Bibliograph

Heinrich Himmler's Cultural Commissions, programmed plunder in Italy and Yugoslavia, James R. Dow

Type

Label

Heinrich Himmler's Cultural Commissions, programmed plunder in Italy and Yugoslavia, James R. Dow

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-261) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Heinrich Himmler's Cultural Commissions

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1010660330

Responsibility statement

James R. Dow

Sub title

programmed plunder in Italy and Yugoslavia

Summary

German scholars were early pioneers in folklore and historical linguistics. As the Nazis rose to power, however, these disciplines were distorted into racist pseudoscience. Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler's SS-Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Inheritance), folklore became a tool for constructing a unified German realm and a manufactured lineage from ancient and "pure" Germanic and Nordic blood. Drawing on extensive research in public and private archives and interviews with family members of fieldworkers, James R. Dow uncovers both details of the SS cultural commissions' work and the continuing vestiges of the materials they assembled. Teams of poorly qualified and ideologically motivated collectors were sent to South Tyrol in Italy and Gottschee in Slovenian Yugoslavia, from which ethnically German communities were to be resettled in the German Reich. Although a mass of information on narratives, songs and dances, beliefs, customs, local clothing and architecture, and folk speech was collected, the research was deeply tainted and skewed by racialist and nationalist preconditions. Dow sharply critiques the continued use of these ersatz archives. --, Provided by publisher

Classification