NSDAP Office of Racial Policy

NSDAP Office of Racial Policy

The NSDAP Office of Racial Policy (German: Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP, R.P.A. or RPA) was a Nazi Party office created in 1933 for "unifying and supervising all indoctrination and propaganda work in the field of population and racial politics". It was originally known as the NSDAP Office for Enlightenment on Population Policy and Racial Welfare (German: Aufklärungsamt für Bevölkerungspolitik und Rassenpflege), but was renamed in 1935.[1]

Created by decree on 17 November, 1933, its mandate stated in part that all press releases on issues of race required the approval of the Office, and that the Office dealt with all measures concerning the field of population and racial policies, in cooperation with the competent authorities. They were also to take part in Government legislative measures in this field. In its first year, it published fourteen pamphlets for racial education.[2]

Its head was Walter Gross.[3] His purpose was to oversee a massive propaganda effort to increase the ethnic consciousness of the Nordic Aryan master race.[4]; this was termed "enlightenment" rather than "propaganda" by the Nazi authorities, because it was "not a call for immediate action but a long-term change in attitude".[5] Gross described the view to be underminded by people thinking of themselves as individuals rather than "single links in the great chain of life".[5]

It produced a monthly magazine, known as Neues Volk[6], aimed at the general audience rather than towards specialists.[7] While containing articles to interest the reader, such as travel tips, its central concern was the promotion of eugenic views and ethnic consciousness.[8]

A ten-point marriage guideline produced by the office stressed the criteria of race and health rather than love, urging investigation of the ancestry of potential mates, and that the hereditary fit should not remain single, concluding with the injunction to hope for many children.[9]

It also created traveling exhibitions to present the ideal type as unchanging and contrast it to defective types.[10] An intensive course to create ethnic educators taught more than 14,000 speakers, a thousand SA men each year, and recent medical school graduates.[11] Pamphlets had such titles as "Can You Think Racially?" and "Peasantry between Yesterday and Today."[11]

See Also

Notes and References

  1. ^ Robert Cecil, The Myth of the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology p. 115. ISBN 0-396-06577-5.
  2. ^ Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 116. ISBN 0-674-01172-4.
  3. ^ "National Socialist Racial Policy: A Speech to German Women"
  4. ^ Koonz, p. 106.
  5. ^ a b Koonz, p. 110.
  6. ^ "Neues Volk"
  7. ^ Koonz, p. 117.
  8. ^ Koonz, p. 117-9.
  9. ^ Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p247 ISBN 0-393-02030-4
  10. ^ Koonz, p. 122.
  11. ^ a b Claudia, p. 123.

External Links

  • NSDAP on cine-holocaust
Stub icon This article related to The Holocaust is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.