In Nazi Germany, the Aryan certificate or Aryan passport (German : Ariernachweis) was a document which certified that a person was a member of the presumed Aryan race. Beginning in April 1933, it was required from all employees and officials in the public sector, including education, according to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. It was also a primary requirement to become a Reich citizen for those who were of German or related blood (Aryan) and wanted to become Reich citizens after the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. A "Swede or an Englishman, a Frenchman or Czech, a Pole or Italian" was considered to be related, that is, "Aryan".And also after 1936 Iranians were known as related blood (Aryan) like the Germans [1] [2]
There were two main types:
Like other documents issued by public authorities at the time, the Aryan certificate was an official government document. As such, it still has evidentiary value in legal proceedings today, similar to how an expired East German passport can be used to support a claim of German citizenship. [5]
The master race is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative "Aryan race" is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as "Herrenmenschen".
Mischling was a pejorative legal term which was used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed "Aryan" and "non-Aryan", such as Jewish, ancestry as they were classified by the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935. In German, the word has the general denotation of 'hybrid', 'mongrel', or 'half-breed'. Outside its use in official Nazi terminology, the term Mischlingskinder was later used to refer to war babies born to non-white soldiers and German mothers in the aftermath of World War II.
A German Blood Certificate was a document provided by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to Mischlinge, declaring them deutschblütig. This practice was begun sometime after the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, and allowed exemption from most of Germany's racial laws.
Paul Schultze-Naumburg was a German traditionalist architect, painter, publicist and author. A leading critic of modern architecture, he joined the Nazi Party in 1930 and became an important advocate of Nazi architecture.
Curt Bois was a German actor with a career spanning over 80 years. He is best remembered for his performances as the pickpocket in Casablanca (1942) and the poet Homer in Wings of Desire (1987).
Wilhelm Stäglich was a World War II army officer, later a financial judge in Hamburg, and a prominent Holocaust denier.
The Ahnenpaß documented the Aryan lineage of people "of German blood" in Nazi Germany. It was one of the forms of the Aryan certificate (Ariernachweis) and issued by the "Reich Association of Marriage Registrars in Germany".
Oswald Menghin was an Austrian Prehistorian and University professor. He established an international reputation before the War, while he was professor at the University of Vienna. His work on race and culture was serviceable to the German nationalist movement of the 1930s. At the time of the Anschluss he served as Minister of Education in the cabinet formed by Arthur Seyß-Inquart. He avoided indictment as a war criminal and resumed his career in Argentina after the war.
East Upper Silesia is the easternmost extremity of Silesia, the eastern part of the Upper Silesian region around the city of Katowice. The term is used primarily to denote those areas that became part of the Second Polish Republic on 20 June 1922, as a consequence of the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. Prior to World War II, the Second Polish Republic administered the area as Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship. East Upper Silesia was also known as Polish (Upper) Silesia, and the German (Upper) Silesia was known as West Upper Silesia.
Karl Ritter was a German diplomat during the Third Reich and was convicted as a war criminal in the Ministries Trial. A member of the Nazi Party, he was ambassador to Brazil for two years, Special Envoy to the Munich Agreement, and a senior official in the Foreign Office during World War II.
Albert Merz was a German Christadelphian who was executed for refusing to bear arms in the Second World War.
Karl Krolow was a German poet and translator. In 1956 he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. He was born in Hanover, Germany, and died in Darmstadt, Germany.
"Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein", or “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice” in English, is a Lutheran hymn, written in 1523 by Martin Luther. It is one of Luther's early hymns and considered by some as one of his finest. It was published as one of eight songs in 1524 in the first Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch. The Achtliederbuch contained four songs by Luther, three by Speratus, and one by Justus Jonas. It appeared also in 1524 in the Erfurt Enchiridion.
Gerhard Zwerenz was a German writer and politician. From 1994 until 1998 he was a member of the Bundestag for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
Helmut Roewer is a German lawyer and author. He served between 1994 and 2000 as president of the regional office for protection of the constitution in Thuringia. This is a state-level security agency. Controversy in respect of his time in office has persisted, although he himself robustly rejects most of the criticisms of his decisions made at that time.
Volksgenosse is a German language term meaning a fellow member of a community or compatriot. The word was recorded as early as 1798 and its usage grew within the Völkisch movement of German ethnic nationalism, which led to its use to denote a person of the same "blood community". The term became common parlance within the Nazi Party, then the Third Reich, as a way to distinguish ethnic Germans from other groups, such as Jews and Gypsies. Due to these associations, the word gradually fell out of use after Germany's defeat in World War II and subsequent denazification efforts.
Norbert Frei is a German historian. He holds the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Jena, Germany, and leads the Jena Center of 20th Century History. Frei's research work investigates how German society came to terms with Nazism and the Third Reich in the aftermath of World War II.
The (Allgemeine) Schulpflicht is a statutory regulation in Germany that obliges children and adolescents up to a certain age to attend a school. The Schulpflicht includes not only regular and punctual school attendance, but also participation in lessons and other school events, as well as doing homework.
A Man and His Dog is a 1918 narrative by Thomas Mann. It describes the adventures of the narrator with his dog Bauschan (Bashan) in the nature surrounding the author's home in Munich. It was written in the twilight of World War I and portrays an idealised and timeless world.
Alphons Hermann Paquet was German writer, poet and journalist.