The Aryan Race
S. Todd
CHC 2DI
Foreward
• Understanding the concept of the Aryan race
is very difficult
• It is very convoluted and involves a history
that dates back many hundreds of years
before the Nazi regime
• This lesson is very much a simplified version of
a more complex subject
Background
• In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the
term “Aryan” was simply used to label people
of European or Western Asian heritage who
spoke the Indo-European languages
Background
• These linguistic groups included the Romans,
Greeks, and the Germans, Balts, Celts, and Slavs
• It was argued that all of these languages
originated from a common root language: IndoEuropean
• The ancient people who spoke this root language
were thought of as ancestors of
the European, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan peoples
• Aryan began as a language classification; not one
of race
A Changing Definition
• With increasing racism in the 20th century, the
term “Aryan” began to be used to describe a
racial grouping
• The notion of an Aryan race took root in
mainstream culture
• So what was the evolved definition of
“Aryan?”
Aryan
• 19th-20th century writers, anthropologists and
archaeologists began to describe Aryans as a
sub-race of the larger Caucasian race
• They claimed that Aryans represented a
superior branch of humanity who had
descended from a biologically-superior racial
group originating in ancient Germany
or Scandinavia
Aryan
• This idea was widely circulated in both
intellectual and popular culture by the early
twentieth century
Hitler and the Nazis
• Nazism embraced the idea that Aryan was not
only a racial designation but that it described
a “master race”
• Nazi racial theorist Hans F.K. Günther went
further and identified the Aryan race in
Europe as having five sub-races:
Nordic, Mediterranean, Dinaric, Alpine, and East
Baltic
Hans F. K. Günther
• Günther argued that the Nordics were the
highest in the racial hierarchy amongst these five
Aryan subtype races
• He defined each racial subtype according to
general physical appearance and their
psychological qualities including their "racial soul"
- referring to their emotional traits and religious
beliefs, and provided detailed information on
their hair, eye, and skin colours, facial structure
Hans F. K. Günther
• He distinguished Aryans from Jews, and
argued that Jews descended from nonEuropean races and were “incompatible” with
Germans and most Europeans
• He went on to describe Jews as having Near
Eastern characteristics and categorized them
with Armenians, Greeks, Turks, Syrians,
and Iranians
Hans F. K. Günther
• Gunther further argued that these Near
Eastern groups were “commercially spirited
and artful traders - that the type held strong
psychological manipulation skills that aided
them in trade”
The Five Aryan Sub-Races
1. Nordic
- light-colored hair,
light-colored eyes, fair
skin, long and narrow
skulls and tall stature
-Nazis claimed
Nordics were the
most ideal
The Five Aryan Sub-Races
• Mediterranean
-medium to tall stature, long
skull, a narrow and nose, dark
hair and eyes, rosy pink, dark
brown or olive skin tone
The Five Aryan Sub-Races
3. Dinaric
- very light skin, hair ranging
from dark blonde to dark
brown, a wide range of eye
color, tall stature, long face, a
very narrow and prominent
nose, a thin body build, and
very big feet
The Five Aryan Sub-Races
4. Alpine
-broad-head, thick-set/broad
body type, short stature,
broad nose, chestnutcoloured hair, 'intermediate
white‘ skin  a colour inbetween the lighter skinned
Nordic and the darker skinned
Mediterranean
-Hitler admired Mussolini’s
Alpine racial heritage
The Five Aryan Sub-Races
5. East Baltic
-short, short-headed,
broad-faced, chin not
prominent, short nose
with low bridge; stiff,
light/ash hair; light grey
to bluish eyes, light skin
with a greyish undertone