"Master Race" / Herrenrasse / Herrenvolk - a deliberate mistranslation

[Lamprecht]

The definition of "Master Race" (Which you're redirected if you search any of the German words in the title) according to wiktionary is:

"Any race of people who consider themselves to be superior to others; especially when applied to Nazi ideology"

This may be how it is used today, but I don't think there is any truth to the claim that the Nazis used it in this way. According to Alfred Rosenberg at the Nuremberg trial:

Translations from German into English are so often wrong-and just as in that last document you have submitted to me, I heard again the translation of "Herrenrasse." In the document itself "Herrenrasse" is not even mentioned; however, there is the term "en fallacious Herrenmenschentum" (a false master mankind). Apparently everything is translated here in another sense.

The word "Herrenvolk" means "Gentlemen [or 'gentlemanly'?] people" and was often mistranslated into English as "master race" and then translated back as "Herrenrasse" making it seem as though Germans used this word. However, it does not seem as though the NSDAP used it, but rather only used "Herrenvolk" and rarely at that.


Joseph Goebbels said on 17 January 1936 in a speech on the Berlin region day:

"Heute steckt in jung und alt, in hoch und niedrig, in arm und reich der besessene Wille, die deutsche Nation wieder zu einem Weltvolk emporzuführen. Jedermann bei uns ist davon überzeugt: Wir müssen an der Beherrschung der Welt teilnehmen. Wir müssen deshalb ein Herrenvolk werden, und deshalb müssen wir unser Volk zum Herrenvolk erziehen. Das muß schon beim kleinsten Pimpf anfangen, der schon in dieser Herrenmoral erzogen werden muß."
TRANSLATE: "Today there is in young and old, in high and low, in poor and rich the will, to make German nation again to a people of world. Each with us is persuaded of it: We must take part in the control of the world. Therefore, we must become a people of gentlemen, and, therefore, we must educate our people to be a people of gentlemen. This must already start with the smallest schoolboy who must be already educated in this gentleman's morality."

People and race are different things, and "Volk" is actually translated more correctly into "folk" or people, nation -- rather than "race"

The English word "master" is not the correct translation of the German word "Herr" in the context of the word "Herrenvolk", because the word "master" is used synonymously who is in a position of owning a slave. Germany did not have a history of slavery like the USA, so a more accurate translation of "Herr" would be gentleman (which means chivalrous, courteous, or honorable).

Carlos Porter has also argued that "master race" is a mistranslation.

CW Porter: "The word "Master Race" appears 82 times in the Nuremberg Trial transcript. Not bad for an extremely rare word, mistranslated, used a known total of 8 or 9 times."

CW Porter: "Hitler [in Mein Kampf] never uses the word "Herrenrasse", only "Herrenvolk", 3 times"

"MASTER RACE" NOT A TERM USED BY THE NATIONAL SOCIALISTS: THE STORY OF HOW A SINGLE RARE WORD -- "HERRENVOLK" -- WAS MISTRANSLATED AS "MASTER RACE"
http://www.cwporter.com/rauschningnote.htm

Use of word "Master Race" at First Nuremberg Trial
http://www.cwporter.com/mran.htm



Revisionist Hadding Scott has argued that "master race" was used in English already in 1868, long before the creation of National Socialism. Regarding accusations against Germany, "master race" accusations were made already during the First World War, as one part of essentially false Allied propaganda:

Contrary to widespread belief in the United States, Germans during the period of Hitler's rule did not habitually refer to themselves as members of “the master race.” ... The term master-race (Herrenrasse), while it had been used by a fringe-figure during the First World War, seems not to have been used in German National-Socialist literature at all. The word does not appear in Mein Kampf, nor in Rosenberg's Mythus, nor in any German National-Socialist material that I have seen.
Herrenvolk appears several times in Mein Kampf, but this word is not properly translated as “master-race” (although such invidious mistranslation is commonplace). Herrenvolk is a general term referring to any people that happens to rule over another people, like the Normans in Mediaeval England, or, subsequently, the British in their empire. A German publication from 1933 states: “The Romans were undoubtedly the most important hegemonic people (Herrenvolk) of world-history” (Monatsschrift für das Deutsche Geistesleben, 1933, p. 317). Herrenvolk thus denotes imperial achievement rather than racial quality.
Even this misunderstood word Herrenvolk was not, however, an important element of National-Socialist propaganda.

The Joseph Hirt Story, Twenty Years as a Fake Auschwitz-Survivor
https://codoh.com/library/document/4074/


CW Porter is again quoted in the following article by Bradley Smith:

Carlos Porter and I were chatting via email a while back when he had occasion to remark that William L. Shirer had told people for 30 years Hitler was a “carpet eater,” which Porter termed a “gross mistranslation.” He also noted that Shirer was almost single-handedly responsible for the universal delusion that the Nazis claimed that the Germans were a “Master Race, a complete lie based on another mistranslation. Nobody ever made such a claim, but everybody in the world believes it.”

I too have heard these things all my life but never looked into them. I asked Carlos to comment.

Porter wrote: “I've been thinking about this for years. I spent most of the 1980s reading the Nuremberg transcripts, then went to work as a translator for over 20 years, and when I found that Herrenvolk was supposed to be a translation of Master Race, or the other way around, I was astonished. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn't believe my eyes. For years I kept wondering what would correspond to Master Race in German. I couldn't think of anything that really fit. I still can't.

“The principal objection against the Lebensborn by most liberal writers is that there was an ‘Ausleseprinzip’, a selection principle, that they were elitist, they didn't accept just anybody. So really I think the closest thing to Master Race in German would be something like ‘auserlesenes Volk’ or ‘ausgewähltes Volk’, a Chosen People! You see how hypocritical this is. (Of course selection in a concentration camp means killing. That's different.)

Even at Nuremberg, they never claimed there was any Master Race Principle, they just used it as a blanket jargon-term of accusation alleging racism, military aggressiveness, and so on, things that are not unique to Nazis or Germans. If Master Race means anything, why not introduce the original term, Herrenvolk, into English as a foreign word, like ‘hubris’? If it means anything at all, it's essentially the same thing, but none of these things are uniquely Nazi or German.

“In the meantime, there are still 100 million Master Race hits on Google and 200 million on Yahoo.

“Hitler said some dumb things, like saying that we all feel that at some time in the future the world will come to be ruled by one dominant race. Everybody does feel this, and always has. At the moment it seems like it will be the Chinese. This is not a uniquely National Socialist idea. It is as old as mankind.

FRAGMENTS: Another Ordinary Life
https://codoh.com/library/document/3076/


See also:

Wartime "Master Race" Photo Deceit
https://codoh.com/library/document/2832/

[borjastick]

So the term 'Master Race' could apply to jews to this very day then.

[Lamprecht]

So the term 'Master Race' could apply to jews to this very day then.

Of course, at least to those who follow Orthodox Judaism (which is a minority of Jews, as most are atheist). Have you read Rabbi Schneerson's statements on this? He is the only jew with a US holiday, and many jews claim he is the messiah and will return from the dead.

http://www.cwporter.com/jewrac.htm or https://web.archive.org/web/20180328215 ... Israel.pdf

"The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: 'Let us differentiate.' Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of 'let us differentiate' between totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world."

also

" Why should a non-Jew be punished if he kills even a non-Jewish embryo while a Jew should not be punished even if he kills a Jewish embryo? The answer can be understood by [considering] the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews." 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' [Genesis 1:1] means that [the heavens and the earth] were created for the sake of the Jews, who are called the 'beginning.' This means everything, all developments, all discoveries, the creation, including the 'heavens and the earth - are vanity compared to the Jews. The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim."




Also CW Porter has another article on his site about Antonio Machado. He compares "Herrenvolk" to the Spanish term "pueblo de señores" or "pueblo de caballeros"

ANTONIO MACHADO ON THE (so-called) "MASTER RACE"
http://www.cwporter.com/machado.htm

[borjastick]

Of course, at least to those who follow Orthodox Judaism (which is a minority of Jews, as most are atheist). Have you read Rabbi Schneerson's statements on this? He is the only jew with a US holiday, and many jews claim he is the messiah and will return from the dead.

Lamprecht

Yes but try telling a claimed non religious jew (not sure they exist, it's sort of an oxymoron) that they are not the righteous ones, the chosen ones and the children of God and watch their reaction. Try telling these same non religious jews that it's good news because six million jews didn't die in the so called holocaust. They can be really venomous and nasty it quite a short space of time.

I have a good friend of mine who knows me very well and understand but disagrees with my holocaust position. He also knows I am no fan of zionists and israel in general. He was going to invite me to dinner to meet his new best friends who are israeli jews. I declined the offer. He was telling me how quick witted, intelligent and lovely they were. Then a few weeks later he said they had been there, again, for a free dinner and she had exploded about Brits and Brexit and was really objectionable to us and our view of Europe. She then tried to connect the EU and Brexit to the holocaust.

He was really offended by these people and won't be having them back.

On a slightly connected note to this I too believe that the EU is an indirect result of the holocaust and the given fear that is promoted by those in charge that as a result of the holocaust, six million and gas chambers we must have an EU institution to control things and stop right wing and populist parties from gaining power. Notice how the political elites always scream blue bloody murder about Right wing extremism and populism while telling us very little of the dangers of hard left political parties and strategies.

[Lamprecht]

Yes but try telling a claimed non religious jew (not sure they exist, it's sort of an oxymoron) that they are not the righteous ones, the chosen ones and the children of God and watch their reaction.

Yes of course. Winston Churchill in his "Zionism vs Bolshevism" article pointed out that the terrorist bolshevik jews were mostly "Atheistical jews" who were persecuted on account of their race.
Judaism, unlike the universalist Christianity and Islam, is a religion only for the Chosen People. Jews are defined in terms of their bloodline, not in terms of their faith, which is why non-religious Jews like Freud, Trotsky and Marx are considered just as much Jews as the most pious synagogue-going rabbi with sidelocks and yarmulke. The atheist Jews don't believe the hocus-pocus in their Torah or Talmud, but they nevertheless are steeped in the folklore and traditions of Judaism. They are as familiar as their religious cousins are with the claims that Jews are a Chosen People, destined to own all of the world's wealth and be waited on hand and foot by non-Jews. And they are familiar with the tales of persecution, from the time of the pharaohs until the time of Hitler: with the tradition of being universally hated by all the other peoples of the world -- which is why they seem to believe that they are justified in avenging themselves on non-Jews whenever they have the opportunity.

I believe there may be some genetic component to this. Jews existed as a minority amongst a host population for thousands of years. The ones who were not genetically predisposed to ethnocentrism would have "assimilated" and then have been absorbed into the gentile populations. Every jew today is a result of thousands of years of a refusal to assimilate; Israel is an anomaly.

For the record, my university had/has the most jews of any in the USA. I had jewish roommates for many years, and of course classmates. None of them were religious, but they nevertheless had a jewish identity of some sort, you would notice this when they would talk about their visit to Israel, something called "Birthright Israel" where every Jew gets an all-expenses paid for trip to Israel, to "connect with their jewish roots" or whatever.

Their identity is there, and it's largely because of "anti-semitism" which is exaggerated to an extreme level by the Jew-controlled media. Many have written about it


"Fighting anti-Semitism seems to be for some Jews more important than any other expression of Jewishness ... The danger appears when one becomes dependent upon them for one's identity, so that one begins to need anti-Semitism."
- Stanislaw Krajewski, (Polish Jew)

"For some Jews and perhaps some of the Jewish leadership, the fear is that if anti-Semitism completely disappears then the Jewish community might erode or dissolve."
- Stanley Rothman

"So long as there is a single anti-Semite in the world, I shall declare with pride that I am a Jew."
- Ilya Ehrenburg

"The assumption of an eternal anti-Semitism ... has been adapted by a great many unbiased historians and by even a greater number of Jews. It is this odd coincidence which makes the theory so very dangerous and confusing. Its escapist basis is in both instances the same; just as anti-Semites understandably desire to escape responsibility for their deeds, so Jews, attacked and on the defensive, even more understandably, do not wish to under any circumstances discuss their share of responsibility."
- Hannah Arendt, Origins, p. 7 (Jewish historian)

Notice how the political elites always scream blue bloody murder about Right wing extremism and populism while telling us very little of the dangers of hard left political parties and strategies.

This is supposed to be a Russian proverb: "a Jew will always tell you what happened to him, but never why"

[borjastick]

Not so sure about the thousands of years of jewish history malarkey, seems to me that pretty much all jews on this planet today are ashkenazis and they only converted to judaism about 800 years ago. Seems to me also that almost every jew in the holocaust was an ashkenazi. Without the ashkenazis there would have been no jews and no holocaust.

[Lamprecht]

Jews were exiled into the Diaspora. Wiki:
"The first exile was the Assyrian exile, the expulsion from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) begun by Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria in 733 BCE. This process was completed by Sargon II with the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BCE, concluding a three-year siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser V. The next experience of exile was the Babylonian captivity, in which portions of the population of the Kingdom of Judah were deported in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE by the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II."

Since then, their history has been a chronicle of one persecution after another, right up to modern times.

I think the Khazar theory has been debunked by many experts, such as Kevin Macdonald.

https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/0 ... ot-khazar/



There is also the "Cohen Modal Haplotype" suggesting a common patrilineal ancestor for most Kohanim, which corresponds to the surname "Cohen" which are seen as super-jews:
Not Jewish Enough to Marry a Cohen
https://www.haaretz.com/1.4749841


See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron

[borjastick]

I don't buy it. Never did and when one of their best arguments against the ashkenazi numbers is that 'they look like jews' I despair.

All the stories of the jews being put asunder etc such as by the Egyptians and then their amazing Exodus, now thoroughly found wholly without foundation are basically tosh. The jews of the old testament were very small in number. The jews we have in the world today almost without exception when asked claim their families came from eastern europe which makes them Ashkenazi.

I assume you haven't read the excellent book The Thirteenth Tribe. Slam dunk for me.

[Lamprecht]

Eh, I don't know about the Khazar theory of mass-conversion by non-Jews. It doesn't seem to be consistent with the DNA evidence, and there are countless studies on jewish DNA. I think they may be 1/5 to 1/4 Khazar, based on the Y-DNA haplogroups. We can see this with Y-DNA haplogroups R1a (from Aryans), N (from Uralics), and C... but an absence of haplogroup Q. The Y-DNA similarities in Ashkenazi and Sephardic Cohanim should not be ignored. There is some good research by Dienekes (an anthropology blogger):
"there may be something to the Khazar story (but in the sense of admixture, rather than replacement)"
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2012/08/or ... n-and.html

Ultimately, it makes very little difference. I also think the Egypt story is probably bogus.

And yes, Jews did pick up admixture from virtually every place they went. Ashkenazi jews have admixture from Eastern Europe, and Sephardic jews have southern European admixture. And yet, they claim to be equally "superior" despite being very inbred

[Lamprecht]

Some more on the topic of the "herrenrasse" / "herrevolk" is C.W. Porter's book:
"The Lebensborn Program and The "Herrenvolk" - Fact vs Fiction"

It is claimed that the Lebensborn (Spring of Life) was a program to create a blonde blue-eyed "Master Race". It's been described as a "Secret breeding program", a "nazi stud-farm" etc in counteless books and documentaries. Is it fact or fiction? Was is not just a place for unmarried mothers to have their 'illegitimate' babies in secret? Was it not just a 'welfare institution' as described by Nuremberg judges?

In this detailed, well sourced and factual account of the most propagandized and under-researched aspect of National Socialism, Mr. Carlos Whitlock Porter translates and comments on the topic.

Table of contents:

Introduction

"Master Race" NOT a term used by National Socialists

Lebensborn - "To give the Fiihrer a Child" Excerpt.

Excerpt from Introduction to "Lebensborn e.V."

Excerpts from "German Mother, Are You Prepared?"

Blurbs on the Lebensborn and the so-called "Master Race"

"breeding program"

The results of the "Master Race" false propaganda

Use of word "Master Race" at First Nuremberg Trial

The real chosen "MASTER RACE"

Jews on Trial

Use of Word "Master Race" in Standard Literature

Use of the word "Herrenvollk" by Alfred Rosenberg - Excerpts
from "The Myth of the Twentieth Century"

Rudolf Hoess

The conspiracy to murder

https://archive.org/details/TheLebensbo ... VsFiction/ or https://www.scribd.com/document/1194870 ... vs-Fiction

[Hektor]

Some more on the topic of the "herrenrasse" / "herrevolk" is C.W. Porter's book:
"The Lebensborn Program and The "Herrenvolk" - Fact vs Fiction"

It is claimed that the Lebensborn (Spring of Life) was a program to create a blonde blue-eyed "Master Race". It's been described as a "Secret breeding program", a "nazi stud-farm" etc in counteless books and documentaries. Is it fact or fiction? Was is not just a place for unmarried mothers to have their 'illegitimate' babies in secret? Was it not just a 'welfare institution' as described by Nuremberg judges?
....

I recall debating "the Holocaust" with a local historian years ago (he got a phD by now). He's a believer, I said him there is no evidence for the narrative. but proof that this is a propaganda ploy by enemies of the Axis and especially Germany. He was furious about this. He then went out about the Lebensborn "stud program". I told him this is further nonsense he believed, but didn't have grounding in the truth. To the contrary the Lebensborn e.V. was an organisation to help young, expecting mothers. He shut up after I showed him the evidence for my position and that meanwhile it's actually shared by mainstream historians.

As for the "Master Race" / "Herrenvolk" / "Herrenrasse" ploy. This was extensively debated in Nuremberg with the accused. They disputed that it was an ideological tenet and some said they didn't use the terminology at all. It clearly isn't in the NSDAP party program. I can go through the records and then share what I found with the audience here.

[Lamprecht]

Yes, people often try to tie unrelated things to the "Holocaust" like Lebensborn or Euthanasia. All of these things may seem like a violation of human rights today, but back then such things were not seen as such. The majority of US states had mandatory eugenic sterilization laws. Blacks, of course, were discriminated against. People judge Hitler's Germany based on modern standards, which is OK, but not if you want to ascribe a unique evil to them... they should judge instead, if that's the case, in comparison to other [Western] countries at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_ ... ted_States

In 1907, Indiana passed the first eugenics-based compulsory sterilization law in the world. Thirty U.S. states would soon follow their lead.[55][56] Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,[57] the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell, upheld the constitutionality of the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924, allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.[58]
Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. Although compulsory sterilization is now considered an abuse of human rights, Buck v. Bell was never overturned, and Virginia did not repeal its sterilization law until 1974.[59] The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.[60]

[Lamprecht]

Here is a quote from the Nuremberg Tribunal, featuring Alfred Rosenberg. After Hitler was imprisoned in 1923, he appointed Rosenberg as the National Socialist movement leader, a position he retained until Hitler was released. During WWII he was appointed the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

DR. THOMA: Then I should like to ask the defendant how he will answer the charge that National Socialism preached a master race.

ROSENBERG: I know that this problem is the main point of the Indictment, and I realize that at present, in view of the number of terrible incidents, conclusions are automatically drawn about the past and the reason for the origin of the so-called racial science. I believe, however, that it is of decisive importance in judging this problem to know exactly what we were concerned with.

I have never heard the word “master race” (“Herrenrasse”) as often as in this courtroom. To my knowledge, I did not mention or use it at all in my writings. I leafed through my Writings and Speeches again and did not find this word. I spoke only once of super humans as mentioned by Homer, and I found a quotation from a British author, who in writing about the life of Lord Kitchener said the Englishman who had conquered the world had proved himself as a creative superman (Herrenmensch). Then I found the word “master race” (“Herrenrasse”) in a writing of the American ethnologist, Madison Grant, and of the French ethnologist, Lapouge.

I would like to admit, however-and not only to admit, but to emphasize-that the word “superman” (Herrenmensch) came to my attention particularly during my activity as Minister in the East- and very unpleasantly-when used by a number of leaders of the administration in the East. Perhaps when we come to the question of the East, I may return to this subject in detail and state what position I took in regard to these utterances which came to my attention. In principle, however, I was convinced that ethnology was, after all, not an invention of the National Socialist movement, but a biological discovery, which was the conclusion of 400 years of European research. The laws of heredity discovered in the 1860’s, and rediscovered several decades later, enable us to gain a deeper insight into history than many other earlier theories.

– Nuremberg Trial Proceedings. 15 April 1946, Vol. 11, pp. 450
https://web.archive.org/web/20170816030 ... -15-46.asp