‘Arierdämmerung’: race and archaeology in Nazi Germany

Abstract

Archaeological evidence under the auspices of the National Socialist regime was exaggerated, misrepresented and otherwise abused in various ways to support contemporary military and social agendas, ranging from invasion to genocide. This chapter will review and analyze the complex interplay between several organizations within the Nazi party from 1933 to 1945 that were actively involved in promoting or conducting archaeological research designed to underwrite the ‘racial hygiene’ agenda of the regime. Not only do the roots of this deadly symbiosis pre-date the twentieth century, they were neither uniquely German nor ultimately able to flourish unchallenged even in a totalitarian regime with all the oppressive mechanisms for social control at its disposal.

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