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German Esoteric Societies: Difference between revisions
→The Ahnenerbe
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The government of Nazi Germany used the organization's research to justify many of their policies, including the Holocaust. Nazi propaganda also cited [[Ahnenerbe]] claims that archaeological evidence indicated that the Aryan race had historically resided in eastern Europe to justify German expansion into the region. In 1937, the Ahnenerbe became an official branch of the SS and was renamed the "Research and Teaching Community in Ancestral Heritage" (Forschungs und Lehrgemeinschaft das Ahnenerbe). Many of their investigations were placed on hold after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, though they continued to carry out new research in areas under German occupation after Operation Barbarossa was launched in 1941. | The government of Nazi Germany used the organization's research to justify many of their policies, including the Holocaust. Nazi propaganda also cited [[Ahnenerbe]] claims that archaeological evidence indicated that the Aryan race had historically resided in eastern Europe to justify German expansion into the region. In 1937, the Ahnenerbe became an official branch of the SS and was renamed the "Research and Teaching Community in Ancestral Heritage" (Forschungs und Lehrgemeinschaft das Ahnenerbe). Many of their investigations were placed on hold after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, though they continued to carry out new research in areas under German occupation after Operation Barbarossa was launched in 1941. | ||
Towards the end of [[World War II]] in Europe, Ahnenerbe members destroyed much of the organisation's paperwork to avoid being incriminated in forthcoming war crimes trials. Numerous members escaped Allied denazification policies and remained active in West Germany's archaeological establishment in the postwar era. This stifled scholarly research into the Ahnenerbe, which only intensified after German reunification in 1990. Ideas promoted by the Ahnenerbe have retained an appeal for some neo-Nazi and far-right circles and have also influenced later pseudoarchaeologists.<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe | Towards the end of [[World War II]] in Europe, Ahnenerbe members destroyed much of the organisation's paperwork to avoid being incriminated in forthcoming war crimes trials. Numerous members escaped Allied denazification policies and remained active in West Germany's archaeological establishment in the postwar era. This stifled scholarly research into the Ahnenerbe, which only intensified after German reunification in 1990. Ideas promoted by the Ahnenerbe have retained an appeal for some neo-Nazi and far-right circles and have also influenced later pseudoarchaeologists.<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe Ahnenerbe wiki]</ref> | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||