Honorary Aryan
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Honorary Aryan (German: Ehrenarier) is a term from Nazi Germany; it was a status granted by the Bureau of Race Research to people who were not considered to be biologically part of the Aryan race as conceived by the Nazis, but were granted an "honorary" status of being part of that race, for example because their services were deemed valuable to the German economy.[1]
For example, this status was offered to (and declined by) composer Emmerich Kálmán, who was a Hungarian national, but ethnically Jewish.[2] Film director Fritz Lang claimed that Joseph Goebbels had made a similar offer to him, saying, "Mr. Lang, we decide who is Jewish and who is not," and prompting his departure for Paris; at least one biographer views the story as apocryphal.[3] Following the Anti-Comintern Pact on Communism, signed in 1936 Hitler bestowed the title on the Japanese people whom, though of a different ethnicity, were considered by Nazi ideologists to have similar enough qualities to German-Nordic blood in order to warrant an alliance with them. [1]
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ "In the Wind", The Nation Vol. 147, Issue 7. August 13, 1938. <--Citation might be improved by someone with access to the actual issue or the Nation archive; this was taken from http://www.nationarchive.com/Summaries/v147i0007_08.htm-->
- ^ Emmerich Kálmán on the site of Lyric Opera San Diego, October 2005, accessed 16 January 2006. The site appears generally accurate on Kalman, although it does misspell the name of Miklós Horthy as "Nicolas Harthy".
- ^ Review of Lang's Metropolis on moviediva.com, accessed 16 January 2006.
