores más destacados dentro y fuera del instituto.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
May 5, 2025
Imagine citing Franz Boas as an authority on anything 😳.
Not entirely devoid of value, but her constant attempts at mocking German visionaries made them almost sympathetic. Liberal deconstructionism is quite boring.
Not entirely devoid of value, but her constant attempts at mocking German visionaries made them almost sympathetic. Liberal deconstructionism is quite boring.
January 22, 2014
-Tratando de inventar la Historia con supercherías.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Exposición de los hechos que rodearon la intención de Himmler de una búsqueda de evidencias "irrefutables" que soportasen las ideas relacionadas con la “herencia ancestral aria” y la consiguiente creación de la Ahnenerbe, instituto de investigación, localización, estudio, transmisión y publicitación de dichos hallazgos, relatando varias de sus expediciones y explicando las personalidades, trasfondos y destinos de varios de sus miembros y colaboradores más destacados dentro y fuera del instituto.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Exposición de los hechos que rodearon la intención de Himmler de una búsqueda de evidencias "irrefutables" que soportasen las ideas relacionadas con la “herencia ancestral aria” y la consiguiente creación de la Ahnenerbe, instituto de investigación, localización, estudio, transmisión y publicitación de dichos hallazgos, relatando varias de sus expediciones y explicando las personalidades, trasfondos y destinos de varios de sus miembros y colaboradores más destacados dentro y fuera del instituto.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
August 12, 2020
The Master Plan is an interesting look at Nazi junk scholarship, and the compromises that even highly competent academics and researchers were willing to make in order to advance their careers in the twisted world of the Third Reich.
In an age of climate change denial, anti-vaccination activists, and hold-out municipalities that don't fluoridate their public water systems, Heather Pringle's work of history illuminates some of the political mechanisms that can allow junk science to survive and maintain influence over policy long after the work has been dismissed by the scholarly community at large.
If the Nazis sought particularly gruesome outcomes from the work of the Ahnenerbe, the tactics they used to promote blatant falsehoods are all the more chilling for the fact that others have adopted those same tactics in our own time.
In an age of climate change denial, anti-vaccination activists, and hold-out municipalities that don't fluoridate their public water systems, Heather Pringle's work of history illuminates some of the political mechanisms that can allow junk science to survive and maintain influence over policy long after the work has been dismissed by the scholarly community at large.
If the Nazis sought particularly gruesome outcomes from the work of the Ahnenerbe, the tactics they used to promote blatant falsehoods are all the more chilling for the fact that others have adopted those same tactics in our own time.
March 10, 2024
A harrowing read, but important to face and definitely worth the cost. A good reminder that humanity itself is broken, and so no human-generated action can provide a panacea. Science is a limited tool in an erring hand. As with all human endeavours, the potential for good and ill are ever-present. For myself, I wanted more of the account of the scholarship itself, but this is an important piece of history to have.
August 22, 2017
We all know that Heinrich Himmler, the author and overlord of the Nazi Final Solution, was a mass murderer. What we might not know is that behind his murderous instincts was an attachment to scientific analysis and rational thought—at least in his mind. Whatever his scientific and intellectual talents, he was capable of a psychopathic misdiagnosis of both a “problem” and a “solution.” He was an example of a certain type of dangerous individual—deep intellectual curiosity, a belief that he is eminently rational, a thirst for power, and totally clueless about his misuse of that power.
The SS—of which Heinrich Himmler was Reichsführer-SS—emerged from the SA, the “brownshirts” that did Hitler’s dirty work in the 1920s. From its start as Hitler’s personal guard the SS it grew rapidly in both numbers and functions after Himmler was given absolute authority, subject only to Hitler’s approval. Ultimately the SS became a major paramilitary force responsible for state security, protection of the Nazi elite, and for administration of policies regarding “undesirables,” that is, the concentration camps and execution of Jews and political prisoners. A portion of it—the Wafen-SS—also provided ground troops as fodder for Stalin’s cannons.
Within the SS Himmler hid a research organization called the Deutshes Ahnenerbe, an organization charged with advancing the cause of “scientific racism.” This is the subject of Heather Pringle’s The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust (2006). The book has two primary themes: the extent of Himmler’s power and of his efforts to find evidence supporting the notion of a master race called the Aryans, and the details of the Ahnenerbe’s research programs.
The book is not a catalogue of Nazi atrocities, though those are unavoidable. Rather, it is tale of “science” gone amok, of how “science” can be misused and abused when it is guided by a firm belief of what it will discover, that is, when an “hypothesis” (a speculation) is taken as a conclusion (a truth) without benefit of proper testing. It is also about what happens when the chief “scientist” is also an absolute ruler who exercises power without a moral compass. And finally, it is a tale about the “banality of evil,” about how cultured and highly civilized individuals—people with whom you might enjoy a gallon of schnapps—could sponsor such inhumane ideas to create a massive killing field.
As a science writer Pringle is steeped in the scientific method as well as experimental methods and scientific theory. And she is an able writer, teasing nuances from her material that aren’t obvious to the reader. This is a fascinating story about a horrible misuse of science in the 20th century, a story about how the very clever can also be very dumb. Anyone interested in the genesis of evil the Nazis embodied, and in the failure of intelligence to be used intelligently will learn from this book. I found it fascinating, especially in its description of how “science” was used to formulate a coherent and misguided Master Plan for the Third Reich.
This is fascinating material on many levels, and well worth its Five Stars!
The SS and Racial Research
The Deutsches Ahnenerbe was created in 1935 as a research institute within the SS. Ahnenerbe was a German word for “inherited from the forefathers” so this could be translated as “The German Ancestral Heritage Institute.” The primary researchers in the institute were SS members chosen for their Aryan characteristics, their loyalty to Nazi ideals, their education in relevant fields—and, ultimately, their willingness to twist evidence to support Nazi “truths.” A Director who reported only to Himmler, who reported only to Hitler, dictated its programs.
The Ahnenerbe employed a wide array of scholars: archeologists, ethnologists, historians, geographers, experts in ancient languages, artists, folklorists, musicologists, and so on. Anyone who had expertise that might support the Nazi worldview could apply. And what was that worldview? Simply stated, it was that an extremely ancient race called the Aryans, a race preceding the Egyptians, Sumerians, and their known predecessors, was the source of both western civilization and of German heritage. This race was “Nordic,” characterized by blond hair, blue eyes, a long and lean frame, and exceptional intelligence. It was the Ur-Race from which we all sprang.
Modern movies and books (think Raiders of the Lost Ark) often emphasize the Nazi infatuation with symbols—pictographs, petroglyphs, hieroglyphics, and so on. This arose from a search for evidence that writing began well before Egyptian hieroglyphic and Near-Eastern (Sumerian) cuneiform writing. Clearly, writing is an essential characteristic of civilization, and since the Aryan civilization predated those with known writing forms, there must be an earlier form of writing, an aboriginal writing by the Ur-Race, that permeated all later civilizations and gave the Aryans primacy in kick-starting civilization.
So the Ahnenerbe focused considerable interest on symbols that might be indications of Aryan writing. Expeditions were sent to places near and far. The “near” included the European cave drawings (pictographs) and the abundant stone carvings and runic symbols (petroglyphs) in northern Europe. Regrettably, these could only be dated back to Roman times—no help there. The “far” expeditions included India and Tibet (thought to be the origin of the Aryans) and the Middle East.
The Ahnenerbe’s Director had to wear two heavy hats. The first was the scholar’s cap; it as essential that the Director and his team have the respect of the community of scholars. The second was the politician’s cap, requiring conformity with the views of those who put bread on his table. These were diametrically opposed, and bread on the table is everyone’s priority. So evidence was distorted to fit the Nazi ideology, a twist that was not applauded by true scholars. An example suffices.
Herman Wirth, the Ahnenerbe’s first Director, was considered an outstanding scholar within Nazi ranks. But he—and his successors—were not highly regarded by mainstream intellectuals. Wirth’s research uncovered no evidence of an Aryan race even though it dredged the depths of ancient lore, including searched for the lost continent of Atlantis. But how was Wirth regarded by scholars? In 1929 Wirth had published a book on racial theory and an eminent scholar panned it, couching his criticism in words that softened the blow but not the message,
In short, no matter how much twisting of evidence the Ahnenerbe employed it discovered nothing that supported the Nazi Master Plan, and its methods were considered nonscientific and fantastical. But one shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good idea, and lack of evidence is evidence, so the Master Plan stood firm. We’ll get to just what that Plan was a bit later.
The Ahnenerbe and Scientific Racism
Himmler and the research arm of the SS badly misconstrued the scientific method—the core of science. The correct scientific method is the formulation of an hypothesis (a tentative speculation about how the world works) followed by development and implementation of tests of that hypothesis. It is essential that a hypothesis be “testable.” But what does that mean?
The proper form of a test is a search for evidence that refutes the hypothesis. Thus, a “testable hypothesis” is one for which, in principle, there might be evidence that it is false. A simple example is the logical proposition “All swans are white.” If you believe that statement and test it by counting swans, you will reject the few black swans you find as “anomalies,” that is, “exceptions that prove the rule.” Its an example of what psychologists call “confirmation bias,” you find what you are looking for. This was the Nazi method: adopt a speculation (hypothesis)—“All Jews are vermin”—as a truth, then search for evidence supporting that “truth.” The problem is that once you start from a truth and look for supporting evidence, you will find what you look for--a phenomenon scientists call "confirmation bias."
The correct application of the scientific method is, of course, to always treat your idea as a hypothesis and look for evidence that refutes it. In other words, you draw your conclusions when you encounter the first non-white swan or the first good Jew. This has the advantage of significantly abbreviating the test period.
The core of Nazi racial theories was the belief that modern civilization sprang from an Ur-Race of “Aryans” that preceded known races. The Aryans were an ancient Nordic race characterized by light skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and extreme intelligence. They were the fountain of Europe’s literature, music, culture, science, technology, and moral tenets. Hence Hitler’s well-known devotion to Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung.” Built on the Norse sagas, the 13th century Icelandic Eddas, and, particularly, the Volsunga Saga Wagner's opera sang of a great Norse hero named Sigurd who killed the dragon Fafnir; of course, in the end everyone dies.
Even in the 1930s the notion of “race” was suspect—ethnicity, culture, ideology, skin color, eye color, and worldview certainly differ across groups, but this didn’t constitute separation by something called “race.” Doubts about “racial” distinctions have only increased in recent years, just as the concept of “racism” has exploded. Since the demise of Neanderthals we have all been in the “race” of Homo Sapiens. That we have followed different paths to the present—and acquired different physical characteristics—does not make us into different races any more than Wildebeests gathering around a watering spot can be called different races because they approached from different directions.
The definition of race became most problematic for the Nazis when attention turned to the question, “What is a Jew?” Is “he” an adherent to certain religious practices, an inhabitant of certain locations, a person with specific physical features, the child of a Jewish mother (oops: circularity), or one who shares specific genes? It seems that the genetic test would be most appropriate—after all, the Nazis believed genetic atrophy was the Jewish crime.
But the gene was only an idea at that time, and even if there had been knowledge of DNA it would have been found that there was little genetic commonality among those who described themselves as Jews. Indeed, this plagued the Ahnenerbe as it attempted to define Jewishness and found exceptions to each taxonomy, exceptions so serious that it affected the morale of the SS killing squads. In effect, the research into “scientific racism” led to as few answers as the research into Aryan origins. This was disturbing—you just didn’t know whom to kill? But no matter, they must be killed!
Aryanism and the Master Plan
The concept of Aryanism began with a British naturalist in the mid-18th century who argued (correctly) that the various Indo-European languages grew from a common language. In the late 19th century Friedrich Schlegel, a German philologist, hooked onto this idea and argued that if there was a common language there must be a common race, a seminal race that he called Aryan. This Ur-Race, he argued, was distinguished by those certain physical characteristics; it was Nordic, golden-haired, blue-eyed, intelligent, Nordic, warlike.
Schlegel believed that modern Germans were descended from Aryans and were, therefore, an exceptional race. This fed the German nationalism in that time when Bismarck was creating “Germany,” but, as noted, there was—and is—no indication that a master race ever existed.
According to Nazi philosophy the western word faced an existential threat: interbreeding over the centuries had polluted the pure Aryan genes, the genetic fountain of civilization. If this continued, advances in civilization would come to a halt. Of course, the grossest impurity was from Jewish blood—an idea that completely ignored Jewish preeminence in the sciences, the arts, and yes, in civilization. The Nazi solution, we know, was to expunge all sources of impurity: Jews, criminals, and the mentally or physically challenged should be rounded up and executed; less malignant non-Aryans should be confined or otherwise kept separate from Aryans.
The notion of a seminal race with exceptional characteristics led to a variety of Nazi policies other that concentration camps and execution, though they did require extraordinary force to implement. Among these were “Lebensborn” (“Fount of Youth”), a human breeding program designed to restore the master race by mixing the genes of Germans most representative of Aryans. The program brought SS members—all of whom were specially selected for their Aryan characteristics—and suitably Nordic women together to create children of superior quality. These children would be raised by the state and would interbreed as adults. (Ironically, Himmler was as far from this physical image as one could get, a point made to him at a dinner party; always polite, he responded, “Yes, but I have a Nordic brain.”)
Yet another part of the Plan was “Lebensraum” (“living space”). In Nazi philosophy Germany’s agrarian origins were particularly prized. Among the many goals of the new order was encouragement of a return to agriculture and to a land-oriented lifestyle with small villages, close-knit relationships, and so on. This goal seems to conflict with the notion of the Aryan origins of civilization by ignoring the obvious fact that few operas were written by farmers, few technological innovations were generated by agriculture (beyond those unique to agriculture), and farm workers were not well represented among modern scientists.
To achieve a more agrarian social and economic base, Germany needed more land: the existing fertile land was already settled and expensive, and to take from one true German to give it to another was unacceptable. Hitler’s attention turned to Poland, a land of fertile fields populated by undesirables. If Poland came under German rule, Polish farmers could be dispossessed and their lands distributed to the more capable and superior German farmers. This would kill three birds with one stone: an expansion of territory, a return to agrarian foundations, and increased food supply.
Lebensraum was one of Hitler’s goals in signing the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The “Nonagression Pact” created the Molotov-Ribbentrop Line splitting Poland between Germany and the USSR. Of course, this pact was soon to be violated by Hitler’s invasion of the USSR in 1941 (Operation Barbossa). Presumably if the other party gives you half, you’re free to take it all!
Religion and Community in the New Order
Nazi ideology touched every aspect of German life. Germany—the birthplace of Protestantism—had been the center of the bloody 17th century Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. But in spite of the German tradition of Christianity, the Nazis promoted the notion that Christianity was a pseudo-religion. After all, how could there be merit in a religion that deified a Jew?
So attention was spent on what should replace Christianity? In Himmler’s view, only a religion close to the Aryan origins would work, and certainly that was pagan. His goal was to revive the old gods of ancient Norse and German history.
Yet another of Himmler’s goals was consistent with the Germany’s agrarian history—the creation of small agricultural villages. For space he looked to the Crimea, where Nazi forces were fighting Soviet forces for control of the Black sea and the fertile fields.
The Ahnenerbe and Medical Experimentation
We all know about the remarkable use of Jewish and political prisoners in Nazi medical research of all types: identification of Jews by skeletons, required killing and flensing prisoners to obtain their bare bones; studies of human responses to freezing required killing of many prisoners and attempting to revive them; toxins and poisons like mustard gas and typhus bacteria were administered with many deaths resulting; a Jewish Skull Collection was organized. These abuses were in the interest of “science” and were added to the run-of-the-day abuses of gassing, shooting and starving prisoners.
The SS was the organization that administered these outrages, and it did so under the auspices of SS doctors employed by the Ahnenerbe.
The Aftermath
Olson ends with a review of what happened to the Ahnenerbe “scientists” after the war. Many escaped punishment but all, to a man, showed no remorse and no regret for their actions. Their regrets were only that they weren’t able to finish the research, and that they were caught. She summarizes this nicely,
The SS—of which Heinrich Himmler was Reichsführer-SS—emerged from the SA, the “brownshirts” that did Hitler’s dirty work in the 1920s. From its start as Hitler’s personal guard the SS it grew rapidly in both numbers and functions after Himmler was given absolute authority, subject only to Hitler’s approval. Ultimately the SS became a major paramilitary force responsible for state security, protection of the Nazi elite, and for administration of policies regarding “undesirables,” that is, the concentration camps and execution of Jews and political prisoners. A portion of it—the Wafen-SS—also provided ground troops as fodder for Stalin’s cannons.
Within the SS Himmler hid a research organization called the Deutshes Ahnenerbe, an organization charged with advancing the cause of “scientific racism.” This is the subject of Heather Pringle’s The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust (2006). The book has two primary themes: the extent of Himmler’s power and of his efforts to find evidence supporting the notion of a master race called the Aryans, and the details of the Ahnenerbe’s research programs.
The book is not a catalogue of Nazi atrocities, though those are unavoidable. Rather, it is tale of “science” gone amok, of how “science” can be misused and abused when it is guided by a firm belief of what it will discover, that is, when an “hypothesis” (a speculation) is taken as a conclusion (a truth) without benefit of proper testing. It is also about what happens when the chief “scientist” is also an absolute ruler who exercises power without a moral compass. And finally, it is a tale about the “banality of evil,” about how cultured and highly civilized individuals—people with whom you might enjoy a gallon of schnapps—could sponsor such inhumane ideas to create a massive killing field.
As a science writer Pringle is steeped in the scientific method as well as experimental methods and scientific theory. And she is an able writer, teasing nuances from her material that aren’t obvious to the reader. This is a fascinating story about a horrible misuse of science in the 20th century, a story about how the very clever can also be very dumb. Anyone interested in the genesis of evil the Nazis embodied, and in the failure of intelligence to be used intelligently will learn from this book. I found it fascinating, especially in its description of how “science” was used to formulate a coherent and misguided Master Plan for the Third Reich.
This is fascinating material on many levels, and well worth its Five Stars!
The SS and Racial Research
The Deutsches Ahnenerbe was created in 1935 as a research institute within the SS. Ahnenerbe was a German word for “inherited from the forefathers” so this could be translated as “The German Ancestral Heritage Institute.” The primary researchers in the institute were SS members chosen for their Aryan characteristics, their loyalty to Nazi ideals, their education in relevant fields—and, ultimately, their willingness to twist evidence to support Nazi “truths.” A Director who reported only to Himmler, who reported only to Hitler, dictated its programs.
The Ahnenerbe employed a wide array of scholars: archeologists, ethnologists, historians, geographers, experts in ancient languages, artists, folklorists, musicologists, and so on. Anyone who had expertise that might support the Nazi worldview could apply. And what was that worldview? Simply stated, it was that an extremely ancient race called the Aryans, a race preceding the Egyptians, Sumerians, and their known predecessors, was the source of both western civilization and of German heritage. This race was “Nordic,” characterized by blond hair, blue eyes, a long and lean frame, and exceptional intelligence. It was the Ur-Race from which we all sprang.
Modern movies and books (think Raiders of the Lost Ark) often emphasize the Nazi infatuation with symbols—pictographs, petroglyphs, hieroglyphics, and so on. This arose from a search for evidence that writing began well before Egyptian hieroglyphic and Near-Eastern (Sumerian) cuneiform writing. Clearly, writing is an essential characteristic of civilization, and since the Aryan civilization predated those with known writing forms, there must be an earlier form of writing, an aboriginal writing by the Ur-Race, that permeated all later civilizations and gave the Aryans primacy in kick-starting civilization.
So the Ahnenerbe focused considerable interest on symbols that might be indications of Aryan writing. Expeditions were sent to places near and far. The “near” included the European cave drawings (pictographs) and the abundant stone carvings and runic symbols (petroglyphs) in northern Europe. Regrettably, these could only be dated back to Roman times—no help there. The “far” expeditions included India and Tibet (thought to be the origin of the Aryans) and the Middle East.
The Ahnenerbe’s Director had to wear two heavy hats. The first was the scholar’s cap; it as essential that the Director and his team have the respect of the community of scholars. The second was the politician’s cap, requiring conformity with the views of those who put bread on his table. These were diametrically opposed, and bread on the table is everyone’s priority. So evidence was distorted to fit the Nazi ideology, a twist that was not applauded by true scholars. An example suffices.
Herman Wirth, the Ahnenerbe’s first Director, was considered an outstanding scholar within Nazi ranks. But he—and his successors—were not highly regarded by mainstream intellectuals. Wirth’s research uncovered no evidence of an Aryan race even though it dredged the depths of ancient lore, including searched for the lost continent of Atlantis. But how was Wirth regarded by scholars? In 1929 Wirth had published a book on racial theory and an eminent scholar panned it, couching his criticism in words that softened the blow but not the message,
Only the view that the author has been taken by an almost holy insanity, and the fact that he inspected a considerable mass of literature with unusual eagerness and diligence to support his delusions, which he considers science, restrain me from responding to this book . . . with rudeness.Ouch!
In short, no matter how much twisting of evidence the Ahnenerbe employed it discovered nothing that supported the Nazi Master Plan, and its methods were considered nonscientific and fantastical. But one shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good idea, and lack of evidence is evidence, so the Master Plan stood firm. We’ll get to just what that Plan was a bit later.
The Ahnenerbe and Scientific Racism
Himmler and the research arm of the SS badly misconstrued the scientific method—the core of science. The correct scientific method is the formulation of an hypothesis (a tentative speculation about how the world works) followed by development and implementation of tests of that hypothesis. It is essential that a hypothesis be “testable.” But what does that mean?
The proper form of a test is a search for evidence that refutes the hypothesis. Thus, a “testable hypothesis” is one for which, in principle, there might be evidence that it is false. A simple example is the logical proposition “All swans are white.” If you believe that statement and test it by counting swans, you will reject the few black swans you find as “anomalies,” that is, “exceptions that prove the rule.” Its an example of what psychologists call “confirmation bias,” you find what you are looking for. This was the Nazi method: adopt a speculation (hypothesis)—“All Jews are vermin”—as a truth, then search for evidence supporting that “truth.” The problem is that once you start from a truth and look for supporting evidence, you will find what you look for--a phenomenon scientists call "confirmation bias."
The correct application of the scientific method is, of course, to always treat your idea as a hypothesis and look for evidence that refutes it. In other words, you draw your conclusions when you encounter the first non-white swan or the first good Jew. This has the advantage of significantly abbreviating the test period.
The core of Nazi racial theories was the belief that modern civilization sprang from an Ur-Race of “Aryans” that preceded known races. The Aryans were an ancient Nordic race characterized by light skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and extreme intelligence. They were the fountain of Europe’s literature, music, culture, science, technology, and moral tenets. Hence Hitler’s well-known devotion to Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung.” Built on the Norse sagas, the 13th century Icelandic Eddas, and, particularly, the Volsunga Saga Wagner's opera sang of a great Norse hero named Sigurd who killed the dragon Fafnir; of course, in the end everyone dies.
Even in the 1930s the notion of “race” was suspect—ethnicity, culture, ideology, skin color, eye color, and worldview certainly differ across groups, but this didn’t constitute separation by something called “race.” Doubts about “racial” distinctions have only increased in recent years, just as the concept of “racism” has exploded. Since the demise of Neanderthals we have all been in the “race” of Homo Sapiens. That we have followed different paths to the present—and acquired different physical characteristics—does not make us into different races any more than Wildebeests gathering around a watering spot can be called different races because they approached from different directions.
The definition of race became most problematic for the Nazis when attention turned to the question, “What is a Jew?” Is “he” an adherent to certain religious practices, an inhabitant of certain locations, a person with specific physical features, the child of a Jewish mother (oops: circularity), or one who shares specific genes? It seems that the genetic test would be most appropriate—after all, the Nazis believed genetic atrophy was the Jewish crime.
But the gene was only an idea at that time, and even if there had been knowledge of DNA it would have been found that there was little genetic commonality among those who described themselves as Jews. Indeed, this plagued the Ahnenerbe as it attempted to define Jewishness and found exceptions to each taxonomy, exceptions so serious that it affected the morale of the SS killing squads. In effect, the research into “scientific racism” led to as few answers as the research into Aryan origins. This was disturbing—you just didn’t know whom to kill? But no matter, they must be killed!
Aryanism and the Master Plan
The concept of Aryanism began with a British naturalist in the mid-18th century who argued (correctly) that the various Indo-European languages grew from a common language. In the late 19th century Friedrich Schlegel, a German philologist, hooked onto this idea and argued that if there was a common language there must be a common race, a seminal race that he called Aryan. This Ur-Race, he argued, was distinguished by those certain physical characteristics; it was Nordic, golden-haired, blue-eyed, intelligent, Nordic, warlike.
Schlegel believed that modern Germans were descended from Aryans and were, therefore, an exceptional race. This fed the German nationalism in that time when Bismarck was creating “Germany,” but, as noted, there was—and is—no indication that a master race ever existed.
According to Nazi philosophy the western word faced an existential threat: interbreeding over the centuries had polluted the pure Aryan genes, the genetic fountain of civilization. If this continued, advances in civilization would come to a halt. Of course, the grossest impurity was from Jewish blood—an idea that completely ignored Jewish preeminence in the sciences, the arts, and yes, in civilization. The Nazi solution, we know, was to expunge all sources of impurity: Jews, criminals, and the mentally or physically challenged should be rounded up and executed; less malignant non-Aryans should be confined or otherwise kept separate from Aryans.
The notion of a seminal race with exceptional characteristics led to a variety of Nazi policies other that concentration camps and execution, though they did require extraordinary force to implement. Among these were “Lebensborn” (“Fount of Youth”), a human breeding program designed to restore the master race by mixing the genes of Germans most representative of Aryans. The program brought SS members—all of whom were specially selected for their Aryan characteristics—and suitably Nordic women together to create children of superior quality. These children would be raised by the state and would interbreed as adults. (Ironically, Himmler was as far from this physical image as one could get, a point made to him at a dinner party; always polite, he responded, “Yes, but I have a Nordic brain.”)
Yet another part of the Plan was “Lebensraum” (“living space”). In Nazi philosophy Germany’s agrarian origins were particularly prized. Among the many goals of the new order was encouragement of a return to agriculture and to a land-oriented lifestyle with small villages, close-knit relationships, and so on. This goal seems to conflict with the notion of the Aryan origins of civilization by ignoring the obvious fact that few operas were written by farmers, few technological innovations were generated by agriculture (beyond those unique to agriculture), and farm workers were not well represented among modern scientists.
To achieve a more agrarian social and economic base, Germany needed more land: the existing fertile land was already settled and expensive, and to take from one true German to give it to another was unacceptable. Hitler’s attention turned to Poland, a land of fertile fields populated by undesirables. If Poland came under German rule, Polish farmers could be dispossessed and their lands distributed to the more capable and superior German farmers. This would kill three birds with one stone: an expansion of territory, a return to agrarian foundations, and increased food supply.
Lebensraum was one of Hitler’s goals in signing the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The “Nonagression Pact” created the Molotov-Ribbentrop Line splitting Poland between Germany and the USSR. Of course, this pact was soon to be violated by Hitler’s invasion of the USSR in 1941 (Operation Barbossa). Presumably if the other party gives you half, you’re free to take it all!
Religion and Community in the New Order
Nazi ideology touched every aspect of German life. Germany—the birthplace of Protestantism—had been the center of the bloody 17th century Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. But in spite of the German tradition of Christianity, the Nazis promoted the notion that Christianity was a pseudo-religion. After all, how could there be merit in a religion that deified a Jew?
So attention was spent on what should replace Christianity? In Himmler’s view, only a religion close to the Aryan origins would work, and certainly that was pagan. His goal was to revive the old gods of ancient Norse and German history.
Yet another of Himmler’s goals was consistent with the Germany’s agrarian history—the creation of small agricultural villages. For space he looked to the Crimea, where Nazi forces were fighting Soviet forces for control of the Black sea and the fertile fields.
The Ahnenerbe and Medical Experimentation
We all know about the remarkable use of Jewish and political prisoners in Nazi medical research of all types: identification of Jews by skeletons, required killing and flensing prisoners to obtain their bare bones; studies of human responses to freezing required killing of many prisoners and attempting to revive them; toxins and poisons like mustard gas and typhus bacteria were administered with many deaths resulting; a Jewish Skull Collection was organized. These abuses were in the interest of “science” and were added to the run-of-the-day abuses of gassing, shooting and starving prisoners.
The SS was the organization that administered these outrages, and it did so under the auspices of SS doctors employed by the Ahnenerbe.
The Aftermath
Olson ends with a review of what happened to the Ahnenerbe “scientists” after the war. Many escaped punishment but all, to a man, showed no remorse and no regret for their actions. Their regrets were only that they weren’t able to finish the research, and that they were caught. She summarizes this nicely,
After scrutinizing the personal files of these men and poring over the details of their life stories, after contemplating their academic work and talking to their families and friends, I still do not understand why they did what they did, why they willingly contributed to such evil.Absolutely chilling!!!!!
November 5, 2021
I guess no-one knows how many books have been written about the drivers of Nazi-ism in WW2 - a gazillion probably. This must be one of the most riveting. It is difficult to comprehend how, back in the day, bullshit baffled brains on such an immense scale.
Heather Pringle has put in a stellar research performance and there is an eye-opener on (almost) every page.
If you want to peek into the dark heart of one of the world's most evil 20th century figures, this one shines the light for you to see.
Heather Pringle has put in a stellar research performance and there is an eye-opener on (almost) every page.
If you want to peek into the dark heart of one of the world's most evil 20th century figures, this one shines the light for you to see.
November 14, 2012
Heather Pringle's 2006 The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust is the sort of book that makes one want to laugh in horror. Pringle's pleasant if conventional journalistic style does nothing at all to disguise the horror that she feels on discovering the full extent of the activities of the Ahnenerbe, the SS' occult research ministry. Starting off from the theosophy and kindred New Age movements which were popular in early 20th century Germany, Pringle demonstrates convincingly that the Ahnenerbe went on to take these theories, rooted in beliefs of deeply-hidden conspiracies and long-forgotten similarities and secret bloodlines, and make them the central justifications for major Nazi goals including the Holocaust and the planned colonization of central and eastern Europe.
The intellectual speciousness of the Ahnenerbe's arguments--arguing by deduction and by inference whenever it pleased them, or simply making up theories wholesale like (say) an ancient populous Gothic empire in Crimea--is astounding. It's difficult to believe that a modern state was willing to support research institutions which claimed, among other things, that Germans were the last pure descendants of Aryan Atlantis, that Tiahaunaco in South America was an ancient German city, and that the entire universe was made out of ice and that we were on our seventh Moon, the previous six having crashed into the Earth and melted into the oceans. But then, when I read translated memoranda which happily say that, with Operation Barbarossa, Nazi phrenologists will be at last able to overcome the shortage of Jewish skulls that bedevilled them, and how some researchers hoped to use human sacrifice to tap ancient mystic energies for great weapons like Thor's lightning bolts, I stopped disbelieving. Among other things, it turns out that the Nazis were criminally stupid and credulous besides being prototypical pulp science-fiction villains. That, and the willingness to use any specious reasoning and no specious reasoning at all, explains their entire ideology.
The Master Plan deserves to be widely read. It astonishes me that more hasn't been generally known of the Ahnenerbe. One reason why that story hasn't resonated before now might, perhaps, lie in the prevalence of all those same root sources of Nazi ideology in our own culture, in the popularity of books like The Da Vinci Code which purport to explain the modern world as product of vast ancient conspiracies and in the revolts against reason and science and rational behaviour. Often there's even a direct link between the 1920s and our time, as in Graham Hancock's writings. Can you see a potential problem here, too?
The intellectual speciousness of the Ahnenerbe's arguments--arguing by deduction and by inference whenever it pleased them, or simply making up theories wholesale like (say) an ancient populous Gothic empire in Crimea--is astounding. It's difficult to believe that a modern state was willing to support research institutions which claimed, among other things, that Germans were the last pure descendants of Aryan Atlantis, that Tiahaunaco in South America was an ancient German city, and that the entire universe was made out of ice and that we were on our seventh Moon, the previous six having crashed into the Earth and melted into the oceans. But then, when I read translated memoranda which happily say that, with Operation Barbarossa, Nazi phrenologists will be at last able to overcome the shortage of Jewish skulls that bedevilled them, and how some researchers hoped to use human sacrifice to tap ancient mystic energies for great weapons like Thor's lightning bolts, I stopped disbelieving. Among other things, it turns out that the Nazis were criminally stupid and credulous besides being prototypical pulp science-fiction villains. That, and the willingness to use any specious reasoning and no specious reasoning at all, explains their entire ideology.
The Master Plan deserves to be widely read. It astonishes me that more hasn't been generally known of the Ahnenerbe. One reason why that story hasn't resonated before now might, perhaps, lie in the prevalence of all those same root sources of Nazi ideology in our own culture, in the popularity of books like The Da Vinci Code which purport to explain the modern world as product of vast ancient conspiracies and in the revolts against reason and science and rational behaviour. Often there's even a direct link between the 1920s and our time, as in Graham Hancock's writings. Can you see a potential problem here, too?
November 24, 2024
A brilliant, insightful and important book which on one level could provide any number of hysterically funny anecdotes about the absurdities of Himmler's 'thinking' - Thor's hammer as a potential war winning weapon (please see my footnote *1 below) but such levity is hard to maintain when you read of how compromised so many academics were in their dealings with the The Ahnenerbe. How easily using the Ahnenerbe as a source of research funds and a way of promoting a career turned in the case of, for example, August Hirt, into conducting mustard gas experiments on living subjects and collecting the skulls of Jewish concentration camp victims (I won't provide links, it is easy to find online and shame on you if you don't make the effort).
Of course not all scientists and academics were as compromised as Hirt but how few were really untainted yet how few, like Otto Rahn, had the decency to realise how hopelessly wrong he had been to compromise himself and ended his life in 1939. Most participants in the Ahnenerbe continued in respectable academic positions after 1945 and it is only recently that many German institutions have come to recognize their tainted, or potentially tainted pasts.
Unfortunately the deeply problematic nature of the Ahnenerbe and of Nazi scholarship has been tainted by its portrayal in popular culture like Indian Jones films. That these popularizations bring awareness is true but they also trivialise their cartoon-like characters and plots. That German universities and academics were compromised, how distressing it is now to read about the absence of protest when their colleagues were dismissed, but they were not unique then or now.
Hitler and the Nazis as a warning is an old, but true, trope. Like paranoia just because you think everyone to get you doesn't mean they aren't. Maybe we never learn from history but we should never say we didn't know. Professor Pringle's book is brilliant an d thought provoking and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Nazi Germany.
*1 Himmler's bizarre belief in ancient fairy tales as a basis for serious study is neither unique see: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/... on similar thinking in Pakistan.
Of course not all scientists and academics were as compromised as Hirt but how few were really untainted yet how few, like Otto Rahn, had the decency to realise how hopelessly wrong he had been to compromise himself and ended his life in 1939. Most participants in the Ahnenerbe continued in respectable academic positions after 1945 and it is only recently that many German institutions have come to recognize their tainted, or potentially tainted pasts.
Unfortunately the deeply problematic nature of the Ahnenerbe and of Nazi scholarship has been tainted by its portrayal in popular culture like Indian Jones films. That these popularizations bring awareness is true but they also trivialise their cartoon-like characters and plots. That German universities and academics were compromised, how distressing it is now to read about the absence of protest when their colleagues were dismissed, but they were not unique then or now.
Hitler and the Nazis as a warning is an old, but true, trope. Like paranoia just because you think everyone to get you doesn't mean they aren't. Maybe we never learn from history but we should never say we didn't know. Professor Pringle's book is brilliant an d thought provoking and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Nazi Germany.
*1 Himmler's bizarre belief in ancient fairy tales as a basis for serious study is neither unique see: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/... on similar thinking in Pakistan.
July 24, 2011
Nazis believed that they were heirs to the cultural and genetic legacy of a (mythic) “Aryan” race. In Hitler’s worldview, master races were creators of civilizations. Himmler, the head of the SS, was convinced that ancient German tribes seeded cultures in India, Tibet, ...Russia, Finland, etc., that the Norse Gods existed, that Thor’s Hammer was a real weapon and that ancient cave paintings were evidence of a primal ur-Aryan language. Himmler funds a research institute, employs dozens of scholars who go on expeditions to find evidence of German influence and settlement in the countries that Germany wants to conquer; thus, the Germans are merely “returning” to their ancestral lands to colonize agricultural utopias. Unrepentant race scientists murdered for skull samples and museum treasures. This is a funhouse mirror on the distortion of scholarship by nationalist interest. Postwar, some scholars went on to have distinguished careers. Every historian and archeology student should read this!
February 3, 2012
A pesar de su título castellano (El plan maestro, arqueología fantástica al servicio del régimen nazi), no estamos ante una obra sobre la búsqueda de arcas de la alianza o lanzas de Longinos que hubieran proporcionado una ventaja militar esotérica a los ejércitos hitlerianos. Se trata de un libro sobre la ciencia alemana en esos años oscuros, sobre cómo los nazis (y más concretamente Himmler) buscaron por todo el mundo evidencias que pudieran demostrar sus disparatadas teorías raciales (que incluían no menos esperpénticas teorías sobre el orígen del universo). Estremece el relato de cómo lo que eran unas (aparentemente) inocuas expediciones campestres en busca de runas y grabados primitivos acabó derivando en la mayor sarta de crímenes sistemáticos contra la humanidad que se recuerda. Y todo ello con la coartada intelectual de un grupo de científicos corruptos y desalmados.
September 24, 2010
It's all those History Channel documentaries about Nazi occultism without the History Channel sensationalism and serious scholarship. It makes reading Hellboy even more fun knowing the truth of the fiction!
November 1, 2018
Fascinating book about Himmler's Ahnenerbe, and the weird things they were forced to study and believe to back the Nazi vision. Worth reading if you have an interest in the subject.
July 5, 2025
Kiinnostava kirja! Olen ollut jo pitkään kiinnostunut siitä miten pseudotiedettä tehtiin natsi-Saksassa, koska tunnetusti oikeaa tiedettä ei arvostettu sen ollessa ristiriidassa natsimaailmankuvan kanssa.
Ensimmäiseksi täytyy todeta, että teoksessa yhdistyy perusteellinen tutkimus ja hyvä popularisointi. Teoksen lopussa on yli 100 sivua lähdemerkintöjä, mutta teoksen eteneminen ei missään vaiheessa ollut yksityiskohtaisuudestaan huolimatta haastavaa seurattavaa. Teokseen on rajattu Ahnenerben johtavimmat tutkijat, joista kerrotaan elämäkerrallisesti, joten on helppoa muistaa kenestä milloinkaan puhutaan.
Sujuvan luettavuuden lisäksi teos herättää pohtimaan tutkijan ja tieteen etiikan suhdetta. Ahnenerben tutkimusten luonne on nimittäin teoksen keskeisimpiä teemoja. Ahnenerben toimintaa ei ohjannut tieteellinen pyrkimys falsifioida vääriä uskomuksia vaan päinvastoin pyrkimys vahvistaa hataralla pohjalla nojaavia rasistisia rotuteorioita. Näille teorioille yritettiin vahvistusvinouman avulla löytää uskottavuutta eri menetelmillä kuten kallonmittauksilla, vaikka esimerkiksi antropologi Franz Boasin tutkimukset olivat jo vuonna 1908 osoittaneet, että kallon muoto selittyy lähtökohtaisesti ympäristötekijöiden avulla periytyvyyden sijaan. Näinpä teos herättää pohtimaan, mitkä tekijät ohjasivat hyvin ansioituneitakin tutkijoita hakeutumaan Ahnenerbeen samalla hyläten tieteen periaatteet. Useimpien on kuitenkin täytynyt olla tietoisia rotuteorioiden pseudotieteellisyydestä. Samanlaisten kysymysten kirjailija itse mainitsee piinanneen häntä, vaikka myöntää, ettei teos niihin kykenekkään yksiselitteisesti vastaamaan.
Teoksessa kuitenkin ilmenee myös Ahnenerben tutkijoiden elämäkerrallinen puoli, joten joitakin ilmeisiä päätelmiä näiden pseudoteiteilijöiden motiiveista voi ehkä tehdä. Monet tutkijat olivat uransa alussa, mutta joilla sattui olemaan yhteyksiä vaikkapa Heinrich Himmleriin. Näissä tapauksissa opportunismi on voinut motivoida hakeutumaan organisaatioon mukaan, koska Himmler työllisti alaisikseen ennen kaikkea näkemyksilleen uskollisia ja mielisteleviä tutkijoita. Toisaalta jo valmiiksi meritoituneita tutkijoita on voinut motivoida puhdas lyhytnäköisyys. Natsismin ytimessä olleen uskollisuushierarkian saattoi katsoa mahdollistavan nopean tien ylennyksiin ja korkeampiin virkoihin. Esimerkiksi vielä vuonna 1939 moni saksalaistutkija ei varmaankaan osannut odottaa sodanjälkeisiä sotarikosoikeudenkäyntejä, joissa heidän näennäistieteensä tuomittaisiin. Kummatkaan vastaukset eivät kuitenkaan ole tyydyttäviä sillä herää uusi kysymys; eihän tutkijan koskaan tulisi priorisoida taloudellista etuaan vaan kriittinen ajattelu?
Toisaalta olisi helppo todeta (kuten kirjailija itse ajattelee) että osa Ahnenerben tutkijoista oli nuoria natsiaatteen sokaisemia naiiveja ajattelijoita, joille natsismi oli yksinkertaisesti tieteen kriteerejä tärkeämpi elämäntarkoitus, jota palvella. Ne tutkijat tuskin hylkäsivät tieteen etiikkaa omaksuessaan rotuteorioita, vaan sen sijaan alkujaankin omaksuivat tieteen etiikasta vain sen, mikä oli yhteensovitettavissa natsismin kanssa. Tämäkin päätelmä tosin herätti uuden kysymyksen: miten ylipäätään poliittinen ideologia voi kasvaa akateemisessa maailmassa niin merkittäväksi, että se alkaa määrittämään, mitä kaikkia tieteen kriteerejä uusia tutkijoita opetetaan noudattamaan? (Tietysti viemällä siltä riippumattomuus ja asettamalla sille poliittinen agenda...)
Hyvien kirjojen teemat herättävät aina ajatuksia, mutta tämän teoksen sisällöstä voi sanoa muutakin. Ahnenerben tutkimusretket on kuvattu kertomuksellisesti eli niitä on kiintoisaa (vaikka usein vastenmielistä) seurata. Jonkin verran teos antaa myös osviittaa SS-n byrokratiasta. Vaikutti nimittäin erittäin mielivaltaiselta millaisiin tutkimusprojekteihin Ahnenerbe sai rahoitusta. Toisaalta oli suorastaan järkyttävää teoksen loppupuolella huomata, miten Ahnenerbe alkoi hyödyntää jopa keskitysleirivankeja kyetäkseen määrittämään juutalaisuuden "tieteellisesti". Eläviä vankeja käytettiin niin sterilisaatiomenetelmien kehitykseen kuin niiden ruumiita "juutalaisten rodullisten piirteiden" määrittämiseen. Samalla tätä vääryyttä vahvistaa kuvaukset siitä, miten pienillä tuomioilla suurin osa näistä ihmisoikeusrikkojista selvistä. Osa jopa palasi myöhemmin työllistymään länsi-Saksan akateemiseen maailmaan, vaikka esimerkiksi kouluhistoria puhuu menestyksekkäistä denatsifikaatiotoimista.
"Ensin ne tulivat hakemaan sosialistit, enkä puhunut mitään, koska en ollut sosialisti.
Sitten ne tulivat hakemaan ammattiyhdistysaktiivit, enkä puhunut mitään, koska en ollut ammattiyhdistysaktiivi.
Sitten ne tulivat hakemaan juutalaiset, enkä puhunut mitään, koska en ollut juutalainen.
Sitten ne tulivat hakemaan minut, eikä ollut enää ketään, joka olisi puhunut puolestani." Puhukoon Niemöllerin lainaus puolestaan muistuttaen, ettei kenenkään vapaus ole taattu, jos olemme kiinnostuneita vain omasta vapaudestamme.
Ensimmäiseksi täytyy todeta, että teoksessa yhdistyy perusteellinen tutkimus ja hyvä popularisointi. Teoksen lopussa on yli 100 sivua lähdemerkintöjä, mutta teoksen eteneminen ei missään vaiheessa ollut yksityiskohtaisuudestaan huolimatta haastavaa seurattavaa. Teokseen on rajattu Ahnenerben johtavimmat tutkijat, joista kerrotaan elämäkerrallisesti, joten on helppoa muistaa kenestä milloinkaan puhutaan.
Sujuvan luettavuuden lisäksi teos herättää pohtimaan tutkijan ja tieteen etiikan suhdetta. Ahnenerben tutkimusten luonne on nimittäin teoksen keskeisimpiä teemoja. Ahnenerben toimintaa ei ohjannut tieteellinen pyrkimys falsifioida vääriä uskomuksia vaan päinvastoin pyrkimys vahvistaa hataralla pohjalla nojaavia rasistisia rotuteorioita. Näille teorioille yritettiin vahvistusvinouman avulla löytää uskottavuutta eri menetelmillä kuten kallonmittauksilla, vaikka esimerkiksi antropologi Franz Boasin tutkimukset olivat jo vuonna 1908 osoittaneet, että kallon muoto selittyy lähtökohtaisesti ympäristötekijöiden avulla periytyvyyden sijaan. Näinpä teos herättää pohtimaan, mitkä tekijät ohjasivat hyvin ansioituneitakin tutkijoita hakeutumaan Ahnenerbeen samalla hyläten tieteen periaatteet. Useimpien on kuitenkin täytynyt olla tietoisia rotuteorioiden pseudotieteellisyydestä. Samanlaisten kysymysten kirjailija itse mainitsee piinanneen häntä, vaikka myöntää, ettei teos niihin kykenekkään yksiselitteisesti vastaamaan.
Teoksessa kuitenkin ilmenee myös Ahnenerben tutkijoiden elämäkerrallinen puoli, joten joitakin ilmeisiä päätelmiä näiden pseudoteiteilijöiden motiiveista voi ehkä tehdä. Monet tutkijat olivat uransa alussa, mutta joilla sattui olemaan yhteyksiä vaikkapa Heinrich Himmleriin. Näissä tapauksissa opportunismi on voinut motivoida hakeutumaan organisaatioon mukaan, koska Himmler työllisti alaisikseen ennen kaikkea näkemyksilleen uskollisia ja mielisteleviä tutkijoita. Toisaalta jo valmiiksi meritoituneita tutkijoita on voinut motivoida puhdas lyhytnäköisyys. Natsismin ytimessä olleen uskollisuushierarkian saattoi katsoa mahdollistavan nopean tien ylennyksiin ja korkeampiin virkoihin. Esimerkiksi vielä vuonna 1939 moni saksalaistutkija ei varmaankaan osannut odottaa sodanjälkeisiä sotarikosoikeudenkäyntejä, joissa heidän näennäistieteensä tuomittaisiin. Kummatkaan vastaukset eivät kuitenkaan ole tyydyttäviä sillä herää uusi kysymys; eihän tutkijan koskaan tulisi priorisoida taloudellista etuaan vaan kriittinen ajattelu?
Toisaalta olisi helppo todeta (kuten kirjailija itse ajattelee) että osa Ahnenerben tutkijoista oli nuoria natsiaatteen sokaisemia naiiveja ajattelijoita, joille natsismi oli yksinkertaisesti tieteen kriteerejä tärkeämpi elämäntarkoitus, jota palvella. Ne tutkijat tuskin hylkäsivät tieteen etiikkaa omaksuessaan rotuteorioita, vaan sen sijaan alkujaankin omaksuivat tieteen etiikasta vain sen, mikä oli yhteensovitettavissa natsismin kanssa. Tämäkin päätelmä tosin herätti uuden kysymyksen: miten ylipäätään poliittinen ideologia voi kasvaa akateemisessa maailmassa niin merkittäväksi, että se alkaa määrittämään, mitä kaikkia tieteen kriteerejä uusia tutkijoita opetetaan noudattamaan? (Tietysti viemällä siltä riippumattomuus ja asettamalla sille poliittinen agenda...)
Hyvien kirjojen teemat herättävät aina ajatuksia, mutta tämän teoksen sisällöstä voi sanoa muutakin. Ahnenerben tutkimusretket on kuvattu kertomuksellisesti eli niitä on kiintoisaa (vaikka usein vastenmielistä) seurata. Jonkin verran teos antaa myös osviittaa SS-n byrokratiasta. Vaikutti nimittäin erittäin mielivaltaiselta millaisiin tutkimusprojekteihin Ahnenerbe sai rahoitusta. Toisaalta oli suorastaan järkyttävää teoksen loppupuolella huomata, miten Ahnenerbe alkoi hyödyntää jopa keskitysleirivankeja kyetäkseen määrittämään juutalaisuuden "tieteellisesti". Eläviä vankeja käytettiin niin sterilisaatiomenetelmien kehitykseen kuin niiden ruumiita "juutalaisten rodullisten piirteiden" määrittämiseen. Samalla tätä vääryyttä vahvistaa kuvaukset siitä, miten pienillä tuomioilla suurin osa näistä ihmisoikeusrikkojista selvistä. Osa jopa palasi myöhemmin työllistymään länsi-Saksan akateemiseen maailmaan, vaikka esimerkiksi kouluhistoria puhuu menestyksekkäistä denatsifikaatiotoimista.
"Ensin ne tulivat hakemaan sosialistit, enkä puhunut mitään, koska en ollut sosialisti.
Sitten ne tulivat hakemaan ammattiyhdistysaktiivit, enkä puhunut mitään, koska en ollut ammattiyhdistysaktiivi.
Sitten ne tulivat hakemaan juutalaiset, enkä puhunut mitään, koska en ollut juutalainen.
Sitten ne tulivat hakemaan minut, eikä ollut enää ketään, joka olisi puhunut puolestani." Puhukoon Niemöllerin lainaus puolestaan muistuttaen, ettei kenenkään vapaus ole taattu, jos olemme kiinnostuneita vain omasta vapaudestamme.
April 29, 2023
Interesantísimo libro de historia que casi se lee como una novela. Explica la autora cómo el régimen nazi, a través de un organismo como la Ahnenerbe y de su director Heinrich Himmler, buscó de forma insistente por todo el mundo pruebas de la existencia de una supuesta antigua raza aria que legitimara su ideología supremacista. Profusión de datos y nombres para un libro muy ameno y apto para todos los públicos. Bueno, casi, porque tal como avanza la historia, la Ahnenerbe pasa de ser un grupo de chiflados a convertirse en toda una estructura de tortura y genocidio. El lector verá como un grupo de dirigentes totalmente convencidos de una idea sin base científica alguna modificaba, alteraba o adaptaba sus descubrimientos para ajustarlos a su realidad. Y como en base a esas creencias totalmente acientíficas construyeron una maquinaria de muerte y exterminio.
En resumen, una lectura recomendadísima para aficionados a la historia.
En resumen, una lectura recomendadísima para aficionados a la historia.
October 27, 2023
If you want to see how seriously the Nazis took their racial doctrines consider this wacko but all-too-true tale. In the 1930s Heinrich Himmler sent an SS Research team to Tibet to undertake archeological digs in search of a lost Aryan civilization, which Hitler had proclaimed had once flourished in pre-historic times and "died out through racial pollution". This would be funny if it weren't tragic. Heather Pringle shows these researches were part of a master plan to establish Aryan supremacy in Europe and brand the Jews "newcomers and interlopers" to civilization", thus fit for extermination. This book is also a chilling reminder of how scholars and scientists can easily be recruited for murderous ends in any society, including today. THE MASTER PLAN belongs on the same shelf as Robert Jay Lifton's THE NAZI DOCTORS.
December 11, 2023
Too many books have been written dealing with the issues of ss and Anenerbe, which has led to a flood of incorrect information and a distorted understanding of the role of this organization. This book is a true enlightenment in terms of information. It is interesting to follow the evolution of the Anenerbe organization.
It began its development as a group of pseudo-historians and mystics in love with mythologies, then it expanded its work to field research, and considering that the war was approaching, it redirected its work to espionage and intelligence work. After the outbreak of the war, Anenerbe showed its most sinister face. previous work could be characterized as benign, during the war it became criminal (experiments on people in concentration camps, theft of works of art and church treasures).
It began its development as a group of pseudo-historians and mystics in love with mythologies, then it expanded its work to field research, and considering that the war was approaching, it redirected its work to espionage and intelligence work. After the outbreak of the war, Anenerbe showed its most sinister face. previous work could be characterized as benign, during the war it became criminal (experiments on people in concentration camps, theft of works of art and church treasures).
July 24, 2020
Hitler took power with culture and mite.
He used scholars to perpetrate take over.
He used science.
What is difference between jew and german
A black question to ask.
Skeletal or features that differentiate.
Ultimately his archeological digs
He searched the earth for European test
Any thing that showed european dominance or prestige
Alexander the greats quest to Persia
Then the star of David in cyprus
Colonial digs in africa.
Greeks in Moscow
All the way to the himilyans
Arayans of india
To seek thors hammer viking ships.
The austerity of europe dominance
Then hitler lost all academia was dismantle
Many artifacts returned
He used scholars to perpetrate take over.
He used science.
What is difference between jew and german
A black question to ask.
Skeletal or features that differentiate.
Ultimately his archeological digs
He searched the earth for European test
Any thing that showed european dominance or prestige
Alexander the greats quest to Persia
Then the star of David in cyprus
Colonial digs in africa.
Greeks in Moscow
All the way to the himilyans
Arayans of india
To seek thors hammer viking ships.
The austerity of europe dominance
Then hitler lost all academia was dismantle
Many artifacts returned
May 5, 2024
Un magnífico ensayo para corroborar todavía más la insultante imbecilidad y el delirio de los nazis manipulando la historia a su antojo. La raza nórdica, la Antártida, el Tibet, las islas Canarias, Bolivia, los planetas y su puta madre. La Ahnenerbe. La demencia de una panda de cuatreros bajitos, morenos, ridículos ya sólo por sí mismos promulgando lo que no eran. Ahora nos interesa ser descendientes de los neandertales, ahora cromañones,... Que los delirios de cuatro psicópatas acomplejados desataran todos los infiernos (gracias eternas Sir Max Hastings) me sigue resultando demasiado inquietante.
La Ahnenerbe. Hay que joderse.
Recomendabilísimo.
La Ahnenerbe. Hay que joderse.
Recomendabilísimo.
June 28, 2024
En realidad, el título del libro no describe del todo de lo que trata. La autora retrata la historia de la ahnenerbe, una división de las S.S Nazi creada por Himmler, y cuyos propósitos era dedicarse al estudio de todo lo relacionado con la historia y la antropología cultural de la "mitología nazi". Desde las runas y la mitología escandinava, hasta siniestros experimentos médicos con cadáveres de judios.
Se queda uno horrorizado de algunas de las bizarras creencias de los nazis...y de las que da cuenta la autora en este magnífico libro.
Por lo demás, muy bien escrito ( y muy bien traducido), lo que lo hace aun más entretenido.
Se queda uno horrorizado de algunas de las bizarras creencias de los nazis...y de las que da cuenta la autora en este magnífico libro.
Por lo demás, muy bien escrito ( y muy bien traducido), lo que lo hace aun más entretenido.
June 28, 2024
Godine 1935. Hajnrih Himler, jedan od najmoćnijih članova Hitlerovog unutrašnjeg kruga, osniva Anenerbe – istraživački institut sa zadatkom da proizvede arheološke dokaze u političke svrhe. Himler se dao na posao regrutujući bizarnu mešavinu avanturista, mistika i uglednih naučnika sa zadatkom preoblikovanja ljudske istorije. Glavnokomandujući SS-a i arhitekt nacističkih logora smrti bio je ubeđen da arheolozi već dugo ignorišu dostignuća prvobitne rase plavokosih, plavookih osvajača – Arijevaca. Pronalaženje Arijevaca i eliminacija svih ostalih postaće kamen temeljac nacističke doktrine.
October 11, 2022
What a read ! So much work must of went into creating this book as it's so informative on the architects of the holocaust. Much like Heather explained in the last chapter, I myself, thought the same throughout the entire book. I still didn't understand how intelligent people went along with the Nazis's outlook on the world. And I say intelligent people and not scientists as unlike Heather I believe,especially because of this book, that archaeology etc is not a science.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2023
Although this is a somewhat scholarly work, it was very readable, like a novel. You can only wish that like a novel, all the characters and their actions were fiction, but unfortunately, they aren't. If you ever wanted to know just how twisted and crazy the Nazi historical, ethnographic, and archaeological "scientists" were, read this book. But -- be ready to be disgusted by their thoughts and actions.
November 4, 2017
Heather Pringle provides a comprehensive study of Himmler’s Nazi research institute, “Ahnenerbe”, and explores how the Nazis manipulated history and science in order to justify their horrifying atrocities and to promote the Nazi agenda. The book is very well researched and highly educational, as much fascinating as it is disheartening and, sadly, still so very relevant. A must-read!
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