The Science of the Swastika
Bernard Mees, Fellow in History at the University of Melbourne, Australia
The first theoretically informed study of the relationship between an academic discipline and what the Nazis termed their Weltanschauung.
The first study of Sinnbildforschung, German
ideograph or swastika studies, though more broadly it
tells the tale of the development of German antiquarian
studies (ancient Germanic history, archaeology, anthropology,
folklore, historical linguistics and philology) under
the influence of radical right wing politics, and the
contemporary construction of ‘Germanicness’
and its role in Nazi thought. The swastika and similar
symbols were employed by the ancestors of the modern
day Germans. As these had also become emblematic symbols
of the forces of German reaction, Sinnbildforschung
became intrinsically connected with the National Socialist
regime after 1933 and disappeared along with the Third
Reich in 1945.
With the Nazi seizure of power, ideographic studies became directly supported by the state. In 1935 an organization was founded within the SS to further its study, the SS-Ahnenerbe. Most infamous as the organ through which medical experiments were arranged to be performed on the inmates of concentration camps, the Ahnenerbe was founded as a historical research institution before it expanded its horizons to the physical sciences.
"For Mees, the central story here
is the process through which this multifaceted inquiry,
which embraced archeology, philology, anthropology,
and folklore, gradually became subdued into the highly
tendentious and politicized völkisch movement
that culminated in National Socialism." - American
Historical Review
Contents
Introduction: ‘Issues concerning
the Teutons’; Chapter 1. The
Tradition of Völkisch Germanism;
Chapter 2. History and Intuition; Chapter
3. Origins of Ideographic Studies; Chapter
4. Germanic Resurgence; Chapter 5.
National Socialism and Antiquity; Chapter
6. Intellectual Prehistory; Chapter
7. Academic Responses; Chapter 8. The
Expansion of the Ahnenerbe; Chapter 9. Into
the Academy; Chapter 10. Epilogue,
Aftermath; Conclusion: The Secret Garden;
Bibliography Index
2008
372 pages + 16 pages illustrations
ISBN
978-963-9776-18-0
cloth $45.00 / €32.95 / £30.00
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