National Socialist Homework: Recognizing Race

Assignment #1: How we can learn to recognize a person’s race

1. Summarize the spiritual characteristics of the individual races.

2. Collect from stories essays and poems examples of ethnological illustrations. Underline those terms which describe the type and mode of the expression of the soul.

3. What are the expressions, gestures, and movements which allow us to make conclusions as to the attitude of the racial soul?

4. Determine also the physical features which go hand in hand with the specific racial soul characteristics of the individual figures

5. Try to discover the intrinsic nature of the racial soul through the characters in stories and poetical works in terms of their inner attitude. Apply this mode of observation to persons in your own environment.

6. Collect propaganda posters and caricatures for your race book and arrange them according to a racial scheme. What image of beauty is emphasized by the artist (a) in posters publicizing sports and travel? (b) in publicity for cosmetic? How are hunters, mountain climbers and shepherds drawn?

7. Collect from illustrated Magazines, newspapers, etc. pictures of great scholars, statesmen, artists, and other who distinguished themselves by their special accomplishments (for example, in economic life, sports, politics). Determine the preponderant race and admixture, according to physical characteristics. Repeat this exercise with the pictures of great men of all nations and times.

8. When viewing monuments, busts, etc., be sure to pay attention to the race of the person portrayed with respect to figure, bearing, and physical characteristics. Try to harmonize these determinations with the features of the racial soul.

9. Observe people whose special racial features have drawn your attention, also with respect to their bearing when moving or when speaking. Observe their expressions and gestures.

10. Observe the Jew: his way of walking, his bearing, gestures, and movements when talking.

11. What strikes you about the way a Jew talks and sings?

12. What are the occupations engaged in by the Jews of your acquaintance?

13. What are the occupations in which Jews are not to be found? Explain this phenomenon on the basis of the Jew’s soul.

14. In what stories, descriptions, and poems do you find the physical character of the Jew pertinently portrayed. (“The Jew in the Pickle” from Grimm’s Fairy Tales; “Debit and Credit” by Gustav Freytag; “Ut mine Stromtid” by Fritz Reuter; “The hunger Pastor” by Wilhelm Raabe; “The Merchant of Venice” By William Shakespeare). Give more examples.

Taken from the NS school curriculum “Hereditary and Racial Biology for Students”

By Jakob Graf excerpted from “Familien und Rassenbiolgie für Scüler” (2nd ed.; Munich, 1935), 107, 114-115.

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