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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I think you need to realize that Aryanism was much bigger than Naziism, and contained multitudes.

To my top of head memory, I think I've recalled every nationality other than Australian Aboriginals being theorized to have either an Aryan origin, an Aryan remnant in its ruling class, or being quote unquote bona fide Aryans.

There were dozens of theories from hundreds of theorists. Tibetans, Comanche, Tutsi, Mayans, pure blooded Mongols were all at times considered Aryan by someone. Maori but not Aboriginal Australian. Some said Chinese but not Japanese, most said Japanese but not Chinese.

The third Reich didn't represent the only or even the majority view of Aryanist theories, and the theoretical basis for the Nazis was far from rigorous. These weren't settled questions. Read old RE Howard Conan and Solomon Kane, they're full of Aryan references ("before the rise of the sons of Aryas") but in ways that are often orthogonal to Naziism.

So while we tend to lump every Aryan reference under Third Reich policy points, the world of Aryanism was much bigger. Neo Nazis might be to the third Reich what Trots or Bukharinites are to the USSR, those who feel that forgotten theorists had the real dope.

All of which is to say, it's only a minor fudge in an ill-outlined portion of Nazi theory to say "Oh actually Ukrainians/Poles/Whatever are pure True Aryans while Russians are Asian Mongoloid trash!" It's not a big contradiction that's hard to figure.

And Hitler himself wasn't the most objective or scientific of people when it came to the issue either. Many think he only started having a true hatred for Jews originally because he blamed them for the WWI loss, which ended pretty abruptly for the average German soldier; coupled with anti-Communist views that at the time jived well with these theories, and adding on top a dose of common ethnonationalism, we can see it wasn't a theory-first approach, it was a politics-first approach that found convenient bedfellows.

In fact I think an understanding of Nazism should always start with these historical roots: a broken economy, a weird time for German nationalism, common popular disorder, growing controversial appeal of Communism, a feeling of international persecution and disrespect, etc. At least personally, I think our modern conception of Nazism as a wholly theoretical and radical construct appealing to closet racism and abetted by apathetic masses misses the mark quite widely when it comes to why Nazism was popular and/or able to take over a whole country to such an extent.